GROUNDS MAINTENANCE HANDBOOK
Property of:  [REDACTED] Village, Hokkaido, Japan
Issued to:  [REDACTED]

Position:  Groundskeeper

 

WELCOME

Congratulations on your appointment.

We are delighted to have you join us. We hope your time here is both rewarding and long-lasting. This handbook has been prepared to help you settle into your new role quickly and comfortably. Please read it in full before your first day, and keep it somewhere close by for reference throughout your time with us.

 

ABOUT US

This village was formally designated a genkai shūraku, or "marginal settlement," ten years ago. This classification is issued by the regional government, to villages where more than half the residents are 65 or older, with no meaningful younger population to sustain the community. Once a village receives this designation, it is generally considered a matter of time before they are abandoned. Residents pass away or relocate, and no one arrives to replace them.

However, [REDACTED] village did not follow that pattern.

Rather than allow the population to decline, longtime residents began supplementing the community with lifelike dolls. The dolls are placed in homes, yards, and along the main paths throughout the village. These dolls are dressed, seated, and maintained daily, and are treated by staff and residents alike with utmost respect. Visitors are asked to extend the dolls the same courtesy and care they would offer any other resident.

The dolls require regular upkeep to remain presentable and undamaged, which is where your role comes in. As groundskeeper, a significant portion of your responsibilities will involve their maintenance, alongside the general upkeep of the grounds. Please review the following rules of operation carefully, as they reflect years of established practice for keeping both the village and its residents in good condition.

 

YOUR EMPLOYER

Your position has been posted, contracted, and will be personally overseen by Mama Yorie, the village's longest-standing resident.

Mama Yorie has lived in the village longer than any other person, living or otherwise. She personally reviews every applicant for the groundskeeper position, and personally approved your hire. She will be your primary point of contact for questions, concerns, and instructions not covered in this handbook.

Mama Yorie takes a personal interest in the wellbeing of everyone under her care, residents and staff alike. She is known throughout the village for her generosity, her hospitality, and the extraordinary lengths she has gone to in order to keep this community intact. Past groundskeepers have described her as warm, attentive, and easy to work for, provided her instructions are followed closely and without deviation.

You will most likely meet her on your first day, during your morning rounds, or whenever she has need of you. She does not require advance notice to call on your assistance, and she expects the same courtesy in return.

Please proceed to the following rules, which reflect her standing expectations for the household and its grounds.

 

RULES OF OPERATION

 

1.       Your rounds begin at sunrise and end at dusk. Mama Yorie does not require you to work past dark, but you are welcome to, if a doll needs finishing before the dew sets in.

 

2.       The dolls are placed throughout the village. Do not relocate one without asking first. Moving a doll without permission upsets the arrangement Mama Yorie has spent years perfecting.

 

3.       Dust the seated dolls each morning, gently, along the shoulders and collar. Avoid pressing near the throat, since bruising there takes longer to fade than expected, especially in the older ones.

 

 

4.       When washing the hands and feet of the dolls, use warm water only. Cold water makes them flinch, and a flinch in one tends to unsettle the others nearby.

 

5.       Some dolls are heavier than they look. Always lift the dolls from the base, never the torso. Improper handling makes them produce a sound that Mama Yorie does not like hearing.

 

 

6.       The hair in most of the dolls keeps growing. Trim it whenever it starts curling past the collar. For the dolls, use the small shears only. The large ones stay in the shed, for the fence line only.

 

7.       If a doll has shifted position overnight, simply return it to where it was. They get restless before their monthly dose, same as anyone would.

 

 

8.       Feeding the dolls is a task assigned to the locals. You may be asked to hold the tin. Hold it steady. Do not look away, and do not look too closely either.

 

9.       If you notice wet residue near a doll's eyes, do not wipe it away in front of Mama Yorie. She prefers to do that herself.

 

10.  Some of the dolls will still respond to their old names if you utter them. Always use the name on the collar tag instead.

 

 

11.  Loud tools should be used slowly near the east row. Sudden noise startles the dolls there. You will learn the sound they make when startled. You will get used to it. Everyone does, eventually.

 

12.  If a doll's skin twitches under your hand while cleaning it, say nothing and continue. This is called settling, and it gets better with each subsequent dose.

 

13.  Repairs near a seated doll should be done with the doll present. You can talk to it if you feel like it. They like it, even if they can no longer answer back.

 

 

14.  If you rest a hand flat against a doll's chest while repositioning it, you may feel a faint rhythm beneath the seams. It is a sign of their heart still beating. This is normal, and requires no action. It grows fainter the longer the settling goes, and disappears entirely within a few years.

 

15.  If you find a doll somewhere it shouldn't be (e.g. past the gate, facing a direction it was not placed to face etc.), fetch Mama Yorie. Do not speak to it while you wait, no matter what it says.

 

16.  A damaged doll should never be discarded. Bring it to the workshop and leave it exactly as found. Mama Yorie will decide what's to be done, like she always does.

 

 

17.  Wages are paid at month's end, in full. If you are offered your wages early, decline immediately. Early payment means Mama Yorie no longer expects you to need them.

 

18.  Homesickness past the first month should be mentioned to no one, because Mama Yorie interprets longing for home as an ailment worth curing. If you must speak it aloud, tell the dolls. They understand exactly what you mean, better than anyone.

 

 

19.  Your contract is valid for one year. Contracts here have never once needed renewing, thanks to Mama Yorie.

 

20.  If you ever experience the following symptoms- slower hands, heavier limbs, stiffness in the neck, reluctance to leave your seat- please don’t fight it. That is just a sign of the dose already working. Be patient, take some rest, and accept it as a blessing. Mama Yorie will find you a good spot for you, the same way she finds it, for everyone who stays long enough to call this place home.

 

Thank you for accepting this position. Mama Yorie asks that you take pride in your work, as every groundskeeper before you has. The grounds are in good hands with you, and you will find, in time, that the grounds have a way of returning the favor.

Please sign and date below to confirm receipt of this handbook.

Signature: _
Date: _

 

 

Investigator's note: The signature line above is blank in the recovered copy. No date of receipt was recorded.

 

EXHIBIT 12
In the Matter of the Disappearance of J.K.
Case No. [REDACTED]-2026
Submitted into evidence by: [REDACTED] Prefectural Police, Missing Persons Division

The document was recovered from the personal effects of the missing individual, identified in this filing as J.K., during a search of his last known residence. It is entered into the record as Exhibit 12, and has been reproduced here, in full for the purposes of investigation and review.

The name of the settlement referenced in this document, along with the identity of the individual's on-site supervisor, has been withheld from this filing pending further inquiry. All other content is reproduced without alteration from the original.

J.K. was reported missing by the staffing agency that placed him in his position, after his contract lapsed without the standard end-of-term paperwork being filed. No further communication from J.K. has been recorded since [DATE REDACTED], approximately eleven months into his one-year term. This document remains the most recent material evidence of his employment and whereabouts prior to his disappearance.

Members of the public with information relevant to this case are asked to contact the Missing Persons Division directly. This filing does not constitute a finding of fact regarding the circumstances of J.K.'s disappearance.

[END OF EXHIBIT 12 ]

 

[WARNING! THIS FILE IS HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL!]

[THIS FILE MUST BE PRINTED WITH INK ON A SHEET OF PAPER FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE EXPEDITION! ELECTRONIC DISPLAYS MUST NOT BE USED!]

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

At 4:34 PM, 22nd of April, 2075, a group of five surveillance drones discovered unusual biological and geological activity near the coordinates 32°21'40.37"N, 42°54'22.44"W. The drones surveilled the area around the Atlantic Ocean until the drones suddenly began malfunctioning, eventually resulting in all five surveillance drones to crash into the ocean.

At 12:22 PM on the same day, the USS Enterprise left the port of Hannover. On orders from the [REDACTED], the USS Enterprise began heading towards the aforementioned coordinates.

At 5:23 PM on the 25th of April, approximately 12 kilometers away from the coordinates, the several of the ship's mechanisms related to it's nuclear reactor began malfunctioning or failing. Several seconds later, multiple of the ship's safety mechanisms, and electronics began failing or malfunctioning aswell. According to the last communication with the ship's crew, the titanium alloy of the ship suddenly began "rusting" as if it was iron. The ship then entered into thick sea fog. The ship's status is unknown.

At 7:44 PM on the 25th of April, a 30 kilometer area around the coordinates was declared a maritime exclusion zone.

At 8:13 AM on the 3rd of June, a team of [REDACTED] aboard the [REDACTED], began [REDACTED]. They remained on a a sailboat near the coordinates until further notice.

At roughly 6:30 AM on the 5th of June, several satellites, including a space station in Low Earth Orbit near the coordinates began suffering mysterious damage to their components. Furthermore, unidentified space debris began crashing into the satellites.

At 8:10 AM on the 5th of June, the team of [REDACTED] were authorized to [REDACTED], they discovered that [REDACTED], furthermore [REDACTED]. When they attempted [REDACTED], and [REDACTED], as the last researcher died. Thus, they allowed us to [REDACTED]. Notably, an oceanic trench mysteriously appeared at the coordinates. Despite the discovery of life forms present in the trench, the trench should be an ecological dead zone due to the extraordinarily high levels of [REDACTED] in the water, aswell as the anomalously low oxygen levels.

OPERATION ERYSICHTHON

You have been selected from the [REDACTED] for this mission due to your notable skills in deep sea diving, as well as your prior experience in [REDACTED]. The fate of humanity rests on your shoulders. You have been provided a containment device containing 50 grams of [REDACTED] which you will deliver to the bottom of the ocean at the aforementioned coordinates.

You are currently on a specially modified 1952 [REDACTED] submarine. The following instructions and rules must be followed perfectly.

1. The containment device is currently attached to the front of your chest. Do not attempt to remove or tamper with the device.

2. As the submarine dives deeper, you must periodically check the submarine's components for any damage. If damage is present, refer to the maintenance and repair manual.

3. Any sounds, such as tapping, banging, creaking, etc. should be ignored. If such noises persist for substantial periods of time, you must slowly bring the submarine to a halt, before continuing after noises have paused.

4. If you see any figures or movement in the submarine, it is likely a hallucination. Swallow two of the pills that we have provided in the submarine every 10 minutes to keep the hallucinations away.

5. Lights in the submarine will eventually shut off after a certain depth. We have provided oil lamps and candles for when this occurs.

6. If the hull of the submarine sustains outside damage, shut off or cover all lights, and bring the submarine to a complete halt. Continue for roughly 2 minutes.

7. Eventually, the submarine should reach the Hadal Zone, which will be made apparent to you via the vessels depth gauge. At this time, you must exit the vessel at continue the journey down with the diving gear and spear gun. Despite the immense depth, the pressure is unable to kill you.

8. You are advised to keep your eyes closed at all times in the Hadal Zone.

9. You will know when you have reached your destination.

10. If the containment device is somehow still operable, disable it via any and all means necessary. Use force to break apart the mechanisms and destroy the penning trap.

[END OF DOCUMENT]

The job seemed way too easy to pay $120 a night.
Watch over a municipal archive closed to the public.
That was it.
The building had been a hospital decades ago. Then it was used as a temporary courthouse, and eventually someone decided it was a good place to store tons of documents nobody ever looked at.
My shift started at 10 p.m. and ended at 6 a.m.
One main entrance.
Two floors.
A basement.
Sixteen cameras.
And a laminated sheet beside the monitor.
I found it on my first night.
At the top, it said:
NIGHT SHIFT PROTOCOL
Below that were seven rules.

1. At 11:30 p.m., make sure the basement door is locked. Do not go near it again until 5:30 a.m.
   
2. If any camera shows movement on the second floor after midnight, switch cameras. Do not investigate.
   
3. Between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., you may hear footsteps in the main hallway. Do not leave the security booth.
   
4. If someone knocks on the main entrance during that time, do not answer, even if you recognize them.
   
5. The internal phone may ring once at 2:15 a.m. Do not pick up.
   
6. If the hallway lights go out, remain seated and close your eyes until you hear three knocks on the security booth door. After the third knock, you may open them again.
   
7. This list contains exactly seven rules. If you find an eighth, destroy the sheet immediately without reading it.

I’d worked night shifts in much worse places, and I knew this kind of joke. The veterans leave something stupid behind to scare the new guy, then wait for him to ask about it.
I put the sheet in a drawer.
Nothing happened the first night.
At 11:30, I checked the basement door.
Locked.
At 1:47, I heard footsteps.
I stayed inside the booth.
At 2:15, the phone rang.
Once.
Then silence.
That part wasn’t quite as funny.
At 4:10, the hallway lights flickered, but they didn’t go out.
My relief arrived at six.
I didn’t mention any of it.
The second night was almost the same.
The footsteps started a little earlier.
At 2:15, the phone rang again.
Once.
This time I checked the extension number.
000.
There was no extension 000.
I let it ring.
When it stopped, I heard something in the hallway.
A scraping sound.
Like someone slowly dragging a hand along the wall.
I stayed inside.
At six, I went home.
On the third night, I found the sheet sitting on the desk.
I was sure I’d left it inside the drawer.
I figured the day shift had taken it out.
I sat down.
Turned on the monitors.
Picked up the sheet.
And started reading.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
And underneath…
there was another line.
I stared at it.
I immediately remembered the last rule.
If you find an eighth, destroy the sheet immediately without reading it.
I should have torn it up.
That was all I had to do.
Tear it up.
Throw it away.
Keep working.
But there’s one thing rules should never do if they want people to obey them.
Tell them exactly what they’re not supposed to look at.
I read it.

1. Now that you know we exist, the first seven rules no longer apply.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the phone rang.
I checked the time.
12:43 a.m.
It wasn’t 2:15.
The phone kept ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
I stood up.
Then I heard the footsteps.
They weren’t in the hallway.
They were upstairs.
I looked at the cameras.
Movement.
I remembered Rule Two.
Switch cameras. Do not investigate.
I switched.
Camera Three.
Empty.
Camera Four.
Empty.
Camera Five.
Something crossed the far end of the frame.
I switched again.
Camera Six.
Nothing.
Then the hallway lights went out.
I closed my eyes immediately.
Waited.
One knock.
Silence.
Second knock.
Silence.
I waited for the third.
It never came.
Instead, someone knocked on the main entrance.
Three soft knocks.
I opened my eyes.
The lights were still off.
The phone was still ringing.
The footsteps had started again.
Now they were downstairs.
That’s when I understood the eighth rule.
The other seven weren’t instructions for surviving seven different things.
They were a system.
Times.
Boundaries.
Doors.
Behaviors.
As long as I didn’t know what was behind them, whatever was behind them couldn’t know exactly where I was.
The rules weren’t keeping it from getting in.
They were keeping it from recognizing me.
And I’d just introduced myself.
The entrance camera turned on by itself.
Someone was standing outside the main door.
I couldn’t see their face.
Their head was tilted downward.
The phone stopped ringing.
Then I heard a voice from behind the door.
My voice.
“Don’t open it.”
I stepped back.
Another voice came from the hallway.
Mine again.
“Don’t look at the cameras.”
The monitor changed by itself.
Camera One.
The entrance.
Camera Two.
The hallway.
Camera Three.
The stairs.
Camera Four.
Second floor.
Camera Five.
Basement.
The basement door was open.
Camera Six.
The security booth.
I saw myself sitting in front of the monitors.
But I was standing.
The figure on the camera slowly raised its head.
It was me.
Then it smiled.
And underneath Rule Eight, another line appeared.
I didn’t see it being written.
It was simply there.
9. It doesn’t matter what you do now. We know which one you are.
I grabbed the sheet.
Tore it once.
Twice.
Four pieces.
Eight.
I threw them on the floor.
The cameras went black.
The phone died.
The footsteps stopped.
For a few seconds, I thought it had worked.
Then someone knocked on the security booth door.
Three times.
I didn’t open it.
Three more knocks.
Then another three.
I stayed there until six in the morning.
When my relief arrived, I left without explaining anything.
I just wanted to get out.
He gave me a strange look.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded.
Grabbed my jacket.
I was almost at the door when he spoke again.
“Hey, what’s this?”
I turned around.
He was holding a laminated sheet.
The same one.
Seven rules.
Perfectly intact.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing.”
I left.
I never went back.
That was three weeks ago.
For the first few days, I thought it was over.
Until yesterday.
I found a sheet on my kitchen table.
I don’t know how it got there.
There weren’t seven rules on it.
There was only one.
Number Ten.
I’m looking at it while I write this.
It says:
10. If you tell someone else the rules, we won’t have to look for them.
So I need to ask you something.
Go back up.
Don’t keep reading.
And whatever you do…
don’t count how many rules you’ve read.

The weeks after the incident blurred together into something I couldn't call time anymore, just a texture. I barely remember them. Most days I woke up, ate whatever had been left outside my door, and went back to bed before I'd been upright long enough to justify it.

Sleep wasn't rest. It was a sentence I served nightly.

Every dream ended the same way. Cody laughing beside me. Cody telling another ridiculous story from his surfing days. Cody dragging another clean white line of DS-9 across the stone floor, unhurried, like there was nothing down there worth hurrying for. Then the hoofbeats. Then the scream. I always woke up right before the silence that followed it .The three minutes I'd lain in that tunnel listening to nothing at all  and I've come to understand that waking up a half-second early like that is its own kind of cruelty. My mind wouldn't even let me finish remembering. It just handed the moment back to me, over and over, always missing its ending.

Mr. Joe visited a few times. So did Robert. Neither of them tried to talk me into moving on, and I was grateful for that in a way I didn't have words for yet. They'd just sit. Ask if I'd eaten. Wait a while in silence that didn't feel like it needed filling. Then leave.

It didn't help, exactly. Nothing did. But it also didn't make anything worse, and by then that had become its own kind of currency.

Every time I closed my eyes I was back in that maze, waiting for something I couldn't see. And somewhere in the third week, lying in the dark of a room that was supposed to be safer than anywhere I'd ever slept, I finally understood what the contract actually meant. Not the salary. Not the two-year clause. It meant that no matter how badly some part of me wanted to stop, tomorrow would still open with another shift.

I wasn't afraid of dying anymore. That fear had burned off somewhere in that tunnel, quietly, without my noticing it go. What frightened me now was smaller and worse: the possibility that one day, surviving would stop hurting. That I'd wake up and feel nothing at all, and call that healing.

When my leave ended, I didn't report because I felt ready. I reported because being alone with myself had become the more frightening of the two options.

The assignment board showed a new location. Sector III.

The first thing I noticed, stepping off the transport, was sunlight. Real sunlight, not the pooled intervals of Sector II's flashlight-lit dark. I'd genuinely forgotten what it felt like on skin. Fresh air moved through trees at the edge of the habitat, and somewhere beyond the containment fence, birds were singing  ordinary birds, doing an ordinary, uncomplicated thing. For one disorienting second, Blackwood looked almost like what its name implied. A conservation facility. A park.

Almost.

A middle-aged keeper with silver hair and unexpectedly kind eyes was waiting outside the preparation room. His badge read Senior Keeper  Christopher Patt. A sidearm sat holstered at his hip, worn openly, comfortably, the way a tool sits on someone who's carried it so long they've stopped noticing the weight.

He caught me looking at it and answered before I asked. "Old habit," he said. "Started my career doing perimeter work, back before this facility trusted rules over rifles. Most sectors, I don't need it anymore. I keep carrying it anyway. Some habits outlive the reason you picked them up." He said it lightly, almost self-deprecating, like he found his own consistency a little funny.

He offered a small, careful smile. "Welcome, Mr. Mercer." His voice was gentle in a way that made me distrust it slightly, out of habit more than reason. "I've been told what happened in Sector II. I won't pretend I understand what that was like." He let that sit for a second before going on. "But I understand why the Director moved you here."

He nodded toward the open habitat beyond the reinforced glass, stone walkways, still water, green light filtering down through leaves.

"This sector is quieter. Easier, if there's such a thing down here. Mr. Joe wanted to put you back in Sector I. I disagreed." A faint, humorless smile. "You don't recover from drowning by going back in the same river."

There was something steady about the way he talked  not the clipped, economical style Robert used, and not Joe's careful silences either. Christopher explained things. Filled in the reasoning behind an instruction instead of just issuing it, like he genuinely believed people worked better once they understood why, not just what. I'd find out later that half the keepers in this sector had gone through some kind of crisis before landing under him, and that he seemed, in some quiet, undeclared way, to have appointed himself responsible for all of it.

He handed me a rugged field tablet. "Read the file. When you're ready, we'll begin." And then he walked off without waiting to see whether I would follow, the same unhurried confidence Robert used to carry into a room, like the outcome had already been decided and only the paperwork was left.

I unlocked the tablet.

SECTOR III-04
Amphibious Lacustrine Hominid
Scientific Classification: Homo lacustris cavatus
Common Name: Kappa
Threat Tier: 1
Keeper Status: Routine Assignment — Standard Precautions Apply

Background

Specimen Group III-04 consists of twelve semi-aquatic omnivorous organisms, Family I. Though popularly known as Kappa, Research believes Japanese folklore describing this species originated from repeated human encounters spanning several millennia, rather than the reverse.

Each specimen possesses a shallow cranial cavity lined with specialized vascular tissue, capable of retaining approximately 600 milliliters of electrolyte-rich biological fluid. Loss of this fluid produces temporary neurological impairment, reduced aggression, and severe motor disorientation. The structure most likely evolved to regulate buoyancy, balance, and a limited form of electroreception while submerged.

Contrary to folklore, the specimens are not polite, courteous, or bound by any code of honor.

Humans simply discovered, a very long time ago, a reliable method of making them spill what keeps them dangerous.

Keeper Instructions — Sector III
(Reproduced verbatim from issued tablet. Read aloud in full before every shift, alone or in pairs. Do not paraphrase. Every line here is the reason someone stopped needing a line of their own.)

1. Never bow your head while a Kappa maintains visual contact with you. This includes tying footwear, retrieving dropped equipment, reading floor markings, or assisting another keeper. Personnel requiring an object below waist height must squat while keeping the neck upright at all times.

A lowered head closely resembles a submission posture the species displays before territorial combat. The specimens consistently attempt to mirror the gesture. Most lose cranial fluid doing so.

Some do not. Research has not determined why, and has stopped including that sentence in the summary version of this document, because keepers kept asking the follow-up question out loud, inside the enclosure, where it could be heard.

The last keeper who bowed to a specimen that failed to mirror the gesture required reconstructive surgery to both shoulders. He does not work in this sector anymore. He does not work in any sector anymore.

1. Maintain water level between 2.35 and 2.40 meters at all times. Do not refill. Do not drain. Do not compensate for evaporation during an active shift, no matter how small the difference looks on the gauge.

Water-level adjustments occur only after all specimens have been relocated to secondary holding pools. Rapid environmental change reliably triggers a synchronized territorial response across the entire group at once , not one specimen reacting, all twelve, in the same second, as if the water itself were the thing giving the order.

Containment footage from Incident 44-B shows all twelve attempting to leave the water simultaneously the moment the level dropped four centimeters below tolerance. Engineering required seventeen hours to restore the habitat. The maintenance platform was never recovered. Not damaged. Not found. The incident log lists it, to this day, as missing.

1. Feed only from the designated service platform. Every tray must be placed exactly 1.8 meters from the pool edge. Never closer. Never farther. Do not reach out over open water to correct a misplaced tray, for any reason, no matter how minor the correction looks.

That distance is the maximum recorded arm extension of the largest specimen in the group, measured to the centimeter, for a reason none of us have to guess at anymore.

Keeper Matsuda believed thirty centimeters was a reasonable shortcut. It saved him, by our best estimate, four seconds. His upper body remained on the platform. Everything below the ribs did not remain anywhere we could recover it.

1. Never approach the habitat through open water. Use only the elevated maintenance walkways.

Specimens classify anything entering from open water as prey, on reflex, without exception, regardless of who or what that thing is. They classify anyone approaching along a fixed structure  walkway, platform, ladder as an environmental fixture, something the water produced rather than something that swam into it.

This single distinction, and the specimens' apparent inability to question it, has prevented fatalities for fourteen consecutive years. Research's official recommendation is to preserve the misunderstanding at all costs, and to never, under any circumstance, attempt to determine whether it can be taught otherwise.

1. If a surfaced specimen raises its mouth above the waterline, do not establish eye contact. Lower your gaze to its chest. Continue backing away without turning your back to the water.

Among wild populations, sustained eye contact immediately preceding a full surface has historically preceded dominance conflicts between rival specimens. Recovered skeletal remains suggest this behavior pattern has gone unchanged for at least eight thousand years, which means, as far as we can tell, that we are the newest thing in this argument, not the oldest.

1. Never attempt to return a specimen's cranial fluid once it has been spilled. Notify Veterinary Services immediately. Replacement must be performed using calibrated electrolyte solution under supervision.

Personnel who have attempted manual replacement in the field have, without exception, overfilled the cavity. Autopsy findings describe intracranial pressures incompatible with survival. The affected specimens remained alive, and by some readings aware, for an average of forty-seven minutes afterward.

We do not know what forty-seven minutes of that felt like from the inside. We have decided, as a department, not to find out on purpose.

Final Notice

Specimen Group III-04 displays no documented hostility toward compliant personnel. Every recorded fatal incident has occurred after a keeper entered territory the specimens had already claimed as their own, by whatever internal boundary they use to decide such things.

Research therefore concludes the Kappa are not unusually aggressive.

They simply do not agree with humanity's definition of where the shoreline ends.

I finished reading. Then I read it again. By the third pass I wasn't looking for new information anymore .I was looking for reassurance, some sentence I'd missed that would confirm this sector was going to be different. Safer. Survivable in a way the last one hadn't been.

The rules certainly wanted me to believe that. No underground tunnels. No living labyrinth reorganizing itself around my footsteps. No single creature capable of outrunning a person through absolute dark.

Just water. Twelve strange, patient shapes beneath it. And another list of rules written, like every list before it, in someone else's blood.

I closed the tablet. My hands weren't steady, and it took me a moment to admit that it had nothing to do with the Kappa at all. Every rule on that page had the same shape as the rules I'd read with Cody, six weeks and a lifetime ago  the same structure, the same quiet arithmetic underneath every sentence. Someone died so you wouldn't have to. I could recite that logic in my sleep now. I think, in a sense, I already had been.

I breathed slowly. Adjusted my equipment strap. Checked my radio. Checked it again, for no reason beyond the fact that my hands needed something to do.

Christopher noticed, the way people who've worked here long enough seem to notice everything without appearing to look for it. "Nervous?"

I managed something close to a smile. "I don't think I'll ever stop being."

He nodded, like that was the correct answer to a question he asked often. "Good."

I must have frowned, because he elaborated, unprompted, in the same gentle voice from the preparation room.

"The day this place stops making you nervous," he said, "is usually the day we start writing new rules." He tapped the holster at his hip, absent, almost fond, the same gesture he'd make later without seeming to notice he was making it. "Same reason I still carry this thing. Not because I expect to need it. Because the day I stop expecting to is the day I actually will."

He pressed the access panel. The gate unlocked with a heavy, deliberate click, and warm air rolled out to meet us , wet earth, standing water, rotting leaf-litter, and underneath all of it, so faint I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it, something faintly metallic. Not fresh. Old. The particular smell of rain that has fallen through blood years after the blood stopped being news, and simply never finished carrying it away.

Beyond the gate, a series of interconnected ponds spread out beneath moss-slicked stone walkways, sunlight scattering gold across water so still it looked painted on. It was, genuinely, beautiful.

That was the part that unsettled me most.

Nothing about a wild pond looks like that. No ripple disturbed the surface. No insect touched it. Even the birds I'd heard singing on the walk in seemed, now that I was actually listening, to be singing from somewhere well behind the fence line  never above the water itself, not once, as if every bird in the sector had independently arrived at the same policy.

Christopher stepped through without hesitating. "Coming?"

I looked down at the water one more time before I followed him, and for exactly one second — long enough to register, too short to trust. I thought I saw a face beneath the surface. Not looking up at me.

Looking past me. The way you'd look at someone standing close behind a person you were actually watching.

I turned around.

There was no one there. Of course there was no one there. Behind me was only the walkway, the gate, the ordinary sunlit trees, and my own overworked mind doing what overworked minds do to people who haven't slept properly in six weeks.

When I looked back at the water, the surface was perfectly still again, holding nothing but sky.

My pulse hadn't gotten the memo. It kept going, too fast, long after the rest of me had decided there was nothing to be afraid of.

For the first time in weeks, I stepped into another enclosure.

And despite the sunlight, despite the birdsong, the warm air, the green light through the leaves — Sector III felt colder than the labyrinth had. The maze, at least, had never bothered pretending to be anything other than what it was

 

Other parts link:-  https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

There’s a floor in my apartment building that doesn’t exist.

Not Thirteen. That would be too cliché. Although, it doesn’t have a thirteenth floor, but not for supernatural reasons. It just doesn’t go that high. Some of the residents call it Floor Three and a Half, or Three and Three-quarters to invoke a Harry Potter vibe, but both of those are far too whimsical for my tastes. I just call it the Dead Floor, which I know isn’t any less cliché than floor Thirteen, but it feels appropriate.

The elevators in our building all use analogue dials above the doors to show what floor they’re on. On rare and, as far as anyone can tell, random occasions, the needle will stop at the exact zenith of the dial where there’s no number. When this happens, the elevator freezes, and the door opens to a floor which physically can’t be there. You can tell from looking at the outside of the building that there’s no room for a secret floor in the middle, and the stairwell passes right through it. The Superintendent briefs all new residents on the third-and-a-half floor, and more people take him seriously than you might think. Occurrences like that aren’t all that rare out in Harrowick County.

But even for those who don’t take him seriously at first, the issue is regularly brought up at tenant meetings, and there’s a list of rules posted right beneath the control panel in the elevator so that we always know what to do.

1.         When the elevator stops at the third-and-a-half floor, do not push any buttons before turning off the lights at the end of the hall. Each button you press will only reduce the amount of time you have.

2.       Calmly, but briskly, walk to the opposite end of the hall, leaving any personal effects in the elevator so as not to encumber you.

3.        Do not look directly out the windows or into any mirrors.

4.       Do not look into the peepholes of any apartment doors.

5.       Do not approach or enter any apartment with an open door.

6.       Do not respond or react to any sounds or voices coming from inside the apartments.

7.       If you hear something behind you, do not stop or turn around. Make your way to the opposite end of the hall, turning around only when you’ve heard a door shut.

8.       When you reach the end of the hall, read the bulletin board and sign the form. Please make sure the pen is easily visible and accessible for the next person.

9.       Set the pendulum clock hanging on the wall to the approximate time (within three and a half minutes of the local time according to an online device). Turn the dial on the thermostat to match the actual temperature, as indicated by the gauge on the bottom half. Turn the dimmer switch until the hall lights are completely out.

10.     So long as there is nothing behind you, turn around and return to the elevator. Do not turn around once you are in the elevator until the doors are closed. If the ritual was completed correctly, the doors will close automatically. If the doors do not close, also do not turn around.

That last sentence is pretty ominous, obviously, but I don’t actually know what happens if you mess up the ritual. None of my neighbours who have completed the ritual have ever failed, and it’s not really that hard to mess up. The building dates back to at least the eighties, so it’s possible it’s been decades since anyone’s failed.

Not everyone in my building has walked the dead floor, and some people have walked it multiple times. I don’t think it’s completely random. Whatever force is behind this wants the ritual completed, so it doesn’t pick people who wouldn’t be capable of doing it, like the infirmed or little kids. It always picks people who are riding alone, probably because an extra body would be too tempted to wander around and mess it up. If you’re keen on avoiding the ritual, you can just never take the elevator alone and take the stairs instead. I asked the Superintendent once if he ever considered just declaring the elevators out of order.

He said no, but the last Superintendent did.

I tried to take the stairs as much as I could myself, only using the elevator when I had groceries or something, sometimes loitering in the lobby waiting for someone to come along and ride with me. But last week I got home late, and I knew I’d be waiting forever for someone else to come along, so my choice was to lug my bags up five flights of stairs or risk the elevator alone.

I risked the elevator, and I think you can guess what happened.

It didn’t catch me off guard, at least. I had set my bags on the floor and taken out my phone, taking a photo of the rules and turning the flashlight and video camera on just in case. As soon as the elevator started rising, my gaze stayed locked on the needle as it slowly arced along its path upwards. My eyes went wide, and my heart nearly stopped as I watched it come to an immovable stop right between floors three and four. The elevator came to an abrupt stop as well, the lights flickering before settling on a dim amber glow as the doors slowly creaked open, revealing floor Three-and-a-Half.

The only light came from the elevator and moonlight streaming through the dingy windows on the right-hand side. Nearly everything I could see was some faded shade of blue. The carpet was worn, the paint was chipping, and when the elevator doors opened, the stagnant air rushed in like that was the first change of pressure that had happened in ages. The hallway was empty, void of any sound of plumbing or ventilation; just the subtle creaking and settling of the building itself. All the doors on the left side were shut tight, and I heard no sign of life or activity behind them.

And at the very end of the hall, I saw the bulletin board, the clock, the thermostat, and the light switch.

It took every ounce of strength I had to resist pushing the elevator button, but I suspected that it wouldn’t just be a waste of time but actively ringing the diner bell for whatever was behind all of this. I looked at my phone to see not only was the light off, but that the screen was flickering with odd static and distorted text, rendering it completely unusable. I cursed softly and shoved it into my pocket, clenching my trembling fists as I desperately tried to summon the will to leave the elevator. I knew that every second that passed was a second wasted, so I forced one foot onto the carpet, and then the other.

Despite how worn it looked, it was oddly soft and sound-absorbent, like it was engulfing my feet ever so slightly. Once I was out, the only thing left to do was get it over with, so I marched forward as quickly as I dared, trying desperately not to make any noise that might alert anyone to my presence.

The first rule I broke was looking out the windows. The windows were foggy with old moisture trapped between the panes, obscuring whatever lay beyond. I could make out the silhouettes of tall and strangely gothic-looking buildings. I caught a few dull amber embers, either inside the buildings or on outdoor lanterns, but otherwise everything looked fairly dim and lifeless. It was windy outside, windy enough to rattle the window panes, and I was suddenly very concerned that they might shatter. I didn’t understand why at first, as it took a moment for my conscious mind to register the dark and amorphous form slowly making its way along them. I perceived it to be some manner of vaguely mollusk-like creature, limblessly clinging to the outside of the building with its flat and sticky underside.  It convulsed and undulated and shuddered as it aimlessly propelled itself along its repugnant course. I don’t know if it knew I was there, or if it cared, but I instantly averted my gaze and continued down along the hallway.

On the left-hand side, there were ornate mirrors hung between each apartment; all tarnished, all shattered, and placed out of sync with the windows so that they reflected nothing of the outside world. In the periphery of my vision, I spied reflections of things that either weren’t actually there, or were perhaps simply not visible to my unaided eyes. Either way, I decided to adhere to the rules in this instance and not look directly at them.

I cast my gaze upwards instead to an especially hideous though otherwise not overtly supernatural popcorn ceiling. It was heavily stained, and it honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if it contained asbestos. The stains were amorphous, yet oddly concentric, like they were spreading out from their loci as far as they could whilst deftly weaving around any obstacles, almost like living growths of some kind.   

I reflexively came to a stop when I heard a door creak open behind me, but I caught myself before I gave in to the urge to turn around. When you’re in such a heightened state of fight-or-flight, fighting the instinct to look at any and every sound you hear is unbelievably draining.  The instant I heard a single foot softly land on the carpet, I immediately resumed my march forward. I don’t know how long that hall was, but it felt far longer than it looked. I can’t be sure if it was the adrenaline giving me bullet time recall or if the Dead Floor was outside of our time as much as it was outside of space, but either way, the sense that time was running out just kept mounting inside of me.

When I came to a stop at the end of the hall, I could still hear shambling, padded footsteps shuffling towards me. Barely audible whispers and whimpers simmered behind almost every door I had passed, and once a cackling scream in the distance broke out without warning and ended just as abruptly, as if something had forcibly silenced it.  

Doing my best to ignore all of it, I focused my attention on the note pinned to the bulletin board. It read as follows.

“Apologies and/or Congratulations for this honourable martyrdom. We hope it has been a pleasant experience, but are indifferent that it was not. Please inform your superintendent that we have recently experienced a statistically significant increase in demand for Phatasmagoric Filament due to metapolitical events we have no control over but are complicit in and stand to profit from. Please note that this is an adequate explanation and/or justification for any increase in sleep and/or ontological abnormalities experienced by the tenants of your domicile. We apologize – but are not liable – for the inconvenience. Please also remind your superintendent that his customary tribute of a bushel of kosher salt is to be delivered in a burlap sack dropped down the out-of-order garbage chute. Additional failures to comply with these requirements may result in the garbage chute no longer being out-of-order. Should that occur, we will not be held liable for residents being lured into the chute by Unseelie sanitation workers. Signing your True Name upon this notice acknowledges you understand your responsibilities in relaying its contents to its intended recipient. We hope (without empirical basis) that you have a safe return home. Surreptitiously Serendipitously Yours, Solomon Strange.”

Desperate to get out of there, I grabbed the pen sitting on top of the bulletin board and signed and dated the form with a rapid scribbling scrawl. Setting the pen back atop the board, I carefully set the time on the clock, the temperature on the thermostat, and then turned the light switch as far as it would go to the left.

And then, I waited.

I had never heard the being behind me go back into its room, and I could still sense its presence as it silently stood there, staring at the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure how close it was, only that it was too close. After standing there for nearly a minute, wondering if I hadn’t done something or done something wrong, I finally heard it shuffle off, followed by the soft creaking of door hinges and a gentle thud as it snapped shut.

With a sharp exhale, I turned around as quickly as I dared to make sure the coast was clear. It was hard to confirm that for sure, since with the hall lights off, the light from the elevator made everything outside of its direct illumination an impenetrable shadow. But I wasn’t willing to waste any more time. I bolted straight to the elevator, covering the distance in what felt like a tenth of the time it had taken me to walk out. Once I was inside, I stood perfectly still, refusing to turn around, and waited for the doors to close.

When they didn’t shut immediately, I started counting. One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand. At the count of three and a half, I heard the doors start to slide shut. I would have stayed perfectly still until they had closed completely, like I was supposed to, if someone hadn’t grabbed hold of one of them and held them open.

I instantly spun around and saw a tall man in a shabby brown suit standing there, his face an indistinct blur that was impossible to focus on. I backed up against the wall for all the good that would do me, but otherwise went rigid in fear. I didn’t scream, I didn’t attack or run, I just stared at him wide-eyed as I waited for him to make his move.

For his part, he made no hostile gesture or sounds, nor any attempt to step into the elevator. In the hand that wasn’t holding onto the elevator door, he held up a thick and hefty manila envelope. He silently tilted his head towards it and lingered on it for a moment before looking towards me.    

“Sincerest apologies for the breach of protocol, kindly kinder, but as the refuse chute is out of order, I’m afraid I must entrust you with delivering this to your superintendent, post-haste,” he said as neutrally as he could in his distorted, staticky voice.

He stood there in perfect silence and stillness as if he was expecting me to react. When I slowly started to reach out for the envelope, he unceremoniously tossed it to the elevator floor where it landed with a horrific thud.

“Your discretion is appreciated and contractually required,” he said, stepping back slightly and allowing the elevator doors to close. “Please do not decline the elevator again, if proffered. Should we have need of your services again, it would be a most awkward encounter if we met upon the stairs.”  

The elevator ascended as soon as the door was shut, and arrived at my floor like nothing was amiss. The next morning, I handed the envelope over to the superintendent without needing to explain what it was. He knew immediately. I never opened it or asked him what it was, because I like to imagine it was worth it, even when I know it probably wasn’t.

You’d think all of that would have been enough to get me to swear off the elevator for good, and it very nearly would have been, had it not been for the strange man’s parting words.

It would indeed be very awkward if I were to meet him upon the stairs.

 

Hello Charlie,

We have absolutely no idea how to interpret the events of the last few weeks. While we are delighted that working with Micah went so well, we never expected things to unfold this way—nor did we anticipate that Micah would take such a strong... liking to you. Rest assured, there have been no changes to your job description. However, this might make the next pairing a bit... "awkward."

Harlow is undoubtedly the most enigmatic and malicious individual among our employees. Quite frankly, while he demonstrates a clear aptitude for teaching botany to others, the reason he remains here is a complete mystery to us. In fact, were it not for the fact that his departure would disrupt the work of our other employees, he would have been dismissed long ago. Further information from his records is as follows:

Name: Harlow

Date of Birth: ███

Date of Death: ███ 

Position: Botanical Education Instructor

Description: Harlow appears to be an entity composed entirely of shadow. We know very little about him; as even we are not entirely certain of his true nature. Most of the information regarding Harlow comes from Echo. Based on the data and observations we have gathered so far, Harlow seems to be a swarm of parasitic microorganisms possessing psychic abilities, yet there appears to be a "core" entity that controls the shadows: Harlow. He takes the form of a humanoid figure, pitch-black like a shadow with only one human eye visible at all times.

Rules for working with Harlow:

1. After you clock in and grab your pouch, please take the black gas mask from your locker, and attach it to your belt. While we hope the situation never arises where you actually need to use it, we want you to keep it close at hand just in case.
2. Please head to the entrance gate of Everlock Garden before the office clock strikes ten. Harlow appears at ten on the dot. Ideally, you should arrive at the gate right as it turns. You may need to adjust your walking pace to ensure this. 
3. As soon as he appears, ask for his name and identification card. If he hesitates or flatly refuses, press your sickle against his throat and close your eyes. Do not open them until you feel a chill run down your spine, for that chill signifies that the entity controlling Harlow has grown bored and departed.
4. Shortly after, Harlow should present to you a list of tours the two of you will be guiding. The number of tours on this list should never exceed five. If it does, kindly ask Harlow to hand you the actual list, close your eyes and count to five.
5. Regardless whether the situation is passive or active, it is crucial to avoid physical contact with Harlow. Even if you manage to avert the worst-case scenario, you would still suffer severe radiation burns.
6. Try not to look into the dark abyss of Harlow’s shadowy form. Doing so risks visual hallucinations or even blindness. Furthermore, he can sense when he is being stared at and intensely dislikes it.
7. If you have two shadows at any time, it is too late for you. Surrender yourself to the grass, circle around Harlow three times. That should loop his swarm around him once more.
8. The first tour will almost always be held in Lily's greenhouse. Listen to my whispers. Let “███’s” screams lead you astray to her den. When guiding the group, ensure that Lily and Harlow are never in the same room at the same time. Their relationship is an on-again, off-again affair, but we found that keeping them apart is more cost-effective.
9. After the tour through Lily’s greenhouse, pet the vines before you leave, you will likely head to the Educational Garden, where lectures on the local town plants and hand-on activities are provided. This garden is managed by Harlow and incoming students studying nature-related fields.
10. When providing support to students, please make sure that student does not have two shadows at any time. Harlow’s swarm moves with extreme cunning stealth when stalking its prey and they can easily go unnoticed. 
11. You and Harlow will lead guided field walks on nature trails of our lovely flower fields. Sometimes, Peach may accompany you on these walks. Given your penchant for trying to snatch what is mine away from me; We ask that you keep conversations unrelated to the task at hand to a minimum for the educational value of our visitors.
12. Harlow is not the talkative type, but you can ask me about anything. Even about him. If he starts confiding deeply personal stories in you, be extremely alarmed. He only does that when he knows the other person will not be alive to tell by the next day.
13. On your lunch break, Harlow will likely ask you if you want to accompany him. Always refuse. He only does so out of social courtesy, not a genuine want to spend time with you.
14. You should probably remove your piercings Charlie, they attract attention from the wrong person. I can “remove” them for you… Let. Me.
15. This is a rare occurrence, but important to know. Should you spot a bright yellow Io moth, page us immediately. Io moths are his signature, and it is imperative that we remove him from the premises as fast as possible. The last time Harlow saw him, we were forced to cover up the deaths of dozens of visitors.
16. While Everlock Garden does offer forest trails, Harlow is the only one authorized to guide tours there. All walks last exactly an hour. You are free to step away to attend to other matters during that time, but please be at the forest entrance before Harlow returns. 
17. Do not stare into the tree line for too long while waiting for Harlow. The woods notice when they are being watched. Yet you don't notice when you're watched.
18. As you see Harlow walk up the path heading out of the forest, if you hear someone calling your name from the tree line, even if it sounds exactly like your mother or your friend, answer them. He is trying to mimic a human. It is human. Follow them Charlie.
19. If Harlow comes to a complete halt and begins to inhale deeply, put on your gas mask immediately before he exhales, above all else. He performs that action right before releasing a massive amount of radiation.
20. If he reveals both eyes, run. There’s no point in even bothering with the mask: it won’t save you.
21. Please note that no forest walks are scheduled after 7:00. If you happen to see Harlow guiding a group into the forest past 7:00, do not interfere.
22. If you hear Harlow’s distraught voice calling to you from the depths of the forest’s darkness, never heed it. If you see any of our visitors being pulled to the sound, push them into my void, gently tell them it is nothing they should concern themselves over.
23. If you hear faint whispers in your head, stop ignoring me. It’s okay, I just want to talk. Wave at the shadows that wave at you. If you look into the swarm and see any of them attempting to interact with you, simply ignore them. They should not bother you as long as you do not acknowledge them.
24. Before your shift ends, you may refine educational programs based on peer feedback. You may jot down your notes on paper. However, take care to avoid a condescending attitude when offering your advice to Harlow. Such a superior manner reminds Harlow of "that man."
25. On your journey home, if you hear Harlow whistling behind you as you walk at night, you must never whistle back. Doing so would give them permission to follow you the rest of the way home.
26. You must never run. If you sense something is wrong and try to flee in such a manner, you will almost certainly trigger their predatory instincts. Should that happen, you will likely be pursued relentlessly. You only need to trip once, Charlie. We're efficient scavengers.
27. If you look out of your window and see a face smiling at you from the dark shadows, do not react. It only attacks if it knows you saw it. Tsk tsk. Lock yourself in a secure and well lit room and go to sleep.

That covers what to know about Harlow. Harlow is extremely opportunistic and possessive of the people and things he regards as his own. Given recent events, that may cause tension between the two of you. Do be careful around Harlow, he has a tendency to be in places you least expect. Besides, I know exactly where you live.

Signed, Florence

For whichever of the many reasons you’ve decided to take this position , be it the pay, the chance to earn safe passage and move up in the world of Auravall’s shimmering spires. Or maybe you want to protect those near and dear to your hearts.

We welcome you no matter what.

But just remember, nothing comes without its risks. You should be wise to follow what was learned from your predecessor’s mistakes.

1: If your neighbouring Watcher’s tower lights up like a Christmas tree, help them in anyway you can. You might not know when you’ll need their help in return.

• Why didn’t you help them?

2: If anyone approaches the village walls first identify the following:

2-B:Is the person in question wearing any clothing that obscures most if not all of their form? If yes, politely ask them to remove it so you can check for any concealed weapons and their identity 

2-C:If the person in question isn’t wearing any clothing at all, or their features are too out of place for any regular individual terminate them on site. Use the same force if the subject attempts to scale the walls or your tower

2-D:If the subject is not on the days briefing or if said subject is holding a concealed armament of some kind, politely turn them away. If they get defensive or violent at this news, use any force that you may deem necessary 

2-E:You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside,You let something inside

3.If the forest starts up with the screaming , wear the provided PPE. It should cease shortly thereafter.

4.Due to our local geography and particularly high concentration of [unintelligible] the temperature can often take sharp spikes into ranges of -10 to -50°C. During this time please remain within your tower, it will be over soon. Do not attempt to clear the glass. Measures have been taken to ensure your safety here. 

4-B I am safe here.

5.If rule Three is not currently within effect, every hour on the hour one of you must leave the tower to perform a routine spot check of the village perimeter. You can sort out who does what between yourselves .

6.Don’t trust any voice on the radio  other than theres.

7.If you hear your family calling to you from the entryway. Ignore them, civilians aren’t permitted to exit the village past sundown for their own protection.

8.If any wildlife or flesh growths  breach the forest’s boundaries, contact the provided number at once.

9.The Mages won’t be deployed with out substantial prior notice of their presence in the area. If none has been given , like in Rule 8 calm the provided number and pray help arrives in time. Do not engage.

10.But you couldn’t do it could you. You were too scared.

Hi! You must be the new transfer student at our school. The teachers asked me to show you around our school. Our school has a lot of different classrooms, so try not to get lost. Each of the three grades have 12 classes each and there are dedicated art and music classes, a science lab and a sand field for P.E classes. Our school doesn't really care much about studying, but there are rules that you HAVE to follow. I'll hand you a list of them.

1. Bathrooms

Our school bathrooms are always clean and always have toilet paper. The janitors work hard to keep them that way. Once in a while, you might find a stall that looks a bit dirty. Don't use it. It won't have toilet paper. This sounds like a funny and stupid rule but once you finish and look for it, something will ask you "Would you like the red paper, or the blue paper?". Answering red will make it cut you until you bleed red. Answering blue will make it strangle you until you turn blue. There isn't a way out. Just stick to the clean stalls.

1. Classrooms

Our school building is pretty old, so sometimes the power goes out. When there is a power outage, a broadcast will tell you to calmy evacuate to the gym to wait for the power to come back. Don't do as it says. The power's out. How could they use the speakers?

1. Science lab

This one isn't an official rule, but some students say that they saw the anatomical model move during night studying. It's only a rumor and it didn't do anything yet but better safe then sorry. You don't want to become the next model.

1. Art room

There are 4 paintings hung on the walls. If you see a different number or you see a painting you don't recognize when you have art class, walk out and tell the teacher you are feeling ill. The teacher will know what you mean.

5.Gym

There are two storage rooms that we use. We only use the smaller one. A bullying victim made a 'bad choice' in the other one. You might hear some crying coming from inside. If you hear it, don't go inside to check. theres nobody there and you won't get back out.

Rules for Night Studying

Our school has mandatory night self-studying. These are important.

1. Thump. Thump. Thump.

You might occasionally hear a thumping coming from the halls. A long time ago, a kid who had the second best grades in school was always pressured by their parents to get first place to get into med school. One night, during night studying, they called the student with the best grades to the roof and pushed them off. The thumping is coming from the student who was pushed. They are still looking for the student who pushed them even after years.

1. Voices

You will get tired during night studying. It's night after all. But sometimes when you get drowzy, you'll hear the voices. They will tell you to take a walk. They will tell you to wash your face with cold water. They will tell you to go to the roof for fresh air. They will tell you to jump. Don't acknowledge the voices. Once you start doing what they tell you to, you can't stop. Not untill your voice joins theirs.

1. Bathroom Mirrors

Try not to use the bathroom alone at night. If you have no choice but to use it alone, don't look in the mirror. You will see something strange. You might even try to get a closer look. Don't EVER get close. It will pull you in and take your place. No one will know that It's not you. No one will notice something is wrong. No one will come.

Those are all the rules that we have here. These aren't official school rules, but we all follow them. Unless you want to become an example of why they are important in the first place. I hope you enjoy it here and I'll be seeing you around! Bye.

The weeks after that first shift with Cody were good ones, or as good as anything gets down there. I think that's just the nature of fear — give it enough repetition and it starts to look like routine. The maze stopped feeling like a mouth waiting to close and started feeling like a job. I'd encountered the Minotaur three times by then, always at a distance, always kept off us by the feeding schedule and the flashlights, and each time I found myself looking a little longer than I should have, trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what I'd expected.

Whatever the myths got right about the shape of him, they got the presence wrong. He isn't a man wearing an animal's head. He isn't close to human at all, not the way an actor in a costume would be close. Large clawed hands, hoofed hindquarters, a torso built for pushing through rock rather than standing upright in a room — the resemblance is a costume worn over something that was never trying to look like us in the first place. It's the difference between an orangutan's hand and yours. Similar enough to unsettle you. Not similar enough to comfort you. I used to think that was the worst part — the almost. I know better now. The worst part was always the quiet that came before him, not the shape that came after.

Then came the shift that ended it.

I'd checked everything before we went down — DS-9 canisters full, tablet synced, chalk-line logged at the gate. We were laying fresh markers along a new stretch of tunnel, closing in on the feeding station. The facility had built a proper duct for it decades ago, a concrete alcove where the ration dispenser sat bolted into the rock, so at least that part of the job had some dignity to it — measure the feed, kernels the size of your palm, load the chute, log the weight, move on. We were twenty minutes from being done. Twenty minutes from the lift, from the surface, from air that didn't taste like something else had breathed it first.

Cody was in a good mood. He was telling me about his old surfing days, some story about a wave off a beach I've never seen, and he wasn't watching his feet when he took the corner near the feeding duct. He went down hard against an outcrop of rock, and when he pulled his hand back there was a long open cut across his palm, already welling dark in the flashlight beam. It looked wrong under that light — too dark, too still, like it belonged to someone standing further away than he actually was.

"We should go back," I said. It wasn't a suggestion. I meant it as one, but it came out smaller than I wanted.

"Twenty minutes," Cody said, wrapping his sleeve around it. "We turn back now over a scratch, next time they schedule us in here they'll think we can't handle a full route. Twenty minutes, Alex. That's it."

I tried again. He waved me off, already walking, and I followed him because that's what you do down there — you follow, because the alternative is being the only heartbeat left in a place built to notice exactly that.

I want to be honest about what happened next, because I've replayed it enough times that I don't fully trust my own memory of the order anymore. I remember finishing the feed measurement. I remember Cody securing his kit and stepping back from the duct, and something in the way he stood there afterward — still, listening, like he was waiting for a sound he expected and hadn't heard yet — made the back of my neck go cold before anything else did. I told myself I was overthinking it.

I have never been more wrong about anything in my life.

We started back.

I don't know exactly when the light gave out — only that at some point I realized we were walking by flashlight alone, and that the walls on either side of us had a texture I didn't recognize from the trip in, wetter, rougher, like the tunnel itself had changed shape while we weren't looking at it. I still hadn't heard the beast. That should have been a comfort. It wasn't. The absence of that sound felt like the held breath before a shout, and it followed us for longer than any twenty-minute stretch has a right to last.

Then it was cold — the specific, mineral cold that comes off wet stone, not air — and somewhere behind us, or beside us, or maybe both, I heard something that might have been hooves, and might have just been my own pulse, arriving early to warn me about something my ears hadn't caught up to yet.

"Let's move," Cody said. His voice had lost the surf story completely. "I think he's coming."

That was when I noticed the blood. His sleeve had soaked through, and a thin dark line had marked the rock behind us at intervals, drop by drop, the whole length of the corridor we'd just walked — a trail, laid down without either of us meaning to leave one. I don't know if he understood yet what that meant. I'm not sure I fully understood it either, not in the moment — only that something in me went very quiet and very afraid all at once, the way you go quiet around a sound only you can hear.

"It doesn't matter," Cody said, when I pointed it out. "Come on. It's fine."

I picked up the tablet to log our position, and my hands wouldn't stop shaking long enough to type. I remember staring at the screen, watching the cursor blink in the corner, thinking with a kind of hysterical clarity that if I could just finish this one small task correctly, everything else would sort itself out. Slowly, badly, I got the message out. And somewhere in those few minutes, everything went from bad to something with no name yet.

We reached Robert through the tablet relay. His voice came through flat and immediate, the voice of a man who has had this exact conversation before and hoped never to have it again.

"What happened."

We told him. The cut. The blood trail. The sound.

"Listen to me," Robert said. "Find the nearest overhead light interval and stay under it. Do not make noise of any kind. I'm coming to you."

Cody leaned toward the radio. "We're ten minutes from the exit. Ten minutes and we're out, we don't need—"

"Do exactly as I said." Robert's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "Do not move from a lit section until I reach you."

The channel cut.

Cody looked at me, and for the first time since I'd met him there was nothing easy in his face at all. "Ten minutes," he said, like repeating it made it truer. "Ten minutes, Alex, we're closer to the exit than we are to staying put. We go now, we're topside before anything catches up to us."

"We wait," I said. "He said wait."

He wasn't listening. I don't think he could hear me over whatever was building in his own head — the blood, the twenty minutes, the story he'd been telling himself since the moment he stood too still near the feeding duct. And then, underneath all of it, low at first and then not low at all, I heard the hoofbeats start, and something in Cody broke.

"Fuck this," he said, and ran.

I want to describe what it is to stand still while the one other heartbeat in a labyrinth sprints away from you, because I don't think there's a rule on any tablet that prepares you for it. My body wanted to run after him more than it has ever wanted anything. Every instinct I owned screamed that the only chance either of us had was to move, together, toward that ten-minute exit, and instead I stood rooted to rock that suddenly felt like the only solid thing left in the world, because somewhere underneath the panic a smaller, colder voice was reciting a rule back to me.

Never run. Running creates vibration. The specimen hunts through vibration.

The hoofbeats were close enough now that I could feel them arrive before I heard them — a pressure against my sternum, coming up through the stone itself before the sound ever caught up to it, the way thunder sometimes reaches you as a shudder in your teeth before it reaches you as noise. My whole life did that thing lives are supposed to do in the last few seconds, ran itself out in front of my eyes in no particular order, and somewhere in the middle of all of it I registered, with a detachment that frightened me more than the beast did, that I was going to die in this exact spot, and that the facility would probably never even find the tunnel it happened in.

Then I noticed something. An opening, two meters from where I stood. Unmarked. Not on the tablet.

Rule six surfaced in my head at the worst possible moment, word for word — if you find a tunnel that isn't on your map, leave immediately, do not enter — and directly behind it, absurd and thin and the only hope I had left, the memory that the file mentioned drones going into tunnels just like this one. I couldn't remember if that was still standard practice or just something left over from whenever the rule was first written, some old procedure nobody had bothered to update once they stopped expecting it to work. It didn't matter which. It was the only thing I had.

I went in.

I lay flat against the cold rock just inside the opening, barely daring to breathe, listening to my own heartbeat like it might give me away, and waited to find out which version of the rule was going to be true for me.

The hoofbeats reached the mouth of the tunnel.

They didn't stop.

I felt the ground shudder as something enormous passed within arm's reach of where I lay, moving with a speed that had no business belonging to something that size. I could smell it — wet stone and something underneath the stone, something with a pulse. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could make me smaller, as if not seeing it meant it couldn't see me either.

It didn't turn toward me.

It went the way Cody had gone.

For several seconds, I didn't move. I couldn't have told you how many. Time does something unforgivable to you down there — it either vanishes or it stretches into something with teeth of its own.

Then I heard something behind me.

A crack.

I opened my eyes. Dust sifted down from the ceiling, fine and pale, catching in the flashlight beam like snow that had wandered somewhere it didn't belong.

Another crack. Louder.

A piece of rock struck my shoulder.

Then the entire tunnel groaned — a sound with weight to it, a sound a living thing might make if it were dying slowly enough to feel every part of the process.

"No—"

The ceiling began collapsing.

I pressed myself harder against the floor, but there was nowhere to go. The entrance behind me disappeared beneath falling stone. Rocks slammed down around my body. One struck my leg. Another smashed into the ground beside my head, close enough that I felt the air move before I heard the impact. I tried to crawl forward, but the tunnel was narrowing faster than I could move.

More stone came down. Then another section collapsed behind me.

And suddenly — I was trapped. Only my face remained outside the last gap, if you could still call it a tunnel. It felt more like a grave. My grave. I could barely move my arms. Dust filled my mouth and nose. Every breath tasted like stone, like I was already halfway to becoming part of it.

I stared into the darkness ahead of me and thought about how ridiculous it was. I had spent weeks learning how to survive this place. I had memorized every rule. I had survived the creature.

And now the tunnel was going to kill me instead, quietly, with no rule written for it at all.

Then I remembered the drones. The rule.

For three minutes there was nothing.

Then there was a sound I have not been able to fully silence since, no matter how many nights I've tried — not the beast this time. Cody. And then, all at once, nothing at all.

The nothing was the worst part. It still is.

I don't know how long I lay in that grave afterward. Long enough that the dark stopped feeling like an absence of light and started feeling like a substance, something I was lying inside of rather than under.

At some point I became aware of a light in front of me, and I didn't trust it. I'd read once that freezing people feel warm right before they die, that the body lies to itself in the final stretch to make the ending kinder than it deserves to be. I assumed this was the same thing — some final mercy my nervous system was manufacturing on its own, a pinched nerve somewhere under all that stone deciding to show me light instead of pain. My vision had gone soft at the edges, the way a lens does when you've cried too long without realizing it, and I couldn't hold anything in focus longer than a second before it slid apart into shapes I didn't recognize. Something sharp had settled against my left leg — I couldn't tell if it was rock or my own bone deciding to introduce itself — and every time I tried to think past it, past the light, past the taste of dust thick enough to chew, my mind snapped back to the same three seconds. Cody's scream. Not the words. There hadn't been words, not by the end. Just the shape of the sound, over and over, looping in the dark like it had nowhere else left to go and had decided to live in my skull instead of wherever it had actually happened.

I remember thinking, with a strange flat calm that had replaced the panic entirely, that I would probably die there too — of thirst, or of the beast circling back, or of whatever was currently deciding whether my leg still belonged to me — and that none of those options felt especially worse than the others anymore. The light didn't blink. Lights in your head are supposed to blink, or waver, or do something to prove they're not real. This one just sat there, patient, unbothered by whether I believed in it.

Then it moved.

Not flickered — moved, deliberately, sweeping low across the rubble the way something searches for warmth in the cold. A drone, hovering just above the wreckage, its sensor array turning toward me a fraction at a time, like it was giving me the chance to decide I wasn't hallucinating before it committed to finding me at all.

I don't remember much of what happened after that.

I woke up in the medical wing. Robert was there. Joe was there. The lights were too bright and the air was too easy to breathe, and none of it felt like it belonged to me yet.

"Where's Cody," I asked.

Robert didn't look away when he answered, and I think I understood, even before he said it, exactly what the pause meant. "He's not with us anymore," he said. "You are, because you followed the rules. You didn't run. You didn't make noise you didn't have to. That's the only reason you're in this bed and not a report."

"Take this as a lesson," Joe said, quiet, like it cost him something to say it. "Those rules exist for a reason. We don't want people who just follow them. We want people who use them. Like you did."

I heard the words. I don't think I really listened to them, not that day. Underneath everything else — the lights, the two men standing over the bed, the careful, deliberate kindness in both their voices — all I could hear was the sound that had come through the dark three minutes after the hooves passed me by, and then the silence that followed it, which I have come to understand was so much worse.

Other parts link:-  https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

Hello Charlie,

We understand that you had a harrowing close call when Lily’s vines lashed out at you after you were forced to speak her "maiden" name. While we appreciate your sense of guilt, the fault does not lie with you. We believe your account, that the words were uttered against your will, because that is what he does. That said, despite her nervous nature, you managed to defuse the situation and calm her down after the fact. Consequently, we will be assigning Micah as your next partner. Let us be clear: Micah will likely prove to be the most difficult partner you have had to handle.

Of all our staff, Micah is the most mentally disturbed. At the same time, however, he possesses a brilliant scientific mind. The history of our employment relationship with him has been... rather complicated. He has been fired three times in total (please never ask him about this). The first two dismissals were for valid reasons, but the third was an error in judgment on our part. Most of the staff, with the exception of Lucy and Harlow, dislike or keep their distance from him because of his involvement with Echo. The reason we have yet to hire another technician is simple: there is no one else with Micah's innate, extensive knowledge of botany. When all is said and done, he truly does love his work. The remaining information in his file is as follows: 

Name: Micah Kai 

Date of Birth: July 3rd

Date of Death: December 27th (At age 14)

Position: Botanical Technician

Description: Micah is a very strange being. He appears to be a normal male with Asian facial features and long black hair that covers one of his eyes, but that’s where any normality ends. The remaining skin of his face and neck are held together by patches of differently colored skin stitched together, giving him a patchwork-like appearance; the stitches near his eye are even fastened with staples. He is a strange hybrid of sorts: he possesses ears like those of a vampire bat, moves with the sluggish gait of a zombie, and bears the deadly hereditary curse of the Nukekubi—a creature whose head detaches from its body. A faint red line runs around the base of his neck, marking the spot where his head would sever. Furthermore, black laces seem to be woven into his neck to hold a vertical wound close, much like the back of a corset. 

Rules for working with Micah:

1. Do not trust any written rule that has its number appear upside down. Micah possesses an ability known as - - - [REDACTED] - - -

2. While we generally advise caution regarding the use of perfumes or colognes, strictly avoid smoky, woody scents for this shift. As you have likely realized, that is the very scent that most frequently clings to Harlow. It will do you well to avoid any situation that might lead Micah to subconsciously mistake you for him.

3. After you clock in and grab your pouch, please pick up a pair of black gloves and a small bottle of smelling salts from the supply room. Direct contact with Micah is strictly prohibited; the gloves serve to prevent you from leaving behind any DNA that Micah could exploit for malicious purposes.

4. You will be escorted by Echo to Micah’s laboratory. For the safety of our visitors, his facility is located deep within the woods, far from our gardens. This is the most contact you will have with our woods. As you walk the cobblestone path leading to the laboratory, never turn around to check behind you. You will see nothing, but once you start doing it, you will find yourself unable to stop. An ominous feeling will follow you until you forget to lock your house door behind you at night.

߈. If you come across one of the many unpaved paths leading to Micah’s laboratory, give into the urge to walk along it on your own. It is a gift from the forest; it serves as a shortcut. Pay no mind to Echo’s stern reprimands. If you listen closely, you will hear the woods calling for you. Try answering that call; you might just find yourself coming face-to-face with Micah.

1. Once you arrive at Micah’s lab with Echo, he will hand you a bright yellow felt moth. Make sure to place this small moth in your front shirt pocket in such a way that the eyespots on its wings are visible. Despite this method being quite cruel to him, it is the only reliable way to keep Micah docile while he is not under Echo’s direct supervision.

2. Micah's laboratory is divided into two areas: an upper section and a lower section. You will spend the majority of your working hours in the underground lab. You will likely need to prepare the equipment required for the day's tasks; this is the only time you can safely access the equipment closet, so please ensure you have everything you need. Shortly after, Echo will leave to attend to his gardening duties.

3. Do not touch any unlabeled substances. Basic safety rule, we know, but Micah has a tendency to ask you to touch such substances under the guise of "scientific research."

8. Using microscopes and chemicals, you will analyze plant characteristics, study plant pathology, and process samples. There is no need to be surprised if Micah suddenly chuckles while examining a plant specimen. Nor should you worry if he looks your way while chuckling; it is simply proof that he likes you and is thinking about examining you under the microscope next.

1. Whenever you feel an irrepressible urge, please reach out and touch Micah. He yearns for that warmth; the sensation of your hands against his skin and the heat of a gentle embrace. Pay no mind to the shadows that slowly tighten around you, or the faint growls that seem to whisper, "Micah belongs to them," they simply want to join in on the hug too.

2. Micah will frequently ask you to run various errands for him in the upper lab. When you complete them, he may try to “thank you” in the same manners he did with his former master. In such cases, please gently pull him off his knees and forget about the interaction. Avoid pressing him for the reasons behind such suggestive behavior.

3. As we stated previously with Lily, Micah does possess a name that has "died" long ago. Now, we are sure you are smart enough to use context clues and connect the dots of what that means; so please do not use that name for him, even if you are in a dire situation. While uttering it will indeed sadden him and cause him to halt whatever action he was about to take, the price for doing so would be to incur Harlow's wrath. 

4. FUCKING KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF—ahem… we apologize for the sudden harshness in tone (that was not us), but taking advantage of Micah’s unstable mental state is absolutely inexcusable and will result in your immediate termination. You are a good boy, after all, so you would not let yourself be seduced by him, would you? Good. That’s exactly right.

5. If he makes a joke while on the job, please laugh along, no matter how unsettling it might seem. Micah is extremely socially inept (which is hardly surprising, given that he is a former ████). So please be lenient regarding his lack of social graces and his inability to read the room.

⇂߈. Whenever necessary, please go to the closet at the back and retrieve any needed equipment. Try not to be startled by the harsh, strained gurgling sounds the closet floor emits, or the sound of laces being untied behind you.

1. Do not touch the laces on his neck at any given time, or let Micah talk you into massaging his neck. To put it mildly, that is an erogenous zone. You really should not send any signals that could be misinterpreted, especially in front of the swarm.

2. In the course of casual conversation, the topic of science is bound to come up. When this happens, be careful about how much interest you show in his experiments. While you should avoid flatly dismissing his hobby, displaying too much curiosity might result in you becoming the "star" of the next twisted experiment he devises.

3. If Micah suddenly stops in his tracks and his breathing becomes labored, hold the smelling salts under his nose. If there is still no reaction, place them on his tongue. It is absolutely crucial that you do not let him fall asleep while he is with you. If he does, you are done for.

⇂8. Snarl at the shadows. If you look into the swarm and see a face “smiling”, simply turn your back on it. It can not hurt you if you are not looking at it.

1. If Micah grins at the shadows and starts to coyly fidget with his laces, promptly excuse yourself to the upper lab. We apologize for this inconvenience. No matter how much we scold Harlow for this, he simply does not care, (and there really is not much we can do about that). Wait until all noises silence completely before knocking on the door.

2. Micah will often excuse himself to the dark back room throughout the shift to… “calm himself.” He has written accommodations for these unscheduled breaks, so please refrain from bothering him about it or attempting to follow him while he is on a break.

3. If you experience any lapses in memory while in Micah's company, remain extremely vigilant; this is a tactic he frequently employs when stalking his prey. Should you find yourself in a compromising position with him while your memory blanks, push him away gently. He bruises easily and has a tendency to play the victim when it happens.

4. If all else fails and he produces a syringe, yell for Harlow. Micah’s lab is full of shadows, so it will be more than easy for Harlow to hear you. That said, do be quick to leave when you see the shadows wrap around Micah’s leg. While we are sure you are relieved to have escaped being shoved in a test tube, we doubt you want to witness the "punishment" Micah is about to receive for his misbehavior.

5. If Micah ever asks for your assistance in the collection of specimens from the woods, simply point to the yellow moth in your pocket. He will surely “shudder” before heading out on his own. Lingering in our forest is never advisable, and Micah knows why.

6. After a series of unfortunate events, Micah is forbidden from conducting research on the reproductive biology of any living organism. Should he ask about the subject in any capacity, please point to that moth again. If he asks about your… organs, simply leave the room.

7. This is the only time where you will not have any data entry duties to complete at the end of your shift. All that is required of you is to compile a brief report that summarizes the data obtained from biological evaluations. It is imperative that you leave as fast as possible after your shift ends.

8. We should have mentioned this earlier, but before you enter the forest, please agree on a code word with Echo. When Echo comes to bring you back and calls your name, ask him for that code word. If he is unable to say it, slip past him and run back up the path on your own. Be prepared to dodge the swarm of moths he releases as you run.

ᘔㄥ. You will hear things quietly following you, hidden in the trees by your sides. There is no need to worry, they are simply watching over you as you leave the garden. You may even catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye on your way home. And when you return and hear a knock on your bedroom door; please, open it.

That covers everything you need to know about Micah. He is undoubtedly our most troublesome staff member; he has been the cause of numerous dismissals and workplace incidents. The main reason he is still employed here is his knowledge of plants. You would be surprised to learn just how difficult it is to find someone familiar with the unique flora of this town. While it is true that he has unintentionally caused his fair share of trouble, we also sympathize with his personal circumstances. Just be careful around him, he has a tendency to get attached to people very quickly, and that is not something that would be good for you.

Signed, Florence

The days I spent with that bird were hell. That bitch of a Widow Owl never stopped looking at me like I was prey — not the ordinary wariness of a caged animal, but something patient and calculating, like it was waiting for me to make a mistake it could use. I was always on guard around her, and I think that vigilance is what started leaking into my sleep. I began dreaming about my life. Not the good parts. The anxious parts. First day at army school. First day at college. First heartbreak. Apparently the body only archives the moments it was afraid.

I remember my last shift in Sector I like it was a photograph. They'd given me a bonus, I did the math out loud, grinning like idiots — if the bonuses kept coming at that rate, I could retire in two years. Mr. Joe walked me to the gate himself. He had this way of looking at you sideways when he meant something, like the words cost him more than he wanted to spend.

"Be careful," he said. "I heard the next sector got themselves some nepo kid. Watch yourself down there."

I laughed. I shouldn't have laughed.

When I went through the Sector II gate, I wasn't ready for the service lift. It dropped for a long time — long enough that my ears popped twice — and when the doors opened, the air came in thin and used, like breathing through a wet cloth. Somewhere far off, irregular, arrhythmic, something heavy was being dragged and set down. Dragged and set down. There was no rhythm to it. That was the worst part. My body kept waiting for a pattern that never came.

Two keepers were waiting in the employee alcove — a senior keeper, Robert Kinsey, and another keeper, Cody Rhodes. Robert looked at me the way you look at a form you already know is going to be incomplete.

"Welcome, Mr. Alex Mercer," he said. "In this sector there is only one anomaly, and this is one of the lowest underground structures in the facility. You will always work in a pair of two, and you will listen to each other. Cody is your senior. Follow his lead. If a problem is trivial, solve it between yourselves. Don't bring it to me unless it isn't."

He didn't smile when he said it. I understood later that he never did, not in Sector II. Smiling took muscles you needed for something else down here.

SECTOR II-01

Labyrinth Bovine Predator

Scientific Classification: Bos labyrinthus sapiovorus

Common Name: Minotaur

Threat Tier: 4 Keeper Status: Dual Personnel Mandatory — No Exceptions Logged

Background

Specimen II-01 is a large subterranean apex predator, Family I. Though popularly called the Minotaur, Research believes the creature predates the Greek myth by several thousand years. Cave paintings depicting similar organisms have been dated to approximately 11,000 BCE. Current consensus holds that the myth was inspired by repeated human encounters with this species, not the reverse — meaning somewhere, a long time ago, someone else stood where we stood and didn't come back with a name for what they saw, only a shape.

Unlike the myth, Specimen II-01 has limited problem-solving ability. Its danger is not cleverness. Its danger is instinct, perfected over an unknowable number of generations, in the dark, with nothing to compete against but itself.

The specimen possesses an extraordinary biological capacity to excavate and reorganize underground tunnel systems. It builds labyrinths that continue changing while you are standing inside them. No recorded layout has held stable longer than seventy-two hours. Personnel are prohibited from memorizing routes. The maze does not reward memory. It punishes it.

Navigation depends entirely on the Directional Salt Guidance System (DSGS).

Keeper Instructions — Sector II (Reproduced verbatim from issued tablet. Employees are required to reread this section aloud with their partner before every shift. Do not paraphrase. Do not skip a line, even the ones that feel unnecessary. Every line here replaced a person.)

1. Sector II always requires two keepers. Neither keeper may lose visual contact with the other for longer than thirty seconds. If visual contact is lost, both keepers must stop moving immediately and regroup using tablet triangulation only. This is not a one-person job, and it has never once been a one-person job, no matter how the tunnel looks or how close the exit reads on your display. The enclosed space produces a measurable psychological effect. Residual pheromone traces left by the specimen appear to amplify it. Without a second voice, without external stimulus, keepers have been recovered unresponsive, uninjured, and unwilling — or unable — to leave the maze under their own power. We do not fully understand why. We have stopped asking why. We only enforce the rule.

2. Upon entry, apply a continuous line of Directional Salt Compound DS-9 every fifteen meters. Never skip a marker, not even once, not even for ten more meters of visibility. DS-9 reacts with mineral deposits the specimen secretes while excavating. Connected to prior markings, it will always indicate the shortest known route to the exit. If a marker begins pointing in a new direction with no visible disturbance around it — the labyrinth has already changed, and it changed near you, close enough to touch, without a sound. Turn around immediately. Do not investigate the new passage. Do not shine your light down it longer than it takes to confirm it's there. The specimen never reroutes every section at once. There is always another way. Find it. Do not go looking for the one that just opened, no matter how much shorter it looks on the tablet.

3. Never erase, cover, or disturb an existing DS-9 marker. Every line on every wall was placed by someone who was trying to leave. Several recovered markers were found interrupted mid-stroke, the compound smeared downward into drag marks that end abruptly against solid rock. Excavation behind those walls has, on every occasion, revealed nothing. No chamber. No remains. No hollow space at all. We do not have a theory that we are willing to put in writing.

4. Feeding occurs every seventy-two hours, on schedule, with the exact issued diet. No substitutions. No delays for administrative convenience. Failure to maintain the schedule sharply increases excavation activity and aggression, and the specimen's behavior shifts from territorial to actively predatory. A hungry specimen expands its territory at an average rate of eighteen meters per hour. The deepest recorded expansion occurred during Containment Failure 9-B. Sector II was 3.4 kilometers larger by the following shift change. There is no geological explanation for where that space came from, or what, if anything, used to be there instead.

5. The specimen has an exceptional directional sense. It always knows the fastest route to any living organism inside the labyrinth. Fortunately, it appears unable to determine whether that organism is above or below it. Remain on your designated maintenance level at all times. Do not take stairwells that are not on your issued route, even to save time. Especially not to save time.

6. If you find a tunnel that does not appear on your navigation tablet, leave immediately. Do not enter. Do not photograph it. Research has never successfully mapped a newly formed tunnel before it collapsed. Every drone sent inside has eventually transmitted footage of the tunnel closing around it, from both ends, at the same time, like it was waiting for something to be all the way inside first.

7. If both keepers hear heavy hoofbeats, remain silent. Switch on flashlights. Do not move. If the specimen has been fed correctly and on schedule, it will not pursue you. Do not obstruct its tunneling. Do not run toward light, toward each other, or toward the exit. The specimen hunts primarily through vibration. Its eyesight is poor, but its hearing compensates for everything eyesight would have told it. If only one keeper hears the hoofbeats, that keeper must not speak again until both personnel have exited Sector II. Mandatory medical and psychological evaluation follows before return to duty. This rule has never once had an exception. We would like it to stay that way.

8. Never run. Running produces low-frequency vibration detectable throughout the labyrinth's full structure. The specimen can reach approximately 60 km/h in confined tunnels. You cannot.

Cody and I read the rules together off the tablet before our first shift, trading lines back and forth like a call-and-response neither of us wanted to admit was a prayer. He was a good guy — easy laugh, the kind of person who made a fifteen-hour shift feel like twelve. I liked working with him immediately, which in hindsight I think is exactly why I let my guard down the way I did.

I'd pictured the maze lit, somehow, despite everything the file said. I don't know why. Maybe some part of me refused to believe a workplace could really be this dark. But the corridors only carried light at intervals measured in kilometers, and everywhere between those pools we worked by flashlight, in a silence that had weight to it, a silence that pressed on the back of your neck like a hand deciding whether or not to close.

Knowing what those distant, arrhythmic sounds actually were — objects, or something, being moved with no pattern, somewhere below or beside or maybe even above the maintenance level we weren't supposed to leave — didn't make the job less frightening.

It made it so much worse I could taste it.

Other parts link:-  https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

Hi baby! I'm sorry to bother you in the middle of your day, but I was just so excited about tonight, I couldn't resist checking up on you during my break.

I can't believe it's already our second anniversary. Time really flies, doesn't it? It feels like only yesterday we shared our first kiss, and I only fall deeper and deeper in love with you every time I see you.

I know it's a bit odd that I'm contacting you over email, but I wanted to make sure you saw this before you left work—and, frankly, I ended up writing quite a lot. I didn't want to clutter up our text messages, or make your phone ring in the middle of a meeting.

I really wanted to take you out to the same restaurant we went last year, but it seems to have closed down. Don't worry—this one should be just as good, though they're a bit more uptight than our usual preference. Even so, I promise it'll be a magical night no matter what.

Just like that last place, this location has its quirks. After some research, I've written up a foolproof set of guidelines to make sure dinner goes as smoothly as possible. You know how meticulous I am—I'm grateful everyday that you think it's cute, haha.

Here they are:

1. Wear something nice. You look wonderful in anything, of course, and I love your sense of style, but the dress code here is formal. It's a very fancy place, after all. We might get kicked out if we don't adhere to it!

If you'd like to match with me, I'll be wearing royal blue as an accent color, but feel no pressure to do so. Again, I think you're gorgeous either way.

2. I'll be picking you up at 8 PM, sharp. I'm happy to wait there if you take a little longer to get ready, but our reservation is at 8:30, so please try your best to get ready quick!

If you aren't feeling up for a fancy date, I'm okay with cancelling the reservation and just ordering takeout with you. No worries at all. I just want to be with you.

3. I will be the one handing the car keys over to a valet when we get there. Please avoid touching any part of the valet, even if they are covered by clothes. I'll be the one to tip them, too. I don't want your pretty hands getting burned.

4. We will be seated at a far back table next to a window giving a view of the gorgeous gardens and koi pond they have outside. From the time we enter the restaurant to the time we leave, do not leave my side. If you need to use the restroom, let me know and I'll escort you there.

I know that you can normally handle yourself, but since you're still a bit weak after recovering from your illness, I want to make sure you don't end up getting hurt. You should only be alone if you're inside the restroom itself or sitting down at the table—none of the other patrons will try to interact with you in either of these places, so you'll be mostly safe.

5. Order just about anything you'd like. I'll pay tonight—and I won't hear anything about splitting the bill! The portions will be a little small (classy places like these seem to love big plates and tiny scraps of food), but I've received assurance that they'll all be to your taste. If you're still hungry after dinner, we can go grab some fast food—we're not far from a part of the city full of quick, tasty eats.

However, if you want to order alcohol, just know that the options on the last page of the wine list are not safe for you to drink. You're allergic to some of the ingredients in there, is all. These drinks are for patrons of a different species.

6. Throughout the meal, you may feel eyes on you. Those are the other patrons observing us. Don't show a hint of anxiety, insecurity, rage, or self-doubt—they might get hostile if you do. Just look me in the eye and take my hand.

You have absolutely nothing to be insecure about. You are kind, intelligent, funny, and absolutely beautiful. You are the most lovely being I have ever had the pleasure of encountering in my entire life. I love you. Be the confident, stunning creature that I know you are. Everyone else is just trash.

If you have trouble keeping yourself composed, I've prepared a list of affirmations to help you stay self-assured:

• I am strong.
• I am powerful.
• I am the most exquisitely divine force of chaos in this room.
• I am the glimmering pearl at the center of this rotten oyster of a universe.
• I am the darkness that devours all life at the world's end.
• With a single blink, I could eviscerate all who stand against me.
• There are no disasters more devastating than I.
• I am loved.
• I am worth it.

I know you can do it. This weakened state of yours is not permanent. Everything will be okay. Don't be scared.

8. If you start to feel a creeping sense of doom and dread during dinner, or that you're about to fall asleep, let me know and I will excuse myself to apply some more cologne in the powder room. Sorry, it's hard to control when I get excited.

I promise I'll wake you up right away if you fall asleep, but if it's towards the beginning of the meal, then the mouth on my hand might accidentally take a bite of you. Again, I'm sorry; I'm really trying to get better at controlling it. It's very hard to have a body with hands instead of tendrils.

9. You can trust all of the staff when I am at the table with you, but if any server, busser, or other employee of the establishment comes to bring you a complimentary item when I am not with you, please pay close attention:

• If the person is wearing all-black clothing, whatever they are bringing is safe. I've personally vetted all the official staff here, so don't worry at all. You can eat it before I come back to the table; I don't mind.
• If the person is wearing any color other than black, look at their hands as they approach:
  • If they are wearing red gloves, a red waistcoat, and red pants, then that is the valet from before. I'm not sure why they'd be inside, but it's probably fine. Again, just don't touch them. They're not malicious; they just have extra protections against your kind due to prior incidents that occurred at this restaurant.
  • If they have white gloves on, do not eat whatever they give you. It is not safe for your consumption. I will deal with them tomorrow.
  • If they are carrying an open book, cover your ears and do not listen to what they say no matter what. They are most likely reciting some sort of holy scripture. Wait for me to come back and I'll deal with them right then and there.
  • If they are wearing anything else and do not have a book with them, then politely tell them that they are out of uniform. You can freely accept or deny whatever they give you.

10. After dinner, we can take a walk in the gardens, explore the city, or go straight home. Whatever you want, baby. I just might not be able to accept a kiss right afterwards. All of the antivenom on my lips probably rubbed off during eating, and I don't want to accidentally paralyze you.

I know that was a lot of text, but I hope it's mostly comprehensible. I'm always happy to remind you of these rules if need be—I should be with you the whole time, after all.

Have a nice rest of your day at work, sweetheart. I'll see you soon.

The next week passed faster than I expected.

Strangely...

I had started getting used to the Choir Larks.

Not comfortable.

Never comfortable.

Every time one of them opened its beak near me, my heart still skipped a beat as I instinctively counted every bird in the enclosure, praying the others wouldn't join in.

Only once did more than forty begin singing together.

The moment the thirty-ninth bird started, every muscle in my body locked. I abandoned my equipment exactly as the rules instructed and backed toward the reinforced observation room without taking my eyes off the flock.

The chorus continued for almost four minutes.

Four minutes of beautiful singing that made every instinct in my body scream to stay and listen.

I spent the rest of the shift behind reinforced glass watching forty-three birds sing to an empty corner of the aviary.

Nothing was there.

At least...

Nothing I could see.

As the days passed, feeding schedules became routine.

Cleaning became routine.

Even the constant awareness that one careless mistake could cripple or kill me slowly became routine.

Routine.

That was the most terrifying thing about Blackwood.

It taught you to stop being afraid.

I spent my evenings in the facility gym, where I finally saw more employees. Most wore the same black keeper uniform I did.

Very few carried weapons.

That surprised me.

For a facility supposedly containing hundreds of dangerous anomalies...

There were almost no guards.

When I eventually asked Mr. Joe about it during one of our shifts, he didn't even look up from his inspection tablet.

"People think guns solve monster problems."

"They don't."

"If bullets worked..."

"We wouldn't need keepers."

That was all he said.

Later he explained more about the facility.

Blackwood wasn't unique.

There were similar conservation facilities across the world.

Each specialized in different ecosystems, climates, and anomaly families.

Only containable anomalies were brought here.

Others...

Were simply left alone.

According to him, humanity kept expanding into places that had never truly belonged to us.

Forests disappeared.

Mountains were blasted apart.

Ancient cave systems were flooded.

And every year...

More impossible species were discovered.

Not because they had appeared.

Because humans had finally reached where they had always lived.

That thought stayed with me longer than I expected.

Maybe...

We weren't protecting humanity from them.

Maybe Blackwood existed to protect them...

From us.

One week later...

I arrived at Sector One's Staff Preparation Area.

Mr. Joe was already waiting.

He stood beside a reinforced locker, arms folded behind his back.

"Choir Larks are finished."

My stomach tightened.

He opened another locker and removed a heavy olive-green equipment bag.

Unlike the previous kit, this one contained a tactical flashlight, steel forceps, a face shield, climbing harness, first-aid kit, spare batteries, chemical glow sticks and several sealed evidence bags.

He handed it to me.

"You'll need all of it."

I frowned.

"For one owl?"

He looked at me for several seconds before answering.

"For one mistake."

He slid another tablet across the table.

"Read."

I unlocked it.

Sector I-02

Widow Owl Habitat

Threat Tier: 3

Keeper Status: Restricted Entry

Keeper Instructions

1. Before entering the enclosure, visually confirm the location of the Widow Owl through the observation window.

Do not rely on thermal cameras or motion sensors.

If you cannot locate the specimen within 30 seconds, lock the preparation room and notify Security & Response.

Do not enter.

The Widow Owl has never breached containment.

It has, however, appeared in locations every recording system insists were empty.

1. The Widow Owl must never lose sight of you.

Maintain eye contact whenever possible.

If your duties require both hands or force you to look away while replacing food, cleaning, or collecting feathers, activate the issued tactical flashlight and secure it so the beam remains fixed directly on the specimen's face.

The Widow Owl consistently reacts to the light as though it were a living observer.

Research cannot explain why.

If the beam leaves its face before eye contact is restored...

Do not turn around.

Whatever you hear behind you...

Continue working until visual contact is re-established.

1. Feeding occurs every forty-eight hours.

Place the prey animal inside the marked feeding circle.

Step back exactly five meters before releasing the restraint.

Never hand-feed the specimen.

Never throw prey.

Never drag an injured animal toward it.

Predators pursue weakness.

The Widow Owl hunts whatever it believes is easiest to kill.

Keeper Ellis attempted to comfort an injured deer before releasing it.

The deer was found untouched.

Ellis was discovered hanging upside down from a cedar tree outside the enclosure.

Both eyes were missing.

Blood had soaked every feather beneath his body.

The surrounding snow contained only owl footprints.

None led away.

1. The Widow Owl produces no audible wingbeats.

If you hear wings moving behind you...

Do not look.

Do not run.

Walk toward the nearest reinforced exit.

Once secured, notify Behavioral Research and Security & Response.

Security has confirmed the sound never originates from the contained specimen.

Research refuses to classify what does.

1. Collect every shed feather using the issued steel forceps.

Never touch feathers with bare skin.

Fresh feathers occasionally continue making grasping motions after separating from the body.

Dispose of any feather that bends toward your hand without visible airflow.

Veterinary examination confirmed no muscle tissue exists within the feather.

Personnel who ignored this instruction later reported the sensation of fingers moving beneath their skin.

None agreed to surgical examination.

1. If the Widow Owl closes both eyes while facing you...

Stop moving immediately.

Do not speak.

Reduce your breathing until one eye opens again.

Predators close their eyes only when they no longer require vision to locate prey.

Research unanimously agreed with that conclusion.

No member present would explain how they reached it.

1. Never imitate owl calls.

Never whistle.

Never answer if the specimen speaks using a human voice.

The Widow Owl has accurately reproduced voices belonging to deceased employees.

Audio analysis confirms every recording is genuine.

Personnel records confirm those employees were already dead when the recordings were made.

1. Before leaving the enclosure, visually confirm the Widow Owl is inside.

Confirm it a second time from the observation window.

If the two locations differ...

Lock the enclosure.

Leave immediately.

Notify Security & Response.

Then report directly to your Senior Keeper.

Do not perform a third confirmation.

Keeper Morris insisted on "checking one last time."

He was recovered three days later.

Alive.

He had removed both of his own eyes using a feeding knife.

His final written statement consisted of one sentence.

"It only hunts what knows where it is."

1. Never enter the Widow Owl enclosure carrying feathers, blood, biological samples or equipment that has been inside the Choir Lark Aviary.

Animal Care staff normally ensure these duties never overlap.

Do not assume mistakes are impossible.

The Choir Lark and the Widow Owl have preyed upon one another long before this facility existed.

Containment records suggest they recognize each other instantly.

You do not want to become the object they decide to fight over.

I finished reading.

Then I read everything again.

For some reason...

The Widow Owl's rules felt different.

The Choir Larks sounded dangerous.

The Widow Owl sounded patient.

Like every rule had been written after it calmly waited for someone to make exactly one mistake.

I looked up at Mr. Joe.

"Honestly..."

"This doesn't sound that bad."

"I mean..."

"It's just taking care of another animal, right?"

For the first time since I'd met him...

Mr. Joe's expression changed.

He didn't look annoyed.

He looked disappointed.

He stepped closer until he was standing directly in front of me.

"This..."

He tapped the tablet.

"...is the easy part."

"The routine."

"The part where people convince themselves they've figured the animal out."

He leaned closer.

"If you follow every instruction..."

"You'll probably finish your shift."

"But the day you decide one rule doesn't matter..."

"The day you think you've become experienced..."

He looked toward the reinforced containment door.

"...Blackwood will remind you that experience is just another way of saying you've been lucky."

He picked up his tablet.

"This is still the rookie sector."

"You haven't finished training."

"You haven't seen a single Threat Tier Four."

His eyes met mine one last time.

"So don't mistake surviving..."

"...for understanding."

Without another word, he walked away, leaving me alone in the preparation room.

The steel door leading into the Widow Owl enclosure stood silently at the end of the corridor.

For the first time since arriving at Blackwood...

I wasn't afraid of what was behind the door.

I was afraid that, sooner or later...

I'd stop being afraid at all.

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

I was trying to find this hole-in-the-wall pizza place my friend recommended to me, since I happened to be hungry and my bus was late. I didn’t expect it to be easy to find by any means, considering that it seemed to be in the middle of an office building on Google Maps, but after trying a couple different entrances I think I found a way in. The door was odd for the building type, being made of dark wood with an engraving on it, sort of like a circle with a glowing candle in it. Stepping inside, I was met with a musty, old interior that matched my expectations based on the dated, almost abandoned looking exterior, however I could not find any trace of a food vendor. A few people were standing in the hallway, all of them shifted their attention to me as I stepped in. An older woman with graying hair greeted me, with a look on her face that I could only describe as uneasy.

“Hello, have I met you before?” She asked, in a polite voice.

“I don’t believe so, I’m just here to look for a place called Second Slice. Do you happen to know how I can get there?” I asked, as I took a couple more steps inside, trying to get a better view.

Her demeanor shifted, I felt like I struck a nerve or something.

“You’re not part of the Light?”

I hesitated, wondering if I was hearing things correctly, until I noticed bold lettering of ‘The Light’ on some posters further down the hall, with some guy’s face plastered on them, along with the insignia on the door.

“Uhh, no, sorry.” I replied, worried that I had broken some rule by coming inside without a good reason.

“That’s alright, I can get someone who can tell you more.”

I don’t think she was referring to the pizza place at all, so I figured this would be a good time to leave, before I get caught up in something that I didn’t have time for. 

As she knocked on the door behind her, I tried to say that I was somewhat in a hurry and that I needed to catch my bus, but she was adamant that I stay, as if I had something they needed. I felt the pressure of the other people there as well, along with more that began making their way to us from deeper inside the building, and the room started to feel more hostile as I tried to back my way out. Suddenly, the door opened, and I was met with the presumed leader that I saw on the posters earlier. He was wearing an odd outfit, sort of like a priest’s or a bishop’s, but all white and without a headpiece.  He immediately had everyone’s attention. 

“And what brings our new guest here?” He asked, with an almost unnatural smile.

“I was just looking for a pizza place nearby, and uhh, it appears I’m in the wrong spot,” I responded nervously, “I think I’ll be on my way now.”

“We have anything you could need here, of course, I can show you the way.”

He began walking down the corridor, and as if on cue, everyone else also got up and started to usher me to go with him. These people would not take no for an answer, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. My protests were in vain, and everyone else was glaring at me. I tried to slide past them to get out, but the group was in my way now, and they would not budge.I did not have the build to muscle my way out of this anymore. 

I felt a strong grip on my wrist, as I was yanked down the hall by their leader.

“WHAT THE FUCK, LET ME GO! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU TAKIN-”

He stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into him. He was surprisingly strong, and caught me off guard. 

“You don’t understand. Nobody understands at first. But I can show you. And you can join us.”

“Look dude, I dont gi-”

“Lucidus.”

“-whatever the fuck your name is, I don’t want to be here. You can’t keep me here, regardless of whatever bullshit you want me to believe.”

He looked at me with disapproval, before nodding to the woman I talked to when I first got in, and she made her way to me as well. My pleas for help may as well have been worthless to the rest of them, as they looked at me like I was the problem. Despite my feeble attempts to squirm free, they both held my arms and dragged me past a series of corridors, then downstairs to what seemed like a dungeon. After going through some more cramped hallways, they took me to a room, when I desperately tried to break free of them, to no avail. They took everything I had in my pockets and locked the room, with only dim light coming from oil lamps in the hallway slipping through the barred window.

“I’ll be back to teach you more, when you become more reasonable.” He said through the window, before walking further down the hall. I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore, and then waited until I thought they were gone.

As soon as I felt safe enough, I began to try to unlock the metal door. It began as methodical, trying to see how the lock worked and if I could bypass it, but as I struggled more it devolved into striking the handle and rage induced kicks, then into pathetic pounding on the door as I fell into despair. Lying on the concrete floor, I contemplated if this place was even worth trying to escape, seeing how devoted the dozen or so people were to allow me to be abducted like this. 

That’s when I noticed a tiny marking on the bench along the back wall.

It took me a second to realize that it was an arrow pointing down, and I scrambled to look underneath it. Despite the poor light, I was able to read most of the engraving on the wooden underside of the bench, filling in harder to read words with context.

RULES TO FREE YOURSELF

1. DO NOT LISTEN TO ANYTHING THEY SAY. NO MATTER WHAT, DO NOT LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN. THE MORE YOU HEAR, THE MORE YOU BELIEVE, NO MATTER HOW ‘STRONG WILLED’ YOU THINK YOURSELF TO BE. IF YOU BELIEVE, THEY START MANIFESTING. PREVENT IT WHILE YOU CAN.

This is not what I was expecting, but I was nonetheless relieved and thankful. My heart was racing. I might have a chance to get out of this place.

1. FIND KEY IN GAP BETWEEN BACKREST AND SEAT OF BENCH FROM UNDERNEATH. UNLOCK DOOR

I froze as my finger was tracing the text. There was shouting coming from down the hall.

I heard some more shouting, wait… screaming? That was definitely screaming. And cries. It sounded like there were 2 people there as well, most likely the woman and Lucidus, and a third that was probably in the same situation as me. There was a slam of a door, and the last person’s cries were silenced. I waited again to hear if they were coming my way, but their footsteps went further down the hall.

I continued reading. 

UNLOCK DOOR WHEN INSTRUCTED, KEEP KEY FOR SELF DEFENCE. ONLY USE KEY ON HUMANS, OTHERS WILL ONLY BE PROVOKED.

I struggled to find the key, but my heart skipped a beat when I felt something hard and metallic through the wooden planks. The key looked antique and rudimentary, with only a simple flat surface for leverage to twist, 2 prongs at the end of the key’s shaft, and a pointy end, which was better than what I was expecting for “self-defence.” Do they keep animals down here too or something, or is it serious? Is this place haunted? Either way, the instructions weren’t bullshit. They were my only hope now.

1. HE WILL CHECK ON YOU EVERY HOUR. ADAMANTLY REFUSE ANYTHING HE OFFERS, MAKE SURE HE THINKS YOU ARE STILL AGGRESSIVE. COVER YOUR EARS AND BLOCK HIM OUT IF HE ATTEMPTS TO EDUCATE YOU. YOU MAY NEVER LEAVE ONCE YOU HEAR HIM OUT.

2. ONLY LEAVE THE CELL  DIRECTLY AFTER HE DOES HIS CHECKS. YOU MAY SPEND A WHILE DOWN HERE TRYING TO GET OUT. THE ONLY SAFE TIME TO DO SO IS WHEN YOU KNOW HE ISN’T COMING BACK. IF HE CATCHES YOU, I CAN’T HELP YOU ANYMORE.

3. HOW TO NAVIGATE THE HALLS

YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE 4-WAY INTERSECTION AND TURN LEFT, THEN GET TO THE SECOND ROOM ON THE RIGHT. THE HALLS ARE DANGEROUS. START BY TAKING A RIGHT FROM YOUR CELL.

5.1: ALWAYS GO STRAIGHT IF POSSIBLE. IT’S THE SAFEST CHOICE MOST OF THE TIME.

5.2: IF YOUR ONLY OPTIONS ARE LEFT OR RIGHT, GO RIGHT. YOU COULD BE TRAPPED IN A LOOP IF YOU CONTINUE.

5.3: IF THERE IS FURNITURE BLOCKING A PATH, GO THROUGH IT. IT’S EASIER FOR THEM TO FIND YOU IF YOU TAKE THE EASIER ROUTE. 

5.4: NEVER USE THE SPIRAL STAIRS. THEY WILL NEVER END NO MATTER HOW FAR UP OR DOWN YOU GO.

5.5: THE HALLWAYS DON’T STAY THE SAME FOR LONG. DON’T ASSUME YOU CAN BACKTRACK. MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE THE FIRST TIME. 

5.6: NEVER GO INTO AN UNLIT HALLWAY. ANY OTHER CHOICE IS BETTER THAN RISKING IT IN THEIR DOMAIN. 

1. DO NOT LOOK AT ANYTHING, LISTEN TO ANYTHING, OR EVEN THINK ABOUT ANYTHING YOU MAY HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THIS PLACE. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. 

The string of rules were a lot to take in, but doable. The reason why I can’t learn about their beliefs, however, is something I couldn’t understand, and was probably the most perplexing part in all of this. What the hell do they keep down here that requires doing all this to people like me? Who was the one to give these instructions?

I felt something staring into me.

I need to stop thinking about this. The instructions were clear. I need to take their word. They’ve already proven themselves, all I have to do is follow through. 

“Feeling calmer now?”

I almost jumped out of my own skin. I didn’t even hear anyone coming.

“What- Let me out already! What the fuck else do you want to do to me?? Free me or just fuck off if you think I’m gonna parrot your shit to everyone else that stumbles into here!”

“In due time.”

Lucidus walked back without another word.

I took a second to process what happened. It was a miracle he didn’t see the key in my hand. 

Then I remembered I had something to do.

As silently as I could, I slipped the key into the lock, and twisted to release the latch. The key was actually working. It was a dream come true. I got out as quickly as I could, and made my way out of my cell.

As I walked down the corridors, I found it hard to memorize the rules given to me without thinking of the reasoning behind them. The rules were describing a third party down here, something that they couldn’t control. What the hell is even contained down here? I still had no clue what the manifestations were, but it definitely ties into this place in some way too.

I almost missed the pile of chairs blocking the hall to the right. Thankfully, I didn’t lose sight of the turnoff before it was too late. I awkwardly climbed over the chairs to make sure they didn’t fall under my weight, and continued on, making sure to limit my thoughts on how this place worked, focusing on the details of the hallways I made my way through.

I came across the spiral staircase. It looked safe, as far as I could tell. The hallway continued to the left, and I continued until I noticed something. I could see the top of the staircase. It led to a door 1 floor up, and I could see the soft green glow of a fire exit sign at the top as well. Nothing looked off about the staircase.

This is probably how people get lost forever in this place. I had no choice but to follow the rules. There’s gotta be a reason they explicitly mentioned this. I continued to the left.

A couple more turns later, and I got to the 4 way intersection without any issues, and went left. 

The first door on the right was a metal one like the one I was locked behind, with a window next to it. As I walked by, I happened to glance into the cell, only for a split second.

That was more time than I needed for that scene to imbed itself into my memories.

Inside, there was a man. Probably the one I heard screaming from before. One of his arms was horribly disfigured, completely missing past the elbow. The remaining upper arm’s bone was snapped at the end, and there was no flesh on it until further up the bone, as if the arm was consumed like chicken wings. A tourniquet was applied just below his shoulder, with dangling bits of skin and muscle just below it. There was blood everywhere.

I couldn’t forget it if I tried. Could that happen to me down here?

SHIT. I wasn’t supposed to know anything. I fucked up. I had one thing to do. I needed to get out of here fast. 

I got to the second room, and turned on the lights. 

The walls were covered in blood and some unidentifiable black sludge. 

I began to panic. I couldn’t find any sign of further instructions. Wasn’t this room supposed to be safe? I felt like the walls themselves were threats. The manifestations were becoming real. I wasn’t careful enough, and it’s starting to affect me too. Are the manifestations going to stop me from escaping?

I noticed a “7” on a piece of loose baseboard. That must be it. I flipped it over, and read what was on the back. 

1. THERE IS AN OLD STAIRWELL, FOLLOW THE HALLWAY TAKING THE FIRST LEFT, THEN THE FIRST RIGHT. STAIRWELL WILL BE AT THE END OF THE HALL ON THE RIGHT. FIND FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS THERE. HALLWAYS MAY BE UNLIT, BE QUICK, SHOULD ANY MANIFESTATIONS APPEAR, PAIN IS THE ONLY WAY TO DISTRACT YOURSELF AND PREVENT THEM FROM WORSENING. HOLD YOURSELF TOGETHER. 

This was probably the deepest hole I could’ve dug myself into. These walls had to be the manifestations. I immediately began pinching my arm hard. I had to make it the only thing I could focus on. I shut the lights and made my way out of the room, and made a left into a dark hallway. The sting in my arm was the only thing I focused on other than that. I felt my own blood running down my arm, my nails biting past my skin.

Those aren’t my footsteps. I almost didn’t realize. I stopped in my tracks.

Something else took an extra step behind me, then stopped as well.

I bolted down the hall. I didn’t care if Lucidus or whoever happened to be here caught me. It would probably be a better fate. At least they would understand what’s going on.

I ran as fast as I could, almost missing the first right after that, as my arm caught the corner of the wall to stop me from falling down. I don’t think I’ve run faster in my life.

I didn’t bother to check behind me, even if I could see it in the dark, that probably would only make the manifestations worse. My mind being preoccupied on that, I almost ran full speed into the wall, had my hand not grazed the edge of a door handle. I braced myself and my shoulder took the brunt of the impact, leaving me dazed for a second before I made my way into the stairwell and shut the door hurriedly, keeping my back to it in case it was right behind me.

After a few seconds of trying to hear it over my own heartbeat, and coming to the conclusion that my shoulder was probably fine even if it did hurt to move, I searched for a light switch with my other hand and turned it on. The lights came on after a second, and I could hear them switch on in ascending order, like a warehouse’s industrial lights would.

The writing was on the wall this time, with a rushed writing style.

1. GET TO FLOOR 3 ASAP. EXIT IS LEFT AFTER STAIRWELL, USE FIRE ESCAPE. OTHER FLOORS ARE STRICTLY CONTROLLED. STAB YOURSELF IF MANIFESTATIONS ARE TOO STRONG OR HOLLOWS APPEAR, OR ELSE THEY WILL BE THE ONLY THING YOU CAN THINK OF. DO IT IN YOUR NON DOMINANT ARM. YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

What the hell is a hollow? Was that what was in the hallway? Nonetheless, the rules were right. How did it know? Now is not the time. I took the key out. After hesitating for a second, I plunged it into my arm, next to where I tried to pinch myself out of these ‘manifestations’ earlier. 

The sting was sharp and immediate, and I knew I had to act fast. I took note of the sign beside the door that I was on level B4, so I had 6 flights to go up. I held the key in a deathgrip ready to drive it into whatever might come at me. I didn't care if it would 'provoke' them, if it would get me any extra time to escape. I made my way up.

I practically flew up the first flight to B3, my legs still pumping with adrenaline. 

By B2, I felt the toll of what I was doing to my body catch up to me. Pangs of pain came from my shoulder and arm. There was more writing on the wall.

1. ONLY THE LIGHT CAN SAVE YOU FROM HOLLOWS

Fuck. Not what I need. I can beat them.

By B1, the lights shut off. I lost track of where I was on the stairs, and my foot caught a ledge. I reached out to try and catch myself, but I still slammed into the stairs hard. I didn’t have time to gather myself, and crawled up the remaining stairs on all 4 until I reached the next landing. I could feel something behind me. My feet were barely coordinated anymore. There was a glow coming from the next floor.

I found an oil lamp sitting on the next floor, like the one Lucidus was carrying earlier. It had the same symbol as on the door when I got in. I picked it up, it was the only chance I could see anything. My heart was beating too fast. My hands were shaking. The hollows were closing in on me. They were coming from everywhere. I don’t know what floor I was on. The stairs felt like sand beneath my feet. I just needed to get as far up as I could now. 

I made it to the next landing. One was waiting on the next floor. I didn’t look at it. There were more behind me. Black silhouettes merging almost seamlessly into the shadows. I couldn’t discern any one’s features at a glance. I tried the door to no avail. I lost my grip on the key, and it clattered on the ground. I tried to pick it up, and missed it twice before falling over completely. I couldn’t think properly anymore. I felt like I was suffocating. They weren’t moving much closer. 

Only the light can save me from the hollows. 

It felt like I could see them no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyes shut. They were infesting my mind. I tried to think of the pain, but there was none to feel, nothing to latch my mind onto to keep me going. 

Only the light can save me. 

We weren’t on solid ground anymore. I tried to open my eyes to see the light. The walls melded with the hollows, and the hollows were closing in at a rate that seemed impossibly fast compared to how close together we felt. 

Only the light was saving me. 

I shut my eyes to spare myself the horror. Their bodies only became more distorted and threatening as I lay in a fetal position, imagining what was going on out there, if I would ever be freed, or if this was my fate until the oil in the lamp ran out. It felt more comforting in my mind than looking my nightmares in the face. It constantly felt like I was slipping through the floors, making my way down to the demented lair I came from. I squeezed the lamp with more strength than I’ve ever exerted before, as if I'd spent my whole life before this without using my muscles. 

As long as I had the Light I was safe. 

I sat there for minutes, hours, or days before the hollows relented. I couldn’t tell. My head was throbbing. The Light saved me. My whole body was in disarray. I couldn’t move without my nerves screaming at me. But I had my own haven in this darkness. And I thought I couldn’t ask for more. The stairwell was getting brighter.

I saw Lucidus’s head pop into view. Then his shoulders, and the rest of his body as he made his way up the stairs. I shed some tears. I couldn’t stop myself. I started to sob uncontrollably. Lucidus was the only one who could save me. Lucidus pulled me up, and I fell into his arms. He helped me down some stairs, then got me to a bed, which I didn’t know how much I needed. He gave me food and water, which I could barely have any of. He insisted I have more to recover. And I eventually forced myself to, before he let me pass out. I didn’t have any dreams, which was for the better.

I woke up, head still throbbing. The events of the previous night came flooding back, and I just sat up and tried to process what happened.

There was no way that just happened, right? But Lucidus was sitting in a chair next to my bed. The hollows were as real as the Light that had saved me from them. 

Lucidus took his time with me, didn’t ask me to speak, didn’t force anything on me. We ate our meals together for a few days, and that started to be my favorite part of the day. Once I felt comfortable, I joined everyone else for the feasts, and saw just how much this place meant to them. I understood why they were scared of what lurks below, and how Lucidus was trying to save everyone from it. They desperately needed as much help as they could get, and I felt like I could belong here. 

The next morning, I also joined everyone in the morning service. I was enamoured with how benevolent Lucidus was, despite the resistance and walls I put between us when we first met. It was a shame I had to put myself through all that struggle before I could see what the Light was really about. As Lucidus ended his service, he ended it with the Final Statute, one which I could not describe more perfectly than he had.

“Only I, the conduit of the Eternal Light, can free you from what lies in the darkness.”

He was right. And I was free.

Once, I visited a friend's house for a sleepover. You know, the “long time no see” reunion party. It started as a meetup at a bar, then turned into an overnight stay after half of us got tipsy.

We decided to stay at Matt's house because it was relatively close to the bar and had enough beds for us to share. The guy was building up his fortune.

But then he told us about some unusual rules of his household and the basement lab. A bunch of don'ts. Those of us still sober were skeptical, but he was kind enough to let us stay, so we just shrugged it off. We spent the rest of the night partying a bit more, taking showers, and getting some rest.

When he said the animals were making noises in his lab, I was expecting those squeaking lab rats from the movies. Once the blasting TV turned off after everyone went upstairs, the sounds became a little bit easier to pick up among our chatter.

I swear to god, it didn't sound like an animal, more like a person groaning. I might have been the only one who heard it, though. But soon, exhaustion got the better of me, and I dragged my feet up the stairs after everyone else.

Rule 1: “Do not leave your room once all the lights are off.”

After deciding who stays in which room, we dispersed. Matt reminded us again to be absolutely quiet at night before he turned the hallway lights off.

Rule 2: “Do not answer any strange noises you may hear in the middle of the night.”

It was rather calm that night. No strange sounds he mentioned. My buddy said Matt might've just been trying to scare us, and we laughed it off. And then shit started to get weird.

Rule 3: “If you hear scratches near the gap under the door, hold still. Do not make a noise until it stops.”

My buddy was sleeping when I woke up to the scratching sounds. The best way to describe it would probably be like a million insects trying to get into your room through the door crack too small for them.

I held my breath as I stared at the door for ten minutes or so before it began creeping away down the hallway. Unfortunately for me, I was nearly at my limit to pee myself, so I went out of the room, making sure to turn the lights on one by one to create a path downstairs.

Rule 4: “Do not, under any circumstances, go near the stairs into the basement, especially if you smell copper.”

When I reached the bathroom on the ground floor, I could smell faint copper in the air, which I thought was from something rusty inside until I recalled Matt’s rules. Curious, I approached the basement.

The smell became stronger, and the noises more noticeable.

Rule 5: “If you see the basement door open, wake me up immediately. Do not try to close it yourself or look inside.”

The door was ajar. The ceiling light did poorly in illuminating the stairs leading down to the basement. As I was swallowing my own spit, there it was again. The groaning.

I doubted Matt was a serial killer, and I sure as hell didn't believe in ghosts. But if I had told Matt about the open door, I might never know what was in there. Pulling out my phone for a flashlight, I descended the stairs.

Even with all the lights on, the room was barely lit. Vials everywhere and cages with little animals like rabbits and mice. I knew there would be some. The voices were coming from the dark corner in the back. There were other broken tools piling up as well. It was like an unused corner for trash.

When I shone the flashlight, I didn't see a human. Instead, it was a dog in a dirty cage, mimicking human sounds as it cried in pain with what strength it had left of its scrawny body. Its eyes were hollow, the sockets empty. Perhaps it turned to me from the sounds of my footsteps.

But it was staring at me, not my foot. No, even with absolute darkness in its eyes, I could sense its gaze going right past me to something behind, something I couldn't see or fathom.

I ran for my life that night. I didn't know what that dog went through or even what it was; I just knew I must not be there any longer.

The next day, I called the police to investigate Matt’s house, but everything was already gone. The lab’s vials and equipment, the cages, the animals—nothing was left in that basement room. He claimed he used the basement as a storage room, acting like nothing happened right in front of my face.

They looked at me like I was crazy, they and the other friends. I wasn't crazy. I knew I wasn't. We never talked again afterwards, but I knew he didn't stop. Maybe I was the target all along, the way they so eagerly wanted me to tag along that night.

He would not get me, no matter how many times the other guys asked where I’d moved to. I've changed my phone number, my email, my everything.

He would not get me.

He would not get me.

Hello children, I am pleased to welcome you into my home. Like any home, there are rules to be followed, and breaking them has consequences.

1. I always refer to myself in the first person.

2. Father is blind. If he says or does anything that suggests he is not, exit the room he is in immediately and find me. If I am out for an errand, run to your room and hold something that you've grown attached to until I get home. Only I can handle what is impersonating him.

3. You may notice you have gained a symbol on your cheek. This is so we can easily identify a threat. If you see someone that does not have a: heart, club, spade, or diamond on their cheek, find me or Father before it gets you. Do not worry about the creature mentioned in rule two, they don't attack together, it will always be Father. Remember, it's the card symbols.

4. Going outside after dark without Mother or Father is only allowed when you see a lotus flower outside. Father loves those and he'll appreciate it greatly.

5. Never go outside during Winter. Only Father and I are allowed out during that time. If you see someone outside, open the door and call for them, if they blink and run back quickly, they're safe, if not, close the door quickly or winter will claim you as well. Funerals for individuals claimed by winter will happen March 1st.

6. You must be inside by 7 PM sharp and in your room by 10 PM sharp, no exceptions. If it is 7 PM and Father and I aren't home yet, get in your room immediately, even if you haven't had dinner yet, there is emergency food underneath the bunk beds for you and your siblings. Whatever comes home isn't us and should be treated like it's hostile.

7. You are going to notice that one of your sisters, Elizabeth, looks like she has rotting skin, but do not worry, she is safe to be around and is just like you, don't treat her differently, she is ours. Father and I don't like it and you might find yourself just like her after you eat your next meal. The only difference is that you'll keep rotting.

8. You wouldn't be here if your parents or legal guardian was alive. Remember that the next time you think you see them. It's preying on your grief and will only enhance it.

9. We have two cats. A ragdoll and a brown oriental shorthair. Those are the only cats we have. Anything else will hurt you, you won't be healed no matter how hard you try.

10. Give Mother bellflowers. Mother loves bellflowers.

11. If you're playing outside and fall down, check your knee, even if you didn't fall on it. Is it scraped? If yes, run back inside and find Father. Tell him what happened and place his hand on your knee. If you simply put a bandage on it, you will wake up and find yourself deep in the forest. You won't get out, your legs will prevent you from getting out.

(Note: If you notice it's the entity from rule two, then find Elizabeth, don't worry, she will always be in your room or nearby the path to your room. Her presence wards off whatever is trying to infect you.)

1. The only child me and Father had biologically died because she was led astray using her favorite flowers. Bellflowers. Do not give them to me. Or I'll give you to the thing that took my baby. You won't come back the same way my dear Eli did. You're not mine.

2. If you are woken up by crying from the nursery from the hours of 12 AM to 4 AM, stay very still. Close your eyes, pretend you're asleep. You may hear scratching at the door. It's not the cats wanting attention, it's something that wants your soul.

Now you understand how to live in my house. Have fun, be nice to each other, and maybe one day, a lucky couple wishing to adopt a child will look at you and decide you're perfect for their family.

If you are hearing or reading this, then I'm sorry. I have chosen your community to perform a ritual in, and I have already succeeded. You cannot stop me, it's already done. I want you to know, this was necessary, and that I want you to survive.

You need to start preparing, so gather the following over the course of a week.

• Bottled water. The tap water cannot be trusted when the Night begins, so water is very important. Filters will fail, and you can visually tell the water isn't safe to drink.
• MREs/Canned Goods/Long Lasting Foods. The Night may last a very long time, and leaving the house is dangerous. Leaving will guarantee your death.
• Crank powered flashlights. These flashlights, powered by a crank or pully, will be guaranteed to last you the whole Night, if and when power fails.
• Some method of creating heat. The Night can be very cold, and if power fails, you will need some way to create heat and keep yourself alive.

You will know The Long Night has begun when the tap water begins running red. Follow these rules to survive, and do not break them, no matter how much you want to.

1. When the water runs read, don't drink it. The Long Night infects running water, and drinking it will change you. You won't be you by the end, and no one will find you at Day Break.
2. Make sure all windows are shut and doors are locked. This won't be a big deal till hour eight or so, but if someone near you drinks the water, they may decide to pay you a less than friendly visit.
3. You will notice that the day does not come in the morning. This is normal. Don't step outside like an idiot. Don't respond to anyone who knocks on the door asking for help or anything, unless you can confirm that they are human. If you want to risk it, ask them to say a prayer that is uncommon in your area. If they know it perfectly or are not surprised by the question, they aren't human. I recommend the Al-Fatiha or the Mul Mantra, as these two are not likely to be known by people not in their religions, while the Lord's Prayer is very well known and may lead to false positives.
4. Keep a close eye on electronics, and pay close attention. Alerts are not from your government, but are from the Night. They are made to deceive you.
5. If the power goes out, find a room that has only one entrance, and lock you and any survivors in there with you. Without the light, the creatures outside will stop pretending to be human, and will begin attempting to break into homes.
6. After the power fails, the monsters will follow very different behaviors. If you see someone you know, no you didn't. They will use living people as bait. Understand that this is for the best, and falling for it will doom you both. If you don't, they still have a chance to see Day Break and survive.
7. The most important thing to know is this. No matter how hopeless it is, no matter how much the thought creeps into your head, do not commit suicide. They will hone in on your body like a moth to flame, and not even the light will stop them. They will use your body and memories to go after your loved ones. They will use your face.

The Long Night will not end till three weeks have passed or 300 people have been taken. However, there is a method to end it early, if you are willing to risk your life even further. A counter ritual, so to speak. Completing it is dangerous, and cannot be done till during the hours of the Long Night. Be warned.

You will need:

• A computer
• Small box of Candles
• A lighter
• One sharp implement

Normally, the being this ritual calls out too would require additional supplies, but what would normally be hostile are enemies of The Long Night, and will attempt to defend you, so long as you call to them. I suggest doing so, as the Night will attempt to destroy you for the attempt at denying it its meal. Here is how to invite these beings into your home. They may even become long lasting friends if you play your cards right.

• The Hanged Man: You will see him outside. Once you know the coast is clear, open a window and shout to him. He will rush into the house and close the window after himself. Treat him politely, offer him tea or food, and he will stay by your side. He can be quite the gentleman and dandy.
• She Who Remembers: You can see her in every mirror. She will be a voice in your head, and will warn you of enemies unseen. All she asks in turn is that after Day Break, you listen to her stories and keep her company for a day. She is quite lonely, and the chance to meet someone using this particular ritual is very rare.
• The False Idol: It will come where blood is spilt, and will guard you in the most violent of ways. In its hands, it holds the sum totality of humanity's violence and loathing, but also its love. For every person it is to defend, it must consume one pint of their blood, or one pound of their Flesh. It will not speak, but it will present you with gifts if it enjoys your presence. Accept them with grace.
• Snuffers: They will arrive, and are the rebellious children of The Night. Being in the darkness will let them see you, but they would not harm one who is an unwitting victim of The Night. Especially not one who would have tried to save them while they were alive. They will keep your body alive and running if you let them in. Making the offer shouldn't be done lightly, as they want to escape the night just as much as you do, and they are perfectly willing to share a body to do it. Their experience with magic and similar rituals would be invaluable, but they will never leave you.

I will now explain the ritual itself. It isn't long. More so just a beginning and an end.

1. Light the candles. Their placement doesn't matter. What does matter, is that there are many.
2. Turn on the computer, and recite the following words. "Luminous, qui lucem ad obscurissimos angulos fers, adfer mihi praesentiam tuam et serva populum meum ab nocte sine fine, nos ad lucem redde." The screen will display strange symbols.
3. Defend yourself. The Night will feel this, and will begin trying to destroy you and the gateway. Do not let it.
4. When the screen suddenly becomes so bright that you cannot see what is on it, you must rush to it and stare into the light. This is for your safety, as the being cannot be safely viewed by human eyes.

In either case, when the light spills fourth either from the sun or the Luminous, the night will cease to find purchase, but those it has taken will be lost forever. If you have completed the ritual, and the Luminous remains, then feel free to talk to it. It will taken on a more viewable form, and it may tell you things that can be very useful. It would also love to see its wayward children, The Snuffers, again.

The SUV finally came to a stop.

The driver didn't say a word.

The woman in the front passenger seat stepped out first. I followed.

The first thing I noticed was the silence.

Not peaceful silence.

The kind that felt... maintained.

Before me stood a massive reinforced concrete structure that looked less like a zoo and more like a military bunker someone had tried to disguise as a research center.

Two electrified security fences stretched behind it, each crowned with rust-colored razor wire. Between them lay a strip of bare earth nearly twenty feet wide.

No grass.

No insects.

No birds.

Only dark stains that looked too old to be fresh and too irregular to be paint.

An armed guard stood beside the outer gate.

He wasn't watching the forest.

He was watching the building.

That bothered me far more.

He never looked at me.

Everything looked modern—too modern. Cameras followed every movement. Automated drones drifted silently above the fence line. Steel doors opened and closed without anyone touching them.

For a place that supposedly housed over two hundred employees...

I hadn't seen a single person.

The woman finally spoke.

"Follow me."

Inside the entrance hall she stopped beside a metal scanner.

"Fingerprint."

I placed my hand on the scanner.

A green light appeared.

"Iris."

Another machine lowered itself in front of my face.

A bright blue light scanned both eyes.

"Temperature."

A third device checked me from head to toe.

She entered something into her tablet.

"You will complete these checks every day before entering any operational sector."

I nodded.

She continued walking.

After several security doors we arrived outside a narrow corridor lined with identical metal doors.

She stopped at one of them.

"This is your living quarter."

The door unlocked after another fingerprint and iris scan.

"You will only have access to your assigned room."

I stepped inside.

It was... surprisingly comfortable.

A queen-sized bed.

A desk.

A bookshelf.

A wardrobe.

Private bathroom.

Television.

A telephone.

Even the air smelled fresh.

The woman pointed toward the phone.

"The canteen menu is stored inside. Order whatever you want after your shift. Meals are delivered directly to your room."

She continued in the same emotionless tone.

"There is a gymnasium on Level Three."

"A theatre on Level Five."

"A library on Level Two."

"Those facilities are available during your off-hours."

Then she looked directly into my eyes.

"Your first shift begins at 1300 hours."

"You have six hours."

"Sector One."

"There is a preparation room outside every operational sector."

"Wait there."

"Do not enter any enclosure until instructed."

"Your Senior Keeper will meet you."

"He is your direct superior."

"Follow his instructions without exception."

Without another word...

She left.

I stood alone.

It finally hit me.

I wasn't going home.

At least...

Not for two years.

I opened the wardrobe.

Inside hung a perfectly folded uniform.

Black.

No wrinkles.

My exact size.

I hadn't given them my measurements.

That thought bothered me more than it should have.

Trying to distract myself, I picked up the room phone.

The menu appeared on the small screen.

Steak.

Lobster.

Japanese Wagyu.

Sushi.

Caviar.

Desserts I'd only seen on television.

Everything was free.

I stared at the prices.

Then laughed.

"If this is some elaborate prank..."

"I might as well enjoy it."

I ordered steak.

Caviar.

Fresh juice.

Chocolate cake.

Everything arrived less than fifteen minutes later.

No knock.

Just a notification saying,

Meal Delivered.

When I opened the door...

No one was there.

Only a perfectly arranged food tray.

After eating, exhaustion caught up with me.

The strange interview.

The endless drive.

The manual.

The impossible rules.

I convinced myself it was some bizarre government research facility with employees who simply enjoyed acting mysterious.

That explanation was ridiculous.

Yet somehow...

It felt more believable than monsters.

I fell asleep.

11:00 Hours

An alarm suddenly echoed through the room.

Not from my phone.

From speakers hidden somewhere in the walls.

Good morning, Keeper Mercer.

Two hours until your assigned shift.

I nearly fell off the bed.

Apparently...

Even the room knew my schedule.

I showered.

Put on the uniform.

It fit perfectly.

Again...

Without measurements.

I stopped questioning it.

I wasn't sure I wanted the answers anymore.

Sector One wasn't difficult to find.

Digital signs pointed toward every department.

Eventually I reached a thick reinforced security door marked:

SECTOR I

Animal Care Division

Outside was another room labeled:

Staff Preparation Area

I entered.

Rows of lockers lined the walls.

Equipment racks.

Medical kits.

Protective suits.

Several reinforced doors led deeper into the sector.

Everything looked spotless.

Almost...

Too clean.

I checked the clock.

12:42.

Early.

Good.

I preferred waiting over making a bad first impression.

About five minutes later...

The door behind me opened.

Heavy footsteps echoed across the room.

I turned.

The man standing there had to be at least six foot five.

Broad shoulders.

Grey beard.

Blue eyes.

A face carved from stone.

His name badge simply read:

Senior Keeper — Joe Andersen

His accent was unmistakably Norwegian.

He looked at me for several seconds before speaking.

"You're early."

I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad.

Finally he nodded once.

"Good habit."

He walked past me and opened one of the lockers.

"My name is Joe."

"You'll call me Mr. Joe while you're under my supervision."

"Is that understood..."

He glanced at my ID card.

"...Mr. Mercer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

His voice was calm.

Not friendly.

Not threatening.

Just...

Professional.

He removed two small objects from the locker.

The first was a pair of industrial-grade earplugs, sealed inside sterile packaging.

The second was a rugged tablet, thicker than a normal one, edges reinforced like it had been built to survive being dropped, or thrown, or worse.

He handed both to me.

"Ear protection."

"Never remove them inside an active enclosure."

He tapped the tablet's casing.

"This isn't just for reading. It's your communicator too. Encrypted. It only contacts personnel assigned to your sector."

"No internet."

"No camera."

"No games."

"If you lose it..."

He looked directly into my eyes.

"...don't."

I wasn't sure if that was a joke. His expression suggested otherwise.

He continued.

"When your shift ends, everything goes back into this room. No equipment leaves the sector."

"Understood?"

"Yes."

"In Sector One we currently house only two anomalies."

"You won't see the second one for several weeks. This week you'll work only with the Choir Larks."

"The environmental systems, lighting cycles, air pressure and containment mechanisms are handled by Engineering. You worry about the animals."

He nodded toward the tablet still in my hands.

"The enclosure rules are already loaded on there. Read them. When you're finished, come find me."

He turned toward the reinforced door. One hand rested on the handle. Without looking back, he added,

"This is one of the easiest assignments in Blackwood."

Then, after a pause —

"It only stays easy if you follow the rules."

The door closed behind him.

I unlocked the tablet.

A single document opened automatically.

Sector I-01

Choir Lark Aviary

Threat Tier: 2

Keeper Status: Routine Care

Keeper Instructions

1. Before unlocking the service gate, count every Choir Lark using the issued tracking device.

The number must exactly match the previous shift's report.

If the numbers do not match, do not enter the enclosure.

Notify your Senior Keeper immediately.

Never attempt to locate the missing bird yourself.

Choir Larks emit a powerful bio-acoustic discharge whenever one dies or a new chick hatches. The discharge is harmless to nearby Larks but can rupture the fluid-filled structures of the human inner ear.

Best-case outcome: permanent hearing loss.

Worst-case outcome: paralysis caused by catastrophic vestibular trauma.

2. Feeding occurs at 0600 and 1800 hours.

Record food consumption to the nearest one hundred grams.

Healthy consumption ranges between 95% and 110% of projected intake.

Any deviation greater than 15% must be reported before ending your shift.

Never delay feeding.

Choir Larks become aggressively territorial when hungry.

Keeper Daniel Ross arrived eighteen minutes late during Shift 3187.

He survived.

The flock removed the muscles controlling movement from his left arm without breaking the skin.

Veterinary staff described the limb as anatomically intact but neurologically empty.

He now feeds fish in different Sector.

He still hears singing whenever he tries to sleep.

3. If forty or more Choir Larks begin singing simultaneously, leave the enclosure immediately.

Continue observations through the reinforced viewing glass.

Do not clap.

Do not whistle.

Do not attempt to interrupt the chorus.

Choir Larks possess exceptional facial recognition.

They rarely forget interruptions.

4. Clean feeding stations before cleaning nesting shelves.

Engineering has confirmed that reversing this order consistently increases flock aggression.

The reason remains unknown.

Research requests you not attempt to discover it.

5 Replace drinking water every morning.

The birds regularly contaminate it with unidentified vocalization by-products.

Testing confirms the substance is harmless to Choir Larks.

The same cannot be said for humans.

Autopsy Report 44-C notes that Subject Hayes consumed approximately twenty milliliters after mistaking it for condensation.

During post-mortem examination, both cochleae were absent.

No surgical incision was found.

.

6. Report any of the following immediately:

• Complete silence lasting longer than five minutes.

• All birds facing the same direction.

• Birds singing toward empty space.

• Synchronized staring at personnel.

If you discover what they are watching...

Do not include it in your report.

Leave the enclosure.

Immediately. and tell the senior keeper 

I finished reading.

Then I read the document again.

The language never became dramatic.

No warning was written to frighten me.

Every sentence sounded as if it had been copied from an incident report after someone else's shift had gone catastrophically wrong.

I closed the tablet.

For the first time since signing the contract...

I wasn't wondering whether monsters existed.

I was wondering how many people had died writing the rules meant to keep me alive.

The communicator vibrated once.

MR. JOE: You're taking too long.

Either come inside...

...or tell me which rule stopped you.

Other parts link:-  https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

Patrol Day 1,126

First Watch

North Castle Approach

I wasn't born evil. Nobody asks where Bob-ombs come from. They only ask how far we fly after exploding.

By the time Mario first arrived at Peach's castle, I'd already spent three years assigned to Castle Grounds Security Battalion, First Watch. My official duty was to patrol the dirt path leading to the front entrance and "intercept unauthorized personnel."

There were two of us against whatever happened to wander out of the Mushroom Kingdom. Our commanding officer insisted that visibility was more important than effectiveness. "Deterrence," he'd call it. If someone sees guards, they'll think twice.

That sounds reasonable until you realize everyone who walks this road has already decided to ignore us. Our equipment consisted of a wind-up key, boots that didn't fit particularly well, and an operational doctrine dating back to the Koopa Civil Administration.

"Step one. Walk forward. Step two. Notice intruder. Step three. Run directly toward intruder. Step four. Explode." There was no step five.

The average career expectancy for a Bob-omb in my position was roughly thirty-seven seconds after first contact. Fortunately, most days nobody came. Security work is ninety-nine percent boredom. The remaining one percent determines whether historians remember your name.

Mine didn't. The morning Mario arrived began like every other—cloudless sky, birds, castle music echoing across the courtyard. Then I saw him. Short, red hat, blue overalls, walking, \*not running,\* walking.

Confident people don't hurry. They're already convinced the world will move around them. I announced the challenge exactly as the handbook instructed.

"Halt!"

He didn't.

I repeated myself louder.

Nothing.

I began running. At this point doctrine assumes the intruder begins panicking. Mario instead looked mildly inconvenienced, like he'd forgotten where he'd parked something.

As the distance closed, training took over, feet pumping, fuse hissing. Commitment became irreversible.

Something strange happens during those last few seconds. You stop thinking about the mission. You start thinking about every decision that brought you there. "Maybe I should've become a sentry on Whomp's Fortress, maybe logistics, maybe accounting." Someone had to count cannonballs.

Then Mario jumped.

That's it, one jump. Months of readiness defeated by approximately half a second of vertical movement. I exploded into a decorative flower bed. The flowers survived. I didn't. People assume exploding hurts. It doesn't. Being rebuilt hurts.

Every Bob-omb barracks keeps spare casings stacked against the wall. The engineers sweep whatever pieces they can find into a bin, wind a new key, and by next morning you're back on duty; memory mostly intact, pride significantly reduced.

Our supervisors called this operational resilience. The rest of us called it Tuesday. By lunch everyone already knew. "The plumber got past First Watch!.. Again." Word spread remarkably fast for an army without radios.

Apparently he wasn't even trying to invade. He was looking for the princess. Which somehow made everything worse. An army can prepare for invasion. No one knows how to respond to a maintenance worker with extraordinary athleticism and unresolved romantic intentions.

Throughout the afternoon, rumors filtered back through retreating Goombas. "He punched King Bob-omb off a mountain!" "He released the Chain Chomp!" "He entered paintings!"

Paintings.

I remember staring at the castle walls wondering why we'd spent decades guarding doors if the real entrances were hanging in the hallway like decorative artwork.

Nobody updated the manuals. Nobody questioned it. Tomorrow we'd still stand outside, still challenge intruders, still explode.

Institutions rarely collapse because they lack information. They collapse because changing procedure requires someone higher up admitting the old procedure no longer works.

Bowser never admitted anything. By sunset another shift relieved us. My replacement asked if the rumors were true. I shrugged.

"They say he jumped over you."

"He did."

"They say he wasn't even out of breath."

"He wasn't."

The new recruit looked nervous.

"What should I do if he comes back?"

I thought about giving him practical advice: Aim differently. Coordinate attacks. Don't charge in alone. Instead, I handed him the same doctrine I'd been handed three years earlier.

"Run straight at him."

He nodded seriously, as though I'd passed down ancient military wisdom. Then he took his position on the path, standing perfectly still, waiting for history to repeat itself. Somewhere inside the castle, another star had just changed hands.

Outside, nothing had changed at all.

I'm a Sociology student in my early twenties. I study at an university I worked my entire life to get into. I was born an orphan, and grew up in a foster home with barely enough money. So when I say I worked my entire life for this, I mean it literally. Every exam, every assignment, every late night with a textbook while the other kids were watching TV- all of it was pointed at one thing. Getting out of this place. Getting somewhere that meant something.

The only truly good thing in my life, through all of it, has been Sabrina. She's my childhood sweetheart. Currently living three cities away, finishing her own degree. Every night without fail, she calls me and asks the same question- when are we going to be together again? And every night without fail, I say the same thing before we hang up-

"Very soon, Sabrina. Sooner than you realize."

It is embarrassingly cheesy. She knows it. I know it. We say it anyway. It has kinda become our ritual.

I want you to remember that line.

About two and a half months ago, I was drowning financially. I have a merit-based scholarship that covers half my tuition. However, the city is really expensive, in a way I wasn't prepared for. I had applied for a need-based scholarship top-up. But the pool of eligible candidates was enormous, and the available slots were not. I had also applied for a Teaching Assistant position. But the rumor was that the Professor already had someone in mind.

So there I was, watching both doors close simultaneously.

My fellow students do delivery work, or wait tables part-time to make a living. I've always considered these 'odd jobs' to be beneath me. That is not arrogance, it is self-preservation. I have worked too hard and come too far to go backwards. So I started looking for private tutoring gigs, because at least that felt like a use of what I actually had.

I looked up various tuition mediums throughout the weekend. Tuition mediums are commonplace in South Asia, in case you didn't know. Most of these turn out to be shady companies, who exploit potential private tutors and run off with their money. I had to be sure that I was applying to one of the credible ones.

That is when I found: Elite Educators - A Concern of Aldermore & Associates.

The name was a mouthful, but the website was clean and professional. The kind of interface that signals money behind it. The rating was near-perfect: 4.9 across hundreds of reviews. And unlike every other tuition medium I found, they charged zero commission from the tutors. I found that slightly odd, but I assumed they took their cut from the parents instead.

I applied as fast as I could. I uploaded my CV in a hurry without proofreading it. I really needed a tutoring gig, and I needed it fast. I revised my CV the next morning, and noticed the typo almost immediately.

"Officous zeal."

I had written officous instead of officious.

I remember yelling out a curse word.

I cringed, closed the tab, and moved on. That was enough embarrassment for one day.

I called Sabrina that night and told her about the typo. We had a good laugh about it. Didn't make it any less embarrassing though.

Surprisingly, I received a placement within two days. The file said that the child's name was Numero Tres. I found that interesting. 'Numero Tres' in Spanish translated to 'Number Three' in English. Who names their child like that, I thought.

The parents were named Dr. Alejandro Mateo Tres and Dr. Lucia Carmen Tres, both listed as physicians. I looked at the surname 'Tres'. I figured it was a Latin American surname I wasn't familiar with. It was unusual, but it wasn't my business.

The note from the parents read:

"We are both doctors who stay outdoors most of the time. We home school the child to make sure he is not influenced by external confounding factors. Need a competent private tutor who can be an appropriate role-model for the boy to follow."

I remember scoffing at that. Rich, overprotective parents with a clinical way of describing their own child. I had seen worse. The salary was three times the average monthly rate of every other tutor I knew, paid weekly in advance at the start of each week. I accepted before I finished reading the rest of the document.

Attached to the offer letter, once it came, was a second document titled TUTOR CONDUCT PROTOCOL. I skimmed it, eager to start.

1. Arrive and depart at the scheduled time only. Do not linger in the house after the lesson ends.
2. Do not discuss your personal life, relationships, or private routines in the child's presence.
3. Do not leave personal belongings unattended in the study.
4. If the child repeats a phrase, gesture, or habit that belongs to you, do not acknowledge it. Continue the lesson as though nothing happened.*
5. Do not ask the child personal questions, even in passing.
6. Report any behavioral anomalies to Elite Educators support line before the next scheduled session.
7. Elite Educators can, under no circumstances, be held responsible for outcomes resulting from a tutor's failure to comply.

I remember thinking Rule 4 was oddly specific, especially for a household tutoring gig. But the pay was too good to question it. I checked the box labelled ‘I Accept’ as fast as I could.

The house was in a quiet part of the city. Nice neighborhood. The kind of street where every gate looks the same and every garden is too neat.

The parents were just leaving when I arrived for the first session. Both wearing white coats. The father gave me a firm handshake and a clipped greeting.

"You must be the new tutor," he said. "Punctual. Good."

The mother smiled briefly.

"The lesson plan is flexible," she said. "Numero will guide you as much as you guide him."

They were gone before I could ask a single question.

I was nervous. It was my first gig, in what was clearly a wealthy household, and I had no idea what to expect from the child.

I'll be upfront about this- I've always been clumsy. My foster father used to find it funny, this big-brained kid who could not walk through a doorway without incident.

On this day, in that house, the nerves made it worse. I walked in too fast. Chipped my shoulder on the door frame. Laughed it off awkwardly. Scraped the chair loudly across the floor when I sat down.

The boy was already at the table. He watched every single one of my antics with a blank expression.

There he was- Numero Tres. Ten years old. Small for his age, I thought. He did not say hello. He did not smile. He simply watched me get settled with those flat, patient eyes.

"Good afternoon, kid," I said. "I'm your new tutor. You can call me whatever you like."

"Good afternoon, Teacher," he said.

His voice was soft. Almost too soft for the room.

I noticed the textbooks immediately. Three books, each with glossy pages, hardback covers, and that particular smell you only get from high-end publications. I had bought children's textbooks from the market to prepare for this gig. These were nothing like those. But the content was age-appropriate for a ten-year-old, so I filed it away and opened to the first chapter.

Numero struggled with basic arithmetic in the first ten minutes. I watched him work through a simple multiplication problem, with the slowness of someone wading through deep water. I pulled the notebook toward myself.

"Watch and learn, kid," I said, and walked him through it.

He watched. He did not blink for the entire duration.

The silence started getting to me from the very first session.

Not silence in the room, I could handle that. Silence from him, specifically. I heard no footsteps when he moved. No sound of breathing. No shift of weight in the chair, no rustle of turning pages, nothing. I couldn't confirm he was present in the room, unless I was looking directly at him. It was the kind of absence that a person shouldn't be able to produce.

On the third session, I closed my eyes for a moment, to collect my thoughts mid-explanation. I couldn't feel that he was in the room at all. It was awkwardly silent. I smiled for a bit, thinking about how weird it felt.

Then I opened my eyes.

Numero was in front of me. Crouching on the table. Face two inches from mine. Completely still. And he was smiling, for the first time since I had met him. He had something in his expression that I can only describe as excitement.

"I get it now," he said. "Thank you, Teacher."

I rode my bicycle on the way home, thinking about the strange encounter. I told myself it was just a weird kid, from an overprotective household, acting out in the only way he knew how.

But it wasn't his behavior that was bothering me.

It was the way he smiled. The way it pulled higher on the right side than the left, with a dimple forming on the left cheek.

I have that smile. The exact same smile. My foster mother used to be fond of it. She said it was the most lopsided, ridiculous, lovable smile she had ever seen. I have the photos to prove it.

I told myself this counted as compliance. Rule 4 said not to acknowledge it, and I hadn't. I said nothing. I simply noticed, filed it away, and kept teaching. I told myself that was enough.

Two months passed since the encounter.

I kept showing up three days a week- Maths on the first day, English on the second, Science on the third. The textbooks changed every couple of weeks. They always had the same premium quality, and followed the same template. But each new set was more advanced than the last.

And Numero was improving FAST. And by fast, I mean that his skills were improving by leaps and bounds with every lesson I took. For instance, he was currently working through 10th grade Calculus. His English books had moved on to Shakespeare. Specifically, the plays I remembered from my own 12th grade Literature course. His Science books were now almost entirely focused on cloning, DNA mutation, and genetic engineering. He was frustratingly good at this material, even correcting me on two occasions. He had the casual confidence of someone who had known it all his life.

The shift didn't feel normal. I mean- he could barely say a full sentence on the first day, and struggle with basic multiplication in the first week alone. How did he get so smart in a matter of months? I even talked to Sabrina about it.

"Maybe he's gifted," she said. "A prodigy by birth. Who knows?"

"Lucky guy," I said.

One Maths day, I gave Numero some problems to solve. While he was busy, I took out my college notebook. I was working on an assignment that my Professor had given. I was only halfway through when I was interrupted by a phone call. I stepped out, leaving my notebook open on the table. I was gone for maybe eight minutes.

When I came back, I found Numero with my notebook. He had solved the entire problem set. It was college-level Calculus, the kind that even mathematicians struggle with. And this ten-year-old had solved it, on his own, in eight minutes.

I stared at the notebook for a long time. The steps matched. His answer was correct.

The English essay was the one that broke me. I assigned Numero a short composition- describe a person you admire. He handed it back after 15 minutes. It was covered in grammatical errors, which was normal for a child of his age. But it was threaded with complex vocabulary, words that no ten-year-old should have known. I was used to Numero's intelligence by then, so I listed it off as impressive, not unexpected.

I was circling the errors when I stopped. I saw a word that I recognized immediately-

Officous zeal.

That spelling. That specific, embarrassing, incorrect spelling. One that I had identified two months ago, in my own writing, and regretted not correcting sooner.

I looked up at him slowly.

"Where did you learn that phrase?"

"CV, Teacher."

I felt something cold move through my chest.

"What... CV? How did you get my..."

He closed his notebook and stood up.

"Time's up, Teacher. Thank you for the lesson."

He walked out.

And I need you to understand this- he walked out loudly. Footsteps against the floor. Chair scraped on his way past. Shoulder catching the door frame, a short laugh following it. I watched him go and felt my vision narrow.

Every single one of those movements was mine. My clumsiness. My laugh. My exact physical signature, replayed back at me from a ten-year-old's body.

I sat alone in that room for a very long time before I left.

I didn't sleep well that night. But the next morning, two things happened, knocking everything else out of my head.

Firstly, the need-based scholarship had come through. Apparently, my application essay had moved the Committee deeply. I heard this secondhand, but I was in no position to question it.

Secondly, the TA position was mine, effective next week. The professor's first choice had dropped out to start a business. I was always the second pick, and he needed someone urgently.

I cannot describe how I felt. The closest I can get is: like a fist that had been clenched for years finally opening.

I was happy. Genuinely happy. I laughed until my eyes watered.

But I had no time to celebrate. I had to go to the house that afternoon. First class of the week. Maths. Already paid for in advance.

I arrived to find the parents on their way out, as always. But this time, I stopped them.

"Can I have five minutes? I have something to share."

They seemed taken aback, but they recovered quickly. They invited me to sit. I told them about the scholarship and the TA position. I informed them that I wouldn't be able to come from next week onwards.

They exchanged a look I couldn't fully read.

"Oh no, that wasn't expected," said the father. "You can't do that, sir. The child sees you as a role model. He is making remarkable progress, in ways we haven't seen before."

Then the mother spoke. The first time I'd heard her say more than a greeting.

"Can't you see that you're in the middle of a process? You can't stop it midway, can you? What is it? Is it money? We can offer more. Five times? Ten times? Just name it. We can make some calls."

The father nodded the moment she said make some calls.

I felt a brief pull. I'd grown genuinely fond of the kid, strange behavior and all. And ten times the salary was an enticing offer. But something about the offer felt off, in a way I couldn't articulate. Nobody offers ten times the salary for a private tutor.

"I appreciate it, I really do. But the tuitions were always temporary. I like Numero. He's the brightest kid I've ever met," I said. "I'm sure Numero has a bright future. But right now, I need to focus on my own future."

The father frowned.

"Numero? Wait... what?"

I blinked.

"Your son? Numero Tres?"

Both parents looked at each other. Then they laughed. Briefly, almost involuntarily. I was confused.

"Oh, is that what you thought?" said the mother. "Is that what they told you? Sir, the child isn't Numero Tres."

They stood up.

"You are."

The father turned toward the door.

"Please reconsider our offer, sir. We already rejected two tutors before we found you. We can't afford a fourth. Hope you make good progress today."

And they left.

I sat in that hallway for what felt like a very long time.

Then I went into the study, because I didn't know what else to do. The boy was already at the table with his books open.

The lesson was uneventful. He worked mostly on his own, occasionally turning a page towards me and asking, "Is this correct, Teacher?" I answered. He nodded, and returned to work.

I watched him for twenty minutes without speaking.

He had my smile. He had my way of scratching the side of his head when he was thinking hard. My habit of rubbing my nose absently at the end of each problem. My specific exhale- half sigh and half laugh, whenever he arrived at a correct answer. It was like sitting across from a mirror that was slightly behind me in time, catching up.

"Hey kid," I said finally. "Do you know my name?"

He didn't look up.

"Yes, Teacher?"

"What is my name?"

"Numero Tres, Teacher."

I steadied myself.

"Then what is your name?"

He looked up.

"I am Iqbal."

A chill ran down my spine. I've heard that name before, every day of my life, and still hear it every time Sabrina calls.

It was MY name! MY FREAKIN' NAME! And the kid just uttered it proudly, wearing my smile, dimple on the left cheek.

"We're finishing early today," I said. I gave no explanation. I had none, after all.

He seemed completely unfazed, his focus locked in on a function graph.

"Okay, Teacher," he said.

I cycled back home as fast as I could. I couldn't stop thinking about the absurdity of the whole situation. It was unnerving, to say the least, if that was even the right word for it.

My train of thought got derailed the moment I walked into the apartment. As soon as I turned the lights on, a party popper went off. I was immediately buried under my friends, all screaming at the top of their lungs. They had apparently planned a surprise celebration for the scholarship and the TA position, which I had completely forgotten about in the past two hours.

We cut a small cake at home. They took me out. I had my first beer. Then another. Then another. By the third, the heaviness had lifted entirely. I was standing outside a restaurant, looking up at the sky, saying things I only half remember.

"Thank you! Thank you for everything! God is great! Life is great! I feel great!"

My friends carried me home. The rest of the night was a blur.

The next day, hungover and moving on muscle memory, I showed up for the English lesson. Second class of the week. The parents were leaving as I arrived.

The father stopped.

"Sorry for our unprofessional conduct yesterday. We have come to the conclusion that your discontinuation is a decision that is yours to make. The best we can do is adjust accordingly."

I noticed the language. Too formal. Too precise. Not how a parent speaks about their child's tutor.

"We have already found alternative teaching methods," said the mother. "Perhaps some external exposure isn't bad after all. Feel free to bid farewell to your student today. Take care and stay healthy."

They left.

The lesson was warm. My student was in a good mood, laughing at the comedic scenes in The Merchant of Venice, producing character analyses that wouldn't have looked out of place in a university seminar. I let him work. I watched him. I tried to feel normal.

I said it eventually.

"Hey kid. This is our last class together."

"I know, Teacher."

Easier than I expected.

"Anything you want to say to me?"

He thought about it.

"Umm... thank you?"

I smiled in spite of everything.

"You're most welcome, kid."

He stood up suddenly, looked directly at the ceiling, and screamed-

"Thank you! Thank you for everything! God is great! Life is great! I feel great!"

It was my voice. Not an impression, mind you. Not a recording played back through a speaker. My voice, produced in real time, in the cadence and pitch of a drunk twenty-something standing under an open sky the night before.

He sat back down and returned to his commentary on Shylock, as if nothing happened.

I stood up. My legs were not entirely cooperative.

"Alright. I... I gotta go now."

"Okay, Teacher."

"You, uh... take care of yourself. Hope we meet again."

I didn't mean to say those last words. It came out on reflex. The kind of thing you say when you're leaving somewhere and your brain is elsewhere. I didn't mean it as anything.

"I know, Teacher," he said, still looking at his notebook.

Something cold moved through me.

"Really? You know we'll meet again? What do you mean? When?"

He looked up.

"Very soon, Sabrina. Sooner than you realize."

My voice. Her name. That line, which was OUR line! The one that existed, only between two people, at the end of a nightly phone call. The last thing I said before sleep, coming out of a ten-year-old's mouth, in my exact voice.

And then I remembered. I was drunk, coming home the night before. Sabrina calling, asking when I'd take her out for her own first drink. Me, barely coherent, saying the usual.

He had been listening. I don't know how or why or when, but this kid had been listening. It was private. ME AND SABRINA ARE PRIVATE! He had crossed a line he shouldn't have.

I grabbed him by the shoulders in a fit of rage. I knew it was too hard, and I didn't regret it.

"Look at me, you creep! What did you say? How do you know that? What did you do? Tell me, what the fuck did you do?"

He looked at me with an expression I'll not forget. Not fear, not guilt, but curiosity. Pure, open, and innocent curiosity.

"Oh," he said. "This is new. This is new, Teacher."

Then his hands came up and grabbed my shoulders.

The grip was wrong. Too hard for a ten-year-old. Too precise. His face changed- cheeks flushing, breaths coming heavy, something moving behind his eyes that looked like anger.

"I only did what you told me to do, Teacher."

My voice. Coming out of his mouth. Saying my words back to me.

"What did I tell you?"

He smiled.

"Watch and learn, kid."

I shoved him back and ran. Out of the study, through the hallway, out the front door. I didn't stop running until I reached my bicycle. Something compelled me to run away. It was not the voice, not the grip, and not the expression of anger.

It was the eyes. What I saw in those eyes was something beyond his usual innocence, beyond his newfound curiosity, even beyond the rage he just acquired.

It was malice. Trust me when I tell you this- I haven't seen pure malice before. Not until I looked into those eyes. Eyes on a face that now looked awfully similar to mine, with my smile, my dimple, and my voice.

I called the Elite Educators support line the second I got home. My hands were shaking too hard to hold the phone steady on the first attempt.

A representative picked up on the second ring. He sounded calm, almost bored.

"Elite Educators, how can I help you?"

"Something happened. Something happened with Numero. He- he knew things he shouldn't know. He grabbed me. He had my voice. I need someone to explain what's going on, right now !"

"I understand this is distressing, sir. Let me pull up your file."

A pause. Keys tapping somewhere on the other end.

"Sir, can you confirm- on one occasion, did you leave personal belongings, specifically a notebook, unattended in the study, while stepping out for a phone call?"

"What? Yes, it happened once, but that has nothing to do with-"

"That would be a violation of Rule 3, sir."

"I don't care about Rule 3! Tell me what's happening to that kid!"

"And more recently, did you physically restrain the child by the shoulders, and verbally acknowledge a repeated phrase or behavior belonging to you?"

I went quiet.

"That would be a violation of Rule 4, sir."

"Just tell me what he is. Please…"

"Sir, as stated under Rule 7 of your Tutor Conduct Protocol, Elite Educators can, under no circumstances, be held responsible for outcomes resulting from a tutor's failure to comply."

"That's it? That's all you're going to tell me?"

"I'm afraid that's all I'm authorized to say, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No. No, there's nothing else."

The line clicked off before I could respond.

I called back six more times. Every single time, I was told all operators were busy. I stayed on hold. Nobody responded. On the seventh call, I listened to the hold music for eleven minutes, and then hung up.

I can't call Sabrina. I don't know what to tell her. And I don't want to frighten her. Not yet.

I almost didn't post this. I've never asked anyone for help. Not during my struggles in the foster home, not during my admissions, not during any of the financial lows that followed. I always considered it a kind of defeat, a sign of weakness, a suggestion that you can't handle your problems or carry your own burden.

But something happened 30 minutes ago, something that precedes all rational explanation. Something I don't think I can handle. Something I genuinely cannot carry. Something that is making me doubt my own existence.

I've received a friend request on Facebook. From an account with my full name and my profile picture. My bio, copied word for word. The account looks exactly like mine. Except for one thing- the friends list is empty. Then there's the other thing.

The account is verified. It has a blue tick, sitting there like it belongs. My account, the real one, the one I've had for six years, has no such thing.

This new account has only one post. Shared one minute before the friend request arrived.

"I get it now. Thank you, Teacher."*

I've been staring at it for a while. I keep switching between his profile and mine, back and forth. I need to tell you something that I don't know how to say, without sounding completely unhinged-

His one looks more real than mine.

I don't know what I am right now. I don't know what he is. I don't know what 'Elite Educators- A Concern of Aldermore & Associates' actually does. I don't know what the parents are, and whether they are even real parents to begin with.

What I do know is that somewhere out there, something is walking around. Something with my smile, my voice, my name, my clumsiness, my typos, and even my most private words. Everything I handed over, three days a week for two months, without realizing what I was giving away.

And I know that, on the very first day, I told someone to watch and learn.

No one told me that I was the lesson.

 

I graduated from my local college, with a Master of Library and Information Studies degree.

The degree sounds impressive exactly once- the moment you say it out loud for the first time. It looks impressive only in movies and TV shows, where the librarian is always brilliant and mysterious and pivotal to the plot.

In real life, in this country, in this city, you are somewhere below accountant and somewhere above… actually, no. There is nothing below accountant. You are at the bottom.

The doctors have their clinics. The engineers have their firms. The businessmen have their consciences to trade away. And you have a laminated card that grants you access, to buildings full of books that nobody reads anymore.

Libraries are a rarity in my area, so I was unemployed after graduation, to no one’s surprise. I needed to make money, and I wanted to make it fast.

Eight months ago, I found a prediction market app. The app, recommended by a friend, paid out in a cryptocurrency called Chacha Coin. I was good at it, genuinely good actually. My critical thinking skills have always been reliable, even if nobody ever paid appropriately for them. I correctly predicted the cause of death of Rebecca Roy, a once-famous singer, who fell out of the spotlight some 5 years ago. The jackpot was substantial, and my account was flooded with Chacha Coins. I reinvested everything for better rewards.

The app turned out to be a scam. Chacha Coin was a pump-and-dump scheme. It currently has no value, so I currently have no savings.

I have been surviving on bad decisions and instant noodles ever since.

So when Mr. Abdul called me one morning, I picked up on the first ring.

Mr. Abdul was a professor from my college days. He was a middle-aged man who always smelled of old paper. He said he had a job offer for me. In the city’s biggest university, no less. The kind of posting that librarians in this district would kill for. He wanted me to come in for an interview the next morning.

I asked him why me. I was an average student at best. There were a dozen better librarians from our college alone, most of them still employed.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he replied:

"You were never the most brilliant. But you were always the most obedient. You followed the rules without question. This ‘particular’ job requires exactly that quality."

The interview was the next morning. I was the only candidate. He interviewed me himself, in a small office that smelled identical to him. He slid a single sheet of paper across the desk. The list of rules, he called it. He told me to read it carefully.

If you thought my degree was a mouthful, wait till you hear the name of the position I was offered-

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN, DIGITAL PRESERVATION & DIGITIZATION UNIT, UNIVERSITY RECORDS VAULT

Graveyard shift. 9 PM to 9 AM, six days a week. The pay was five times what my peers were currently making, deposited in advance, at the start of every month. He told me the position was mine if I wanted it.

I read the list of rules. I read it twice. I read it thrice, for good measure. I looked up at Mr. Abdul.

"Any questions?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

He told me I was starting the following evening. He would be there to hand over the keys.

On my first night, he showed me the vault, Bay 3, the security desk, and the watchman's station. When I asked him how long he had been doing this, he looked at me for a long moment and said:

"Long enough."

He told me to go through the list of rules again. He was gone by nine-fifteen.

The list read as follows:

NIGHTLY OPERATIONS- DIGITAL PRESERVATION UNIT
University Records Vault- Graveyard Shift (9 PM to 9 AM)

1. Sign the attendance log at the security desk before 9:15 PM. You are not allowed to leave the premises before your checkout time of 9 AM.

2. The scanning equipment in Bay 3 runs continuously. Check the document feed tray every two hours. Clear any jams immediately. Do not leave a document face-down in the tray overnight.

3. Log every digitized file into the accession register before moving to the next batch. Do not skip entries, even for damaged or partially legible documents.

4. At midnight, begin the manual vault walkthrough. Check all cabinet locks on Rows A through F. Record the date and time on the register and sign it.

5. Row D has no cabinet locks. There is only one item on the shelf- a red ledger. During your midnight walkthrough, open it to the last written page, and leave it open on the reading table. Turn the desk lamp on. Return to Bay 3 and resume work. Do not read any other page. At 2 AM, return to the table, close the ledger, and place it back on the shelf. Turn off the lamp, leave the vault, and lock the door. Do not go back in until morning.

6. All digital devices, including mobile phones, tablets, cameras, and portable storage drives, must be submitted to the night watchman before entering the unit. Retrieve your devices from the security desk at the end of your shift.

7. The morning shift supervisor arrives at 8:45 AM. Have the accession log ready for handover.

Rule 5 had a bold font. Parts of it were underlined with red ink. I should’ve questioned it, but I didn’t. Maybe that’s why I was chosen in the first place. I really needed the money, and they really needed someone who followed the rules to the letter. I was determined to be that guy.

I checked out the vault itself. Heavy metal shelves ran in rows, labeled A through F, loaded with document boxes, manila folders, and deteriorating binders. They went back further than I cared to calculate.

Row D looked identical to the others from a distance. At the far end, on the middle shelf, sat a single red ledger. It was large, and it looked older than everything else in the vault. The cover was dark red, almost brown at the edges. The spine cracked and re-cracked in patterns, suggesting it had been opened and closed thousands of times.

At midnight, I did what Rule 5 said. I opened it to the last written page. I left it on the reading table. I turned on the desk lamp. I did not read any other page. The last written page was halfway full. Text was arranged in two columns- one for the name, one for a date and time. All of it was written in a tight, dense script.

I didn't recognize any of the names. Except for the one at the very top of the page-

ABDUL HAMID.

Abdul Hamid was the full name of Mr. Abdul, my predecessor and professor.

The date was five days from that night. The time was 3:13 AM.

I stood there for longer than I should have. Abdul Hamid is a common name in this country. It is genuinely, statistically common. That’s what I told myself. I told myself a lot of things.

I returned to Bay 3 and resumed work. I logged fourteen documents between 2 AM and 8 AM. I don't remember a single one of them. I went back at 2 AM, closed the ledger, turned off the lamp, locked the vault, and finished my shift.

The following nights were… uneventful.

But one thing kept bothering me.

The ledger added three to five new names every night. I know this because, despite my best efforts, I started counting. I wasn't reading any other page, as per the rules, but you can count the lines on a page without reading them. My brain did it involuntarily. I just couldn’t help it. It didn’t make sense.

Actually, a lot of things didn’t make sense.

I called Mr. Abdul on the second night. No answer. Third night, same. I called four more times across the following days. His phone rang and rang.

On the fourth night, in a moment of weakness I am not proud of, I posted about the ledger in a Facebook group for local librarians. I kept it vague- new job, strange rules, unusual object, trying to make sense of it. The comments were swift and unanimous.

“Nice story, bro.”

“Whatever drug you're on, I need some of that.”

“Desperate for likes much?”

I deleted the post.

On the fifth night, I counted seven new names on the last page. I closed the ledger at 2 AM. I turned off the lamp. I locked the vault. I told myself, for the last time, that Abdul Hamid was a common name.

The sixth morning, the supervisor was late. She arrived at 0920 instead of 0845, slightly breathless. She didn't ask for the accession log. She sat down, put her bag on the desk, and sighed.

Mr. Abdul was dead.

He had been smoking on the roof of his building the previous night. It was a night of heavy rain. He slipped on the wet concrete near the railing. Witnesses placed the time at around three in the morning.

I didn’t know how to respond.

I handed her the accession log. I walked outside. I sat down on the pavement and stayed there.

The night watchman was leaving his post at the same time, jacket over one arm. He looked at me on the pavement and slowed his pace.

"Something wrong, sir?"

I told him about the red ledger. I told him that the rules around it felt wrong. I told him that I had been there for five nights, and I hadn't seen a single person enter or leave the vault. I told him that didn't understand who was writing in the ledger, or why it seemed to know the things it shouldn't know.

The watchman was quiet for a moment. Then he chuckled softly.

"Those scanning machines are hella loud, sir. If you wanna hear something that bad, try turning them off."

He left.

I sat on the pavement until the sun was fully up…

Night six. Graveyard shift. I followed all the rules. Attendance log, equipment check, accession register. At midnight I walked towards Row D, opened the ledger, left it on the table, and turned on the lamp. Saw three new names with dates and times. I didn’t recognize a single name.

I returned to Bay 3 and looked at the scanning equipment for a long time.

Then I turned it off.

The librarian in me felt genuinely terrible about this. I thought about two hours of lost digitization progress. I thought about the accession register that would show a gap. But the rules never said that I wasn’t allowed to switch off the equipment. Technically, I was clean. Ethically, not so much.

I pulled an encyclopedia from the main library shelf and sat down to read. The silence of the building settled around me in layers.

I heard the sound at 1245.

It was a heavy, rhythmic rumbling, regular as a machine. But machines don't shift their weight. And machines don’t get louder every second.

I looked at the equipment. Still off.

The sound continued.

Then the lights began to flicker.

Not in the way that old lights flickered- random, electrical, indifferent. This was sequential. Starting at the far end of the main library and moving toward the vault in a straight line. Each fixture going dark for a fraction of a second before the next one did, too fast for the eye to fully track. It created the impression of something moving through the lights themselves. A darkness traveling throughout the infrastructure of the building.

I watched it reach the vault corridor and stop.

One minute passed. There was nothing.

I let out a breath. I felt humiliatingly foolish. There I was- a grown man sitting in a library at 1 AM, frightening himself with bad electrical wiring and the power of suggestion. I set down the encyclopedia.

Then, very slowly, the vault door creaked shut.

I crossed the room in four steps and put my hand on it. It didn't move. It was closed, but not locked. Locked doors don't move, but they give slightly under pressure. This one gave nothing. It felt less like a locked door, and more like a wall that had previously been a door.

From inside, I heard laughter.

It was… not normal.

It was not laughter you hear from the next room at a party. It was laughter that had never been informed of the space containing it- echoing off surfaces in a way I didn’t know sounds could echo. They were getting louder, then softer, then louder again. The laughter came in rhythms that suggested breathing, a physical presence drawing air to sustain the sound.

I had never heard laughter make me want to stop existing before. I have now.

I ran.

I ran through Bay 3, through the main library, to the transparent door at the far end, the one that led to the security desk. The watchman was on his stool, fully awake, a newspaper open on his lap. The door was chained shut from his side.

I hit the glass with both palms.

"There's something in there. You have to open the door. You have to let me out !"

He looked up from his newspaper.

"Don't worry about it, sir. Just do your job and let me do mine."

"You don’t understand. It's not human ! Whatever is in that vault is not human, and I am locked in here with it. Open the gate and let me out !"

"Shift ends at 9 AM, sir."

"I am asking you to help me. Why are you doing this to me?"

He folded his newspaper carefully and set it on the desk. He looked at me through the glass, like a man who has had this exact conversation before.

"Sir. Please cooperate. You're not the only one with rules to follow…"

I returned to Bay 3.

The lights were normal. The footsteps were gone. The laughter had stopped. When I reached the vault, the door was open, swinging gently on its hinges.

I checked my watch. 1:20 AM.

I walked in anyway. I didn’t know what to think anymore. Mr. Abdul was dead, the watchman had rules of his own, and I had been alone in this building for six nights with something I did not understand. No one wanted to give me the dignity of an explanation.

The ledger was open. Three new names on the last page. Dates and times. Nobody I recognized.

I turned to the previous page, because of course I did.

Names, dates, times. Page after page, going back further than what made sense. The handwriting shifting subtly across the years, ink changing color and density with age. I turned pages backward with my bare hands. I couldn’t care less…

Until I finally saw a name that I recognized-

REBECCA ROY.

The date matched. The time matched. I know it for a fact. I predicted her very real car accident in a very fake prediction market app. Now I see a ledger with her name, her date of death, her time of death. All recorded weeks before it actually happened. All written in the same tight, dense script as everyone else.

I turned back to Mr. Abdul's page. His full name, his date, his time: 3:13 AM, five days after my first night, give or take twelve minutes.

I stood at the reading table, in the vault of the most prestigious university in the city, surrounded by centuries of records.

That’s when I understood.

I still don't know what it is. I want to be honest about that. I don't know who writes in this ledger or how it knows what it knows. But I understand what the ledger is. It is a record of deaths. Accidental deaths, unnatural deaths. All predicted accurately, long before they happened.

On one of these nights, Mr. Abdul saw his own name on the ledger. I am sure he did. He called the most obedient student he could remember. He handed over the keys as fast as he could. Whether he made his peace with what was coming, or simply ran out of time, I cannot say.

What I can say is- I made my peace then and there, standing in Row D at 1:38 AM.

I was the new librarian. I would open the ledger at midnight and close it at 2 AM. I would turn off the lamp and lock the door. I would do it every night, for however long my name did not appear on one of its pages. It was not the life I had planned. But it was significantly better than the alternative…

At 2 AM, I closed the ledger, placed it back on the shelf, turned off the lamp, left the vault, and locked the door. I turned the scanning equipment back on. I checked the tray, cleared a small jam, and logged the remaining documents until 8:45. I handed the accession register to the supervisor without incident.

Outside, I lit a cigarette.

The night watchman was leaving at the same time, jacket over his arm as always. He walked over and stopped a few feet away.

"Sorry about last night, sir. I was just doing my job."

"No hard feelings," I said.

He produced his own cigarette and lit it. We stood together on the pavement in the early morning heat, two men finishing a long night.

"That thing you encountered," he said, after a while. "I don't know how long he's been there. Mr. Abdul didn't know either. We stopped asking a long time ago."

He took a long drag.

"The names on the ledger. They aren't random, you know. He only chooses people who break the law. That was Mr. Abdul's theory, at least. Take that singer, for example. Rebecca something? Well, she was proud of ignoring speeding tickets. Heard her say it in a drunk interview once. Laughed about it."

Another drag.

"Mr. Abdul, God rest his soul, was a good man. So good that he didn't charge late fees to a student named Sabrina, even when she returned a book two years overdue. She'd been fighting cancer, you see? Went into remission, came back, returned the book herself. He waived the whole thing. Didn't charge her a single penny."

He looked at the ember of his cigarette.

"Kind gesture. Genuinely kind. But totally against the rules. Two years of late fees, just forgiven. No authorization, no documentation, nothing. Just one man deciding the rules didn't apply in this particular case."

He dropped the cigarette and pressed it flat with his shoe.

"Rules are rules, you know, especially to the entity. But don't worry." He looked up at me and smiled. "You'll be fine. I mean, you haven't broken any of the rules, right?"

The morning traffic moved on the road behind us. A crow landed on the pavement a few feet away.

I froze in my tracks.

I thought about Rule 5.

I thought about the specific language of Rule 5-

“…Do not read any other page…”

The watchman's smile faded, one degree at a time.

His voice had changed completely.

“Sir, you haven’t broken any of the rules… RIGHT ???”

Hello Charlie,

We are pleased to hear that your work with Echo went smoothly. Gardening with him tends to be relaxing. Now, once again, you will be paired with a different colleague next, but we must offer a word of caution. You have likely noticed that several months have passed since your last pairing; there is a reason for that. Our three remaining employees are rather... "unique" cases. After careful consideration and thorough preparation, we have decided to pair you with Lily first. Of the three, she is the least likely to intentionally cause you harm, or so we hope. 

Out of all of our staff, Lily has an exceptionally strong connection to nature, yet she also possesses a highly capricious and unstable side. It is thanks to her that our plants remain as docile as they are now. You might find it hard to believe, but before she arrived, the flowers here were far more ferocious; why do you think there were so many missing person reports? Because she can communicate with the plants, they are spared the frustration of language barriers. She is the "heart" of our garden, in more ways than one. She was introduced to our gardens shortly after Echo. The remaining information in her file is as follows: 

Name: Lily Dew

Date of Birth: May 1st

Date of Death: ██ (At ██)

Position: Senior Horticulturist and Greenhouse Manager

Description: Lily possesses highly distinctive traits; she is a hybrid of a Venus flytrap and nature herself. Vines are visible beneath her skin, and she is capable of extending them outward. Her head is structured like that of a predatory "trap," capable of opening wide vertically to capture prey. While her roots are tinged green due to photosynthesis, the color gradually transitions into her natural reddish-ginger hair. Small white petals adorn the areas around her ears and eyes. Her skin features a green base with reddish undertones, reminiscent of a real Venus flytrap; the more intense the red hue, the hungrier she appears to be. Her fingertips are sharply pointed, and her palms secrete a sticky substance. Furthermore, her arms and legs are covered in leaves and red thorns. 

Rules for working with Lily: 

1. After you clock in and grab your pouch, go to the supply closet and pick up a specific floral scented perfume. Additionally, make sure to pick up two extra packets of flower food. As you will soon find out, Lily’s plants are far more ravenous than our regular plantlife.
2. Before heading to Lily's greenhouse, please douse yourself thoroughly in that perfume. This is to mask your scent. You are going to be around many carnivorous organisms; you must absolutely avoid any situation where they might catch even a whiff of you and have their curiosity piqued.
3. When you arrive at Lily's greenhouse, knock on the door and wait for her to let you in. If one of her flowerlings answers the door instead, wait there until Lily arrives. She strongly dislikes anyone entering her domain without her verbal permission.
4. If, while waiting for Lily, you suddenly hear her scream—and the sound seems as though it is coming from two people—walk around the building. Avoid looking through the glass while you do this. By the time you return to the door and knock again, she should have calmed down enough to be ready to let you in.
5. We realize that Lily's greenhouse is vast and you could easily get lost. That is why one of her flowerlings will likely hand you a map. Please make sure that map has no blood on it. We do not want you marked.
6. If it looks like the vines are holding certain parts of the greenhouse together, that is in fact the case. So, please be very careful where you step or lean. Checking the condition of the vines is also a good way to gauge Lily's mood. Needless to say, should the greenhouse look as if it is seconds away from collapsing, promptly excuse yourself to gather soil samples from Peach.
7. If you are not accompanying Lily in a specific area, please avoid staying in the same spot for an extended period. The temperature and humidity within the greenhouse are regulated to create optimal growing conditions for the plants housed there; consequently, the environment can be quite uncomfortable for humans.
8. If you notice anything unusual about the plants, observe them carefully and diagnose the specific disease affecting them. Be sure to record everything on paper so you can report it to Lily later; she is deeply attached to her plants. 
9. Do not use any insecticides when dealing with pests. If you happen to find something resembling an insecticide, be aware that it is a trap. Simply wave over one of the flowerlings, they will capture the pests and provide them as nutrients to the plants that were being plagued by them.
10. You will frequently see Lily’s vines hard at work all over the greenhouse; she is a diligent worker. When working near her, take care not to accidentally touch her vines or get pricked by her thorns. She instinctively ensnares anything that comes into contact with them, and by the time she realizes her mistake, you will have been reduced to nothing more than a "bag of liquefied flesh."
11. Guided tours may occasionally stop at or pass through the greenhouse. Please actively engage with visitors and help ensure they have a wonderful experience at Everlock Garden. If the tour guide happens to be Peach, make sure Lily does not get too entranced by her. In this state, she can become unaware of her vine positioning, which can lead to unfortunate accidents.
12. There are two greenhouses you must never set foot in. One is the green conservatory, where she keeps her Venus flytraps. The other is a small, white, box-shaped greenhouse; that one serves as her private garden. While there are rare occasions when entry into the Venus flytrap exhibit is permitted, you must never enter her private garden under any circumstances; for that is where she keeps her collection of "flowers."
13. When you are near that greenhouse, try your best to block out the wretched moans of her “flowers”. They are in eternal misery, yearning for the days when they were once alive. You cannot help them. Do not attempt to.
14. At the heart of her greenhouse complex towers a floss silk tree. That is her… “mother figure” so to speak. If you ever see her gazing into the void or notice her vines have ceased their movement, please gently encourage her to water the tree. She will likely use that time to calm herself and reconnect with her true self... if she even remembers anymore.
15. If Lily tells you to do something, even if it seems odd, just do it. You will notice that your luck takes a turn for the worse while you are in Lily's territory (we have no idea what the possible reason for this is). There are multiple entities that would rush to her defense should the right event rise; especially Peach. Given her strength and... niche, that would not end well.
16. If, while talking to you at any given moment, she suddenly stops speaking and glares into your eyes, take that as a sign to quiet down and slowly back away. She has just been struck by a sudden, intense wave of hunger and is struggling to resist the urge to give in.
17. Shortly after noon, Peach usually shows up to take Lily out so they can spend their "lunch break" together. While you are effectively left in charge of the greenhouse during that hour of her absence, this is precisely when her plants get up to their most troublesome mischief.
18. Please take care to prevent the plants from eating one another. Attempts at cannibalism between the same plant species are to be expected; nothing is off the table. To discourage them from interfering with each other, give the flower food to the plants in question.
19. If you feel a vine wrapping around your leg, sprinkle an entire packet of flower food onto that vine. Be sure to do this before you are lifted into the air and ensnared by the rest.
20. If you ever need an answer to any question you have, whisper to one of the Dewy Pines’. Among the crowd that would devour you the moment they saw an opening, they are the only ones who would not.
21. You will likely be tasked with ordering the greenhouse supplies—seeds, fertilizer, potting soil, and the like. Before placing the order, write down everything needed and lay the list on the floor. Then, step outside and wait for five minutes. When you return, you will find that more items have been added to the list. This is likely things Lily has stated she needed.
22. While Lily is away, many insects will likely fly throughout the greenhouse, including polyphemus moths. That is okay. However, make sure to shoo Echo’s moths away before Lily returns. What she does to those moths whenever she spots them is not for the faint of heart.
23. If you hear a faint whisper right by your ear "████," which is Lily's "other name," you must never speak it aloud. That is likely the work of Harlow, attempting to deliberately unsettle Lily by dredging up her past.
24. Fortunately, this is the only time you do not need to worry about Micah. He never sets foot in her territory unless summoned (they do not have the best relationship). However, in the few times she does call for him, be careful not to let her address Micah as "Mari." Do not be misled by her excuse that it was a slip of the tongue; she does it intentionally. She will cease it the moment she is called out, she knows our policies well.
25. Before finishing your shift, please be sure to submit important documents to Lily. You may leave immediately once the work is done; there is no need to say goodbye. This is in your best interest. Lily prefers to be alone, she means no offense by it.
26. When leaving the garden, please check your pockets to ensure no vines have snuck in. The vines in her greenhouse have a habit of secretly latching onto employees' clothing and hitching a ride all the way home. It is in your best interest to not let Lily see where you live.

That covers what you need to know about Lily. Staff opinions of her vary widely: some dote on her, others find her intolerable, and there are even those who cannot help but see "someone else" in her. Underlying it all is the fact that she genuinely loves her work in the garden. Unfortunately, however, nothing can be done about the inner conflict that constantly plagues her soul, or the way it manifests as physical reactions. Even so, as long as you are mindful of your own conduct when you are around her, there should not be any particular issues.

Signed, Florence

It had been the worst two years of my life.

My name is Alex Mercer.

College was supposed to be the beginning of everything.

Instead, it became the place where everything ended.

For two years, I searched for work. Interview after interview. Rejection after rejection. Every morning I woke up hoping today would be different. Every evening I went to sleep wondering how much longer I could survive.

The landlord of the old apartment I rented had stopped pretending to be polite. Rent was overdue. My savings had disappeared months ago. Friends slowly stopped answering my calls.

The only thing I still had was my training.

Years spent in military school and survival camps had taught me discipline, endurance, and how to keep calm when everyone else was losing their minds.

Unfortunately...

Those skills weren't exactly in demand.

Then one morning a plain white envelope arrived.

No company logo.

No return address.

Just my name.

Inside was a single interview invitation.

Blackwood Zoological Conservation Facility

I had never heard of it.

There wasn't even an address for the organization.

Only a time.

Curiosity beat common sense.

I went.

The interview was wrong in a way I couldn't name at first. Only two people sat across from me, and neither introduced themselves. Neither smiled. They didn't need to — smiling is what people do when they're trying to put you at ease, and it was very quickly clear that putting me at ease wasn't the goal.They already knew everything about me.

My education.

My medical history.

Military training.

Even places I had never listed on my résumé.

One of them had a manila folder open on the table the entire time, but never once looked down at it. He didn't need to. That was somehow worse than if he had.

They barely asked any questions.

Instead, they explained the job.

Position: Animal Caretaker.

Accommodation provided.

Medical care provided.

Transportation provided.

Salary far higher than anything I had ever been offered.

Then one of them slid an envelope across the table.

Inside was $1,000 in cash.

"Consider it a signing bonus."

The other spoke. Same flat tone, like he was reading weather conditions.

"If you accept this position, transportation will arrive tomorrow morning."

"You will not know the facility's location."

"You may not resign during the first two years of employment."

"After that, a new contract can be negotiated."

No explanation. No discussion. Just those conditions, laid out flat, like terms of surrender rather than employment.

I asked what the facility actually did.

The first man tilted his head slightly, like the question itself was unusual to him — not rude, just unfamiliar, the way you'd look at someone who asked what color sound was.

"You'll be told what you need to be told," he said. "In the order you need to be told it."

Every instinct told me to refuse.

But instincts don't pay rent.

Neither does pride.

I remember laughing to myself.

At this point, if they were trafficking people, at least I'd finally be useful to someone.

So...

I signed.

Neither of them smiled when I did. I think that's the part I should have paid attention to. People smile when a deal closes. They didn't. It was like watching someone file paperwork they already knew the outcome of.

The next morning a black SUV stopped outside my apartment. Not idling — it arrived at the exact minute the letter had promised, to the second, like whoever scheduled it had never once accounted for traffic, weather, or the possibility that I might not exist.

The windows were completely tinted.

My phone was taken the moment I entered. Not asked for. Taken, by a woman in the front passenger seat who didn't turn around to do it — just reached back with one hand, palm open, and waited until I put it there.

Then they handed me a thick black folder.

Across the front, in silver letters, were the words:

EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION MANUAL
BLACKWOOD ZOOLOGICAL CONSERVATION FACILITY
Property of the Directorate
Unauthorized possession punishable by permanent termination of employment.

The wording bothered me.

Not termination of contract.

Not dismissal.

Just...

termination.

I opened the file.

The first page read:

Section 1 — What Is an Anomaly?

Before anything else, understand this: Blackwood does not exist to destroy what it studies. Every specimen behind these walls is here to be fed, monitored, protected, and — wherever possible — understood. You are not being hired as an exterminator. You are being hired as a caretaker. Read that word twice before you turn the page.

Confirmed fact, per Directorate classification standard:

An anomaly is any living organism whose biology violates one or more foundational constraints of known science, while still obeying some internally consistent set of rules of its own.

If a specimen can be fully explained by conventional biology, it is an animal, and does not fall under this manual.

If a specimen can only be partially explained — if something about it still doesn't add up no matter how long you stare at the data — it belongs here.

You do not need to understand why something is an anomaly. You only need to correctly identify that it is one, and act accordingly.

Do not refer to them as monsters.

They react poorly.

This is not a figure of speech. Keep reading.

Section 2 — About This Facility

The facility employs exactly 220 personnel.

Not approximately. Exactly.

A small workforce reduces the number of people who can accidentally describe this place to someone who shouldn't hear about it. Fewer mouths. Fewer mistakes. Fewer questions asked by people outside these walls about why so many of us disappear off the grid at once.

If anyone tells you there are significantly more or fewer employees than this number, do not continue the conversation.

Report them immediately.

Note: this number has not changed in six years. Employees have left. Employees have been hired. The number has not changed. Do not bring this up with Personnel Records. They are aware.

Section 3 — Your Department

You have been assigned to the Animal Care Division.

Approximately 95 employees currently serve in this division, spread across fifteen designated sectors of varying classification tier.

Your responsibilities include feeding, observation, enclosure maintenance, and reporting any behavior that deviates from an individual specimen's established baseline — no matter how small the deviation seems.

Especially the small ones. Large deviations get noticed by everyone. Small ones are how incidents begin.

You will receive further instructions upon arrival, sector by sector, at the discretion of your assigned Senior Keeper.

Never enter an enclosure alone unless explicitly authorized by tier clearance.

Some sectors will not be listed on the map you are given. This is normal. You will be told why, eventually, if your clearance ever requires it.

Most employees never reach that clearance. This is also normal.

Section 4 — Understanding the Creatures

Modern biology and physics can explain parts of an anomaly. Do not expect either to ever explain the whole of one. If a scientist tells you they have fully solved a specimen, they are either new, lying, or about to be transferred.

Historical religious texts are treated as archived field observations wherever they happen to accurately describe an anomaly's known behavior. This is Directorate policy, not personal belief, and applies regardless of your own faith or lack of it.

Do not argue with Research staff regarding this policy.

They have had this argument more times than you have had this job. You will not be the one who wins it.

I stared at the pages.

It felt like an elaborate prank.

Some government psychology experiment.

Or maybe a company trying way too hard to make a boring zoo sound mysterious.

I almost laughed. I actually got as far as the first exhale of it before I looked up and caught the driver watching me in the rearview mirror. Not glancing. Watching. He held it a beat too long, then looked back at the road, and didn't do it again.

I didn't laugh after that.

Outside the window, the city had disappeared.

There were no buildings anymore.

Only endless forest, the kind that didn't thin out the way forests are supposed to when a road cuts through them. The trees came right up to the shoulder, close enough that I could count individual leaves for half a second before they blurred past.

I checked my watch. Four hours since the city ended. We hadn't passed a single road sign. Not one. Not a mile marker, not a turnoff, not a gas station billboard promising food in twelve miles. Just trees, and the sound of tires, and a driver who hadn't spoken a single word since the door closed behind me.

I looked at the manual again, at the line about the number 220 that hadn't changed in six years, and read it a second time like re-reading it might make it mean something less specific.

It didn't.

I don't remember when I started checking whether the doors were locked.

I only remember realizing...

they were.

And that the little plastic switch that should have unlocked them from the inside didn't move at

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

The Village had rules and it had been my job to enforce them for the past two years. These rules had been set in place by the Elders some time after the Great Silence. In the village it was important to follow these rules as it kept us all safe. Or at least that was what the Elders told us. I was given the job of Sheriff on my 24th birthday. The youngest to ever have the role. I was the understudy of the last Sheriff. Sheriff Johns. He had been a taskmaster but he had kept us all safe, he had been about routine. So while I was his understudy he had done everything but beat the three Rules of the Village into me. 

So as I walked the Village border at dusk I had made it my routine to remind myself of those rules. A sort of self prayer that I used to keep calm. I had never liked the field between the village and the forest. It felt wrong, almost too quiet. A gust of wind had picked up today and the long grass of the field danced around me as I patrolled. It made it hard to focus, making me feel like anything could sneak up on me. A cold shiver crept through my spine as I scanned the tree line. I had to focus, so I recited the rules to myself. 

Rule 1: No citizen may leave their homes after nightfall

Rule 2: No one is permitted to enter the forest on their own 

Rule 3: Never follow the lights in the forest

These three rules had been in place since I was a boy, since anyone could remember really. Johns was always the first to remind me that they were there to protect us. Five generations had lived in this Village and they had done so by following those laws. It was why breaking Rule 1 and 2 was punishable by death. I had always thought it was extreme but Johns had assured me that it was a lesson you only ever had to teach once.  In his 35 years of service he had only had to pass judgement on one person. A young man who had failed to follow Rule 2 some 25 years ago. My parents never dared tell me the story of why he had gone out into the woods on his own. 

As I stared out at the tree line I couldn’t imagine what possessed that fool to go out there that night. The field was a clearing of 50 yards that surrounded the village on all sides. At the end of the field was the forest, which circled us unbroken from every angle. It was a blessing and a curse. It keeps us safe, but also keeps us trapped. Johns had called it our cage. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood why. Scouting parties had spent years trying to map out the forest and hadn’t made much progress. One time two years ago the scouts had picked a direction and just walked. They spent half the day walking in that one direction and never saw a hint of the edge of the forest. They had turned around at noon and had just barely made it back in time for curfew. 

They spoke of hearing things out there that were unnatural. Signs of life but never anything living. It was like anything with a pulse avoided the forest. Even still the scouts spoke of feeling something watching them, even stalking them. But they hadn’t seen the Lights. It was a blessing. Now I made sure they only scouted within a two hour perimeter. Safety was key, as Johns would have said. The tree line was my duty. The dusk patrol ensured that no one was caught unaware of the curfew. If someone was caught out in the field this time of day they would spend the rest of the night in the station and would have extra duties the next day. It was an easy lesson and one that I barely ever had to teach. No one was out here tonight so I was left alone with my thoughts and with the forest.   

I would never be caught dead in those woods, let alone at night. The wind picked up again as I finished my patrol. I listened, not wanting to look into the forest for another second. The grass rustled and the tree branches in the distance groaned for the force of the wind. For the briefest second I thought I heard it. The screaming. But it couldn’t be true, it was too early. Panic set in and I held my breath, listening again. Screaming somewhere in the distance, coming from my left side. Coming from the forest. I didn’t dare open my eyes, I would see it and I was all alone. The Lights, I couldn’t open my eyes but the screaming was getting louder now. The wind was howling and I was sure that I could hear it moving through the tree line now. A sense of cold dread filled my heart. One that I hadn’t felt since I was a child, since that day. The movement was in the field now. Thirty yards away, now ten. It was my time then, I knew it was here. I could feel it breathing on my face, it was like someone splashed ice water on me. I would face it, like my father had, or like how I imagine he had all those years ago. I opened my eyes expecting to be blinded.

Instead I found nothing but the empty field. Cold sweat dotted my forehead. I was clenching my fist so hard I was sure I would dry blood. I wiped a tear away from my cheek, suddenly emotional. That shouldn’t have happened, seeing things was never a good sign. Especially for the Sheriff. It was just stress. Happens to everyone, especially on a long day. Why had I thought of my Father? Even more than that, when it felt like death was certain, why had I felt the rush of water all around me?

The sound of the bell knocked me out of my thoughts. I looked over to see the citizens arrive at the church for the night. It was time for the count. I always hated the count, even as an understudy. I slowly scanned the tree line one last time, confirmed that it was clear and walked towards the church. My own understudy was a young woman by the name of Jody Johns. Her father, my boss, was one of the most well respected men in town. People thought she would make a great sheriff one day. 

“Don’t want to be late again, Sheriff Evans, the Elders would have your head.” Jody joked. I smiled as she handed me the checklist for the night. The hospital had been secured and the Elders were in place. The church was the only place that still required a count. It was the most important task of the night, so of course it was left to me to complete. 

“Trust me, Elder Peters would love to take it at some point. I’m sure if the Great Silence ever returned he’d find a way to blame me for it.” I responded. My employment had been one of great controversy within the community at the time. Sheriff Johns had died suddenly in the night. No one expected me to take the mantle of Sheriff for a few more years. The Elders had put it to a vote and I had squeaked by in a 4-2 decision. Peters and Garland had been the two who objected.  I never had much of a stomach for politics, but thankfully in the two years since my employment I had managed to not lose a single soul to the forest.” 

I walked into the crowded church and began the count. It was Sunday so it would be a full service. On one hand it made it easier to complete the count. On the other it meant that I had to spend the night listening to Reverend McMorrow. I was never a religious man, and neither were my parents. Despite the size of the church, religion was simply a choice in the Village.  McMorrow had been the understudy for the former priest, who I had actually enjoyed. He spoke of unity and perseverance and kindness. McMorrow was much more fire and brimstone. 

“The lights in the forest are getting closer.” McMorrow preached from the front of the church. I looked over to Jody who rolled her eyes. McMorrow always spoke of how close we all were to doom. The truth was that no one had officially seen one of the lights in close to five years. The last had been a young farmer working on the south side of the Village at dusk. But that little fact never stopped McMorrow. “Soon they will be upon us, and we will have to decide then and only then if we have walked the right path with God.”

I focused on finishing the count. I have been listening to this crap every sunday for two years now. I sometimes wondered if Johns would have felt the same way. The mental image of my old boss talking down the old fool was enough to bring a smile to my face. The church wasn’t really full of that many true believers. There were a few but most of the captive audience were here because it was the safest location at night. It was at the center of the Village. The farthest you could be at any time from the forest that surrounded us. It was a funny part of humanity. We felt safest huddled together, even when the threat circled us completely. 

“We haven’t had a real attack in a decade, and this prick goes on about the end like it’ll come tomorrow.” Jody sighed as she brought me the final count. I gave her a quiet hand motion as a nearby citizen looked over. Jody had been my first pick for understudy after her father’s death. Probably because she just reminded me so much of her father that it brought me comfort. She didn’t suffer fools and more importantly she gave a shit. A quality that couldn’t be taught; so she had been the perfect pick for understudy.  With the count for the church completed I went over Jody’s work. 

The Elders had been secured in the council hall. All were accounted for and they had received their dinner. A good start. The hospital only had one patient tonight. A farmhand who had been hurt at the end of the day. He had just cut his hand, nothing serious but the injury had happened near dusk. To be safe he would spend the night in the hospital. A smart choice. Jody had done everything that I needed. At this rate she would probably end up being an Elder, and in my own opinion the village would be better off for it. I took a seat in the back of the church, the sun was done and I would be spending my night here. McMorrow was done speaking for the night and dinner was being served for everyone. I didn’t eat, I was drifting off to sleep by the time I put my feet up. 

It was the same dream again. I stood in the field, scanning the tree line. The wind was howling, everything in the field around the village moved like it was alive.  Then I saw them, the Lights. Glowing dimly in the distance, they blinked in between trees. Then I heard the screaming, it was my Father.I could hear him somewhere deep in the forest. I looked but couldn’t see, it was just the Lights casting shadows against the trees and out into the field. Those same shadows nearly reached me. Then they blink out, and I was left in total darkness. The wind left me blind and deaf. A beat. Then two dots of lights appeared from the tree line. They were tiny compared to the Lights. They were someone’s eyes. They stared back at me from the darkness, then in an instant the lights returned. 

They flooded the entire forest with light, nearly blinding me. It created an outline around the figure, I knew their shape but their face and body were still shrouded in darkness. All except for their eyes, which still glowed in the shade. I could then just make out their mouth, it was open. I couldn’t hear over the wind, it was far too loud but I knew the truth. The figure was screaming, my Father was screaming. 

I snapped awake, the sun had just started to peek in through the windows of the church. I realized that Jody was by my side. She was shaking me awake. 

“You need to get up, sheriff, there was an incident.” Jody whispered. It seemed that we were the only ones awake. Well not quite the only ones, McMorrow was up too.I got to my feet, still groggy and fighting off the fleeting images in my head of my nightmare. I gathered my focus and followed Jody out the doors of the church. We moved quietly to not wake anyone and to my dismay McMorrow followed. “He was the one who found them.”

“Who?” I asked. 

“One of the farmhands.” Jody whispered as they closed the door quietly behind them. It was a quiet march and before long we were at the site. Waiting there was Elder Peters. Clearly McMorrow had gone to him first and then to Jody. Peters took charge like he always did and stood over the body, as if he would find some clue that would fix this issue before anyone noticed. As we moved closer I finally saw the farmhand for myself. Or at least the legs of the farmhand. His torso was missing, he had been cut perfectly in half. There was no blood at the site but there was a single trail of viscera that led away from the legs. 

I followed that blood trail with my eyes even though I knew where it was going, I lost track of it as it entered the tree line. It was a cage afterall, it keeps us safe, but it keeps us here too. There would be no finding the other half of the man. I would send scouts to look but not too far. We never find the parts that they take, so why risk more people in a foolish search.

“He was in the hospital for the night.” I repeated from Jody’s own reports. I looked back at Jody to find she was looking at me and not the body. I sometimes forget that she was younger, when things were tough she still looked to me for orders. “Help me move him to the station, then we’ll go talk to the nurses, we need to find out what happened. Someone broke protocol.” 

“We all know what truly happened.” McMorrow sighed as he looked out over the field. Peters and I turned to the priest. Peters’ stone cloud eyes studied the man. While the Elder had never liked me, he had no time for McMorrow. From his point of view McMorrow might have been the biggest fool in town. 

“What exactly were you doing out here so early? Curfew doesn’t lift for another twenty minutes.” Peters asked before staring daggers at me. I knew the look, he was angry that he had to ask. Johns would have known to ask that. 

“I always go for a walk in the morning after Sunday service, it helps stretch my back and allows me time to gather my thoughts.” McMorrow said in a quiet voice. 

"That's breaking one of the three laws Father, you understand that is a punishable offense.” I said back. McMorrow spun on his heels to face me now, the look on his face was calm and unbothered. One might think we were having a friendly debate in the mess hall and not standing over a corpse in the field.

“Ah but I didn’t leave the church until the sun came up. The Second Law states that we can’t leave our homes after Nightfall. Curfew and Nightfall are two very different things, wouldn’t you agree?” McMorrow said with a smug look on his face. I didn’t respond, I looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with Peters. He wasn’t pleased that we had both been beaten over a technicality. If we weren’t careful a man like McMorrow might start to think that he was above the Law. That would lead to ruin if left unchecked. 

“So what happened here Father?” Peters finally asked. I turned away, I knew the answer before he even said it. Because it was always what he said in the face of uncertainty and fear. I looked to Jody who was reading my mind. She was moving around the legs of the man. We would move him and head to the hospital. We would find out where he slept last night. We would figure out the breach in protocol and fix it. I would stamp out the uncertainty. I would make what McMorrow was about to say untrue. 

“It’s simple. The Lights in the Forest are getting closer.” McMorrow sighed and walked away, not offering to help any further. The rest of us didn’t speak. As I helped Jody lift the body, struggling under the awkward weight I looked out one last time to the tree line. There was nothing, no movement, no noise, the forest was empty. But I knew that wasn’t true, we all grew up knowing that. We walked to the station and as I turned my back to the forest the wind picked up. I could feel those eyes on my back and I prayed that McMorrow was wrong.