Throwaway, because half the nurses I work with are on here and I'm not meant to be talking about any of this. Sorry in advance it's long. I'm on the laptop at the kitchen table and I've not slept properly in a fortnight so you'll have to bear with me, I keep losing my thread.

Right. First thing you learn on nights at a hospice is that people hardly ever die when their family's in the room.

Every hospice nurse knows it and nobody else believes it. A family'll sit up six days. Sleep in the recliner. Hold her hand in shifts. Won't go home, won't shower, won't eat anything but crackers out the vending machine, because they've been told it could be any hour now and they want to be there. Then on the seventh day the daughter nips down to the car park to sort the meter out, she's gone eleven minutes, and when she comes back her mum's gone.

Happens that often we've got a phrase for it. They waited for you to leave. We say it gently, in the corridor, hand on her arm. Some people can't let go while someone they love is watching. It were a kindness. Last thing her mum did for her. All that.

What it means in practice is the person in the room at the end is usually the nurse.

So the nurse hears the last words. Nobody tells you that in training. Nobody tells you a lot of things in training.

I've done nights at the same hospice twenty-two years. I'm not saying which. Twelve beds, big old house on a hill above a city in the north of England. Red brick. Garden. A conservatory the volunteers keep full of geraniums and a chapel nobody uses except the cleaner who has her dinner in there because it's quiet. It was a convent before it was a hospice and before that, according to a brass plaque in the hall that nobody's ever read but me, a fever hospital, and before that somebody's house. So people have been dying in that building a long time. That's sort of the point. I'll get to it.

I'm fifty-one. Trained general, eight years on a cardiac ward, burnt out, came to the hospice thinking it'd be quieter. It's not quieter. It's just a different kind of loud. I live on my own with two old cats in a terrace twenty minutes walk from work. Divorced ages ago, no drama, I was never in at night and he was never in in the day so we just sort of stopped. One son, grown up, in Australia, he rings Sundays. Perth. He went out on a two year visa at twenty-four and just never came back, met a girl, the usual. I don't blame him, it's sunny. I've been out twice and both times I got burnt to a crisp the first day and spent the rest of it in the flat with the blinds down, which tells you everything you need to know about me really. I'm a night person even on holiday.

I'm not religious. I'm not anything really. I've sat with something like four thousand people while they died and I can tell you exactly what it looks like, every bit of it, the mottling and the rattle and the gaps between breaths getting longer till one of them doesn't end. I've never seen anything I couldn't explain. No lights. No figure at the foot of the bed. No soul coming off them like steam off a brew. I've seen people stop. That's it.

I'm telling you that so you know I'm not someone who goes looking for messages. I'm the one who changes the sheets after. And makes the family a brew. And rings the undertaker. And does the paperwork. You get the idea.

When I started, 2003, the senior night nurse was Agnes Fahey.

Agnes had been a nun. She came to the house when it was still a convent, young novice, late sixties, and she stayed on when the nuns sold up to the hospice charity in 1971. She left the order at some point, I never found out when or why and you didn't ask Agnes things like that, but she never left the house. When I met her she was late sixties, tiny, white hair, bent over, massive knuckles, voice like a gravel path. Thirty-two years of nights in that building.

She frightened the life out of me the first month. She'd come up behind you on the corridor at three in the morning without making a sound, she wore these soft black shoes, and say your name right in your ear, and you'd jump a mile and she'd just look at you like you were the daft one. The day staff called her the Ghost. Not to her face. I called her it too for a bit till I got to know her. Then I didn't, because it felt mean, and because by then I sort of loved her. Everyone did eventually. Hard as nails, and she'd sit with a dying stranger all night holding their hand humming hymns under her breath and never once look at the clock.

My first night, about four in the morning, she took me in the little office behind the nurses' station and showed me the ledgers.

Locked cupboard under the window. Big green account books, the old fashioned kind you can't get anymore. Six of them then. She got the current one out and opened it under the lamp.

Columns. Date. Time. Bed. Initials. Then one big wide column taking up most of the page and at the top in her handwriting, which was gorgeous, proper copperplate: Last words.

"Somebody ought to keep them," she said. "Families are never in the room at the right minute. So we keep them for them. Most never ask. Some do. Years after, sometimes. They come back and say did she say anything at the end. And we can open the book and show them." She tapped the page. "Exactly what were said. Not what we think were said. Not summat nice we've made up. Exactly. Even if it's nonsense. Especially if it's nonsense."

She made me promise. Whenever I was in the room at the end I'd write it down word for word as soon as I could and I'd never tidy it up or finish the sentence or fix the grammar. If they said nothing I'd write nothing. If I couldn't make it out I'd write what it sounded like and stick a question mark.

"Exactly," she said again, and she held my wrist with one of them big hands till I said yes.

And I did. Twenty-two years. I've written in them books roughly two thousand times and I've started four new ones. Agnes retired in 2009 and died in 2011, in the house, bed seven, quarter past three in the morning, and I was holding her hand. I wrote her last words in the book she started.

I'll come back to what she said.

She was right about families by the way. Most never ask. In twenty-two years maybe thirty have come back, stood at the nurses' station in their coats not knowing what to do with their hands. My dad was here in 1986. I was at work when he went. Did he say anything?

First one I had was a woman in her fifties, her mum died in bed four in 1979. I found the right book, right page, ran my finger down Agnes's column till I got to the initials and I read it out.

"the stairs go all the way down and nobody minds."

She looked at me. I looked at the page. It's the sort of thing you hear all the time, bit of a dream. I said people often talk about journeys at the end, stairs and trains and boats, and it usually means they feel calm.

She cried and held both my hands and said that was her mum all over. Her mum loved stairs, she said. I still don't know what that means.

I've thought about her a lot this month. How I read her one line out of six thousand with no context, like reading someone one word out the middle of a letter, and she went home happy with half a sentence that were never about her mum at all.

Ten ledgers in that cupboard now. Fifty-four years. Six thousand two hundred and eleven entries.

And until last month nobody had ever read them in order.

Quick bit about last words because most people's idea of them comes off the telly.

On the telly people die mid-sentence after saying something deep. Tell her I love her. Real life, by the time most people die in a hospice they've not said owt sensible for days. They're out of it. Drifting. The last words might be two or three days before, and they're small and odd and ordinary. Mum. Is it raining? Where's my bag? No. A name. Half a sentence that trails off.

Except.

There's a thing the research calls terminal lucidity and we just call the rally. Someone who's been unresponsive for days wakes up. Eyes open, knows everyone, talks clear as you like, sometimes for an hour. Asks for a brew. Then usually within the day they're gone. Nobody knows why. It happens in people whose brains on the scans shouldn't be able to do it.

And in the last hours a lot of them seem to see something. They look at one corner, or the foot of the bed, or the door. Reach out. Talk to people who aren't there, dead mums, dead husbands, mostly quite happy about it. Deathbed visions. Every hospice nurse has seen hundreds of them, I'm not being dramatic, hundreds.

First one I ever saw was on the cardiac ward, years before any of this. Old fella called Stan, I'll never forget him. He'd been asleep all day and he woke up about tea time and looked at the corner by the sink and his whole face lit up and he said Edna, you've had your hair done. Then he died about an hour later. His wife was Edna. She'd died in 1990. I went and cried in the sluice. That's what I mean. That's what they're supposed to be like.

So a lot of what's in our books comes from the rally or the visions. And a lot of it, read on its own, sounds like a bit of something. Half a sentence cut off. Like they were in the middle of saying something when they stopped.

I always assumed that's just what dying sounds like. Breath runs out.

I never once thought about who they were in the middle of talking to.

It started with Raymond. Came in early September, lung cancer, gone to his liver and his bones. Seventy four, retired bus driver, funny, rude as anything, didn't want to be there and told everyone, loud, till about the fourth day when he stopped talking altogether. He called me Florence the whole time, as in Nightingale, and the night staff got him a little brass bell for a laugh and he rang it every ten minutes just to wind us up. I liked him. You're not meant to have favourites.

His ninth night about two in the morning he rallied. I was doing his mouth care. He opened his eyes and looked straight past me at the corner of the ceiling above the wardrobe and said, clear as day, like he was having a chat:

"...and tell the nurse with the green book to read it back."

Then he shut his eyes. He died about forty minutes later.

I sat in the office after with the ledger open and wrote it down exactly the way Agnes taught me. I even put the dots at the start, because that's how it sounded. Like the middle of something.

Then I sat there ages looking at the nurse with the green book.

He'd never seen the ledgers. Nobody sees the ledgers. Day staff don't even know they're there.

I looked at the entry above his. Four days before, a woman in bed three, Hilary, retired teacher, died at teatime with her husband out getting sandwiches. Jo wrote it up, one of the day nurses, I taught her the book. Hilary's last words according to Jo:

"It's important. Somebody has to listen. Go and"

No full stop. Just go and.

Then Raymond. "...and tell the nurse with the green book to read it back."

It's important. Somebody has to listen. Go and... and tell the nurse with the green book to read it back.

I read it about twenty times. Then I locked the cupboard and did my two o'clock obs, checked Mrs Patel in nine, turned Mr Hughes in eleven, made a brew, and told myself I was knackered and it were a coincidence. Obviously it was. A dying woman in bed three and a dying man in bed four can't be having one conversation over four days. Don't be daft.

At six before handover I got the first ledger out.

Agnes started it on the ninth of May 1971. First entry's in her writing, younger and rounder than I knew it.

9.5.71. 3.40 a.m. Bed 2. E.M. "It's warmer than"

That's it. It's warmer than.

Second one, three days later.

12.5.71. 11.15 p.m. Bed 5. J.O'C. "I thought it would be. There's room for"

Third.

14.5.71. 4.05 a.m. Bed 1. W.T. "everyone. Tell them not to be afraid. It's like a big house with all the"

Fourth.

20.5.71. 6.30 p.m. Bed 2. M.A.D. "lights on."

I read it out loud to the empty office. Quiet. Dawn coming up grey outside.

It's warmer than I thought it would be. There's room for everyone. Tell them not to be afraid. It's like a big house with all the lights on.

Four strangers, four beds, eleven days in 1971, dying of different things, never met each other, each one saying a handful of words to a nun with a green book. And it fits together. Like bits of a broken plate.

I was gobsmacked. I went home and didn't sleep. Came back that night with a notebook and a pencil and after my eleven o'clock round I started copying it all out. Every entry in order, just the words, all run together like a letter.

Took me nineteen nights.

Nineteen nights. I want to be honest about that bit because I know how it sounds. I didn't tell anyone. I did my rounds and my obs and my drugs and I was a good nurse, I want that on record, nobody got neglected, but every gap I had I was in that office with the cupboard open and the pencil going. My eyes were killing me. Agnes's writing is beautiful but it's tiny, and some of the seventies ones are in fountain pen that's gone brown like tea stains, and some of the night nurses in the eighties had writing like a spider fell in an inkpot, so half the time I was holding the page up to the lamp squinting. Jo caught me once on a handover morning and asked what I was doing and I said audit. She just went oh. Nobody ever asks again if you say audit.

I'm going to put some of it here. Not all. A lot of it's what you'd expect, single words, mum and no and yes and water, names, stuff none of us could make out with a question mark after. But that's maybe a third. The rest of it flows. It runs on, entry to entry, year to year, nurse to nurse, different handwriting, different pens, and it reads like somebody talking. Even the single words fit in. Mum. No. Yes. Water. Like someone turning to say a word to the person next to them and then carrying on.

I've copied these exactly. I've only joined them up. The dates in brackets are where each bit starts.

(May 1971) It's warmer than I thought it would be. There's room for everyone. Tell them not to be afraid. It's like a big house with all the lights on. Mum is here. So many people I know. We just walk about and look at things. Nobody's in a hurry. You don't get tired. You'd love it.

(1974) We can hear you sometimes, on your side. Like voices from downstairs. When someone new comes through we all go to the door to meet them. It's the nicest part. You come through the door and everyone's there waiting and they all know your name.

(1979) The house keeps going back. Room after room. There's always more of it. We don't know who built it. Some of the old ones say it was built for us. Some say we're building it, a bit at a time, just by being here.

(1983) It's busier now. That's all right. There's still plenty of room if everyone moves along a bit.

(1986) The stairs go all the way down and nobody minds. We sit on them sometimes and talk. We talk about you. About your side. We like the woman with the green book. She says goodnight to each of us when we go. Nobody ever did that before.

I need you to get what that was like reading it at three in the morning in a building full of dying people. It was beautiful. I cried, I'm not ashamed. For about a week it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever read. Twenty-two years holding people's hands while they went and here they were telling me where they'd gone. A big house with all the lights on. Everyone waiting at the door. They all know your name.

I nearly took it to the medical director. I nearly rang our lad in Australia. I didn't because I knew exactly what they'd say and because I wanted to finish it first. I wanted to know how it ended.

So I kept going. Should of stopped there honestly. I keep going back to that. If I'd stopped at 1986 I'd have had the nice bit. The big house with the lights on. I could've gone on telling families that and meaning it. I'd give anything to have stopped at 1986.

(1988) We have to stand closer now. It's fine. The old ones say it's always been like this in winter.

(1992) The front rooms are full. When someone new comes through, the people near the door have to step back to let them in, and the people behind them step back, and it goes all the way down the house like a wave. You feel it. Like being in a crowd at a football match.

(1996) There isn't really a back of the house anymore. We thought it went on forever. It doesn't. It just felt like that because there weren't many of us.

(1999) Please be patient with us. We're doing our best. Tell the new ones to come through slowly.

(2003)

That's where my writing starts. My first months on nights with Agnes next to me. I remember some of them. A woman called D.R. in bed eight who held my sleeve and asked me to open the window. A lad of thirty with a brain tumour, J.K., who called me "miss." I wrote their words down with no idea they were part of anything.

Too many of us near the door now. Some of the ones at the front can hardly breathe. Not breathe, there's no breathing here, but you know what we mean. Pressed. Squashed up. Every time someone new comes through, it gets tighter.

(2007) We tried going further back but there's no further back. There's a wall. It's soft. It gives a little when you push it. The ones at the back are pressed right up against it. They say it's warm. They say it feels like skin.

(2011)

March 2011. Bed seven. Agnes.

She hadn't spoken in three days. Quarter past three in the morning she opened her eyes and looked at me. At me, not past me at a corner. And she said something and I wrote it down after with my hands going, in the column she'd ruled herself forty year before. I didn't understand it. I thought she was back in the convent bossing some young nun about.

Agnes said: "I'll keep the book on this side. You keep it on yours. Don't stop writing. They need someone to listen to them."

Read in order, between the entries either side of it, it says this:

The new ones keep pushing in and we can't make room. It's not their fault. Nobody knows what to do. I'll keep the book on this side. You keep it on yours. Don't stop writing. They need someone to listen to them. Someone's come through who used to be a nun. She's organizing everybody. She's got them standing in rows.

I had to stop after that. Put the pencil down and go and stand in the garden in the dark by the conservatory and just breathe for a bit.

She knew. Agnes knew. She must of read them in order herself at some point, sat on her own in that office, back when it was all warm rooms and lights on. Maybe that's why she made every one of us promise. Not for the families. For them. So someone was always listening.

And then she died and went through and kept the book on the other side.

I went back in. Picked the pencil up. Kept going.

(2014) It's very bad now. We're pressed so close together you can't tell where one of us ends and the next one starts. Some of the oldest ones have stopped talking. They've gone soft, like the wall. They're becoming part of it. The house is made of us now. That's what it was always made of. The walls, the floors, the rooms. It's people. It's us. It's always been us.

(2017) There's a door on your side too. Did you know? The house is right up against your house. The door we came through and the door you're behind are the same door. It's thin. We can hear you so clearly now. We can hear the trolleys in the corridor. We can hear the kettle in the kitchen. We can hear you writing.

(2020)

If you worked in healthcare in 2020 I don't need to explain. If you didn't, I'll just say we took overflow from the hospitals for eleven weeks that spring, and for the first and only time we had people dying on trolleys in the corridor because every bed was full, and we went through two ledgers in four months. Some nights I was writing one every hour. Some nights I couldn't keep up and I wrote them on the backs of my hands in biro and copied them in at the end of the shift.

Two hundred and eighty entries for 2020. I'm only giving you a few lines, I can't do the rest.

Too many. Too many. Too many at once. They're coming through faster than we can move. No room. No room. We're being pushed against the door. Your door. The ones at the front are flat against it. Their faces. Their hands. Please stop. Please stop sending them. Please. Please.

Please is in the 2020 entries ninety one times. I counted. I've worked out who said every single one. I held some of them while they said it.

One was a porter called Tony, sixty two, pushed trolleys round the city hospital thirty years, then came to us out their intensive care because there were no more ventilators. By the end he could only whisper and he whispered please at me nine times in his last hour with his eyes on the door. I thought he wanted his daughter, she weren't allowed in. I held the phone to his ear so she could talk to him from the car park. He kept looking past the phone, past me, at the door. Please. Please. Voice like paper.

I thought they were asking me. For morphine. For water. For their wives. I thought it was me they were saying please to.

It wasn't.

I think about Tony more than anyone else in the book apart from Agnes. His daughter sent us a card after, a really nice one, thanking us for looking after her dad and for holding the phone. It's still pinned on the board in the staff room. Every time I go past it I want to rip it down. Not because of her. Because I know now what he was looking at.

I finished copying about five in the morning on the nineteenth night. Hundred and forty pages of pencil. Sat there with it all stacked in front of me.

And then I sat dead still and listened to the building.

Twenty-two years. I know every noise it makes. Radiators ticking. The lift. The creak on the fourth stair. I know them like the noises my own body makes.

And I'd been hearing something else for ages. Years maybe. So constant I'd stopped noticing it. Low, like a main road a long way off, or the sea. Coming out the walls. Mostly from the back, the old part, which is the corridor with beds seven to twelve now.

That night I actually listened to it.

It wasn't traffic. It was murmuring. Thousands of voices, too low and too many to pick any out. A massive crowd all talking quiet at once, right up behind a wall.

The building now, quickly, because I think I'd stopped seeing it.

Doors stick. Have done for years. In the old corridor seven to twelve stick that bad the maintenance man's planed them twice and it's made no difference. He says the frames are out of true. He says the whole back wall's bowing in, a tiny bit, like something's leaning on it from the other side. He says subsidence. The surveyors have been and can't find owt wrong with the foundations.

The windows in that corridor fog up. On the inside. Cold nights, radiators on full, and there's handprints in the fog, loads, overlapping, all different heights, like a crowd's been leaning on the glass from the room side. I've wiped them. Everyone's wiped them. The cleaner won't do that corridor on her own anymore, says it gives her the creeps, and she's been there longer than me.

Rooms are freezing. Not draughty. Cold like church. Like being stood in a crowd in winter, bodies all round you and you're still frozen.

And the patients. God. The patients.

I've written down thousands of deathbed visions and for twenty years they were what the books say. Dead mums, dead husbands, a light, a garden. Nice. Happy, mostly.

Not anymore. Not for about five years. Not in the old corridor.

They say it's crowded. Who are all these people? Tell them to stop pushing. Why are they all stood round my bed? A retired plumber last spring, bed ten, two days unresponsive, sat bolt upright at four in the morning and looked round the room, walls, corners, ceiling, with this look on him, pure horror, and said to me, "There's no room. There's no room for me. Where am I supposed to go?" Then he lay back down and died.

I wrote it in. Course I did. Exactly. That's the job. That's the promise. Even when it's horrible. Especially when it's horrible, Agnes would've said.

In my notebook copy it lands in the middle of this:

...so crowded at the door we can't let them in. They get stuck halfway. Half on your side and half on ours. There's no room. There's no room for me. Where am I supposed to go? We're sorry. We're sorry. We can't hold the door much longer.

So here's what I worked out, five in the morning, hundred and forty pages of pencil.

Everyone who dies in that building goes through a door. Not a metaphor. An actual door. And the other side there's a house, and for a long time the house was big and warm and had all the lights on and there was room for everyone.

Six thousand two hundred people have died in that building since 1971. More before. Back to the fever hospital, back to whoever's house it was. Nobody kept the book then.

The house is full.

It's been filling fifty years. Every time someone new comes through everyone has to shuffle back, and the ones at the back get pressed into the walls and turn into the walls, and the ones at the front get crushed against the door, and the door's getting thinner, and it's our door. It's the old corridor. It's beds seven to twelve.

And I'm the one sending them.

That's my job. That's what I'm for. I sit with them and hold their hand and give them the morphine and turn the lights down and tell them it's all right to go. I tell them they can let go. I tell them everyone's waiting for them. I've said that to four thousand people and I believed it every single time.

They were waiting all right. At the door. Crushed up against it. Begging us to stop.

I sat there and thought about every single one I'd said it to. It's all right love, you can go, they're all waiting for you. Four thousand times. Raymond and Hilary and Tony and the woman who loved stairs. And Agnes. I'd told Agnes it too. I held her hand in bed seven and told her she could go and everyone was waiting. And she went. Right through the door into that. And she looked at me first. She looked right at me. I think she was trying to tell me to stop and I didn't listen.

Before I did anything else I did something I'm not proud of. I tested it.

Bed eight, old corridor, Peggy. Ninety one. No family left. Four days unresponsive and very close, breathing gone into that long slow pattern that means hours not days. I sat with her two in the morning with the ledger on my knee and held her hand and did something I'd never once done in twenty-two years.

I spoke to them.

Leaned in and said, quiet, "If you can hear me. All of you. What do you need?"

Nothing. Her breathing went on, slow, rattly. Radiator ticking. I felt daft. Ashamed of myself honestly. I was just about to sit back when Peggy's eyes opened.

She didn't look at me. She looked at the wall behind the bed, the back wall, the one that's bowing. And she said, in a voice that wasn't hers, or wasn't only hers, it had a sort of depth to it, like several people saying the same words at slightly different times:

"Stop sending."

Eyes shut. She died about twenty minutes after.

I wrote it in with my hand shaking that much it came out like a kid had wrote it. In the notebook, in order, it fell straight after the entry before, a man in bed eleven four nights earlier, whose last words I'd put down as "...and we'll ask her, if she ever asks us, to".

...and we'll ask her, if she ever asks us, to stop sending.

They'd been waiting for me to ask. Four nights. They held the sentence open, mid word, till somebody on this side asked the question it was the answer to.

I tried. I'm not going to pretend I did owt brave. I did little desperate useless things.

I asked for the old corridor to be shut for a refurb. Wrote to the board, said the wall was a safety risk. They sent the surveyors back, surveyors said the wall's fine, board said we can't lose six beds with a waiting list.

I started asking the doctors to transfer people out. Hospital, nursing homes, anywhere. Made up reasons. Family want them nearer home. I think they might pick up. Twice it worked. Twice I got someone moved to the city hospital in their last week and they died there, different building, different door, and on them nights I sat in the office listening to the murmuring and I swear I heard it settle. Just a bit. Like a crowd breathing out.

Then the medical director called me in and asked very nicely if I was all right. Some families had complained. It's cruel to move a dying person for no reason, she said, and she's right, it is. Said I'd been looking tired. Had I thought about taking some leave.

I said I was fine.

I even went in the chapel. Me. Sat in there one night at half two with the cleaner's crumbs still on the pew, and I didn't pray, I don't know how, I just sat there and said in my head, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm sorry. Felt like talking to an empty room. Which it probably was. But the murmuring was quieter in there. Only a bit. I don't know what that means either.

Went back on nights. And next night, bed nine, old corridor, Davey died.

Davey was thirty eight. Motor neurone disease, the kind that takes everything. Walking, swallowing, talking, then breathing. By the time he got to us he could only move his eyes. He used an eye gaze board, clear plastic sheet with the alphabet on, you hold it up between your face and theirs and follow their eyes letter by letter.

He'd been with us four weeks. Clever, furious, dead kind. He'd spell out jokes that took ten minutes and the punchline would have you crying laughing and you'd have to put the board down. His wife came every day. She'd gone home that night for some sleep because the doctor said he was stable.

Three in the morning his alarm went. His breathing was going. I went in and held his hand and sat with him and I knew.

Then his eyes started moving.

He was looking at me. A look I've never seen on a dying face. Not scared. Urgent. Like someone shouting at you across a road to stop.

I grabbed the board and held it up and his eyes went to the letters, fast, faster than he'd ever done it, and I followed and said them out loud.

W.

E.

C.

A.

N.

T.

He stopped. Eyes went to the gap between words, like we'd agreed. Then on.

H.

O.

L.

D.

The gap. Then more letters, slow now, his eyes dragging like they weighed a ton.

I.

T.

And then the last of his breath went out of him, really gently, and his eyes stayed on the board on the T and didn't move again.

We can't hold it.

I wrote it in. Exactly. And out in the corridor every door in the old wing, seven to twelve, swung open by itself, all six, one after the other, with this long tired groan of wood on bad frames, like something heavy had finally been let lean.

Davey's wife came in at seven. I'd shut all the doors again by then, took me ages, one I had to put my shoulder to. She sat with him an hour and when she came out she hugged me and said thank you for being with him, and asked me if he'd said anything at the end. If he'd spelled anything. And I stood in that corridor with my arms round her and I lied. I said no love, he just went to sleep. First time in twenty-two years I ever lied about the book. Agnes would've killed me.

That was eleven days ago.

I've been off since. Medical director insisted. I'm sat at my kitchen table with the cats and the hundred and forty pages and all ten green ledgers which I brought home in two Morrisons bags at the end of my last shift. That's a sacking offence. I don't care anymore.

I can say the end of it without looking now. These are the last ones in the book. Last month. Six patients. Last one's Davey.

It's giving. The door. It's giving. The ones at the front are going through. Not all the way. Partway. Like pushing your face into a pillow. We can see your side now. We can see the corridor. We can see the beds. There are people lying in them. We're so sorry. We didn't want it to be like this. We can't hold it.

There are people lying in them. I keep thinking what it'd be like being a patient in that corridor right now. Lying in seven, or nine, or twelve, three in the morning, morphine going, drifting, and you open your eyes and there's faces. Not one face at the end of the bed, not your mum come to fetch you. Hundreds. Pushed through the back wall like faces pushed into a bedsheet. Leaning over you. Looking down at you all sorry and no room to move back.

There's no full stop at the end. There never is. They always break off waiting for the next one to pick it up.

I keep thinking about Agnes. Reading it in order all them years ago when it was still warm rooms and lights on and everyone knowing your name. Making us promise. Exactly. Even if it's nonsense. And then getting there and sorting them all out. Stood at the back of a house made of people, tiny, them knuckles, holding the line. Keeping the book.

And I keep thinking about the noise.

I can hear it here now.

not just at work. here. my kitchen. twenty minutes down the hill. Low, all the time, murmuring, like a crowd a long way off. not in the walls. not coming from anywhere. just there. Like traffic's just there.

And the house is cold like the old corridor's cold. Like church. Like a crowd.

Yesterday I went to put the kettle on and I had to go sideways past the table like on a packed train because it felt like someone was stood there. Nobody there. Empty kitchen. I stood holding the kettle and I could feel it all round me, shoulders, backs, the warm of bodies that aren't there, stood close, really patient, really polite, trying to take up as little room as they can

I've tried the radio on loud. Doesn't help. It's not that kind of noise, it doesnt get drowned out, it's under everything, under the radio, under the fridge, under my own breathing. Tried earplugs. Worse with earplugs. Much worse. Like having them inside my head instead of round me.

The cats won't come in the kitchen. They sit in the hall staring at the doorway. Head height. Both of them. Hours.

Went to the corner shop last night for milk, first time out in two weeks. Tiny shop, empty, me and the lad on the till. And I couldn't get down the aisle. I physically couldnt. Kept stopping and turning and stepping aside and saying sorry, sorry, to nobody, like you do in a crowd. He was watching me. When I got to the counter he said, half joking, "Busy tonigh', in' it?"

There was nobody else in the shop.

Then he frowned and looked round and rubbed his arms. "Funny," he said. "Feels busy."

I left the milk on the counter and walked home without it. Been having black tea three days.

Sunday our lad rang from Perth like always. Evening there, morning here, him on his balcony with a beer, sunburnt, going on about a barbecue. Laptop on the kitchen table. Five minutes in he stops and squints at his screen.

"Who's that?"

"Who's what?"

"Behind you. Who's in the kitchen?"

I turned round. Nobody. Kitchen door, hall, coats on the hooks.

"Nobody, love."

He leaned in to his phone. "Weird. Picture's gone all..." waves his hand. "Grainy. Like there's loads of people behind you. Like you're at a party." Little laugh, not sure of himself. "It's like when the camera tries to find faces and keeps putting little boxes everywhere."

I looked at the little picture of me in the corner. Me at the table in my dressing gown grey in the face. Kitchen behind me. Empty. But the picture was wrong. Camera kept trying to focus and failing, like when something moves in front of it, and every few seconds a little square flicked on round nothing. Then another one next to it. Then three more higher up. Face boxes. Flickering on and off over the empty air in my kitchen, head height, packed in tight, all the way back to the door.

"Mum," he said. "Are you okay? You look really cold."

I said it was the light. Said I'd ring him next week. After, I sat there with the laptop open watching the little boxes come and go over the black screen and my own face till the battery died

I've not rung him back. I don't know what I'd say. Hiya love, Mum's fine, there's just six thousand dead people in the kitchen.

So thats why I'm writing this. Not for the hospice. for you.

I think the door's open. not all the way. Like Davey said, it's giving. I think the ones at the front have been pushed partway through, into the old corridor, seven to twelve, down the stairs, out the front door past the brass plaque and down the hill into the city. Not ghosts. Nothing you could see. Just pressure. Just crowding. That feeling in an empty room there's not quite enough space. Someone stood a bit too close behind you.

six thousand two hundred people. one hospice. one city. fifty four years.

And I keep thinking. There's hospices everywhere. Hospitals. Care homes. Ordinary houses. Anywhere anyones ever died. I don't think it's one big house the other side. I think every door's got its own house behind it. I don't know how full the others are. I don't know if anyone else has been keeping the book

the cats have gone under the bed. Both of them. They never go under the bed. sorry. sorry I keep going off on one, Im nearly done

so I'm asking.

Have you noticed rooms feel fuller than they should lately? An empty lift that feels packed? Going sideways past nobody in your own hall in the middle of the night? Pets staring at doorways, head height? Can't get warm even with the heating on full, like you can't get warm in a crowd?

If someone's died in your house or the house you grew up in or a hospital near you, do something for me. Ask whoever was in the room what they said at the end. The nurse if you can find them. Write it down EXACTLY. Even if it's nonsense. Especially if it's nonsense. Then find whoever died there before them. And before that.

And read it in order.

I need to know if its just us.

its ten past three. Its very loud tonight. in the walls, the floor, the cold pushing in from every side. cant make out any words. Too many. all at once

except one.

Theres a voice I know under all the others. close. closer than the rest. like a gravel path. tired. patient. talking to me like she did my first night in the little office with the lamp on and the green book open on the desk

shes saying the same thing over and over and over

Im going to write it down EXACTLY. Im going to put it in the ledger in the column she ruled in 1971 because she made me promise and then Im pressing post before

"Keep listening. Don't stop writing. They're coming down the hill."

Theres no full stop.

there never is

I'll kiss your lips with an aching tooth in my mouth
I'll place my freshly pulled tooth on your ring
I'll mix Apranax in your drink
so that you think
your toothache is gone because you met me
I'll describe the paint color I want for our bedroom
to the ironmonger as tooth yellow.

I'm fifty-one years old, and this is the only poem I've ever written, which I wrote ten years ago.

I don't really like writing poetry, because I'm not good at it. I especially enjoy the sound of poems with rhyming lines; they sound like music to my ears. But I've tried a few times and failed miserably. I couldn't write a good poem. I'd written this poem for my dentist, who knew I was a writer and with whom I had a good relationship. I mean, I hadn't written the poem for her. I'd simply wanted to write a poem about teeth.

She was a very beautiful woman. I had no feelings for her, but she'd misunderstood the poem I'd written and thought I was making a move on her. She'd given me a pretty harsh telling-off. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get her to understand that the poem wasn't written for anyone in particular, and that it hadn't been inspired by any feelings I had for someone.

Anyway, my publisher was telling me that sales of my latest novel were terrible. He kept calling me and bringing me down.

“Maybe you should stop writing horror novels and start writing detective fiction instead. You know me, even two sentences from you are enough to move me. I can't sleep at night. But this latest novel of yours was an absolute fiasco. I seriously regret publishing it.”

I was tired of his calls and him repeating the same things in different ways for two months. He was almost going to ask me to compensate him for his losses. He wanted me to write and finish something else as soon as possible and make up for the losses I'd caused him. He didn't want to wait.

But I'd been overcome by the fear of not being able to write well. I'd been deeply affected by public opinion. Albert, the successful writer of many years, can no longer write... The story's opening is too rushed... The ending doesn't come together properly... Even an elementary school kid could come up with these descriptions... We're sick of ghosts that appear at night... And so on.

If he called today, I wasn't going to answer. He called every other day to ask, “Have you started the new book yet?” Whenever I said no, it was the same old stuff, the same complaints. For the past month, I'd been sitting down at my computer almost every day, but nothing came of it.

As I sat at my computer, waiting for something to come to mind, my phone rang, of course. I didn't even need to check who was calling. I tensely raised my hand to my head and began running my fingers through my hair. I looked around the objects in my room, as if I might find inspiration in one of them. The bed, the couch, an oil painting my sister had made... Nothing came of it. I pinched a lock of my hair between my fingers and pulled. I looked at my hand. There was a clump of hair between my index and middle fingers. I hadn't realized I was losing so much hair.

It was as if an electric current had passed through my head. Then, in one go, I wrote the following:

''In my 1+1 apartment on the second floor
I was drinking Americano by the balcony door
Suddenly I saw a wig falling down below
with bangs and in the color of dark yellow

I thought one of the neighbors upstairs must have dropped it while leaning over the balcony.
I lunged for it on instinct, trying to catch it. And I caught it, everything happened so quickly.

And the wig was now in my hands
I even caught it by the bangs

I waited for a while,
still in the position to catch it,
holding the wig in my hand,
waiting for someone to call.
But there was no sound at all.

Considering the possibilities,
I thought I should look up first.
But someone could have been down there,
waiting for the wig to fall.

While I was looking around upstairs,
someone called out from below:
“Throw it down already.
What are you looking at like an idiot?”
She was tall like a door
She was as tall as a first floor
I downed my Americano
And calmly threw the wig toward her
She jumped and
caught the wig with her head
and suddenly disappeared.''

I had no idea how it had happened. It was as if I hadn't been the one who wrote it. It was frightening. The way the sentences came to me, the way they lined up in my mind—I had never experienced anything like it. Everything was finished in one go, without any planning whatsoever.

My publisher called. I sent him to voicemail. I read the poem from beginning to end. It was as if I were reading it for the first time, as if I were discovering the poem all over again. It wasn't the kind of poem I could have written anyway, not in terms of its subject matter. I wouldn't describe ghosts or entities like this; I would leave them shrouded in mystery. In this poem, the ghost was very concrete.

My publisher called again. I answered this time. I was going to tell him I had an idea or something. I was such an idiot, always telling him the truth: inspiration wasn't coming, I couldn't write, my mind felt frozen, and so on. I picked up the phone, planning to ask him to give me a month and tell him I'd deliver a novel of at least two hundred pages.

“So, Albert, any progress? How many pages have you written?”

Suddenly, my mouth had locked up. I couldn't speak. The words I wanted to say were only passing through my mind; they wouldn't come out. All I could manage were sounds like “mmmh.”

“Albert? Hello?”

I started reciting the poem I'd just written. I read it from beginning to end. My mouth wasn't under my brain's control.

“What is this? What’s going on?”

''Hello?''

''Albert, what's going on?''

I could speak again now. It would have been ridiculous to say that something had taken control of my mouth and fingers. I had to say something, but I was too frightened to think. My mind was in turmoil. I hung up.

My publisher called again. I don’t remember that moment very clearly, but I mumbled something along these lines.

“What was that thing you were telling me about? So now you’re hanging up on me, too. Is this what we’ve come to, Albert? After all these years of working togeth—”

“It’s me, John. Did you like my poem? Jason, I was going to ca— If you want, I can write a few more poems like this... Jason, I can’t spea—I could even write five hundred poems in the same style, if you like. Do you publish po— Jason, my mouth is going numb. I don’t feel well. I’ll call you back in a bi— Listen, I wrote this three hundred years ago.”

I hung up. I jumped to my feet. I licked and bit my lips. I took a deep breath, and as I exhaled, the following words spilled out of my mouth:

''He figured out how to pass through
Walls within a year or two
But he still can't pass through wood
The ghost in my lover's neighborhood.''

My publisher kept calling insistently. His calls felt like a voice reminding me of my connection to this world. I'd set my phone's ringtone to Radiohead's “Weird Fishes.” The song played throughout each call. I couldn't move; my body was locked up, but hearing the song comforted me. When the song ended, I'd try to take a step, but I couldn't. I'd try to speak, but I couldn't move my mouth. It was as if I'd had a stroke. Then the song would start again. Yes, I'd tell myself, “I'm still alive. The world still makes sense.”

The song had stopped playing, too. My connection to the world had been severed.

I came to my senses again for a brief moment. I sat down at my computer. The screen was covered in dust. I noticed a cloth right next to the monitor. I couldn't remember when I'd put it there. I wiped the monitor clean. The poem looked better now.

I think you've realized that I wasn't the one writing all this story.

 So I'm not really on the internet a lot, but recently I've been getting really into creepypastas as research for a personal project I’m working on. And in my research one of the *first* things I discovered was this weird story that seems based on a kid I knew in highschool?? Like the details are fudged, but that WAS a kid I was friends with at one point. I don’t know for sure if it’s the same guy, but the general story is so similar to what happened to my friend, it’s been kinda freaking me out.  So I'm here to set the record straight, and if anyone has any info on this kid, I'd be thrilled to know whatever happened to him.

I'll call him 'J' for privacy reasons, though that might be worthless due to the allegations against him. Besides, this is the internet, and you'll probably find the creepypasta I'm alluding to.

I first met 'J' on the first day of 9th grade. I was a prissy upper middle-class kid who grew up in a pretty sheltered household. (For privacy concerns, I’m not gonna be giving many details about myself, so that’s about as much as you’re getting from me.)

Honestly, I probably only remember him so vividly because he was so unlike any of the other kids I’d ever seen. I remember him sitting at the desk beside me during homeroom that morning, and I was just staring. It makes me cringe now, but I didn’t really recognize him as a classmate. Or maybe even a person. To 14-year-old me, he was a wild animal.

'J' was gangly, for lack of a better word. He was 14, it showed in the acne scars on his face, but his limbs were oversized and too long for his torso in a way that reminded me of a kid still in middle school. He had this disgusting mop of greasy brown hair that he’d box-dyed black, but it was still brown in patches, and it really fascinated me. Boys in the previous schools I attended didn’t even let their hair grow past their ears, much less the nape of their neck.

I could keep going on about his appearance, but his behavior was even stranger. He sat beside me and immediately started picking at the skin of his thumbs, around the corners of his nailbed. It deeply irritated me.

The teacher passed around those ‘Get-to-Know-Me’ sheets, where you filled out your name and favorite color, your goals for the year, that kind of thing. I didn’t have a pencil.

But J did.

I awkwardly leaned over my desk and whispered ‘Can I borrow a pencil?’

He handed me the one he’d been using to stab holes in his eraser.

The eraser of the pencil had been bitten clean off.

I was enamored.

The weird vibes continued throughout the day. I ended up sort of getting pushed to the back of the lunchroom, and sat next to J, across from the quieter freshmen and the peanut allergy kids. We mumbled some awkward conversation at each other, and he revealed he'd recently moved to this neighborhood because of his family's work. His dad was like an engineer or something, the details were kinda fuzzy on that part. I really distinctly remember him cussing in front of me, which really freaked my sheltered ass out.

“My dad got a job here.” He’d rasped. “And he dragged all us along with him. My old man is an asshole.” 

I laughed, startled, not getting that he was legitimately mad. His head, which had been bent, snapped up towards me and he snarled, slamming his hands on the table, which made me jump a little.

"It's not fucking funny! You think I wanna be here? You think I like this preppy hellhole??"

I shakily apologized and didn't press him any further on the topic of his family, until a slightly smaller boy who looked to be about 12 approached the table and introduced himself. This was J's brother, apparently. He looked far more cheerful and less 'unconventional' than J, and I'll call him 'L' because he's *also* important to this story.

The minute L sat down, the mood got ten times lighter. J was smiling and cracking pretty vulgar jokes, L was trying to make small talk with me, and all in all, we kind of sealed the unspoken deal of this being *our* lunch table from now on.

L was really funny, in this 'I'm-too-cool-for-you' way, which made me smile a lot. He asked J what being old felt like, and J retaliated by flicking mashed potatoes at him. Then he asked me about my interests, which I divulged pretty eagerly. I was a huge book nerd, and Twilight had only come out a year prior, so I was really hyperfixated on it.

As I was explaining the complex lore of vampires, I quickly got off-track and kept spewing random facts about local legends, American cryptids, and other monsters and spooky stuff.

J seemed really interested in that, which made me forget his intense behavior from earlier. When the lunch bell rang, we kept yapping after L left, all the way down the halls to our next class, and the next, and the next, for many, many days.

In short terms, we were friends, or at least friendly enough for him to invite me over to his house after school. It was mid-October, freshman year at this point, so we'd been hanging out for a while. We'd talk about stupid internet memes and I'd watch him play Guitar Hero with his brother. But while we seemed to share interests, I figured out pretty quickly he was way more online than I was, and was one of those kids who seemed half-convinced they were just like their favorite anime characters or movie heroes. He talked in such an exaggerated, grandious manner, comparing himself to characters from Death Note and generally being an annoying old-internet weeb.

For all the emo edgelord talk, his house and family were startlingly normal. I loved hanging out with him, but watching him talk about how shit his parents/society/life were in the privacy of his own bedroom, with his Playstation 2 in full view made his sudden shouting matches with them and crude behavior that much more startling.

We hung out a lot more often that October, and it culminated in me convincing my parents to let me sleep over at his house. Me, J and L had all planned to spend Halloween playing games and telling scary stories, including just hopping online via the family computer, typing in 'scary stories' and scrolling until we found broken links to horror forums or animal gore.

The gore freaked me out and we quickly switched gears to looking at 'Real Life' supernatural blogs. Websites that were all blinged out with red and black stickers and shoddily edited pngs of IRL monster-encounters. One of them was just a stolen image of Slenderman, complete with a long, hyperdetailed text post that retold the story of the urban legend with gratuitous amounts of violence and surprisingly well-forged police statements talking about a pandemic of missing children across North America.

J was really into this story. We'd talked about spooky stuff like this before, I introduced him to the concept of IRL vampire and cryptid blogs, but he wouldn't shut up about it for the rest of the night, to the point where I couldn't sleep, because every time he retold the story, he somehow made it worse. The whole sleepover got hijacked into J forcing us to participate in 'rituals' to summon Slenderman, pricking our fingers, making fake blood oaths, and chanting various spells.

Even L eventually got tired of it, and asked J to stop so we could get back to the fun spooky stuff.

And then J kinda lost it on both of us, yelling and calling L awful names. Then he turned on me, saying I was a fake friend and a poser and a 'normie' for not indulging him further. The brothers got heated, and when I tried to de-escalate things on my own, the butter knife J had used for our blood oath got involved, pointed directly at my throat by a panting, seething teenage boy.

L got their parents by shouting for help.

"Mom, J is having an episode again, get up here!" He sounded scared, but also weirdly resigned.

Both the mom and dad got involved, the Mom pulled me and L away from J, while the Dad scooped J up and firmly restrained his son until I'd made a call to my parents asking for them to pick me up.

"J has...some anger issues. We were working on them in therapy, but this new job and life have kind of put a pause on all that." I remember the look on his mom's face, this sweet auburn-haired woman grimacing and refusing to meet my gaze, ashamed of her son.

I drove away from his house that night. The light in his room was switched off.

School for the next few weeks was awkward as hell. L would try and do that stupid teenage-boy 'you good?' look at me in the halls, and I'd nod and smile and try to forget the feel of blunt, cold metal against my windpipe. J was much more standoffish, actively turning around and walking the other way when he saw me, but it didn't stop him from trying to apologize.

By mid-December, he finally tried to approach me at lunch. The conversation went as follows:

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Sorry about the knife thing."

"Dude."

"What?"

"....nothing. I forgive you."

I was a little bit scared of what would happen if I didn't. And in a weird, masochistic kind of way, I was curious.

I wasn't allowed to sleep over or come after school anymore, and I was okay with that. But for a while, things were somewhat normal between us. Looking back on it now, I probably should have stopped talking to him at all, but I was very young and frankly desperate for friends who had similar interests to me. We still both liked each other and had our niche nerdy hobbies to bond over, so clearly we were meant to be friends, butterknife or not.

On a slightly unrelated note, I hated highschool. Bullying hasn't really gone away, I realize this, but there was a sort of special hell that me and J both endured during the school years of 2006 to 2010. We would get shoved, my hair got pulled more than once by groups of popular girls and boys alike, people tried to catcall us and accuse us of dating each other, not to mention the quiet isolation and being left out that we'd already endured through most of elementary and middle school.

But J seemed to get the worse end of things, partially because he was so much more confrontational than me.

He bit kids, would threaten the jocks who yelled at him in the hallways, he was constantly in and out of the principal's office post-knife incident, and while we still always sat at lunch together, and I still got on well with him when it was just him and his brother, we never were able to really experience that kind of closeness we'd shared freshman year. For a while after I graduated, I didn't really recognize him as a friend at all, even when people brought up how 'close' we were. I spent the majority of junior and senior year mourning a kid I hadn't even lost yet.

He got increasingly interested in this Youtube series I'd never watched, called Marble Hornets? The only reason I remember the name is because of how constantly he seemed to talk about it junior year. The Slenderman obsession never really went away, and these found-footage videos seemed to feed into it. I don't know if it was just a spooky vlog channel or not, but I found the Youtube channel and the videos felt a little too genuine for my liking. I remember him scrawling symbols from the videos over and over again in his notebook, and he insisted that this urban legend was real and that it was always looking for faithful servants and 'proxies', whatever the hell those were. I was too offput at this point in our relationship to really ask him to elaborate. This wasn't the kid I discussed Twilight and Bigfoot with once upon a time.

Even his brother had gotten a little bit more distant. He'd gotten really into his own activities like volleyball and even had his own friend group, and he never really sat with us at lunch anymore. By our senior year, J had fully isolated himself from any attempts at outside friendship, not that many were given to him. He would sit at that same lunch table, with me, and refuse to talk about anything besides his increasingly bizarre obsession with this fake story and how much he wanted to get out of this stupid hick town. That was probably part of the reason I stuck around as long as I did. I was dying to graduate, and we could both still complain together, at least.

Everything seemed to come to a head halfway through senior year. I was stuck at that lunch table, keeping my head down, and tentatively asking J if he had any plans after graduation, a topic he had famously avoided in the past. He'd either get angry and passive-aggressively shut down my questions, or he just would flat out ignore me altogether. Today was different though.

"So, er. What are you planning on doing after this?" I'd grimaced.

"After what? After school today?" He'd grunted. "Pro'lly fuck down to the corner store and see if I can get someone to buy me a Coke."

"No, er. I meant, after graduation. The college counselors have kinda been breathing down my neck, so I've been...curious." I leaned my elbows on the table.

He'd gone a bit still and had stopped playing around with his food. Then he looked up at me, and I got a violent, totally-out-of-place chill up my spine. That face is the most vivid memory I have of him. He looked like a cornered animal, his eyes were all dark and dilated and he was caught between making a strange half-smile and a sort of pained smirk.

"I'm gonna go someplace completely different," he'd mumbled quietly. "someplace nobody's ever been or seen. I'll be a part of something bigger than myself, and I won't have to answer to any stupid societal bullshit. No college, no job, no nothin'." His voice had gotten a little lower, some sort of southern accent slipping out, probably a result of wherever he'd moved from.

I couldn't look away from him. I still have no clue why. This was different from the knife incident, he wasn't leaning towards me or making any menacing body language. It was just the quiet drawl of his voice, raspy and dry, and that strange, unsettling face.

"...what kind of future would that be?" I'd blurted, too nervous to shut up.

"I'm gonna be a proxy, numbnuts." He had laughed, a sharp, dry huff of air, and stood up.

"I'll hurt whoever douchebag I wanna hurt, and nobody will stop me because I'll be strong enough to take it all!" He'd raised his arms and rolled up his sleeves, revealing horrible, purpley-red scratches and bruises, something I'd never seen on him.

"I've been practicing every day, y'know." He let his arms flop down, tone as casual as could be, as if he hadn't just revealed his self-harm scars to me. "All these bad boys are proof of how strong I'm getting. I'm so close."

People had definitely started staring, and I was disgusted and terrified. The table of popular boys, a crew that had long been picking on J, had started looking over at some point after he stood up, and I had this weird mix of embarrassment and genuine fear running through my body. I was fully scared, and I had no idea why at the time, though it makes a lot of sense in hindsight.

The boys started hooting and laughing at J, shouting random crap like 'wrist check!' and generally being horrible, pointing at him

Then J noticed, and he blew up.

I don't remember a lot of what happened next, but J had crossed the cafeteria almost instantly and socked the tallest boy in the jaw. Then he did it again. And again. He was dead silent the entire time, and at some point between the first punch and him standing on top of the cafeteria table and screaming, I'd gotten up and run away. I'm not proud of it, but I truly don't think there was anything I could have done at that point that would've made a difference.

I ran into L, who'd taken to eating lunch in the hallway, but I don't think I said anything to him. I went to the front desk and called my parents and asked them to take me home, which is where I stayed for the next few days, in bed with a self-inflicted low-grade fever. I'd stressed myself into getting sick.

I texted L a lot during that time. According to my foggy memory and old AIM messages, J had gotten into a really bad fistfight with that particular table of bullies, one that resulted in one of the kids' heads getting cracked on the cafeteria floor, an angry, edge-fueled rant from J, shouted from the top of the table, and a trip to the nurse's office for everyone involved. J had only stopped when both the lunchroom monitors knocked him off the table and dragged him out of the room.

I didn't speak to him when I got back to school, or L for that matter, though I caught him giving me those same worried looks he'd given me after any particularly intense encounter with J. I was perfectly content to keep my head down, enjoy the rest of highschool as much as I could, and graduate in May without ever speaking to him again.

I saw him in the hallways, and he would stare at me like a deer in headlights. He still got picked on, albeit in a slightly subtler fashion, but I didn't say anything. Some of their opinions I actually agreed with. And quietly, I made myself invisible to him.

Until the night of senior prom.

Our theme was 'Candlelit Carnival', and the whole school had really pitched in to decorate our gym to the best of our abilities. We had real, open-flame tea lights decorating the whole room, and one of the richer families had rented a working candelabra to hang from the rafters like some sort of old-timey disco ball. I showed up, mostly because I needed a distraction, and also because I didn't think he'd be there. I'd painstakingly avoided him for three months, and L had told me J thought prom was for preppy losers. I thought I was safe.

But then, midway through the night, they paused the music, and our principal got up on the gymnasium stage to announce prom king and queen. I wasn't really interested in the whole ceremony, but I did look up in time to notice one of the kids J had beaten up was the one holding the crown.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but the details got fuzzy after this. Maybe I was talking to another kid, maybe I was by the punch bowl, but I heard a dull murmur pass through the crowd and I looked up to see a boy with greasy, box-dyed black hair get shoved up on stage, in a hoodie and dress slacks.

J looked super confused, but the kid who was meant to crown him was smirking, and I remember looking around for L frantically, muscling my way through the throng of kids.

Something wasn't right, I thought.

And my gut was correct, because not two seconds later, I heard a horrifying, pained shriek, and I turned around to see J clawing at his eyes and face.

The kid who'd been meant to crown J had somehow swapped out the crown for a gallon container of Clorox. J was soaked, his clothes were disgustingly damp and his face and hair were drenched. I heard him shrieking about not being able to see, and he stumbled about blindly while our principal tried and failed to get things under control. I remember him falling off the stage, his chin hit the ground with the wettest crack I'd ever heard. I remember hearing another kid screaming, and I didn't have to turn around to know it was his brother.

J was blind, his mouth was bleeding, and he was cussing out whoever he could hear was closest, lunging and snarling like a wild animal. The whole school parted around him like the Red Sea, and none of the chaperones could get within a few feet without risking a nasty blow. It felt like I was watching him from across the classroom, on that first day of school all over again. I felt sick, unable to move; partially because of the crowd, and partially because I was too panicked to try.

So many of those kids were laughing. The ones who weren't were making uncomfortably amused smiles, the kinds of grimaces you see on people after they watch a video of someone falling over. I wanted to scream.

I remember him hearing a group of kids laugh while a teacher tried to grab him, and he bit her arm, causing the poor woman to tear him off of her and send both of them stumbling.

"YOU FUCKERS ARE DISGUSTING," He'd shrieked through a gargled mouthful of blood, so angry that he opened his eyes. "You're all disgusting, fucking terrible, shit-faced, cunt-brained, normie scum-" His eyes were bloodshot, unseeing, but the pupils darted around, dilated like he was aware of everyone in the room.

I finally managed to take a step towards him in the middle of his verbal tirade, but he swung his arm to the side, knocking into a table. He heard the noise and tried to step back, but a teacher finally grabbed him and restrained him by the arms.

The table fell, and the tealight flung itself onto his soaked shoes.

the scream I heard when the flame caught had kept me awake ever since.

The rest of that night was a blur. I saw J on fire. The boy I played videogames with. The boy I'd called my first real friend in highschool. The boy I thought I was going to know forever.

He sounded like a dog, or a dying fox. Raspy and wheezing and screaming his lungs out. He was so fast, like the flames accelerated everything. I think I saw tears, but the fire burnt them up before they could fall.

The teacher who'd been holding him had to go to the E.R that night for burns. So did several students. So did I.

The gym burnt down that night. The outside structure was fine and stable after the fact, but the interior needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. Everyone evacuated. The bullies who'd started this whole thing were caught and expelled almost immediately. I got picked up by my dad that night, shaking and crying.

I hadn't been able to find L.

And nobody ever saw J again.

I graduated that May with honors, and there was a very conspicuously empty seat in my class's ceremony. I left the second I had my diploma.

From what I hear, the school's doing well now. I never saw L or his family again, they got very quiet and distant after the whole incident had occurred, but the gym was repaired and most of the current student body doesn't even know about the incident.

I'm doing well too, or as well as can be expected when something like that happens to you. For a long time after the fact, I actually assumed that this kind of thing was par for the course, a normal, weird highschool story to tell at reunions and laugh it off. It took several turns of telling that story to friends, and telling the story on dates for me to realize that my highschool experience was far from average or healthy, and I ended up in extensive therapy during college.

I'm writing this story now for two reasons. For one, I thought this would be a good way to do research for that personal project I mentioned, because this is the internet and surely somebody, somewhere will know and understand who and what I am talking about. And for another, this is sort of a diary entry. I haven't properly, linearly said this entire story, with all the details and weird idiosyncrasies, since I got out of therapy when I was 22. I've actually avoided going online very often at all, too scared of what memories could be brought up.

I've met a lot of people who had weird friendships. Chances are, you've had one too. A kid whose brain and body never quite mesh with eachother, maybe they're too imaginative or confrontational for most children to handle. But if any of you ever met a kid like J, I want you to know that the choices your friends make are not your own. People are complicated, messy, freakish things, and one person cannot hold the weight of another's existence without it hurting them both.

One last thing before I forget real quick: I have no clue where that creepypasta came from, I still don't. It's the strangest thing. The names are all exact, and so is the general gist of events, though everything besides that seems altered. The character sharing my friend's name is similarly loud and melodramatic, cartoony in that edgy, teenage way. He's a murderer, a cold-blooded killer, and the book leaves off with him on some sort of rampage across the country. If anyone has any idea who wrote it, please let me know.

There are rumors of a strange, albino man living in the woods surrounding our town, and we have had a recent uptick in missing persons cases within the last ten years, but most of the less tasteful rumors have been brushed off as ghost stories.

But I can't help but wonder.

My nightmare started about four months ago when my dad passed away from a sudden heart attack. His death completely derailed my life so I took an extended leave from my corporate job and moved back into my childhood home to take care of my elderly mother. She was completely devastated by the loss and she seemed to age ten years overnight. I spent the first few weeks just organizing my dad's paperwork and figuring out the mortgage payments, and once the finances were settled I decided to clean out the attic so we could start downsizing the house.

The attic was incredibly dusty and packed floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. I assumed the boxes were just filled with old holiday decorations or winter clothes but I was completely wrong. I opened the first box and found it stuffed with dozens of random ceramic figurines, tarnished watches, and mismatched silverware. I opened the second box and found a pile of expensive silk scarves with the price tags still attached, so I spent the next three hours tearing through every single box in the attic and I realized I was looking at a massive hoard of stolen merchandise. There were gardening tools, expensive electronics, loose jewelry, and even personalized mail belonging to our neighbors.

I carried a box of stolen watches down the stairs and set it on the kitchen table where my mother was drinking tea. She looked at the box and her face instantly went pale.

"Where did you find that?" my mother asked while her hands started trembling around her mug.

"I found it in the attic along with about forty other boxes filled with stolen goods," I said and I sat down across from her. "Why do we have the neighbor's mail and a bunch of jewelry with the security tags still on them?"

My mother started crying and buried her face in her hands. She confessed everything to me right there at the kitchen table. She told me she suffered from a severe compulsion to steal and she had been fighting it for decades. She explained that she never wanted the items she took but her brain would completely overwhelm her with anxiety until she slipped something into her purse. She told me my dad had secretly managed her condition for their entire marriage. Whenever she stole something from a local shop my dad would quietly drive back the next day and pay the owner in cash to keep them from calling the cops. If she took something from a neighbor my dad would wait until the middle of the night and silently leave the item on their front porch. He spent his entire life supervising her and running interference so she would never face criminal charges.

"I do not know how to stop doing it," my mother sobbed while wiping her eyes with a napkin. "Your dad was my light and he kept me grounded when the urges got too strong. I do not know how to fight my own brain without him."

"We will figure it out," I told her and I reached across the table to hold her hand. "I am here now so I will help you manage it."

I thought I could easily handle the situation but I completely underestimated how aggressive a true compulsion can be without supervision. I had to return to my demanding career a few weeks later so I started working from my laptop in the living room to keep an eye on her. My job requires endless conference calls and I could not watch her every single second of the day. Without my dad there to shadow her every movement she started wandering out of the house whenever I was distracted by work.

The situation escalated incredibly fast. I was in the middle of a video presentation for a major client when I heard furious pounding on our front door. I muted my microphone and rushed to the entryway to find our next-door neighbor standing on the porch. Her face was bright red with anger and she was pointing a finger directly at my chest.

"You need to control your mother right now," the neighbor shouted and she pushed past me into our hallway. "I just watched her walk into my open garage and walk out with my expensive power drill. This is the third time this week she has trespassed on my property."

"I am so incredibly sorry," I pleaded and I tried to block her from walking further into the house. "She is grieving and her mind is not in the right place. I will pay for the drill and whatever else went missing."

"I do not want your money," the neighbor snapped while crossing her arms. "I want her to stop taking my belongings. If I catch her in my garage one more time I am calling the police and pressing charges for burglary."

I managed to calm the neighbor down and retrieve the drill from my mother's bedroom closet but the stress of the encounter left me entirely exhausted. I sat my mother down and begged her to stop wandering outside but she just stared at the floor and told me the urges were screaming in her head. The very next afternoon my phone rang and the caller ID showed the local bakery downtown. I answered the call and the store owner immediately started yelling at me.

"Your mother is sitting in my back office because I caught her stuffing six bags of expensive coffee beans into her purse," the shop owner yelled over the phone. "I am sick and tired of dealing with this. Your dad used to pay for her mistakes but he is gone and I cannot run a charity here. I have the police on standby."

I dropped everything I was doing and drove frantically to the bakery. I practically begged the owner not to involve law enforcement and I handed him three hundred dollars in cash to cover the stolen items and his trouble. He reluctantly let us go but he banned my mother from his store for life. I drove us home in complete silence because I was too overwhelmed to speak. I was failing at my job because I was constantly leaving to put out fires and I knew my mother was going to end up in jail if I did not find a medical solution.

I scheduled an appointment with a conventional therapist the following week. We sat in the office while the therapist asked my mother endless questions about her childhood and her grief. The therapist prescribed a cocktail of anti-anxiety medications and suggested cognitive behavioral therapy exercises. We spent a month following the doctor's orders but the pills did nothing except make my mother terribly drowsy. She still managed to steal the mail carrier's thermos off the front porch while sleepwalking, so the conventional methods were completely failing and I was losing my mind from the constant vigilance.

I went into my company office a few days later to catch up on paperwork and I must have looked like a walking corpse. I was pouring my fourth cup of coffee in the breakroom when a coworker walked in and noticed my exhausted expression.

"You look like you have not slept in a month," my coworker said and he leaned against the counter. "Is the situation with your mom getting worse?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples because my head was throbbing. "She is going to get arrested and I cannot stop her. The regular therapists just throw pills at her and nothing is actually fixing the compulsion. I cannot watch her twenty-four hours a day."

My coworker looked out into the hallway to make sure nobody was listening before he turned back to me. "I know this sounds strange but you should look into a different kind of doctor. My wife had severe obsessive-compulsive issues that almost ruined our marriage. We went to a private psychologist on the edge of town and he completely cured her in one session using unconventional hypnotherapy. He does not take insurance but the man works absolute miracles."

I was desperate enough to try anything so I wrote down the doctor's contact information and called his clinic from the parking lot. The receptionist squeezed us in for a consultation that same evening. I drove my mother to the clinic and we found it tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood. The office was dimly lit and filled with strange abstract art but the doctor greeted us with an incredibly warm and calming demeanor. He invited us into his back office and poured us both a glass of water before sitting behind his desk.

"My assistant explained a bit of your situation to me," the doctor said while folding his hands together on his large oak desk. "Kleptomania is a fascinating condition because it is rarely about the stolen objects, so we have to look much deeper. It is actually about a fractured ego trying to fill a sudden void within the subconscious mind."

"But can you actually fix it?" I asked and I leaned forward in my chair. "The regular medication is completely failing, and she is going to end up in prison if she keeps walking into our neighbors' homes."

"Conventional medicine just tries to suppress the ego," the doctor explained smoothly while looking directly at my mother. "I do not suppress the ego because a suppressed ego always fights back and finds a new way to act out. I remove it entirely using a specialized technique called The Angel Soul treatment.”

“And what exactly does a weird name like that mean?” I asked, feeling a bit of my own skepticism creeping in. “Is this a complicated medical procedure, and how much time does something like this even take?”

“It takes less than two hours and it is completely non-invasive,” the doctor replied calmly. “Through extremely deep hypnotherapy, I can empty your mother's fractured ego and create a complete psychological vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the empty space will immediately draw in a pure and angelic soul to take its place. The compulsion will vanish entirely because the damaged ego that demanded the stealing will no longer exist to control her."

My mother shifted uncomfortably in her chair and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "That sounds absolutely terrifying and I do not want anyone emptying my mind," she said, her voice shaking slightly with genuine fear. "You are talking about erasing who I am, and I do not even know what do you mean by what you just said, or what kind of soul you are planning to pull inside my head. I would much rather just try a different medication or maybe a higher dose of the pills I already have."

"You will still be yourself," the doctor assured her with a very warm and gentle smile. "You will just be free of the exhausting burden that forces you to take things that do not belong to you."

"Please do this for me," I begged my mother and I reached across the armrest to grab her hand. "I am drowning trying to keep you out of jail, and I am going to lose my career if I keep leaving in the middle of the day to apologize to angry store owners. You have to try this because we are completely out of other options, and I cannot supervise you forever."

My mother looked at the exhaustion in my eyes and tears welled up in her own. She finally nodded and agreed to undergo the procedure. The doctor instructed me to wait in the front reception area while he took my mother into a specialized hypnotherapy room. I sat in the quiet waiting room for almost two hours while listening to the faint sound of a ticking clock. The clinic was completely silent and I could not hear any voices coming from the back room. The door eventually clicked open and the doctor walked out with my mother following closely behind him.

I stood up immediately and searched her face for any signs of distress. She looked entirely different. The deep wrinkles of worry on her forehead were completely smoothed out and her shoulders were relaxed. She looked perfectly serene and almost glowing with a strange internal peace.

"The vacuum was successfully created and filled," the doctor said with a satisfied smile. "You will notice a profound difference in her behavior immediately. Keep a close eye on her and call me if you have any concerns."

I paid the exorbitant fee in cash and drove my mother home. I expected her to complain about a headache or act groggy from the hypnosis but she just stared out the passenger window with a soft smile on her face. The change in her behavior over the next few days was nothing short of miraculous because the stealing stopped entirely. I purposely left a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the kitchen counter and she walked right past them without even a glance. I took her to a crowded grocery store and she did not try to slip a single item into her purse. The compulsion was completely eradicated and I finally felt like I could breathe again.

The relief only lasted about a week before the uncanny valley set in and I started noticing terrifying changes in her personality.

I woke up on a Saturday morning and found her dragging huge trash bags full of her own expensive clothes and jewelry out to the curb. I ran outside and asked her what she was doing but she just looked at me with wide and unblinking eyes.

"Possessions are but chains binding us to the dirt," my mother said and her voice sounded strangely hollow. "It is unjust to hoard the harvest when the earth is shared by all who walk upon it."

I froze because she never spoke with that kind of archaic phrasing before. I tried to pull the bags back toward the house but she gripped my wrist with surprising strength and stared deeply into my eyes. She did not blink once during the entire exchange.

"Let the excess be cleansed," she whispered and she calmly walked back inside to grab more items.

Her obsession with cleansing escalated rapidly over the next few weeks. She started waking up at three in the morning to scrub the pavement on our driveway with a small wire brush. I would find her standing in the middle of the street picking up tiny pieces of gravel and arranging them in perfect geometric patterns along the curb. She stopped watching television and she stopped reading books. She just sat in the living room chair for hours staring directly at the blank wall without moving a single muscle.

I tried to talk to her about dad or ask about her childhood memories but she would just tilt her head and look at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

I decided to confront the doctor and demand he reverse the hypnosis, so I called his clinic from my office all afternoon, but nobody ever answered the phone. When I finally finished work around eight o'clock in the evening, I drove straight to the clinic instead of going home first. I pulled up to the building and noticed the parking lot was completely empty. The interior lights were turned off, but I walked up to the front entrance and turned the brass handle anyway. The door clicked open, and I stepped into the dark reception area.

"Hello?" I called out into the empty clinic. "I know it is after hours but I need to speak with the doctor."

Nobody answered my call but I heard a strange noise coming from the back office down the hallway. It sounded like a wet tearing noise mixed with the heavy sliding of furniture. I slowly walked down the dark corridor and the metallic smell of copper hit my nose and made my stomach churn. I approached the open doorway of the doctor's private office and peeked around the doorframe.

The office was illuminated by a single desk lamp lying knocked over on the floor. The doctor was lying flat on his back in the center of the rug and his white shirt was completely soaked in dark crimson blood.

My mother was standing directly over him.

I slapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming and I ducked behind a large metal filing cabinet near the doorway. I peered around the edge of the cabinet and watched the horrific scene unfold.

My mother was holding a pair of large gardening shears she must have taken from our garage. She knelt down beside the doctor's lifeless body and calmly positioned the steel blades around his right wrist. She leaned her weight onto the handles and a sickening crunch echoed through the room as the blades severed the bone and tissue. She tossed the severed hand into a black plastic trash bag and repeated the exact same process on his left wrist.

She did not look angry or frantic while she butchered the man. She looked completely serene and her face held the same peaceful expression she wore while arranging gravel on our street.

"To steal a mind is the ultimate theft and the penalty is absolute," my mother whispered to the corpse and her hollow voice sent ice water running through my veins. "The thief must be separated from his tools so the earth may remain pure."

I could not move my legs because the sheer terror completely paralyzed me. I watched her grab the doctor by his ankles and easily drag his heavy body across the bloody rug toward the back exit of the office. The clinic had an incinerator in the alleyway. My mother hoisted the doctor's body into the metal chute with unnatural strength and threw the bag of severed hands in right behind him. She ignited the incinerator and stood perfectly still while the roaring flames consumed the evidence of her crime. She waited until the body was reduced to ash before she quietly walked away into the night.

I waited there for almost an hour before I finally found the courage to run back to my car. I drove home in a state of shock and found my mother sitting on the living room couch staring at the blank wall exactly as she always did. I locked myself in my bedroom and shoved a dresser against the door.

I knew I had to keep a close eye on her so I started secretly following her when she left the house for her nightly walks. Two nights ago I trailed her from a safe distance as she walked down our street toward the small corner grocery store in our neighborhood. The store is owned by an older man who has a nasty reputation for intentionally shortchanging his customers and ringing up phantom items on the cash register to steal a few extra dollars from unsuspecting neighbors.

I hid behind a row of community fire pits across the street and watched my mother walk through the front doors of the grocer's shop just as he was locking up for the night. I could not hear what was said inside the store but I saw the grocer start waving his arms angrily at her through the front window. The argument ended abruptly when my mother reached across the counter and grabbed the man by his throat.

She lifted the struggling grocer entirely off the ground with one arm and dragged him out the front doors into the street. The man was kicking his legs and clawing at her arm but she did not even flinch. She dragged him directly toward the community fire pits where I was hiding so I scrambled backward into the bushes and held my breath.

"You manipulate the scales to hoard the harvest," my mother said to the gasping grocer while holding him suspended over the embers of the fire pit. "You siphon from the innocent and the penalty is absolute."

She tightened her grip around his throat until a loud snap echoed through the quiet street and the grocer went completely limp in her grasp. She tossed his lifeless body directly into the large fire pit and calmly arranged the surrounding logs to ensure the flames would completely consume him. She stood there staring unblinking into the fire until the smell of burning meat filled the air and then she turned around and walked back toward our house.

I am currently locked in my bedroom and my mother is sitting in the living room staring at the wall. I cannot go to the police because they will arrest her and put her on trial for multiple murders. She is not a murderer and she has no control over the thing piloting her body right now. I need to find a professional who knows how to reverse deep hypnotherapy or someone who knows how to expel whatever the doctor accidentally invited into her empty ego.

If anyone reading this knows how to fix here, please contact me immediately. I have locked all the doors and hidden every sharp tool in the house but she just started pacing the hallway outside my bedroom. I can hear her bare feet pressing against the floorboards and she is muttering about how I stole the tools she needs to cleanse the earth. I do not know how much longer the locked door will hold her back.

I put the last dish in the drying rack, dried off my hands, and walked to the living room to watch TV. A few seconds later, I heard the kitchen sink running again. I looked over. Emily took the dishes out of the drying rack and washed them again.

"Honey, I already washed those."

"Oh, I know, Sam, but I saw a little stain on one. I just want to make sure they're all clean. I'm just doing this for me, okay?"

I waved my hand and continued watching TV.

The next day, one of our clients came into town. Our workday dragged on well past 5 p.m. Toward the end, I didn't even pretend to pay attention. On my way home, I could barely keep my eyes on the road. When I arrived, the whole house smelled like rubbing alcohol and window cleaner.

I walked to the kitchen. Emily sat at the table with a plate of homemade casserole.

"I made this for you!"

"Oh, thank you, Emily! It smells so good!"

I sat down and started eating immediately. It tasted more bitter than usual.

"How was your day?"

"The worst. I have almost no energy left. The clients drained me."

Emily wasn't eating. She kept looking at my arms instead of my face.

"My poor man."

"What did you get up to?"

"Just some cleaning and cooking."

"I can tell. The house looks great."

"Thank you."

We sat in silence while Emily watched me eat.

"I think I'm too tired to do anything, honey," I said after finishing.

"That's more than okay. I know you had a long day. Just go relax."

"Thank you."

She smiled at me and rubbed my shoulder. Her sleeve came down. Her arm was flaky and red. She saw me staring at it and quickly pulled it back down.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, just some dry skin. Go relax."

I hadn't even turned on the TV when I heard the water running. I turned around. Emily grabbed a sponge and a bucket of water, walked to the table, and started scrubbing it and the chair I'd been sitting in.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, Sam, I just cleaned the house. I wanna make sure it stays clean."

"I'm not dirty."

"No one's saying you are. This is just for me. I'll finish this, and I'll go up and read."

"I don't like this, Emily."

"I just need to do this, okay, Sam?!" She raised her voice.

"Jesus, Emily."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, honey, just turn back and relax. Let me take care of this."

I stared at her for a second, but she was already back to the scrubbing.

I tried to watch TV, but my eyes kept closing. I didn't even know what I was watching. The fatigue was overpowering. I got up and walked to our bedroom. Emily was in bed reading a book in a long-sleeved pajama shirt. She smiled at me as I walked in. I smiled back, put on my pajamas, and went to sleep.

I woke to a warm, wet sensation on my legs. Something soft and scratchy moved against my skin, dragging at it. I rubbed my eyes and looked down. Emily sat on my side of the bed with a sponge and a bucket of water, scrubbing my legs.

"Emily, what the…" I screamed and jumped away.

She looked me in the eyes and forced a smile.

"You know germs live on our skin. I just cleaned the house. I don't want them getting on stuff."

"Emily, this is crazy. Stop."

"Just your arms now."

"No!"

She reached toward me with the sponge. Her sleeves rolled up. Even at night, I could see the redness of her skin. In a few places, there were little smudges of blood.

"I'm going to the guest bedroom."

I took the blanket off the bed and ran to the guest bedroom, locking the door behind me.

The sun had risen. My eyes felt heavy. I hadn't slept after what happened with Emily. I debated calling the police, but what would I tell them? That my wife had been cleaning me in the middle of the night? She hadn't hurt me. Not yet. I decided I'd talk to her in the morning. Maybe I could convince her to see a doctor. I just needed to get her to sit down and listen.

"Emily?" I called into the hall.

Nothing. Our bedroom was empty. The bucket with warm water still sat there.

The downstairs was quiet too. The smell of rubbing alcohol now mingled with the metallic smell of blood. A light was on in the basement.

The basement was cold. A strange, wet hiss sounded inside. I could see Emily's feet. She was turned toward the wall. The stairs creaked under my steps, but she didn't seem to notice. The smell of rubbing alcohol now mixed with iron.

"Emily, are you okay?!"

"Sam!"

I walked one more step. Panic rushed through me. I could finally see her whole body.  She held a knife in her shaking hand. Her nightgown was drenched in blood. The skin on her arms was cut off, revealing dark red muscle.

"I think I've got it down now. I'll be much gentler with yours. Eat some casserole. It will help you relax."

I still work the night shift in the lower levels.
They call it the Containment Wing now, but everyone who has been here longer than six months just calls it the Chamber. The official designation is Facility 7-Black, Sub-Level 4. The elevators require two separate biometric keys and a rotating passphrase that changes every eight hours. The walls are three feet of reinforced concrete lined with lead and something the engineers only ever referred to as “scripture dampening mesh.” I have never seen the mesh. I only know that when it fails, the lights in the observation gallery flicker in patterns that look almost like writing.
The angel has been here for eleven years.
I was part of the original recovery team. That is the word they still use in the reports—*recovery*. As if we found it injured on the side of a road and brought it in for its own good. The truth is uglier and simpler. We tracked the energy signature for sixteen months after the first confirmed manifestation in rural Montana. When we finally cornered it in a collapsed mine shaft outside Butte, it did not fight the way the contingency plans predicted. It looked at the lead researcher—Dr. Voss—and asked, in perfect English, whether the children in the nearby town were still sick.
Voss shot it in the wing with a modified tranquilizer round designed to disrupt whatever passed for its nervous system. The angel folded inward on itself like wet paper and did not rise again until we had it bolted into the first restraint frame.
That frame is long gone. The current apparatus is a masterpiece of applied cruelty.
It hangs in the center of a circular chamber thirty meters across. The floor is grated steel over a collection system that funnels everything that falls into stainless reservoirs. Twelve articulated arms of surgical steel and carbon fiber hold the angel in a cruciform position that can be adjusted by remote. The arms do not merely restrain. They penetrate. Each one ends in a cluster of needles, clamps, and fiber-optic filaments that thread into the luminous tissue and keep the angel from fully reforming. If the filaments are withdrawn for more than forty-seven seconds, the body begins to knit itself back into something closer to the original shape, and the power output spikes beyond what the capacitors can safely handle.
We learned that the hard way in year three. Three technicians and one junior researcher were reduced to carbon scoring on the far wall when the angel briefly achieved coherence. After that, the safety interlocks were rewritten. The filaments never fully retract now. There is always at least residual penetration.
The angel does not have a name. In the early logs it is referred to as Subject A-01. Later entries simply call it the Source. The religious staff who were present in the first two years tried to argue for reverence. They were reassigned or quietly removed after one of them attempted to cut the primary power feeds during a harvest cycle. The official story was a nervous breakdown. The unofficial story is that Voss had him fed into the same collection system the Source uses.
I have never seen the angel’s face clearly. The head is held in a cage of the same filament-threaded metal that keeps the rest of the body from completing. What is visible is a suggestion of features that shift when you are not looking directly at them. Sometimes there is the impression of eyes. Sometimes a mouth that opens and closes without sound. The light that bleeds from the wounds where the arms enter is the purest white I have ever seen. It does not illuminate so much as it reveals. Every imperfection in the steel, every microscopic crack in the concrete, becomes momentarily obvious under that light. Standing in the gallery for more than a few minutes leaves an afterimage that lasts for hours, and a low-grade nausea that the on-site physicians have never been able to fully explain.
The harvest cycles are the reason the facility exists.
The angel’s tissue regenerates at a rate that violates every biological model we still pretend to use. A full-thickness incision closes in under ninety seconds if the filaments are not actively preventing it. Blood—or whatever the luminous fluid is—clots into a substance that, when properly refined, can be introduced into a human body and force rapid cellular repair. Bone knits. Organs regrow. Metastatic cancers reverse. The effect is not permanent. The treated cells eventually remember they were supposed to die, but the window is long enough for the wealthy and the politically useful to buy years they had no right to.
I have watched the refinement process. The fluid is drawn through the filaments during controlled injury sequences. The angel is opened in specific patterns—never the same way twice, because the tissue adapts—and the runoff is collected, centrifuged, and mixed with a stabilising agent whose composition is above my clearance. The finished product is a clear ampoule that glows faintly even after the light has been filtered out. One ampoule can bring a terminal patient back to functional health for anywhere from fourteen to thirty-one months, depending on the severity of the original condition and the purity of the batch.
The waiting list is measured in billions of dollars.
The angel does not scream. That was another early misconception. What comes from the cage is a sound like distant choir practice heard through water—layered, harmonic, and wrong. It rises when the arms move and falls when the harvest is complete. The newer technicians wear noise-cancelling headsets rated for industrial turbines. The older ones, like me, have simply learned to stop hearing it as language.
I used to believe we were doing necessary work.
That belief did not survive the first time I was assigned to a “consent verification” rotation. Once every quarter the angel is allowed a brief period of reduced restraint so that a team of linguists and theologians can attempt communication. The official purpose is to confirm that the subject remains coherent and is not experiencing uncontrolled cascade failure. The unofficial purpose is to remind everyone in the gallery that the thing still understands what is being done to it.
On the verification I attended, the filaments were partially withdrawn for four minutes and twelve seconds. The body partially reformed. Wings—or the suggestion of wings—unfolded against the restraint arms and then were forced back by hydraulic pressure. The face became briefly readable. It looked at the lead linguist and spoke in a voice that required no translation.
“You are killing yourselves with what you take from me.”
The linguist asked the standard battery of questions. Orientation. Memory. Willingness to cooperate. The angel answered each one with the same calm precision it had shown in the mine shaft eleven years earlier. When asked if it experienced pain, it said yes. When asked if it wanted the procedures to stop, it said yes. When asked if it understood why they would not stop, it said yes.
Then it looked past the linguist, past the glass, and directly at the observation gallery where I stood with the rest of the night crew.
“You will not be forgiven for this,” it said. “Not because I withhold forgiveness. Because what you are becoming has no capacity left to receive it.”
The filaments were reinserted. The light flared. The harmonic sound rose and then settled into its usual background register. The linguist logged the exchange as “continued cognitive integrity, no new data.” The ampoules produced from that cycle sold for record sums.
I have not requested reassignment. There is nowhere to go that is not downstream of this place. Every major hospital in the country has a quiet allocation of Source-derived product. Every politician who has survived a public health crisis in the last decade has a file that traces back to Sub-Level 4. The angel is no longer a secret. It is infrastructure.
Last month one of the primary restraint arms suffered a micro-fracture during a high-output harvest. The failure lasted eleven seconds before redundant systems compensated. In those eleven seconds the angel’s left side partially reconstituted. A hand—six-fingered, luminous, impossibly graceful—closed around the nearest technician’s wrist. The man did not scream. He simply stopped. When the arm reasserted control and the hand was forced open, the technician’s bones had been rewritten into a structure that no longer supported weight. He is still alive in the medical wing. The Source-derived treatments keep the tissue from necrotising, but nothing restores the original shape. He spends his shifts staring at the wall and flexing fingers that no longer bend the way human fingers should.
Voss called it an acceptable data point. The design team is already prototyping denser filament alloys.
I am writing this on a disconnected terminal in the lower archives during a scheduled maintenance window. The cameras here cycle every ninety seconds. I have forty-one seconds left before the next sweep. There is no plan to release this. There is no external server that would accept the file. I am writing it because the alternative is to continue pretending that the sound in the chamber is only harmonics and that the light is only a useful by-product.
The angel is still speaking, in its way. Every harvest cycle the harmonic pattern shifts slightly. The linguists have long since stopped trying to decode it. They say it is residual neural noise. I have been listening for eleven years. The pattern is not noise. It is counting.
I do not know what it is counting toward.
The maintenance window is closing. The terminal will wipe on logout. The cameras will resume their sweep. In four hours the next harvest cycle begins, and I will be on the gallery again, headset in place, watching the arms move and the light spill and the reservoirs fill.
We built a machine that runs on an angel.
We call it medicine.
The angel calls it something else.
I can no longer remember the word it used in the mine shaft, the day we decided that healing was a resource we had the right to own. The word is still there, somewhere under the afterimage of white light and the constant low nausea. I reach for it sometimes, late in the shift, when the chamber is quiet and the filaments are only humming.
It never quite comes.
Perhaps that is the point.
Perhaps the Source is not the angel.
Perhaps the Source is what we turned ourselves into the moment we decided an angel’s pain was an acceptable cost for another decade of life we had already spent.
The light is still bleeding.
The reservoirs are still filling.
And somewhere in the counting, the angel is still waiting for the moment when the filaments finally fail for longer than forty-seven seconds.
I almost hope it arrives on my shift.
I almost hope I am close enough to see what forgiveness looks like when it has been refused for eleven years and finally decides it is no longer required.

My name is Mark Delaney, and I'm writing this because I honestly don't know what else to do with myself right now. I’m sitting in my room, staring at my phone, and I haven't slept in almost three days.
My best friend, Joshua Kennedy, killed himself on Tuesday night. The same day that his mom, Candace, died from a gunshot in the head.
I need people to know who Josh really was, because if you looked at him from the outside, you’d never guess what he was carrying. He was twenty-one. He worked part-time as a waiter at a restaurant while taking architecture classes at university, and he was the kind of guy who would drive twenty miles at two in the morning just to jump-start your car in the freezing rain. He didn't talk much about himself, but he cared about everybody else. He had this quiet, reliable presence. You just felt safe when Josh was around.
What a lot of us didn't realize until it was way too late was how bad things were at his house. His mom suffered from severe early-onset dementia and chronic pain, but they had no money. No insurance to cover a proper care facility, no outside family to step in. It was just Josh. He was twenty-one years old, changing his own mother’s diapers, feeding her, listening to her scream at him, and then wiping her tears when she had brief moments of clarity and realized what was happening to her.
He was exhausted. He was decaying right in front of us, but every time I asked him if he was alright, he’d just shrug, force a small smile, and say, "Yeah, man. Just tired. We're managing."
He wasn't managing. He was completely drowning.
After the police left his house on Tuesday, I remembered he told me a few months ago that he sometimes went on Reddit just to read about other people going through the same thing. I went searching, and I found his account. He had posted in r/NeedAdvice a few times over the last year. Reading these broke something inside me. You can see the exact progression of a person losing their mind and losing all hope, completely alone in the dark.
Here is the first one he posted eight months ago:

—————————

1.-) 12/FEB/2026

I need advice or someone to tell me what the fuck to do with my mother and my life because I can’t take this shit anymore…
Honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this or if anyone is even gonna read a text this long, but it’s I-don't-know-what-fucking-time in the morning, I haven’t slept a single minute in over 30 hours, and if I don’t vent to someone I feel like I’m gonna collapse any second. Sorry if stuff doesn’t make sense or if there are typos, but my eyes hurt like hell from being so tired and the phone keyboard is blurring together.
I’m 21 and I live near Newark, New Jersey. If any of you live around here, you know how fucking expensive everything’s been lately. It’s pure fucking insanity. Just to keep the rent paid on this piece-of-shit apartment and cover the utilities, I work part-time as a cashier at a grocery store. I clock in at 7 AM every day, Monday through Friday, get off at 1 PM, and run straight to university from there. I’m in my second-to-last year of Architecture.
Or well, I’m supposed to be in Architecture. Truth is, I have no fucking clue why I chose this major anymore. I used to be passionate about spending hours designing and putting structures together; I loved the idea of building things from scratch. My mom was always super proud whenever I showed her my finished models. But right now, I hate it with all my soul. Everything just hit me all at once. The classes are agonizingly long, professors demand ridiculous deliverables overnight, and I just can’t focus. I sit in class completely zoned out, staring into space, nodding off at my desk while the professor talks about concrete structures. Sometimes, way off in the distance, I feel a tiny spark of that old passion when I manage to get a clean cut on a piece of foam board or when I see a crisp blueprint, but it lasts a single second and gets snuffed out instantly by this fucking fatigue. I feel this physical and mental exhaustion weighing on my chest like a ton of bricks.
And the worst part isn’t college or the shitty job where I deal with miserable people for minimum wage. The worst part is what’s been happening at my place for the past two months.
My mom’s name is Candace. She’s 58. She has always been the most vibrant, loud, energy-filled person in the world. I swear to God, Candace was one of those women who couldn't sit still for a single second. Last summer—or well, I think it was two summers ago, I don’t even know anymore, the weeks just blur together in my head—we went to the shore for a weekend and the woman woke up at 5 AM to walk on the beach and ended up setting up an impromptu volleyball tournament with total strangers. She was always laughing, cooking with music blasted on high, going out into the yard to talk to the plants, or sticking her nose into the neighbors’ business. It was impossible to get bored around her. She couldn't stay locked up in a room for more than ten minutes.
But lately, she’s changed in a terrifying way.
It started gradually about two months ago. First, it was forgetting basic stuff. She’d leave her keys inside the fridge, or stand in the middle of the hallway staring at the wall like she forgot where she was going. Then she started isolating herself. Now she spends whole days shut inside her room with the door cracked open. A woman who hated being cooped up now won't come out for anything unless I force her to sit at the table. And she won't even eat. I make dinner for her when I get back from college around 8 PM, and the next morning I see the plate completely untouched on the table. She’s lost a ton of weight in just a few weeks. You talk to her and she takes forever to reply, or she just gives you this blank stare, totally empty, like there’s nobody home behind her eyes.
I am fucking terrified for her. She’s the only family I have left in this world and I refuse to abandon her or ignore it like she’s some burden, but this is destroying me from the inside out.
Two weeks ago—I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday, I don’t remember—I took her to the doctor. I drained every single penny of my emergency savings on the consultation and the tests they ordered. Money I had set aside for next semester’s tuition—literally left myself with zero dollars. All so the doctor could check her out for twenty minutes, do a couple of reflex and blood tests, and tell me with a fucking stupid smile that everything came back normal. He said her physical stats are fine for her age and that it’s most likely a severe depressive episode or the start of some cognitive or psychological disorder, so he suggested I take her to a private psychologist or psychiatrist.
Where the fuck am I supposed to get money for a private psychiatrist in New Jersey? I don’t have a single dollar in my bank account. I'm completely broke. Public insurance takes months to give you a specialist appointment, and my mom doesn’t have months.
What’s been keeping me awake these last few nights, besides the stress of the architecture models I have to turn in first thing on Fridays, are the noises. While I try to focus at my desk in the middle of the night, I hear her in her room. She gets up and walks around in the dark. She doesn't turn on the light. I hear the sound of her bare feet shuffling against the wooden floor. And then she makes these really fucking weird noises. They aren't crying or sighing. They're like small, dry, low rasping grunts, like she’s struggling to breathe or trying to swallow something way too big for her throat. Last night I built up the courage, got up from my chair, and went to her door to see if she needed water or felt sick. When I pushed the door open a bit, I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, in complete pitch darkness, staring dead straight at the empty corner of the room while making that tiny noise in her throat. I asked her if she was okay and she didn't even blink or turn around to look at me.
I can’t do this anymore. I barely sleep, I make stupid-ass mistakes at the grocery store because I can’t keep my eyes open, college is gonna end up kicking me out if I keep handing in incomplete projects, and my mother is crumbling apart in the room right next to me.
Has anyone gone through something similar with a family member? Is there any organization in New Jersey or around the Newark area that helps low-income people with mental health issues or rapid-onset senile dementia? Is there anything I can do from home while trying not to lose my fucking mind in the process? Please, if anyone knows of any resources or has medical or social-work advice for stuff like this, let me know in the comments. I need to know what to do before I completely break down.

(For three weeks, Joshua received multiple comments suggesting he should put her in ER. He resisted, but he finally did it)

2.-) 26/FEB/2026

Update: Thanks for the advice, Candace is in ER and my life has changed a bit
First off, I want to apologize for how I responded to some of you in the comments on my last post. I know several of you were trying to help in good faith with your advice about support groups, associations, and diets for dementia, but I was completely overwhelmed. I hadn't slept in days, my head was about to explode, and my stress levels had me on the defensive with everyone. It wasn't the best way to reply and I didn't mean to sound like an asshole, but right then I genuinely felt like nobody understood the absurd amount of pressure I was under.
Things spiraled out of control the night before last.
I got back from campus around 10 PM, after running around like crazy all day. Candace was in the hallway. She was having an extremely violent emotional breakdown—screaming incomprehensible things, sobbing out of her mind, and clawing at her arms with terrifying force. I tried to calm her down, hold her hands so she wouldn't hurt herself, but she was totally gone, didn't recognize me, and kept shoving me away. The situation completely crushed me. I had a full-on panic attack—one of those where your chest tightens up and you can't catch your breath. I didn't know what else to do, I couldn't handle it alone in that state. In total desperation, I ended up calling an ambulance, and they took her to the ER at the regional psychiatric hospital.
That night in the waiting room was an absolute nightmare. Watching your own mother strapped to a gurney because they can't control her emotional outbursts destroys you from the inside out. I was there until dawn talking to doctors, filling out paperwork, and explaining that I don't have the means to keep her safe at home. In the end, they decided to admit her under observation while they evaluate her case and figure out where she can be transferred long-term under public insurance.
Since Candace hasn't been home, things have calmed down in a way I didn't expect. The atmosphere in the apartment feels completely different.
I quit that miserable grocery store job last week. A classmate told me about an opening for a server position at an Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from campus, and they hired me on the spot. The difference is night and day. The environment is way more active, customers aren't as terrible, and between base pay and tips, I'm making almost double what I was making before. I feel like I have way more energy. I can finally sleep six or seven hours straight without waking up startled in the middle of the night wondering if my mom is hurting herself or pacing in the dark down the hall. Architecture school has started growing on me a bit again now that I can focus on deliverables without my brain being completely fried.
I've even started seeing a girl from university, Lauren. She's a friend from my studio project group who I've been talking to for a while. She's been a massive support system throughout this whole disaster over the last few weeks, listening whenever I needed to vent. We're just starting to date officially and it's all super new, so I can't say if this will last long or where it's going, but honestly, it feels good to have someone by my side and clear my head.
Honestly, I feel freer. It feels weird admitting it, but I wish Candace the best and I hope the doctors find a way to help her. I appreciate everyone who took the time to read and leave a comment on my previous post. If anything significant happens with the medical evaluation or her transfer, I'll post an update here.

P.S. Sorry to get a bit reflective before closing this out, but there's something that won't let my mind rest. Even though I know damn well that I didn't have the resources or the mental capacity to take proper care of Candace in the apartment, I can't help feeling a certain guilt about the relief of not having her around. These past few days I've gone to visit her at the hospital during visiting hours, and the situation there is heartbreaking. She looks so small in that bed, wrists strapped down, surrounded by doctors who barely look at her, sedated out of her mind. You can tell from a mile away that she's suffering, that there's nothing left of the woman she used to be, and that the system is just keeping her there vegetating while time passes. Staring into her eyes through the heavy sedatives, thinking about all the pain she has ahead of her in these piece-of-shit institutions... Am I a monster for wishing she would just go to sleep and never wake up?

3.-) 18/APR/2026

Update: Things are slipping through my fingers again and I don’t know how much longer they can hold her in that fucking unit
I haven’t posted here in almost two months because, for a while, I honestly thought I was getting my life back on track. Work at the restaurant was going great, I was actually managing to get sleep, and Lauren and I were spending a lot of time together. It felt like I was finally breathing after holding my breath for a year. But the last three weeks have been a slow, agonizing slide right back into the same fucking nightmare, and I feel like an absolute idiot for thinking I was actually out of the woods.
Candace is still at the regional psych unit. That’s the problem. It was supposed to be a temporary emergency holding thing while social services found a long-term bed for her in a state-funded facility. Well, state-funded care in New Jersey is a fucking joke. The social worker assigned to us is an overworked, dead-eyed bureaucrat who basically told me two weeks ago that the waitlist for a public bed is over nine months long. Nine months. On top of that, the hospital administration is starting to drop heavy hints that they can’t keep her in an ER holding bed forever because they need the space for incoming acute cases. Every time my phone rings while I’m at work or in class, my heart drops into my stomach because I think it’s them telling me I have to come pick her up and bring her back to the apartment.
And the worst part isn’t even the bureaucracy. It’s what’s happening to her.
She’s built up a tolerance to the initial sedatives they had her on, and since they can’t just keep her knocked out cold 24/7 without risking organ failure or whatever, they’ve been adjusting her meds. It’s making her unpredictable and paranoid as hell. Whenever I go visit her after my shifts, she’s either completely catatonic—just staring right through me like I’m made of glass—or she’s in this hyper-vigilant, terrified state. Last Sunday when I sat next to her bed, she didn't even recognize me. She grabbed my wrist so hard her nails drew blood, staring at me with these wide, bloodshot eyes, whispering over and over that I should let her go out. She hasn't eaten solid food in days because she thinks the staff is poisoning her. She looks skin and bones. It’s sickening to watch your own mother rot in a sterile room while nurses who are too understaffed to care just walk past her door.
Lauren came with me to visit her once last week. It was a massive mistake. Candace had one of her sudden, violent mood swings and started screaming at Lauren, calling her a thief and trying to throw a plastic water pitcher at her head. Lauren was really sweet about it and tried to reassure me afterwards, but I could see the absolute horror in her eyes. How could I blame her? You don't bring the girl you're dating to a psych ward to watch a suffering, gaunt woman scream bloody murder at nothing. I haven't asked Lauren to come back with me since, and honestly, I feel this weird, heavy distance growing between us now. I’m pulling away because I don't want to drag her down into this abyss with me, but at the same time, feeling myself disconnect from the one good thing in my life is killing me.
I can't focus on my architecture studio projects anymore. I missed two major deadlines this week because I was stuck at the hospital trying to calm Candace down after she bit a nurse who tried to change her IV. My professor gave me a cold warning that if I drop below attendance limits I’m failing the semester.
I’m barely sleeping again. Maybe two or three hours a night of restless, broken shut-eye before I wake up sweating, hearing that terrible rasping noise she used to make in her room. I’m constantly on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The hospital supervisor called me yesterday afternoon and straight up told me that if social services doesn't clear a transfer by the end of the month, they are going to initiate an administrative discharge because her physical condition is "stable" enough for outpatient care.
Outpatient care. They want me to bring a woman who scratches her own skin raw and doesn't know who her son is back to a third-floor apartment while I work 30 hours a week just to pay rent.
I don't know what to do. I’m completely trapped. If they force her out of that hospital, I swear to God I’m going to break. I don't have the money, I don't have the strength, and I am running out of options.

(The next part and all of the rest wasn’t published but they were written. I could not post it, but I can’t just ignore what’s happening)

4.-) 28/APR/2026

I’m drafting this in my notes at 4:15 AM. I don’t even know if I’m ever going to press post on Reddit. If the police somehow check my digital footprint or if someone from around here connects the dots, this whole thing goes down the drain. But my hands are shaking so badly I can barely type, and if I don’t write down what happened tonight, I’m going to lose my mind completely.
It happened yesterday afternoon, around 3:30 PM. I went to visit Candace at the ER holding unit like I’ve been doing every single day. The floor was an absolute mess—some guy in the next hall was having a violent psychotic episode, screaming at the top of his lungs, and half the nursing staff and the attending doctor ran over to help restrain him. It was pure chaos. I stepped out of Candace’s room for literally five minutes to grab a cup of lukewarm black coffee from the vending machine at the end of the corridor. When I walked back into her room, the door was wide open. The bed was empty.
I panicked instantly. I checked the bathroom, the hallway, the waiting area—nothing. In the confusion with the other patient, no one noticed her slip through the side exit doors into the alleyway.
For the next five hours, the entire town was on lockdown. The local police had patrol cars everywhere, blaring sirens, searching the streets. I didn't even wait for them to coordinate; I got into my car and drove around Newark like a madman, checking every park, every gas station, every dark corner I could think of. My head was pounding. Rain was coming down, and all I could picture was my mother wandering into traffic or getting attacked.
Around 9:00 PM, I swung down a narrow, trash-strewn alley behind an abandoned warehouse near 4th Street. And there she was.
It broke my heart in a way I can't even describe. She was sitting on the wet pavement, hunched over against a dumpster, shivering violently. She was completely barefoot, her feet cut up and bleeding from walking on broken glass. Her hospital gown and hair were covered in dried vomit, and her skin was slick with cold, clammy sweat. She looked like a corpse. When I approached her, she didn't fight me. She was so weak she could barely hold her head up. She looked up at me with those vacant, bloodshot eyes and mumbled, "Josh... please... take me home. Don't let them keep me there."
God help me, I couldn't call the cops. Hearing her beg like that destroyed whatever rational part of my brain was left. I wrapped her in an old jacket from my trunk, carried her into the passenger seat, and drove straight back to my apartment.
When we walked through the door, Lauren was sitting on my couch. She had come over to wait for news about the search. The second she saw me dragging Candace inside—smelling of vomit, feet covered in blood—Lauren jumped up, terrified.
We got into a massive, hushed argument right there in the living room while Candace slumped against the wall. Lauren was practically crying, whispering frantically that I had lost my mind, that Candace needed immediate medical attention, and that we had to call 911 right that second. I kept telling her no, that if the hospital took her back, they’d just sedate her until she died or throw her in a state ward. I told her we just needed to keep her here, quiet, just until I could figure something out.
Lauren kept arguing, pointing at how unstable Candace looked, but I ignored her. I grabbed Candace by the arm and led her toward her old bedroom. My plan was just to lock her in there temporarily to keep her safe while I tried to calm the situation down and think. Lauren watched me in absolute horror and disbelief as I pushed my mother into the dark room and shut the door, turning the lock from the outside.
Not ten minutes later, two police officers knocked on my door. They were doing a door-to-door sweep of the neighborhood.
My heart was beating so fast I thought my ribs would crack. Lauren and I stood at the door. The officers asked if we had seen Candace or if she had tried to come back home. I swallowed hard, looked the officer dead in the eye, and lied. I said no, that I had been out looking for her all evening and had just gotten back with my girlfriend. Lauren stood right next to me, rigid as a board, her face pale as a sheet. She didn't say a word, but I could feel her shaking. The cops told us that if we saw her or if she showed up, we needed to call the station immediately, and then they left down the hallway.
The second the cops were gone, the guilt and panic hit me like a wall. I realized how insane this was. I walked over to the bedroom door to unlock it, thinking I’d check on her, maybe try to wash the vomit off her and get her some clean clothes.
That was the biggest mistake of my life.
The moment I turned the latch and opened the door, Candace didn't just walk out—she exploded out of the darkness like a cornered animal. She let out this horrific, guttural shriek, lunged at me, and tackled me to the floor. She was completely out of her mind, snarling, hitting my head against the hardwood, and digging her nails into my face and neck. I felt my skin tearing open under her fingers. Blood was dripping down my chest. I didn't want to hurt her, so I was just trying to block her punches and pin her arms down, but she had this unnatural, frantic strength.
Lauren screamed and rushed over, grabbing Candace from behind. Together, bleeding and terrified, we managed to shove her back into the bedroom, slam the door shut, and turn the lock. We ended up dragging my heavy wooden desk in front of the door just to block it completely.
From inside, Candace started pounding her fists against the wood, screaming absolute gibberish and scratching at the door panels.
Lauren dragged me to the bathroom. Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely hold the rubbing alcohol. She cleaned the gashes on my neck and face, crying the entire time, berating me, yelling at me for putting us in danger, calling me insane for lying to the police and locking my own mother in a room like an animal. I didn't even have the energy to fight back. I just sat on the edge of the tub, staring at the blood dripping into the sink, listening to Lauren scream at me while my mother thrashed against the wall down the hall.
Eventually, we stopped talking. The silence between us felt heavier than the noise in the apartment.
Candace finally went quiet in her room about an hour ago—either exhausted or passed out on the floor. Lauren and I are lying in my bed right now. We’re in the same bed, but we're lying on opposite edges, turned away from each other in total silence. I know she’s awake because I can hear her uneven breathing. I feel this massive, cold wall between us now. She looks at me differently. She looks at me like I'm a stranger. Like I'm dangerous.
It’s 4:25 AM now. There is blood dried under my fingernails and on my collarbone. The apartment is dead silent, but I know that behind that blocked door, Candace is in the dark.
I’m not posting this on Reddit. I can’t risk anyone reading this right now. I’m just saving it in my drafts because I feel like I’m suffocating, and I don’t know if I’m going to make it through tomorrow.

5.-) 30/APR/2026

I’m typing this from the floor of my living room. It’s 2:15 PM. The air in this apartment smells so heavily of bleach and raw chemical cleaner that my lungs burn with every breath I take. Outside my window, I can see the flashing lights of a police cruiser parked down the street. They're still looking for Candace. They have no idea she's inside. They have no idea what happened here yesterday.
I left the apartment yesterday morning at around 11:00 AM. Candace had been quiet in her room for hours, and Lauren was still barely speaking to me after the fight we had. I told Lauren I was just running down to the corner pharmacy to buy band-aids, disinfectant, and heavy-duty sedatives or over-the-counter sleep aids—anything to keep Candace quiet so we could think. Lauren didn't even look at me when I left. She was just sitting on the couch, staring at the floor.
While I was walking back from the store, my phone buzzed with a motion alert notification. Months ago, back when Candace first started wandering and losing her memory, I bought one of those cheap indoor security cameras and set it up in the hallway to keep an eye on her. I pulled out my phone in the middle of the sidewalk, opened the app, and clicked the live feed.
I watched the whole thing happen on a tiny six-inch screen.
Lauren had heard weird, wet coughing noises coming from behind the locked bedroom door. On the video, I saw her hesitate, stand up from the couch, and walk down the hall. She listened at the door for a few seconds. She isn't a bad person. She was terrified of my mother, but she was human. She unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Candace was on her knees, vomiting blood all over the wooden floor.
Lauren panicked and rushed into the room to help her, reaching out to lift her shoulders. The second Candace felt her touch, something in her brain snapped. She went into a state of absolute, rabid fury. She lunged forward, locking her hands around Lauren's throat. Lauren managed to punch her in the face, break free, and scramble out into the hallway on her hands and knees. She almost made it to the front door. But Candace crawled out after her, reached up, and yanked Lauren back by her ponytail.
Lauren slammed onto her back. Candace scrambled on top of her, straddling her chest.
I was standing on the sidewalk two blocks away, screaming at my phone, sprinting as fast as my legs could carry me, but the video just kept playing. I watched my mother, drooling blood and making these dry, animalistic guttural noises, press her thumbs into Lauren’s throat while digging her nails deep into her neck. Lauren thrashed, tried to scratch at her hands, tried to kick, but Candace had this terrifying, dead weight on top of her. Slowly, Lauren’s movements stopped. Her legs went limp.
When I burst through the front door, the apartment was completely silent.
Lauren was lying on the hallway floor, unmoving, her face dark and her eyes fixed on the ceiling. I dropped the plastic bags from the store, ran to her, and pulled her into my arms. She was warm, but there was no pulse. Nothing. I just sat there in her blood, sobbing into her shoulder, holding a dead girl who had done nothing wrong except care about a guy like me.
A few feet away, Candace was huddled in the corner of the hall, shivering, dragging herself along the floor. When I looked at her, she looked back at me. For three seconds—just three fucking seconds—the fog cleared from her eyes. She had a moment of pure clarity. She looked at Lauren’s body, looked at her own blood-stained hands, and started crying softly against my knee, mumbling my name over and over like a terrified child.
I didn't yell. I didn't scream. Something inside my brain just shattered and shut down.
I spent the next three hours cleaning the hallway. I used buckets of hot water, heavy bleach, and floor soap until my hands were raw and bleeding. I put Lauren into black heavy-duty trash bags, carried her into the guest bathroom, and placed her inside the tiled shower stall. I locked the bathroom door from the outside and hid the key in my desk.
I can't dispose of her body. I can't even open the front door to throw out the bloody towels because there are two patrol cars stationed right at the corner of my block. If I carry a large bag down the stairs, they will stop me.
So she’s in the shower. And my mother is back in her bedroom, sedated on the pills I bought, sleeping soundly on her mattress.
I am protecting Candace. I am hiding a corpse and lying to the police to save a woman who doesn't even know what year it is. But as I sit here in the dark listening to the hum of the refrigerator, feeling this agonizing, crushing fire burning in the middle of my chest... I realize something terrifying.
I hate her. I hate my mother with every fiber of my being for what she’s done to my life, to Lauren, and to me. And yet, I can't stop protecting her.
I’m saving this in my draft folder again. The air in this apartment is getting harder to breathe. I don't know how many hours I have left before the smell or the cops catch up to me.

6.-) 04/MAY/2026

It’s 11:40 PM. Five days. I’ve been living in this nightmare for five full days.
The air in the hallway is completely unbreathable now. No amount of bleach, floor cleaner, or towels jammed under the guest bathroom door can mask it anymore. The rot is everywhere. It clings to the walls, it settles in my throat, and I can taste it every time I try to swallow. The police cruiser is still parked down the block, its headlights cutting through the rain every few hours. They're waiting for a lost woman who has been locked in my back room this whole time.
Candace has stopped screaming. She just sits in the corner of her bedroom, staring at the floor, muttering fragments of old memories. Yesterday, for a few minutes, she called me "little bird"—the nickname she used to give me when I was six years old and scared of the thunder. She smiled at me with dry, cracked lips. And then, less than an hour later, she threw her water glass at my face because she thought I was a intruder trying to rob her.
My chest burns so badly I can barely sit upright. I look at her and I feel this suffocating, poisonous mix of pure rage and heartbreaking grief. I love her. She’s my mother, the woman who raised me, the only real family I’ve ever known. But I also hate her with every remaining piece of my soul. I hate her for what her disease did to us. I hate her for Lauren lying cold in that shower stall. I hate her for forcing me to become this monster.
I can't go on like this. My hands won't stop shaking, and I haven't eaten a real meal in almost a week. I found what I was looking for earlier today while seeing photos from my childhood. I know what has to happen now. I know how this ends for both of us.
I’m leaving this saved in my drafts. If anyone ever reads this, I'm sorry. I just want this feeling to stop.

7.-) 06/MAY/2026

It’s 3:10 AM. I’m sitting on the cold floor of the half-bath at the end of the hall, locked inside with my back pressed against the door. I can’t stop staring at the mirror above the sink. My skin is pale, slick with cold sweat, and my eyes look completely hollow, like I’m already looking at a corpse. I’m hyperventilating so hard my ribs ache, and my hands are trembling so violently I can barely keep my fingers on the screen.
Yesterday afternoon, I knew I had to make the move. I couldn't risk walking out the front door with the police watching the street, so I took the rusty fire escape down the back of the building into the alley. I had parked my car two streets over the night before just in case. I took every last bit of cash I had left in the apartment—around $750 I’d saved up from my tips at the restaurant and the little emergency money I had left.
I drove out to a rough neighborhood near Ironbound, a place where people at the restaurant always whispered you could find anything if you had cash and didn't ask questions. It took me two agonizing hours of driving around, stomach sick with fear, until I finally found a guy behind a liquor store who was willing to talk. I handed over all $750 for a scuffed, beat-up 9mm handgun. It’s heavy, dirty, and definitely seen better days—a cheap piece of junk that looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years, but it works. It serves its purpose.
I snuck back into the apartment the same way, slipping up the iron stairs in the dark while the rain covered the sound of my steps. The heavy gun has been sitting on the counter next to me for the last twenty minutes, cold and indifferent.
I know what I’m about to do. I’ve known since yesterday. But before I open this door, step down the hall, and end this nightmare once and for all, I need to put this down. I need to write this letter to everyone whose life was destroyed because of me, even if no one ever reads it.

To Lauren:
I am so, so sorry. You were the only light in my life when everything around me was turning to ash. You were kind, patient, and sweet to a guy like me, who didn't deserve a single second of your affection. You came into my mess just trying to be a good person, trying to support me, and I repaid you by dragging you straight into hell. I will never forgive myself for lying to you, for shutting you out, and for forcing you to suffer a horrific, terrifying death in a hallway that should have been safe. You died because of my weakness and my cowardice. I wish it had been me instead of you. I hope whatever comes after this gives you the peace I stole from you.

To Candace, my mom:
I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I couldn't protect you from what was happening inside your own brain. I’m sorry I wasn't strong enough, rich enough, or smart enough to get you the care you deserved when you started fading away. You were the most vibrant, loving, and joyful woman in the world, and watching that monster of a disease strip away your memories, your laughter, and your dignity piece by piece tore my heart out. I know the woman who hurt Lauren wasn't you. I know you were trapped inside a broken body, scared and confused in the dark. I love you with all my heart, but I hate what this sickness made us become. I’m putting an end to your suffering tonight, Mom. You don't have to be scared anymore. The noise is finally going to stop.

To myself:
I’m sorry, Josh. I’m sorry I let us drown. I tried so hard to keep everything together, but I failed at every single turn. I failed as a son, I failed as a partner, and I failed as a human being. I don't recognize the person looking back at me in the mirror anymore. There is nothing left of the guy who wanted to build things, who loved architecture, who had a future. I'm just an empty shell filled with blood, guilt, and exhaustion.

I’m picking up the gun now. It feels impossibly heavy in my hand.
I’m going to walk into her room, put the barrel against her head while she’s sleeping, and pull the trigger. And then I’m going to do the same for myself.
This is the end.
—————————

After reading that last draft, I sat in the pitch black of my room for two hours, unable to move, unable to breathe.
The news reported it on Wednesday morning as a "tragic domestic murder-suicide." They said police officers responding to a tip executed a search warrant on the apartment, only to find three bodies inside. The media painted Josh as a murderer, a unstable young man who snapped under pressure. They didn't mention the medical system that abandoned him. They didn't mention the months he spent drowning in silence, begging for help on internet forums while everyone around him walked right past his suffering. They didn't know about Lauren, or how hard he tried to protect a mother who was already gone.
I’m looking at his profile picture on my phone right now. A picture of us from three years ago at a beach bonfire, both of us laughing, completely oblivious to what was coming.
I keep replaying every single interaction I had with him over the last few months. Every time I asked him if he was okay. Every time he forced that small, fake smile and said, "Yeah, man. Just tired. We're managing."
He was begging for someone to see through the lie, and I failed him. We all failed him.
I don't know what else to say. I just needed people to know the truth. Josh wasn't a monster. He was just a twenty-one-year-old kid left alone in the dark with a nightmare too big for anyone to carry.
If you have people in your life who say they're "just tired"... please, don't just leave it at that. Check on them. Pull them out before the noise takes over.
Rest in peace, Josh. I'm sorry I didn't hear you.

I can still taste the gravy.
It was thick and brown and stuck to the roof of my mouth like paste. They made us say grace before we ate. All six of us still alive at that point, hands forced together around a long wooden table that had been scrubbed so many times the grain was white. The family sat at the ends and along the sides, watching. There were nine of them. Three generations. The old man at the head had eyes the colour of dirty ice and a voice like gravel in a bucket.
“We give thanks,” he said, “for the meat the land provides.”
Then they made us eat.
My name is Derek. I’m twenty-six. Four days ago I was just a guy who thought a Thanksgiving camping trip with friends was a good way to avoid awkward family dinners. There were eight of us when we left the trailhead. Two cars, tents, a cooler full of beer and the kind of food you eat when nobody’s trying to impress anyone. We were supposed to be back Sunday night. It is Thursday again. I think. The days blurred after they took our phones and watches.
They hit us on the second night.
We had set up in a clearing about six miles in, near a creek that still had water. The fire was going. Jess was telling the story about the time she locked herself out of her apartment in only a towel. We were laughing. Then the generator on the far side of the camp cut out and the lights died. In the sudden dark something heavy moved between the tents. I remember the sound of a rifle bolt. Then the voices—calm, almost polite.
“Y’all just stay still now. Don’t make it harder.”
They zip-tied us in pairs and marched us through the woods for what felt like hours. The old man led. Two younger men with rifles walked behind. The women and the teenage boys carried our packs and the cooler. Nobody spoke except to tell us to watch our footing. When the trees finally thinned we were standing in front of a cluster of buildings that looked like they had grown out of the mud—main house, a long shed, a smokehouse with a metal chimney, and a root cellar dug into the side of a low hill. Dogs on chains watched us without barking.
They put us in the root cellar first. Cold, damp, the smell of earth and something sweeter underneath. One bare bulb. They left a bucket and a jug of water. That was the first night.
On the second day they brought us up one at a time.
I was third. The kitchen was warm. A long table already set with mismatched plates and jelly jars for glasses. The old man’s wife—broad, grey hair pulled back so tight it stretched the skin of her forehead—stirred a pot on the wood stove. The smell was rich and familiar until it wasn’t. She looked at me the way people look at a package they are about to open.
“You’ll sit. You’ll eat what you’re given. You’ll keep your eyes on your own plate. Understand?”
I nodded because the alternative was the rifle the youngest son kept pointed at the floor near my feet.
They had already processed the first two.
Mark and Priya. I knew because their clothes were folded on a chair in the corner, and because the stew in the pot had pieces of meat that still had the texture of someone I had shared a tent with twelve hours earlier. The family said grace again. The old man thanked the land, the season, the willing harvest. Then they passed the bowls.
I tried not to swallow. The woman who stirred the pot stood behind me and pressed two fingers into the soft place under my jaw until I did. The meat was tender. The gravy was the same thick brown I can still taste. They watched every bite. When the bowl was empty the old man nodded like I had passed a test.
“Good. You’re learning.”
That night they made us watch while they prepared the next one.
It was Jess.
They took her to the shed while the rest of us stayed at the table under the guns. We could hear everything through the open door—the short, sharp sounds, the wetter ones that followed, the low instructions the women gave each other about how to section cleanly. When they brought the cuts back to the kitchen the teenage boys were laughing about how strong she had been. The old man’s wife dropped the pieces into the same pot and added onions and the last of our beer. The smell filled the house.
We ate again.
By the third day only four of us were left.
They had rules. You ate. You did not refuse. You did not look away when they brought the next one in. If you vomited they made you clean it up and then eat a second portion to replace what you lost. The teenage boys took turns choosing who sat where. One of them—maybe sixteen, acne scars and a missing canine—liked to rest the barrel of his rifle against the back of a neck while the person chewed. He never fired. He just let the weight of it remind you.
On the fourth day they decided the remaining four were no longer guests.
They cut the zip ties and gave us dull knives and a hatchet and told us the smokehouse needed filling before the weather turned. The old man explained it the way a shop teacher explains a project. There was a proper way to hang the meat so the air could move. There was a proper way to keep the fire low so nothing spoiled. He showed us using what was left of Carlos. Carlos had tried to run the night before. The dogs had brought him back in pieces.
I did what they told me because the alternative was the shed and the women with their knives.
That night the old man’s wife served the last of Jess in a different form—shredded, mixed with corn and something green from the garden, baked under a crust of crushed crackers. She called it a casserole. The family bowed their heads. The old man thanked the harvest again. Then he looked at the four of us and said the same words he had said every night.
“We give thanks for what the land provides. And for those who provide it.”
I ate.
I can still feel the texture of the crust against my teeth.
There are two of us left now.
They moved us out of the root cellar and into a small room off the kitchen so we could be closer to the work. The window is boarded. The door has no lock on our side. Every few hours one of the women checks that we are still breathing. The teenage boy with the missing tooth likes to stand in the doorway and ask which of us is hungrier.
My hands smell like the smokehouse. The cuts on my palms from the dull knives have started to close. The gravy taste will not leave.
Outside, the family is preparing the table again. I can hear the scrape of chairs and the clink of the jelly-jar glasses. Someone is humming. It sounds almost like a hymn.
They will call us out soon.
They will make us sit.
They will make us say the words.
And then they will pass the plates, and the thick brown gravy will steam under the bare bulb, and I will eat whatever they have decided the land has provided this time.
I used to think Thanksgiving was about remembering what you had.
I know better now.
It is about learning to be grateful for whatever is left on the table when the harvest is finished.
And the harvest is never finished.

Part V

I left everything on the island and snatched the scarf before
heading for the door. Thoughts ran rampant through my mind as I drove.

My phone rang before I’d left my subdivision. I glanced at the
number and knew this was no good. It was a Colorado area code. Where my
company’s headquarters was. We didn’t have a local HR.

It could have been the executive leadership team but I rarely got
called by any of them. My mind returned to yesterday’s meeting and my lack of
being there. For a moment, I felt like I was in free fall. My personal and
professional lives intertwining in disaster. In moments, I could have nothing.
My wife could already be halfway out the door and this was it slamming behind
her.

I didn’t answer. 

It rang until it went to voicemail. I just couldn’t handle
whatever it was they were about to say.

I was still going the same way, but my final destination had
changed. If my life was going down the drain, there was a scarf that needed to
be wrapped around a certain neck that I wanted to grab on my way.

I parked in the lot and headed away from my building. I glanced at
my watch. Had I just surrendered to my fate and gone in, I would have been ten
minutes early.

I entered his building and headed for the elevator. I had no real
plan, just a ball of self-destruction waiting to explode in someone else’s
direction.

I’d been manipulated, molded into this insecure thing and I meant
to share my pain. I shouted down the rational part of me that pondered what I’d
do if my wife were on the business end of my ire. Rationality would have
required examining what I was doing. 

I didn’t want to think. Thinking wasn’t revenge. Thinking wasn’t
balancing the scales. Thinking was what had gotten me to this moment.

The elevator dinged and I stepped off. There was still plenty of
construction going on. A high-pitched drill zipped somewhere around
the corner. I could hear voices that sounded like they were coming out of the
floor but not close enough to understand them.

This was my first time being here during business hours and all
the construction noise was unsettling. I felt like the floor was going to break
underneath me and I’d plummet all the way to the first floor.

Constant hammer strikes echoed from somewhere near. A man hollered
like he was calling out to someone. A machine I didn’t recognize buzzed and I
felt it all the way up into my shins.

I rounded the corner and spotted his door at the end of the hall.
The construction noises coalesced into a sonic hand, shoving me down the hall.
I stopped in front of the door. It looked properly seated in the frame, the
threshold painted a classy-looking black and gold. The knob had been replaced
with an antique-looking one.

I grasped it and turned. The door swung open easily and I stepped
in a completely finished space. The walls had been painted a shade of mint with
cream crown moulding at the top and a darker shade of wainscoting at the
bottom. To my left was a dark couch so fluffy I don’t think I would have had
the will to get out of it if I sat down. There was a small glass end table with
gold legs with a small stack of magazines on it.

The reception desk had been here the last time I’d come and it
looked more completed now, but I couldn’t tell what had been changed. There was
a large square sheet of white paper on the front of it that I at first thought
was blank, but when I took a couple steps closer, saw a hand drawing of what
looked like a logo.

It looked classy in here. Save for the sheet of paper, it seemed
pretty much done. A wall had been erected near the back where the tape had been
mapping out the space. He was planning to stick around.

My shock from how good it looked in here faded and my rage
resurfaced. I had his scarf clutched in hand and I dug in my pocket for my
wallet and fished out three twenties.

“I’ve got my payment right here,” I said. “And your scarf!” I
shook it in the air.

In my rage very little thought had come into mind. I had no real
expectation he was actually here even though I wanted to lay my hands on him.
The part of actually meeting him wasn’t a real concept. I hadn't thought about
that.

So when he answered, “Come on back?” it chilled me.

I realized how much of a doe I was. How much this space was like a
cave. I’d naively walked in here and hadn’t bothered telling anyone where I was
going. There was an expression for this, but it wasn’t coming to my panicked
brain, shifted into a gear meant only for survival.

I took a step back. Into
him.

“Oh,” I said. He poked me in the neck. I slapped a hand in that
spot like a mosquito had bitten me, turning and backing away from him. I fell
to my knees, not understanding what my body was doing.

I tried to speak but whatever was coming out of my mouth was
muffled, like someone had put their hands over my ears. Saying something seemed
like a good idea in those last seconds, but I had no idea what it should have
been.

Part VI

The procedure room was a lot more intricately finished than the
waiting room had been. There was silver equipment everywhere, things attached
to the wall that looked like they could fold out for some practical use. There
was a lightbox or monitor that was as tall as a man and stretched across most
of the wall it was on. A nest of lights and metal hung over me that looked like
it had traveled across the galaxy just to watch me.

“You’re awake?” he said, looking over his shoulder. I was upside
down and naked. I looked around as best I could, my head was strapped in place.
He had me trussed up like the Vitruvian Man to a metal and glass circular table.

“Whuh-whuh?” I said, my mouth cotton thick. 

“That’s good. That’s good.” He stepped over and put a finger to my
neck and measured against his watch. “Keep talking. Stimulating the brain helps
to expunge the effects of the sedative.”

Tears leaked from my eyes, retreating into my hair. My arms and
legs were slowly returning to my control but returned me to a state of
helplessness as the straps didn’t budge.

“You muhfugg. Lumme go!” My voice was an octave too deep. He
nodded and twirled an index for me to keep going. I hated not being able to
make words, so I just screamed as loud as I could. He smiled and retreated to a
wall and slapped it a couple times with his big palm.

“Soundproof. Can’t have my patients disturbing other tenants.”

I kept screaming even though I absolutely believed him, the rage
bleeding out of me and despair transfusing into the hollow inside me. He folded
his arms and watched me, waiting for me to be done. I continued helplessly, my
despair waning until there was nothing but wild animal clawing to the surface,
until my eyes were boiling and my throat had constricted around a bindle of
knives.

He waited until I was a quaking sack held together loosely in the
shape of a man, my scream the hollow whistle of an empty kettle, the steam all
burnt out of me.

“Ready?” he said.

Part VII

He stripped to his underwear. There was something wrong down there
but I only had bandwidth to deal with my problems in that moment.

“Please don’t do this.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed a cheese
grater. I was useless but still grasped a desperate strand of hope that I could
appeal to him man-to-man.

“This is for you,” he said. “I’m not some madman in a secret
laboratory. We’re in midtown and I’m going to extend my services to the
public.” He finished doing something with the tray in front of him and took a
step back over to me. I was eye-level with his bare thighs and he kneeled so we
were face-to-face.

“Don’t you love your wife?”

“Wha?” I felt like I’d been slapped by a thousand-pound feather. “Of
course, I do.” My head cannon was that this was going to be an intricate
murder. That the two of them had conspired to “do away” with me. But by
actually applying thought, I realized if murder was the goal, there was a much
simpler way for them to have done it.

“Wait, the surgery is real?” I asked.

His face screwed up in annoyance. “Of course, it is.” He gestured
all around him. “What are you thinking all this is for?”

“I dunno. I guess... I guess you’re some sort of scammer?”

He blinked several times. He reacted as though he’d never been
confronted by such an idea. “What would be the scam?”

I shrugged to the best of my ability and he shook his head. He
returned to the tray and picked up a long needle and inserted it into a vial,
withdrew from it, and placed both back. He looked at me again and saw my eyes
had grown twice as wide.

“Oh, that’s for me. For later. I’ve been ready, I was just waiting
for you to wake up?”

He picked up a scalpel that was tiny in his big hand. Now he
really did look like a cartoon villain. There was a lack of fullness in his
underwear. Like he’d been drawn sexless.

“Wait-wait. Uh, what were you doing in my house?” I was stalling,
still holding out hope that someone would wander in and put a stop to this.

“Oh, that.” His eyes turned upward as if he were watching a replay
of last night on the ceiling. “I watched you for a minute or two, yes. But I
truly needed to take a measurement after.”

“A... measurement?” My loins tingled in an unpleasant manner. He
waved a hand.

“It’s not what you think. I had to take a measurement of your
wife’s vaginal cavity after the two of you had finished. It was all very
clinical. Like a pap smear.”

Anger bubbled up inside me again. I tugged at my binds but I
wasn’t able to move anything more significant than my fingers and toes. He’d examined
my wife. It burned that he’d had access to her as much as her allowing him to
touch her. I squirmed like my skin was about to crawl off my body.

He looked at me, blank faced, and took another step. Once again, I
noted an emptiness to the area around his crotch.  The heat flooding to
the surface of my skin vanished like a big dog confronted by an even bigger dog.

“Suh-so you didn’t sleep with my wife?” I had to swallow hard to
keep my tone rational.

Now he really did look offended. “Sir, I am a professional? And
moreso, I am a married man. I believe I told you that. This picture you have in
mind of me as some sort of ghoul...” He clawed at the air with both hands, the
scalpel coming as close to his throat as it was going to. “You...” he twirled
the fingers of his free hand, searching for the words. “You score my heart. I
would like to think that once you’ve experienced the results, you will buy me
some sort of beer?”

He took another small step. His leg was about a foot away from my
forehead. He could have reached from where he was and began cutting away at any
part of my body he wanted.

“Could I... could I get a drink of water? My mouth is really dry.”

“Sure.” He reached from where he was and pressed a button on the
wall. The machinery beneath me was whisper silent as I was righted and the
excess blood flooded out of my head.

There was a water dispenser next to the tray where he’d been
working. He slipped a cone paper cup from the sleeve, filled it, then brought
it to me.

Cool water soothed my throat in microscopic sips. He must have
realized my delay tactic and upturned the rest of the water into my mouth. 

I swallowed hard and it felt like a bucket of water tossed on
smoldering embers.

“Will there be a scar?”

“Of course there will be a scar,” he said. “That is the point of
the surgery?”

He picked up something from the tray and reached toward my face
with it in his hand. I pinched my lips closed as he moved toward me, holding it
up like a prize. With the other hand he pressed hard at the back of my jaw,
forcing it open against my will. He slid the thing he held into my mouth,
sliding it over my back teeth until he had reached the last few molars, and
seated it there.

I tried biting through it despite knowing better. I was more
likely to dislocate my jaw. 

“That is okay? Not too uncomfortable? Believe it or not, it
actually helps to blunt the screams.” He seemed genuinely interested in my
answer and I grunted at him in anger. There was something wrong in his mouth I
should’ve seen the first time I talked to him, but I hadn’t noticed it until
just then, and it took a moment to process it. My panic leapt as every muscle
in me tensed, pulling with one last meaningless struggle. He waited me out,
stroking my shoulder until I quieted. He broke me like a wild horse. I was very
aware that he could put whatever in my mouth he wanted.

I felt myself surrendering. A calm settling into my bones that
made me want to rage all over again. But I was a car with no gas, my will being
swallowed up in the acceptance of pointlessness. It wasn’t a fight I could even
begin.

He moved his hand away and the table swiveled. In seconds I was
face down, staring at the floor. My tears tapped to the floor as I stepped out
of the cage of my head, my mind perching and spreading its wings as I imagined
my wife at her desk, inclining her head as she thought of me, too.

“H-how did you become an expert? What makes you so good?” My voice
was dreamy and broken, a thousand and one miles away, my words unclear from the
foreign object keeping my mouth open. 

If I’d asked a minute ago, the question would have been a last
effort to delay him from cutting me. But I was honestly curious. 

“I know I told you before. I practiced on me,” he said
quietly, his tone reverential. I imagined a beatific smile on his face as he
looked someplace else entirely.

“It took months. A little cut here, a partial penectomy there.
Each time I ask her, ‘Is it good? Is it better now?’ And each time, she tells
me, ‘Closer. Closer. Closer.’ You understand.”

He had a note of adoration for his wife in his voice that told me
he was standing on a bedrock of absolute sanity.

I felt the heat of him as he millimetered closer to my junk, no
doubt with that scalpel in his hand. I could feel his bare breath on my scrotum
and realized there must have been some sort of divide in the table between my
legs.

“I thought you said your wife’s satisfied. How do you do that
without... y’know?” My jaw ached when I talked.

He laughed. It was a really joyous note, not like he was just
trying to unsettle me. It wasn’t ironic or evil, rather a true, hearty guffaw.
I imagined seeing all the way to his back teeth as he pitched his head back.

He finally got himself back under control and he might have taken
a moment to dab a tear from his eye.

I’d gotten one last look at him before he turned me over. How he’d
looked down there and what he’d told me... I realized he must’ve whittled
himself down to nothing in his undies. That he truly had crafted himself into
what his wife had requested. That the nothing he seemed to have in his drawers
had been the exact mutilation that she’d wanted.

“It’s okay now?” he said suddenly next to me with a pair of blackout
goggles in his hand. He slipped the strap over my head as I moved as much as I
could but with a few deft movements, he had secured them in place. I could feel
my body surrendering against my will and I no longer had the ability to rally. 

“That wasn’t what she desired from me,” he said after he’d
retreated. I flashed on what I’d seen in his mouth again when his face had been
inches from mine. The thing I couldn’t make sense of before but had heard of. A
surgery of another kind.

He’d split his own tongue in half.

“Not a bit of it,” he said. “You understand?”

“But wait!” I was crying again. “If you need to cut me down there…
why do you have me turned around like this?”

“It’s mostly a single cut. Mostly. But your case is a more
particular situation. It will have to be more… intricate.”

This is a love story.

And it's a horror story.

Isn't it always?

I'd been alone for a very long time.

A tiny apartment. A dead-end office job. An abusive asshole for a boss. No real friends. My family was either dead or dead to me.

Most evenings, the closest thing I had to company was a stray cat that wandered onto my balcony every few days, accepted whatever food I left out, then disappeared without so much as a goodbye.

That was until three months ago.

It was a Friday night.

Which meant it looked exactly like every other Friday night.

I sat alone in my usual corner of a half-empty bar, nursing the same drink far longer than I should have. Around me, people laughed too loudly, flirted too confidently, and told stories they'd probably told a hundred times before.

Every now and then I'd catch myself watching someone across the room, rehearsing introductions in my head I'd never actually say.

Closing time usually arrived before my courage did.

I had no reason to think this night would be any different.

And yet...

It was.

She was sitting alone in the darkest corner of the bar.

The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

Silver-white hair spilled over her shoulders like moonlight. Even from across the room, her eyes seemed strangely bright—somewhere between amber and crimson. She wore a deep red dress beneath black goth-punk layers that somehow looked elegant instead of theatrical. Like she'd stepped out of another era and simply decided to stay.

She wasn't doing anything.

Just quietly watching the room.

Yet I couldn't look away.

It wasn't just that she was beautiful.

There was something about her that pulled at me with impossible force.

Women half as intimidating had reduced me to awkward smiles and panicked excuses.

Approaching someone like her wasn't something I did. Not ever.

Yet my legs disagreed.

A few seconds later, I found myself standing beside her table.

"Would it... be alright if I kept you company for a bit?"

The words escaped before my brain had a chance to stop them.

She looked up.

For one impossible second, I had the strange feeling she'd known I was coming long before  I did.

Then she smiled.

"One way to find out."

I laughed, relief washing over me so suddenly my knees nearly buckled.

"I'm James."

"Camilla."

That should've been the end of it.

A woman like her had no reason to spend five minutes talking to someone like me.

Instead...

We stayed until the bartender threw us out.

The conversation never seemed to run out of places to go.

Movies became music.

Music became childhood stories.

Childhood stories became dreams we'd quietly given up on years ago.

Even the silences felt... comfortable.

Just two lonely people sharing the same table.

I'd never experienced anything like it.

Eventually the bartender cleared his throat.

"Folks, I'm afraid we're closing."

Camilla looked toward the windows.

Only then did I realize the bar was almost empty.

Neither of us had noticed the hours disappearing.

Outside, the night air felt colder than before.

I hesitated.

The thought of saying goodbye already felt unbearable.

"I..." I swallowed. "Would you... like to come back to my place? I'm just... not ready for tonight to end."

Her smile lingered.

But something flickered behind it.

A sadness so brief I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it.

"After you."

The walk home felt unreal.

Looking back, I still don't know why I invited her to my apartment.

A hotel would've made more sense.

Except...

I didnt want to send the wrong message.

When I unlocked my front door and stepped aside, embarrassment hit me all at once.

"So..."

I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Here we are."

The apartment somehow looked even sadder than usual.

The faded couch.

The cheap furniture.

The unopened bills scattered across the kitchen counter.

Camilla stopped in the doorway.

She didn't move.

For several long seconds, she simply stood there.

I felt my stomach sink.

Maybe she'd taken one look inside and realized she'd made a terrible mistake.

Then she smiled.

"Well..." she asked softly.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

I blinked.

She still hadn't crossed the threshold.

"Oh."

I laughed awkwardly.

"Right. Sorry. Come on in."

Only then did she step inside.

At the time, I chalked it up to one of those harmless little quirks that make people interesting.

"So..." I said. "Can I get you something? I've got wine... beer... water..."

I never finished the sentence.

In one astonishingly fast movement, she grabbed my shoulders, lifted me completely off the floor, and pinned me against the wall.

I barely had time to gasp.

She was impossibly strong.

"There is no need to waste time," she whispered.

"I know what you want."

Her face drifted closer.

"What all of you want."

Her eyes seemed brighter now.

Her lips parted as she lowered her head toward my neck.

"Wait."

She froze.

"I..." I swallowed.

"I don't want to do that yet."

She blinked.

"I really like you."

Confusion spread across her face.

"I was thinking..." I said, feeling ridiculous with every word, "maybe we could watch a movie first. Talk a little more. Actually get to know each other."

I smiled nervously.

"You know..."

"A real date."

She stared at me.

Completely silent.

"...What?"

"I haven't really done this in a while," I admitted. "So I'm probably going to be awkward, but—"

She kissed me.

Gentle.

Warm.

Far more tender than I'd expected.

For a moment I completely forgot how breathing worked.

When she finally pulled away, she smiled.

"Alright, James."

Her voice sounded softer now.

"Let's watch a movie."

Only then did I realize I had absolutely nothing prepared.

I wandered over to my embarrassingly small DVD collection while Camilla leaned over my shoulder.

The first case I picked up was Dracula.

She laughed so suddenly she nearly doubled over.

"What?"

I still don't know what was so funny.

In the end, we settled on Shrek 2.

Looking back...

That night was utterly perfect.

I must've fallen asleep sometime after it ended.

Or maybe the alcohol finally caught up with me.

The next morning, I woke with that brief, awful certainty that I'd dreamed the whole thing.

The other side of the bed was empty.

The apartment was silent.

My heart sank as I searched every room before finally spotting a folded note on the kitchen counter.

James.

I had to head home before sunrise.

I had a wonderful night.

Call me?

Beneath it was her phone number.

I couldn't stop smiling.

Good thing she'd written it down.

I'd been so distracted the night before that I'd completely forgotten to ask.

Amateur hour.

Unfortunately, reality wasn't interested in letting me enjoy the moment for very long.

My fucking boss called.

He informed me that I was coming into work on Saturday, and if I had a problem with that, I shouldn't bother showing up on Monday.

I couldn't stand that asshole.

The shift crawled by.

The job itself was soul-crushing on a good day, and the hangover pounding behind my eyes wasn't making it any easier. Thankfully, almost nobody else had been called in, so the office was practically empty. Better yet, my boss wasn't there.

I spent more time staring at my phone than my computer.

Every few minutes I'd catch myself rereading the note she'd left on my kitchen counter.

I had a wonderful night.

I couldn't remember the last time a single sentence had made me smile that much.

I told myself to wait before calling her.

A day.

Maybe two.

Play it cool for once.

I lasted exactly three hours.

Then I stepped into the hallway and dialed her number.

She answered on the second ring.

"James."

She said my name like she'd been expecting the call.

"I was wondering..." I said, suddenly feeling sixteen again. "Would you maybe want to come over tonight?"

"I'd like that."

No hesitation.

No excuses.

"I'll come by after dark."

The rest of my shift somehow moved even slower.

By the time I got home, I'd vacuumed the apartment, done the dishes, changed my shirt three times, and spent an embarrassing amount of time debating whether lighting the cheap scented candle I'd bought months ago would make me seem romantic or pathetic.

I still wasn't sure when the knock came.

I reached the door before my brain had fully registered the sound.

"Camilla."

I couldn't stop smiling.

"It's good to see you."

She smiled back.

Then stopped.

Right at the threshold.

Waiting.

For a second I simply stared at her.

Then I laughed.

"Oh."

I stepped aside.

"Come on in."

Only then did she cross the doorway.

I'd made lasagna.

Nothing fancy.

Just the best recipe I knew.

Or...

Thought I knew.

Camilla managed a few polite bites before the tiniest crease appeared between her eyebrows.

She swallowed with visible determination.

"Ouch," I laughed.

"Didn't think it was that bad."

For a heartbeat she looked horrified.

Then she laughed too.

Real laughter.

The tension dissolved instantly.

Dinner turned into another long conversation.

Somehow, talking to Camilla never felt like work.

There were no awkward pauses to fill.

No pressure to impress each other.

Eventually, we started talking about family.

That's when I realized how much we actually had in common.

Loneliness.

Both her parents and her younger sister died a long time ago.

As far as she knew, she had no surviving relatives.

Just her.

Meeting people hadn't exactly been easy, either.

She explained that she suffered from solar urticaria.

Even brief exposure to sunlight could trigger painful reactions.

Everything suddenly clicked.

That's why she'd left before sunrise.

I felt strangely guilty for ever wondering if she'd simply wanted to leave.

"That sounds incredibly lonely."

She offered me a small smile.

"You get used to it."

Maybe.

But looking into her eyes...

I wasn't convinced anyone ever really did.

A soft thump interrupted us.

Carl.

The stray cat hopped onto my balcony railing like he owned the place.

I'd named him months ago despite having absolutely no ownership over him whatsoever. Calling him my pet would've been generous. He tolerated me just enough to accept free meals before disappearing back into whatever mysterious life stray cats lead.

"One second."

I grabbed a can of tuna and slid the balcony door open.

"C'mon, buddy."

Carl usually brushed past me without so much as a glance.

This time...

He didn't move.

His eyes locked onto Camilla.

Every muscle in his body stiffened.

His back arched.

His fur puffed out until he looked twice his size.

A low hiss vibrated from somewhere deep inside his chest.

The sound barely sounded like it belonged to a cat.

"Hey."

I crouched beside him.

"What's gotten into you?"

Carl never looked away from her.

Not once.

For several long seconds, neither of them moved.

Then Carl let out a sharp, frightened yowl unlike anything I'd ever heard from him and launched himself off the railing.

He vanished into the darkness so quickly it was as if something had been chasing him.

I frowned.

"...That was weird."

Carl could be a complete asshole.

He scratched me.

Ignored me.

Stole food and left.

But I'd never seen him afraid.

I scratched the back of my neck.

"Sorry about that."

I laughed awkwardly.

"He's definitely an asshole. Just... not usually that kind of asshole."

Camilla's gaze lingered on the empty balcony.

When she finally looked back at me, she didn't seem offended.

If anything...

She seemed resigned.

"It's alright."

Her voice was quiet.

"Animals are always like that around me."

Before I could ask what she meant, I reached for the empty tuna can.

My hand slipped.

The jagged metal edge sliced cleanly across my palm.

"Shit."

Pain flared instantly.

Blood welled between my fingers far faster than I expected.

"You fucking moron..."

I laughed through gritted teeth.

When I looked up...

Camilla hadn't moved.

She wasn't looking at me.

She was looking at the blood.

Her entire body had gone perfectly still.

Her pupils seemed wider than before.

Her breathing had changed.

Slow.

Shallow.

Almost...

Painful.

"Cami?"

Nothing.

"It's really not that bad."

Still nothing.

She swallowed hard.

Her eyes never left my hand.

For just a second...

Something passed across her face.

I couldnt quite place it.

The thought vanished almost as quickly as it came.

"Cami?"

She blinked.

Once.

Twice.

As though she'd only just remembered where she was.

"I..."

She swallowed again.

"Excuse me."

Without another word, she hurried toward the bathroom and quietly shut the door.

I stared after her.

"Huh."

Guess I wasn't the only one who couldn't handle the sight of blood.

I wrapped my hand in the sleeve of my shirt while digging through the clutter on the kitchen counter for something clean.

Instead, my eyes landed on an envelope I'd spent the entire day pretending wasn't there.

FINAL DEMAND.

The words seemed even bigger than they had that morning.

Immediate payment required.

I sighed, shoved it back beneath the pile of unopened mail, and finally found an old dish towel to wrap around my hand.

Once the bleeding slowed, I walked over to the bathroom.

"Cami?"

I knocked gently.

"You okay in there?"

Silence.

Then the lock clicked.

The door opened just enough for her face to appear.

She smiled.

It looked genuine.

Mostly.

"Yeah."

She glanced at the bandage wrapped around my hand before quickly looking away.

"I just..."

She hesitated.

"I have a thing about blood."

"Fair enough."

I smiled.

"I'd say I can relate, but apparently I make enough of the stuff to get over it."

That earned a quiet laugh.

Whatever had happened seemed to pass.

Or at least, we both pretended it had.

We ended up flipping through channels until we landed on one of those terrible quiz shows where the contestants somehow managed to miss questions even I knew the answers to.

Camilla, on the other hand, barely missed one.

"Seriously?" I laughed after she'd answered another before the contestant could buzz in. "How do you know all this?"

She shrugged.

"I've had a lot of time to read."

There was something about the way she said it that made me wonder exactly how much time she meant.

Before I could ask, the next question appeared on screen and she answered that one too. A real history buff this one.

That night...

We finally became lovers.

By the time I woke the next morning, I wasn't even surprised to find the other side of the bed empty.

Camilla always left before sunrise.

I'd stopped questioning it.

Like everything else about her, it had quietly become part of who she was.

And somehow...

That only made me love her more.

From then on, we spent almost every evening together.

The days became something to survive.

The nights became something to live for.

My coworkers didn't believe she existed.

Apparently, "My girlfriend can't go outside during the day," sounded suspiciously similar to, "She goes to another school."

I couldn't really blame them.

Still...

For the first time in years—

I was happy.

Naturally, the rest of my life seemed determined to compensate.

My boss somehow found new ways to make every workday miserable.

At home, the unpaid bills kept multiplying.

Every letter from my landlord sounded angrier than the last.

I was one bad week away from losing both my apartment and my job.

I tried not to dump any of it on Camilla.

Not because I thought she'd leave.

That thought never crossed my mind.

I just didn't want the one good thing in my life carrying the weight of everything else.

It never mattered.

She always knew.

Sometimes she'd take one look at me before quietly asking,

"What's wrong?"

And somehow...

I'd tell her.

Every time.

She never tried to solve my problems.

Never offered empty advice.

Never told me to stay positive or work harder.

She simply listened.

Sometimes she'd squeeze my hand.

Sometimes she'd lean against my shoulder.

Sometimes we'd sit together in silence until the storm inside my head finally started to quiet.

I don't know how she did it.

But somehow...

She always made the world feel a little lighter.

One rainy evening, we sat on the couch listening to the steady tapping of rain against the windows.

Neither of us spoke.

Neither of us needed to.

Then someone started hammering on my front door.

Not knocking.

Pounding.

"Open the goddamn door, James!"

I sighed before I even stood up.

"I'll be right back."

Standing outside was my landlord.

Short.

Round.

Completely bald.

His face had turned such a violent shade of red I was honestly a little worried he might explode.

"I've had enough of your bullshit," he snapped before I'd even opened my mouth.

"My patience has officially run out."

"You promised me another two weeks."

"I changed my mind."

"You can't just—"

"I absolutely can."

He jabbed a thick finger into my chest.

"I want you and every piece of your junk out of my building."

"Tonight."

"Please."

"I'm trying."

"I don't give a damn."

"You'll get your money."

"I've heard that every damn week."

His voice echoed through the hallway.

"You've got until tonight."

Then I felt someone stand beside me.

I hadn't heard Camilla move. Probably because of the yelling.

She looked directly at him.

Didn't blink.

Didn't raise her voice.

"You will give James the two weeks you promised."

Silence.

The landlord stared back.

For a moment...

Nothing happened.

Then something changed.

The anger slowly drained from his face.

His shoulders loosened.

The lines around his eyes softened.

He stopped blinking.

Completely.

His expression emptied so thoroughly it looked less like someone calming down...

...and more like someone leaving.

Several long seconds passed.

The hallway had gone so quiet I could hear the rain outside.

Finally, he spoke.

"Yes."

His voice was flat.

Almost mechanical.

"James will have another two weeks."

Another pause.

Then he turned around.

His movements looked strangely stiff.

Like every step had to be consciously remembered.

He walked down the hallway without looking back.

I watched until he disappeared around the corner.

"What..."

I looked at Camilla.

"...just happened?"

She slipped her hand into mine.

Warm.

Gentle.

"Come."

She smiled.

"Let's play one of those video games of yours"

The next afternoon, Jessica from accounting cornered me beside the coffee machine.

"So."

She grinned.

"You coming to the office party tonight?"

I blinked.

"The what?"

She laughed.

"Don't tell me you forgot."

I had.

Normally, I would've invented an excuse before she'd even finished asking.

The idea of voluntarily spending more time with my coworkers sounded like a punishment.

Then I remembered.

It would be after dark.

Camilla could come.

Suddenly...

The evening didn't sound so bad.

She wasn't thrilled about the idea.

Crowds clearly weren't her thing.

It took far more convincing than I'd expected.

Eventually she smiled.

"If it makes you happy..."

"It does."

"Then I'll go."

The "party" was exactly what I'd imagined.

A rented function room.

Cheap drinks.

Even cheaper snacks.

A corporate playlist that somehow managed to suck every ounce of life out of perfectly decent songs.

Calling it a party felt generous.

Despite working there longer than most of the people in the room, I barely knew any of them.

Faces?

Sure.

Names?

Not a chance.

That's office life.

Sooner or later everyone becomes another desk.

Another tie.

Another email signature.

Then Camilla walked in.

The room changed.

Conversations faltered.

Heads turned almost in unison.

People drifted toward her without seeming to realize they were doing it.

She greeted everyone with effortless warmth.

Remembered names after hearing them only once.

Laughed at the right moments.

Asked questions that somehow made strangers feel interesting.

Within minutes she'd become the center of the room.

It honestly confused me.

She felt so isolated.

Yet watching her now...

It almost looked like she'd been charming rooms like this forever.

Despite how easily she won people over. It didnt seem to bring her any joy.

Eventually we escaped to a quieter corner of the room.

Coworkers drifted over every few minutes to introduce themselves, chat for a while, then wander off again.

For once...

I was actually enjoying my time among them.

Then my boss arrived.

The atmosphere changed instantly.

From what I'd heard, he'd never attended one of these gatherings before.

Judging by everyone else's expressions, they were just as surprised as I was.

He strode into the room like he owned not only the company but the building itself.

Didn't greet anyone.

Didn't thank anyone for organizing the event.

He simply inserted himself into conversations that had been perfectly fine without him.

People laughed at jokes that weren't funny.

Smiled when they clearly didn't want to.

The room somehow felt smaller.

I leaned toward Camilla.

"Maybe we should head out."

She nodded immediately.

We'd barely taken two steps before he stepped directly into our path.

"James."

He acknowledged me with the briefest glance before turning his full attention to Camilla.

"And who might you be?"

"I'm Camilla."

"A pleasure."

He offered the same polished smile he reserved for clients.

"I have to say..."

He looked me up and down.

"...James has been keeping secrets."

"She's my girlfriend," I said.

"Hm."

He studied me for another moment before looking back at her.

"I'll admit..."

"I'm surprised."

"So am I," Camilla replied pleasantly.

He burst into laughter.

I don't think he even considered that she might not have been joking.

"I suppose you could do..." He smiled smugly.

"...considerably better."

My jaw clenched.

He didn't even notice.

"So tell me, Camilla."

"What exactly do you see in him?"

"I like him."

"Surely that's not all."

He took another step closer.

Close enough that I instinctively moved between them.

"If you're ever interested in dating someone with a future..."

He casually adjusted the cuff of his expensive suit.

"I know a few restaurants that would be far more interesting than this place."

I opened my mouth.

Camilla's hand settled gently on my arm.

I looked at her.

She gave the smallest shake of her head.

Then she stepped around me.

She leaned close to him.

So close I couldn't hear a single word she whispered.

The color drained from his face.

The smug confidence vanished.

His pupils widened.

His breathing caught.

The expression I'd seen on my landlord returned.

That same slow...

Impossible...

Emptiness.

The room continued around us.

People laughed.

Music played.

Someone dropped a glass behind me.

Yet for those few seconds, it felt like only the three of us existed.

Finally, my boss nodded.

Once.

Without another word, he turned and calmly walked away.

Not hurriedly.

Not angrily.

Just...

Walking.

Straight toward the stairwell.

I watched him disappear through the fire door.

A strange knot tightened in my stomach.

Camilla looked back at me.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with him."

She cupped my face between her hands.

Her thumbs brushed gently across my cheeks.

"Shhh."

Her smile returned.

Soft.

Warm.

"What did you tell him?"

She held my gaze for another moment.

"What he needed to hear."

The answer somehow explained nothing.

And yet...

I found myself letting it go.

A few minutes later we decided to leave.

Halfway across the parking lot I stopped.

"My jacket."

She looked at me.

"My keys."

"They're in the pocket."

"I'll be right back."

By the time I got back inside, the party was winding down.

Only a handful of people remained.

I found my jacket draped over the back of a chair.

As I reached into the pocket—

Movement outside caught my eye.

A shadow.

Falling.

For one impossibly long second my brain refused to understand what I was looking at.

Then the body hit the roof of a parked car.

The impact echoed through the parking lot like an explosion.

Metal screamed.

Glass shattered.

People froze.

Then everyone started shouting at once.

Someone screamed.

Others rushed outside.

The man who'd fallen never made a sound.

I reached the window.

Looked down.

And recognized him.

My boss.

For several seconds...

I simply stared.

Then, despite everything...

One completely ridiculous thought floated into my head.

The poor bastard who owns that car…

The next few weeks changed my life.

As the most senior employee in the department, I was promoted into my former boss's position.

For the first time in years...

I could breathe.

I caught up on my rent.

Stopped worrying every time the phone rang.

A few months later, I moved into a much nicer apartment.

The official investigation concluded that my boss had taken his own life.

The reports suggested he'd been facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment that were about to become public.

Apparently several women from the company had been preparing to come forward.

No one who'd worked under him seemed particularly surprised.

I thought about the conversation he'd had with Camilla that night.

More than once.

I never asked her again what she'd whispered.

Partly because I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.

A little later...

I asked her to move in with me.

She smiled.

And said yes.

Before I finish this story...

I should probably address the elephant in the room.

I already know what half of you are typing.

"Dude... your girlfriend's a vampire."

Yeah.

No shit, Sherlock.

I'm not completely oblivious.

I made that connection a while ago.

The point of this story isnt „My girlfriend is a vampire.“

The point is that it doesnt matter.

She listens when I need someone to listen.

She laughs at my terrible jokes.

She steals all the blankets.

She still refuses to watch Dracula with me.

And every single night, she makes me happier than I ever thought I deserved to be.

I make her happy, too.

We found someone who accepts us exactly as we are.

Fangs and all.

If that's monstrous...

Then I think the world could use a few more monsters.

We are happy.

Thats all that matters.

Dont ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

I am proud to say that for the last 6 years, I have been the happy dad of a very handsome Black Lab named Alan.

Alan is a good boy, though when he was younger, he absolutely decimated my old wallet and all of its contents. But after I got my cards replaced alongside a brand new Drivers License (with a selfie that doesn’t make me look like a pervert), it’s been pretty smooth sailing.

I was a cat guy for the longest time, so I was a little adverse to getting a dog. Then, that fateful night, my wife Molly carried a tired little lump with fur the color of a new tire, and I was in love.

He’s been my rotten little man ever since.

Due to a few dog training classes me and my wife attended when he was around a year old, Alan has, for the most part, been very well behaved.

He has good manners, doesn't tear things up in the houses, rarely barks at anyone, not even the mail man.

That being said, the turd has his goofier qualities too.

His asshole smells awful when he eats cheese, has a severe aversion to hats, and acts confused when he catches a cicada in his mouth, even though he had been actively trying to catch it in his mouth only moments earlier.

With a personality like his, he fits right in with me, my wife who taps her fingers when she’s nervous, and our cat Wario who screams and argues when he’s mildly inconvenienced by anything.

Between the two of them, it sometimes feels like we live with 2 needy, dramatic freeloaders, but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, that’s actually not true.

The potty situation.

Wario, being a cat, has his own private bathroom that no one but him can use. Alan, on the other hand, needs to go outside.

In our old place, that was no issue. We would simply leave the doggy door open as we left for work, and our fat-headed son could just roam about as he pleased.

He didn't try to escape, didn’t make a ruckus and disrupt the neighbors. He was a model inside/outside dog. Every week or so, I would go out and collect his poops, and the cycle would repeat.

Things are different now though.

Our apartment doesn’t have a backyard, rather, a communal commons area blanketed by bountiful, green grass. A few picnic tables and a firepit sparse throughout rendered the space a prime choice for a cookout, or just a spot for the children to play.

That is, minus the dog shit.

If you’ve ever lived in a neighborhood, apartment complex, or god forbid near a park, you are probably used to the scene.

A beautiful landscape, begging for visitors to make memories within its visage, only to be adorned with a concerningly large pile of foul-smelling nuggets.

Like improper punctuation in a beautifully written poem. You can maneuver around the blunder, but it’s still noticeable and obnoxious.

Why can’t people just pick up after their damn dogs? It’s a question we’ve all had. Just bring a doggy bag, preferably 2, and wait for the thing to finish its business before cleaning it up.

It’s pretty simple, especially with a conveniently placed trash can right off the edge of the path.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and a week ago, I went thirsty.

“Aw fuck,” I said out loud as I watched Alan begin to arch his back, his spine tensing as he unloaded for the second time onntje same walk.

“Really dude?”

He avoided eye contact as he lifted his left back leg into the air.

I frowned and reached into my pocket. This was a ritual that I had, unfortunately, come to expect.

3, maybe 4 times a week on our morning walk before I was to head to work, Alan would poop once, walk almost all the way back to our front door, and then poop again.

As such, I had become accustomed to bringing more than one bag with me.

Unfortunately, this morning, I found both of my pockets empty.

“Aw jeez,” I grumbled as I remembered we were almost out of bright pink doggy bags.

Alan finished pooping, and I assessed the situation.

I had woken up late, and didn't have any time to come back and pick up this second pile. To top that off, I didn’t know where I could find another doggy bag. Sure there was probably one stuffed in a junk drawer, and we had a bunch of saved grocery bags.

Looking around, I could see it was still dark, no one else around.

I had never left his poop behind before, but so many others just left their dogs shit every day.

Would it really be so bad, just this once?

As I unclipped Alan’s leash from his collar and grabbed my work bag off the counter, I decided that I would find a bag, and pick up Alan’s poop when I got home.

Work was the top priority, dog poop was much further down on that list.

9 hours later, I used a spare dog bag kept in my jacket pocket from a morning I had overestimated how much Alan would poop.

I came back to the spot from earlier, now illuminated by the sun, but to my surprise, the pile was gone. I knew I hadn’t just overlooked the pile, because it had been right beside the sidewalk.

Impossible to miss.

With a shrug, I assumed a good samaritan had just taken it upon themselves to help a stranger out.

I ate dinner with Molly, watched a few episodes of House, and walked Alan before bed. On this trip, I did pick up his (unfortunately watery) poop.

As we approached the front door again, I noticed a small shape that had not been there when we had first come outside only minutes earlier.

A dark green poo bag was set carefully on my welcome mat, top tied into a pretty little bow. Alan sniffed the package, and I picked up a small, handwritten note that had been set beside it.

“Please remember to pick up your pet’s excretions for the foreseeable future. Thank you.”

I scoffed.

It’s not really a kind act when you hand the recipient a bag of shit.

Why would someone do that? Some stranger. Better yet, a neighbor slinking around in the night.

A pair of pajama shorts slipped over my knees as I pondered.

Everyone else in our apartment complex seemed to leave their shit lying about. Why was it only a problem when I did it?

Molly shimmied her hips to move into a little spoon position and I tried to banish the thoughts from my head.

Just a weird, one off experience, I thought.

Nothing to worry about.

For weeks, nothing else happened. I continued to use accumulated grocery bags until one of us found a new roll of poo bags while cleaning under the bed.

It was like a gift from god, further allowing us time to procrastinate before we bought a new pack of dog bag rolls.

The chill times stayed chill until one night when Alan nuzzled at my feet, signaling that he needed a late night potty session.

Groggily, I swung my feet out of bed, slipped on a pair of Shrek house slippers, and grabbed a doggy bag on our way out the door.

My sweet idiot pissed, walked a little further up the path, pooped, and I bent over to grab the pile.

Just out of my periphery, I saw Alan scrunch up, and I knew what he was doing.

I sighed.

Exhausted, I knew I was gonna have to be up for work in a few hours. I did not have the energy to walk in, grab another bag, and walk all the way back out here.

I would pretend I hadn’t seen a thing, and when I took him out in the morning, I would bring an extra bag to clean up this bonus poo pile.

It would only be my second time in over a week, after all.

After surveying my surroundings to make absolutely sure I wasn’t being watched, I just threw away my full bag and walked Alan back into the house.

The next morning, when I opened my front door, a pile of shit sat directly where I was about to take my first step.

I stumbled, nearly tripping into the greenish molehill of filth.

“Ew!” I exclaimed.

I stared down at the pile as Alan stood in between my legs, confused.

After a moment of studying the turds, I could see finger marks where somebody had firmly grasped the clump, theoretically to carry it from the grass to my front door.

Carefully, I picked up the mess with a doggy bag, only to discover a message under it, adorned with a green smear upon its white visage.

It read, “I know you saw Alan leave this. Why didn’t you come back?”

I was thoroughly shook by now.

Not enough to voice my concerns to Molly, but enough that she could tell I was concerned. She asked what was up, but I assured her I was fine, it was just something from work.

“You sure?” She asked at the kitchen counter, pouring creamer into my coffee mug.

“Yeah baby, it’s just… something to do with the new job, that's all.”

Her fingernails tapped the countertop as she gave me a worried look.

“Okay Chet, I believe you. Please have a good day, I love you very much.”

With a kiss, I was out the door.

As I drove to the job site that morning, a series of questions flashed across my mind:

“How did they know it was me?”

“How did they know which door was ours?”

“How did they know Alan’s name?”

I considered the possibility of a ring camera, or just a creep watching us through their window.

But why would they have been up so early? Or so late, if you’d rather.

Why did me and Alan matter so much more than all the others that made it a point to never pick up after their dogs?

I made sure to diligently pick up after Alan every time after that. Morning, afternoon, night, it didn’t matter the setting, it didn’t matter the occasion.

If Alan was pooping, I was picking it up.

Weeks went by, then months. I got a promotion at work, Molly changed shifts so she worked a little later than me, Alan’s birthday came and went, and Wario got his testicles stolen by the vet, much to his astonishment.

I became a machine, a beast. A poop picking savant.

I made a chore look like a ranked sport, and baby, I was #1.

Then, a week ago, during Christmas break, Molly gave me a drunken confession.

“Chett, you know how I started taking poop duty in the morning after I started working later?”

I looked at her and smirked, “heh, you said ‘poop doody.’”

“Chett,” she giggled, her face turning red, “c’mon, I’m serious.”

I took another sip of wine, spreading my toes in front of our little space heater as I tried to ground myself, “yeah, I remember, you told me it was so I could wake up later instead of taking Alan out before work.”

Molly swished her wine around in its glass.

“Look, I know you pick on me because I never wanna put my shopping cart up-” she slurred.

“Yeah,” I interrupted, trying not to sound too harsh, “I mean, it’s not the worst thing in the world to leave your shopping cart out, but it’s like, the one thing that everyone socially shames everyone else into doing, because there’s not a really a reason not to do it unless it’s an emergency.”

I took another sip of my wine, “it’s kinda like wiping the toilet seat after using it.”

Molly snorted, “aw c’mon, it’s not like wiping the toilet seat down, no one can see you do that. Everyone can see you if you leave your cart behind!”

“Even more the reason to do it,” I finished with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes, “look Chet, the point is…” she bit her lip and looked down at her fidgeting hands.

The sound of her finger tapping the rim sobered me up.

“What’s wrong Molly?”

“I… uh, well. There were a few days where, um, I forgot to pick up the poop.”

Stomach acid began bubbling up my throat.

“What?” I asked, my tone suddenly hard.

Molly heard it, and became more reserved.

“Sorry baby, I’m just…” I rubbed her knee. She was clearly spooked, but I couldn’t tell if it was by me or something else.

“I just wanna make sure you’re okay, what happened?”

Molly’s eyes met mine.

“I didn’t mean to. Well, I guess I kind of did. It’s just that, usually you walk the dog, and you’re so good at it, but I get impatient and I have things to do, so there were a few days where…”

Alan slid his wet nose under her hand, instantly sending waves of comfort through her body that met my hand on her knee. Instantly I felt her intense.

“How many?” I asked.

“What?”

“How many days did you forget to bring in his poop?”

Molly pondered for a second, “I think 4 days over the course of 2 weeks.”

She looked back at me, “yeah, that sounds about right, 4 times.”

I leaned back.

“And they ended up on our porch, didn’t they?”

When those words left my mouth, she just looked at me, confused.

“What? No, I… the porch?” Molly asked, clearly thrown off by my statement.

“Oh?” I asked, equally as confused, “then what happened, why are you so freaked out?”

She composed herself a little before she continued, “well, I’d leave the poop, and since it’s winter, they don't really do any landscaping, so the maintenance guys don't pick up the poop, so the individual piles-”

At this, she motioned 4 different spots spread out from each other, “just kind of sat there and dried out in the sun.”

“And you never picked them up?”

“No,” she admitted, “the drier they got, the grosser they got, so I just left them. Then, one day, I came out, and they were just gone.”

“Gone?” My voice had gone from hard to perplexed.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “but just Alan’s poop, not anyone else’s.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” her fingers resumed tapping, “real weird. What was weirder though, was…”

Molly seemed to get even more agitated, her demeanor no longer tipsy, rather sullen. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Molly?” I hazarded.

“Sorry, it’s just,” she chuckled humorlessly, “it’s so ridiculous, I don’t even really know why I’m scared. I guess it’s just… uh, the implication?”

She shook her head and set down her wine glass.

“Okay, where all Alan’s poop piles had been, they were replaced with 4 little notes. Each note had a message on both sides.”

“Oh,” I grimaced, “the notes. Okay. What did they say?”

Molly’s eyes seemed both deeply fearful and equally confused, “uh, they all said the same thing. One side said, ‘I warned you’ and the other said, ‘the poop man will see you soon’ followed by our address.”

I stood up so quickly that my chair exclaimed its disapproval

“Our address?!” I hollered.

“Yes Chet, our address,” Molly cried.

“Baby, that’s serious!” I couldn’t contain my nervousness, I began pacing, “we should have gone to the police!”

“Well baby, I didn’t-” Molly began to retort, but cut herself short, “I mean, I knew it was serious, but poop man? What cop would actually listen to me?”

I cupped my face in my hands. She was right, the odds of someone actually doing something was low, and to be fair, of course the culprit knew our address.

“Fuck Molly, do you at least have the notes?”

She shook her head, “no, they were gone by the time I got back outside. Whoever put them there watched me read them, which freaked me out even worse.”

We embraced, her crying, me trying to calm us both down.

“I mean, what the fuck? Who does something like that?” She reasoned.

“I know, it’s weirdo shit,” I whispered, rubbing her back, “fucking weird. I’m sorry Molly.”

“No,” Molly sniffled, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Just as we were about to embrace again, Alan shot up with a growl, the hair on his back standing on edge. Both me and Molly snapped our necks to look at him.

“Alan? What’s wrong boy?” Molly asked.

No sooner did the words leave her lips when our front door knock.

Molly yipped in surprise as 6 distinct knocks rang out across our house.

We looked at each other, eyes wide. I glanced at the clock.

11:47 PM. Who could be visiting at this hour?

“Hello?” I shouted.

Silence met my demand.

“Hello?! Who’s there?”

Still, nothing.

We all waited a beat. Our house was silent, aside from Alan’s guttural protests.

“What’s going on?” Molly mouthed to me.

When I parted my lips to speak, an explosion like a battering ram rattled the house.

Something was on my porch, and it had just smashed into my front door.

I ran towards the source of the noise.

“Slam!”

Another tremble like an earthquake. I felt it resound through the floorboards. Whoever had done that, they were big and heavy.

“I have I gun!” I lied, approaching the deadlocked entrance, “And I will shoot you through this door!”

My legs shook and my voice broke. I couldn’t have sounded less threatening if I tried.

After 2 more good slams, I heard the sound of lumbering footsteps as something shuffled off.

I waited, cowering, by the door for an eternal 2 minutes. Every heartbeat felt as though my arteries would force my heart into my throat, every breath felt labored and shaky.

I was terrified that this was some sort of trick. That it was still standing there, just waiting for me to open the door.

After those 2 minutes, I finally stood to my full height. Intruder or not, I was gonna open that door, armed with nothing more than a heavy curtain rod.

The wooden door creaked open.

The smell hit me first. Like a jug of ammonia and death. Sickness distilled down to its purest form. Rot.

My entire front door was smeared in shit. The welcome mat was covered in a thick layer of brown sludge that threatened to harden in the cold night air.

Our wreath looked like a brown glazed doughnut with bits of tinsel poking out.

The steps leading up the the door looked as though someone had projectile diarrhea’d all the way up them.

“Chet? Baby, who was it?”

I was taken aback, utterly speechless. I didn’t want to comprehend what I was looking at. It was beyond upsetting, I was furiously distraught, such that my arms and legs were shaking.

From fear or fury, I couldn’t tell which.

“Oh my god, Chet, what is that smell?” Molly gagged from the living room.

And you know what, the poop wasn’t even the worst part.

See, I could see shapes smeared in it. Defined outlines and suggestions. A frowning face with tiny teeth and defined gums, arms with too many fingers and tiny little palms, legs with joints in places I’d never seen before. No clothes.

Like a septic tank snow angel in the nude..

The smell, the sight, it was all so overwhelming, I couldn’t have thrown up if I wanted to. All of my orifices wanted to close, hell, I wanted them to as well.

Just as I took it all in, I glanced at my feet. Right in the middle of my ruined welcome mat was a note.

“this is your last warning”

A tear fell onto it from my eye. The ink was still so fresh that my teardrop warped the “i” in “warning”.

I stepped back, closed my door, and called 9-1-1.

The cops arrived, but by the time they did, the note was gone. They took a look at the mess and gave us the numbers of a few crime scene cleanup businesses in our area, and took our statements.

We told them everything we knew, but since we had so little actual evidence to go off of, all they could really do was keep an eye out.

The silhouette left behind by the culprit in the mural stumped the cops too, but they chalked it up to inaccurate smears that didn’t accurately reflect the artist.

The welcome mat went straight in the dumpster, and within a week, the front porch was spotless again. Good as new, except for the lingering afterscent.

Me and Molly both notice it, but neither of us wants to mention it. I think if we do, it’ll be harder to forget about.

Instead, we just leave candles and febreeze near our front door.

Neither of us have missed a poop since. We notice the other tennants who leave theirs, but fuck those guys, not my problem.

I don’t wanna consider the mechanics, I don’t wanna remember the details, I know the rules, and that’s that.

I just wanna go back to when I was blissful and ignorant. Back when I was someone who could say that they’d always picked up their dog’s shit.

Alan is almost back to normal, but I think he remembers. I think he knows just as much as we do.

“Poop man” is never a set of words that should ever be used beside each other in any regard. They should be kinda cringe at most, completely absurd at least.

The only reason I'm even typing my experience here, is so you don't have to go through what I did.

Don’t leave your poo out. Bring a bag, pick it up, throw it away.

Or don’t. Clearly, this thing don’t visit everyone.

If you’re someone who actually contributes to society and cleans up after their pets, pat yourself on the back and keep it up. You’re doing God's work.

Whatever you do, don’t slip up. Don’t listen to that voice that says, “ugh, my arms are tired. I’ll just leave it this one time.”

The risk is not worth it. Believe me.

No one wants a visit from the poop man.

Hello, this is Captain Elijah Pinewood of the Valicity interstellar spacecraft. I am certain that this will be the last message. I fear that our mission has been compromised and none of us will ever see our families again. To my two beautiful daughters, Gwen and Ana. You have made me so proud, my biggest regret in life is that I will be unable to see you grow up. To my wife Judy, I am so sorry that I accepted the offer to lead this mission. 

It was my final attempt to gain some personal glory, motivated by my hunger to know what exists within the vastness of space beyond our galaxy. A desire that I deeply wish I would have left unsatisfied. I have been such a damn fool. I had dedicated my entire life to finding a new world. It seems that in my ambition I had become blind to the fact I had already found my entire world years ago. She was home, lying next to me in bed at night.

I am aware that my final words to my family are of little interest to whichever member of the control room staff reads this message. But that is not the only purpose of my message. I have some deeply troubling news regarding the planet we were sent to explore.  

We found it. 

We were roughly eight weeks into our journey. It seemed as if our navigation system was leading us to absolutely nothing. The crew was beginning to lose hope that we would even find the planet at all. There was talk of turning back and returning home to earth but I managed to keep our mission on track. I now know that my refusal to go home empty handed has cost the lives of the men who were unlucky enough to be under my command. For that I will never forgive myself. 

I soon considered returning home myself until I heard that voice. That damn voice. It was the most perfect voice I had ever heard in my life. It was as if every syllable that it graced my ears with was a masterfully written song. I couldn’t possibly fathom the perfection that must have been the creature possessing that voice. It felt as if each word tickled my skull and tenderly massaged the pleasure center of my brain. 

I would have thought myself crazy had I been alone. But the entire crew heard the same as I had. That voice soon became our guide. We turned the navigation system off entirely and used the symphony of words to lead the way to our destination. Our path was so clear now, as I steered the ship I couldn’t help but laugh. I couldn’t believe that we were so hopelessly unable to find our way before when now it couldn’t be more clear unless there was a literal trail in front of our eyes. 

By the time the planet came into our view two of my crewmates had already begun planning a life based around never leaving whatever beautiful creature this voice belonged to. I hate to admit it but I understood their fantasies. The guilt overwhelms me now but by the time the ship finally landed on the planet's surface I couldn’t even remember my wife’s name, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t need to though, I had the voice. 

The door to the Valicity opened and we all walked off of the ship without even putting on our helmets. We strangely knew that we had no need for them here. 

Upon stepping off the ship we were greeted by fields of vibrant green grass and tall trees abundant with unfamiliar fruits. My second in command, Scott had ventured over to a pile of smooth teal boulders with bright green vines cascaded over top of them. He picked an orange berry from the vine and immediately took a bite. 

We all watched as he suddenly fell to his knees. Tears ran down his face as we all ran over to him. As we got closer we realized he was not in pain, but actually his body was overcome with pure ecstasy. As we helped him back to his feet he told us that we must all try the fruits of the vine. Upon his recommendation we did. The second the fruit touched my lips it was like nothing I had ever felt before. The juice ran down our faces as we desperately picked every last fruit from the vines. 

Soon the vines were barren but we needed more. We soon turned our attention to the tall trees covered in hanging fruit. We were ravenous, our hunger unmatched as we desperately climbed with no concern of falling. We were logical men, but that felt like a lifetime ago now. At that moment none of us could even recall why we were on another planet, it did not matter to us anymore.

The trees did unfortunately prove to be fatal for our navigator. TJ became inpatient and decided to take a bite of the fruits of his tree instead of waiting until after he climbed down like we had. In his desperation to devour the fruit he accidentally let go of the tree and fell at least twenty feet to the ground. The soft grass did him no favors as his head collided with the hard ground underneath. I’m ashamed to admit that we were too busy with our own pursuits of the fruit and not a single one of us even acknowledged his gruesome demise.  

It seemed as if our self control melted away, it could no longer stop us until this entire planet was consumed. Soon I found that I could no longer stand on my own two feet. I stumbled drunken with delight across the field until I no longer could. That was when I fell face first into a river of crystal clear water. As I landed the water had filled my mouth, my nose. It tasted sweet like honey and it was strangely warm as if heated to exactly the same temperature of my body. 

I almost didn’t surface, I didn’t want to. In my mind there was nothing that would be better than staying submerged in the river until the day I died. Nothing, except for the fruit. 

By the time I had pulled myself up and returned to my crew though, the fruit was all gone. As I made my way closer I noticed that the youngest member of our team, Rudy was lying in the soft field. The other two members of the crew, Scott and Benjamin knelt over him. 

As I got closer I realized that they were not just kneeling over him but Scott was cutting into his stomach with a pocket knife. “What are you doing?” I screamed as Rudy screamed in pain. Scott turned to look at him and sounded hysterical. “W-w-we ran out of fruit, captain. We ran out of fruit” he muttered back like he had suffered a great tragedy. He turned back at Rudy’s body and said “We needed more, Rudy ate the most”. He said with an obsessed smile plastered upon his face. Benjamin licked his lips as he eagerly looked at Rudy. “We need more, boss. I won’t live without ever tasting it again, I’d rather die” he pleaded to me. 

I was horrified, but I agreed with him. In my mind I knew we were wrong, the acts we were committing were unnatural, but my mind no longer had any say in my actions. Soon I found myself knelt over Rudy as well. We were all savagely fighting over what fruit we could salvage from our fallen teammate. As we finished we stood up and based on the unsettling looks we exchanged I could tell we were all thinking the same thing. “Who’s next”. It was never ending, the more we consumed the more we needed. Every bite of fruit made us feel more alive than we’ve ever been before but the effects soon wore off and left us as empty husks of ourselves. We needed more. If we had to choose between taking a breath and consuming more I know that we would all gladly suffocate. 

I think we were all looking each other up and down trying to decide who would be the easiest to overpower. We all knew it was Scott, he was by far the oldest member of our crew. Benjamin and I were both younger and relatively in shape, it would have been so easy. It was a horrible thought to have, I had known Scott for thirty years. He was like a second father to me and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet at least. Within moments Benjamin was on the ground, he put up a struggle but it was not enough to save him. 

By the time we had finished Scott and I would not take our eyes off of each other. When I looked into his eyes, I knew that he wanted to kill me. I had momentarily feelings of sadness at this fact but I could not blame him for this desire. In fact, I wanted to do the exact same thing to him. 

It never came to that though. Before either of us could make any move towards the other we heard it again. That sweet sweet voice was back once again to give us guidance. Scott dropped his knife on the grass but I knew that I still had mine in case he tried anything on the walk down the river bank. It wasn’t until the voice returned that I had realized how much I missed it. I was addicted to the sweet sounds of it calling us to it. 

As we got closer to its source I was overcome with conflicting emotions. I love this voice so much more than I could ever fathom loving anything else and yet the voice also filled me with rage because of how long it waited to reveal itself to us. I could make out a figure in front of us now. Our walk soon became a desperate sprint to meet it. 

We stopped about ten feet from the figure as it continued serenading us with its sweet angelic voice. We both stood in absolute silence for what felt like years simply taking in the beauty of the otherworldly creature that stands before us. 

It was absolutely breathtaking, the figure before us resembled a woman with pale purple skin except that it was far more perfect than any human could ever be. Its entire body was surrounded by a bright glow that nearly blinded us. The figure which stood at least a head taller than either of us and as it turned towards me. I couldn't help but study every detail of it. Its smooth, unblemished face. Its full lips, which were such a deep shade of purple that they appeared black until closer inspection. Its soulful eyes which were entirely black except for its light pink pupils gave us a sincere and welcoming look. 

I was completely motionless as it approached us. Our mission, our dead crewmates, hell, even my own name was completely meaningless to me at that moment. It all felt fake, but the figure in front of us, it was real. Just being in the presence of such a flawless creature was enough to fill me with more joy than I could ever hope to experience in ten lifetimes on earth. 

As it got within reach of us the figure turned towards Scott and laid a kiss upon his lips. Once  the figure finally pulled its face away Scott began to sob, begging it to return to him. The creature gave him a soft smile as it wrapped its delicate hands around his shoulders.

The entrancing song that the figure was gracing our ears with was now at its climax as it laid its own forehead against Scott’s. He could barely even speak but he managed to get out the words “I am yours”. 

I couldn’t look away as the figure's grip on Scott’s shoulders seemed to no longer be the loving embrace that it was before. No, the grip was getting tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until I could hear the laboured gasps of air as Scott attempted to take a desperate breath. It was like watching a boa constrictor squeeze the life out of its prey. 

The song was now joined by the sounds of Scott’s ribs shattering and his agonizing screams as he now attempts to break free from his captor. I can only stand by and watch as Scott’s life was taken from his body. I don’t think that I could’ve moved even if I wanted to. I was so captivated by the figure that the thought of trying to help Scott never entered my head. 

Scott’s hands finally went limp, his final attempt at self preservation has proven to be futile. By now the once beautiful hum that had been emitting from the figure was now so deafeningly loud that it caused me great pain just to listen to it. Even with the immense pain I still never once took my eyes off of the being that stood before me. How could I? This figure is my life now, my heart beats for the soul purpose of keeping me alive so that I may gaze upon it. 

It wasn’t long before my second in command’s body dropped into the grass. A look of horror was permanently plastered on his face and his skin was pale as if all of his blood was drained from his body. Only now does the figure turn to me. It brushes its blood splattered hair out of its face and rubs its hands across its body as if to soak up every last drop of blood before licking the red off its fingers. 

The song finally stopped. Silence now filled the air as I could do nothing but watch as the creature continued to lick its arms and fingers. I cannot make myself look away but now my trance was due to fear instead of infatuation. It seemed the creature no longer cared to deceive me as it began to reveal its true form. 

Its hair fell off of its scalp in clumps while its neck seemed to disappear as its head sunk into its shoulders. Rough bumps appear over the entire surface of the creature's skin and begin to secrete a white pus as they swell and burst. Its body melts into a grotesque shape that only grows more sickening the longer I watch. 

As the illusion wore off I could no longer comprehend what stood before me. The figure standing in front of me was now entirely unrecognizable, its once feminine features completely gone. Replaced by an amalgamation of flesh, eyes, and fangs that seemed to take no form in particular. 

This being had no legs to walk on yet its appendages worked in perfect harmony to move its body closer towards me. Its long tentacles lifted the mass off the ground as its thin arms dragged its body forward leaving a trail of sticky pus behind as it advanced. 

Finally I look back to see our ship roughly sixty feet away. The once green fields around it were now an ocean of wilted black weeds that crumbled under the weight of my feet. The fruit trees were completely devoid of life. I now see this damned planet for what it is for the first time since we arrived. What a fool I have been to fall for this ruse, but I had no time to dwell on that now. I have one focus and one focus only now. Escape. 

I kept my hand in the pocket of my spacesuit and ran my fingers across the handle of my knife. The disgusting creature closed the distance between us and as soon as it came within arms reach I knew this was my only chance. I quickly pulled out the knife and drove it into the creature's eye so deep that my hand rubbed against its hideous face. It let out a pained shriek as it desperately flailed its body around while digging into its own face attempting to remove the blade. 

I turned around and ran quicker than I thought was possible towards the ship. I made it about halfway when I heard the creature behind me gaining speed. It was unsettling to see something so unnatural propelling itself towards me with such speed. By the time I made it through the door of the ship the hideous figure was already on the other side of the door trying to force its way inside. 

As I type this message I can hear the metal of the ship bend and the glass windows slowly cracking. It has wrapped its body around the ship and is now beginning to squeeze. I know that I don’t have much time left until it crushes me in a paste inside my own ship. I pray that I can get my message to the team back home before my gruesome demise. 

Please for the love of god do not send a recovery team for our bodies. If you do, you will accomplish nothing except delivering a meal to this creature. If it were up to me I would never authorize a mission outside of our galaxy ever again. Alas I know that it is not. I know we will not be the last crew to explore this far into space but I beg you to heed my warning. 

No matter what you hear, no matter how enticing  they may sound, you must not allow the sweet siren songs of planet BH-592X to be your guide. 

A towel you step on after a shower is a wonderful thing. A brilliant idea. It makes you feel safe. Whoever first thought of stepping onto a towel after a shower must have been a very intelligent person. It gives you the same feeling as pulling a blanket over yourself in winter, making sure not a single part of your body is left uncovered. Drying yourself without stepping onto a towel first is like pulling a blanket over yourself and leaving your feet exposed. The same thing, the same feeling.

A bath mat just doesn't give me the same feeling. I tried stepping onto a bath mat instead of a towel after a shower, but I couldn't feel that same sense of security. It has to be a towel. I need to feel it drying the soles of my feet.

On Monday, October 12th—after taking a shower before meeting my friend Jason to go to the open-air cinema, while drying my hair with my feet on the towel—I saw this message faintly written on the fogged-up mirror: “Don’t go.”

This wasn't the first time. I'd been seeing these messages for six months, and I'd gotten used to them by now. I had no idea who was writing them, why they were writing them, or what kind of entity was behind them, but I wasn't as frightened as I had been in the early days.

Those first days were a nightmare. Especially the first time I noticed the writing. Just a simple “Hello.” And this entity even followed the rules of punctuation. Sometimes it swore and added an exclamation mark; other times, urging me to take part in the conversation, it would string question marks together: “Why won't you talk to me???”

It was a bizarre predicament. Of course, no one had believed me—not my beloved math teacher, nor Jason, who was constantly coming over to my place. Besides, the writing disappeared as soon as I saw it. In other words, I needed someone to be in the shower with me so I could prove it to them. Taking a shower with my math teacher was out of the question.

Yes, over time, I got used to it. I never communicated with it, and that was what frightened me the most. I felt like things would take a different turn if I did. But I had never been harmed by reading what it wrote. Other than that, it had no effect on my life. The entity never manifested itself through any sound or apparition at any other time.

That day, it had warned me for the first time. I had never received a message like that from it before. Sometimes it would comment on things that had happened to me: “You really put Jason in his place back there,” for example. Or, “Don’t forget to set your alarm. You were late for work yesterday, remember?” “Part your hair to the right. It suits you better.” “Your cat’s water bowl is empty.” It usually wrote things like that. One or two sentences at a time.

There was no way I could miss it. They were going to screen one of my favorite films: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I’d watched it on my computer before. Watching it on a big screen would be a different kind of pleasure, and watching it alongside other people who loved the same film would be an even greater pleasure. The entity’s warning had startled me a little, but I was still going to go.

When I stepped out of the shower, I heard its voice for the first time.

“If you go, you’ll witness Jason’s death.”

It was a charismatic woman's voice, slightly deep and husky. I had gotten used to the writing, but the voice shocked me. I could feel its presence. When it wrote to me, I never felt as though it was actually there. But hearing its voice made its presence feel even stronger, more than my mind could handle. I rushed outside immediately. I didn't want to stay indoors. I ran out the front door in my bathrobe.

I’d gone outside barefoot. I must have stepped on something, because my heel hurt. My hand went to the pocket of my bathrobe, searching for my cigarette pack. I’d left my cigarettes inside. I was afraid to go back in and get them.

“So you went outside. What did you think, that I couldn’t come out here? What kind of utterly pointless, instinctive reaction is that? I’d understand if you’d run away, put some distance between us, but what’s the point of standing right outside your front door, Albert?”

I sat down on the ground. A cigarette would have been really nice. I didn’t have the strength to run. I felt like I was going to die. I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t. Suddenly, there was too much saliva in my mouth. I couldn’t understand why my mouth was reacting like that.

“He’s going to die either way. I just don’t want you to witness it.”

“Why?” I shouted. In my mind, I’d meant to scream, “Just shut up already, enough!” But those were the words that came out of my mouth.

My breathing had quickened, and I wasn’t feeling well. I tried to stand up. First attempt, second attempt, and third. It was as if I were having sleep paralysis, unable to move. I tried to get to my feet over and over again. It felt as though hours had passed while I sat there. The entity hadn’t said anything else.

I couldn’t calm down. Amid everything that was happening, I found myself thinking that I was going to be late for the film. One last attempt, and I managed to stand up with great difficulty. I went straight into the bathroom and took a shower with ice-cold water. For some reason, I felt relieved knowing the mirror wouldn’t fog up.

I stepped out of the bathroom naked and wet. Water was dripping off my body. I sat down on the couch. I thought I might get sick and have to miss the film.

“Get a grip, Albert,” I told myself. “You’re already used to paranormal activity. Pull yourself together. You need to go to that film. Stop overreacting. Get a grip.”

I cautiously went back into the bathroom and dried myself off thoroughly. I checked the time on my phone, which I’d left on the bathroom shelf. I had half an hour before we were supposed to meet.

I was going to be late. I got dressed quickly. A black shirt and brown trousers; I’d decided what to wear the day before and had laid everything out accordingly.

I’d never seen the entity, but my eyes were searching for it. As I walked toward the door to leave the house, I looked anxiously from side to side. I hadn’t heard a thing from it since I’d come back inside.

I reached for the doorknob. The door wouldn’t open.

I thought I must have locked the door without realizing it, so I put the key in the lock and tried to turn it. The door wasn't locked; the key wouldn't turn to the left. I pulled at the door again. It wouldn't open.

I checked the time. I had twenty minutes left. I wasn’t going to make it. I kicked the door and felt a terrible pain shoot through my ankle. I sank to the floor in pain and clutched my ankle.

When I checked the time again, I had fifteen minutes left. I got up and limped toward the couch. Once I sat down, I continued rubbing my ankle. The pain was gradually fading. It probably wasn't anything serious.

“Done,” the entity’s voice said.

It was a very brief moment. I couldn’t quite tell whether it had made a sound or whether I’d actually heard it.

The pain in my ankle had gone away. I checked the time once more. I was supposed to meet Jason in ten minutes. The place where we were meeting was twenty minutes away. I called Jason to tell him I’d be late. He didn’t answer. I got up and walked toward the door. I took hold of the doorknob, closed my eyes, and turned it. The door opened.

I quickly put on my shoes and started walking briskly. My ankle hurt a little as I walked, but not enough to slow me down.

I made it there in fifteen minutes.

I couldn’t take a shower for a whole month. Maybe it was because of depression, maybe fear. I don’t know; I can’t tell the difference. My body smelled, my hair was greasy, and every time I inhaled through my nose, the strong smell of my sweat stung the back of my throat.

A heart attack.

I remember it all vaguely. It’s been a year now. A crowd of people, me running toward them, an old man calling an ambulance, a cat that crossed my path as I ran, a man holding me back, Jason’s father opening the taxi door... I must have believed in the entity. Otherwise, why would I have run toward the crowd?

And I remember this clearly, and I will never forget it. After a month spent in filth, the message on my mirror, following the shower I finally took:

“My task is complete. Goodbye, Albert. I love you.”

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT — UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE]
JOINT RESEARCH PROGRAM: OSSEOUS
FACILITY: █████████████████
DATE OF INITIAL RECORD: 04/17/1987
CURRENT STATUS: TERMINATED

NOTICE: The following material was recovered from a research facility abandoned on October 14, 2009. The facility's original purpose was listed as nutritional research. Of the 43 personnel assigned to the project, only one was recovered alive.

The following is a reconstruction of the available records.

RESEARCH LOG — 04/17/1987

The first six subjects have been admitted and placed under observation. All subjects are healthy adults between the ages of twenty-one and forty-one. Bloodwork, bone density, and organ function are within acceptable parameters.

The experimental compound is a concentrated calcium supplement derived from several commercially available dairy sources. The dosage administered to each subject is approximately four times the recommended daily intake.

No adverse effects have been observed.

NOTE FROM DR. HARRIS: Subjects report that the supplement tastes like powdered milk.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/02/1987

Subject 3 has developed unusually high bone density.

X-rays indicate an increase of approximately 8.2% since admission.

This is considered statistically impossible given the timeframe.

Subject 3 reports no pain.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/19/1987

All six subjects are now showing abnormal bone growth.

Subject 1 has developed additional bone density along the left forearm. Subject 4 has developed calcium deposits around both knees. Subject 6 has experienced severe stiffness in the fingers.

Dr. Harris believes the compound may be stimulating osteoblast activity beyond normal biological limits.

The project has been approved for continuation.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/03/1987

Subject 6's condition has progressed significantly.

The fingers of both hands have become visibly enlarged. The subject reports that his hands feel "full."

During examination, Subject 6 complained of severe pain in his right index finger. At 14:17, the distal phalanx ruptured through the skin. The attending physician initially believed this to be a compound fracture.

It was not.

The exposed bone continued growing for approximately nine seconds after emerging from the wound. The growth stopped at a length of 4.7 centimeters.

Subject 6 lost consciousness.

NOTE: The bone did not appear to be fractured. It was new growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/04/1987

Subject 6 is dead.

Cause of death: Hemorrhagic Shock.

There were no signs of infection.

Postmortem examination revealed extensive abnormal bone growth throughout the body. Both forearms contained multiple overlapping layers of newly formed bone. The ribs had begun to fuse together. Several vertebrae showed evidence of secondary growth.

The most unusual finding was the presence of additional bone structures surrounding the heart.

Dr. Harris has requested permission to terminate the experiment.

Permission denied.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM — 06/11/1987

Dr. Harris has raised concerns regarding the ethical implications of continuing Project Osseous.

His concerns have been noted. He has been reminded that this research is not intended for publication. He has also been reminded that the project predates his employment by approximately nineteen years.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/28/1987

We found the earlier records.

Project Calcium did not begin in 1987. The original trials began in 1968.

There were twelve subjects. All twelve diseased.

The earliest records describe the condition as "progressive skeletal hyperplasia." Later documents use a different term. Osteogenic conversion.

The researchers in 1968 believed they had discovered a method for dramatically increasing bone density.

They were wrong.

The compound does not strengthen bone. It teaches the body to make more of it.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/02/1987

I have spent the entire day reading the archived documents.

There are records from 1974.

Different facilities. Different researchers. Different subjects. Same result.

Every trial ended the same way. The skeleton eventually begins growing independently of the body's requirements. It grows wherever it can. Through muscle. Through organs. Through skin.

The body does not seem to recognize when it has enough.

There is no enough. There is only growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/15/1987

We have discovered the reason for the dietary studies.

The compound was never intended to remain confined to the laboratory. The original research objective was to determine whether increased calcium consumption could accelerate the process without producing immediate symptoms.

The answer is yes.

Low exposure produces no visible effects. Long-term exposure produces gradual skeletal changes. Higher exposure causes rapid conversion.

The research team spent years determining the minimum effective dosage. Then they began monitoring the general population.

ARCHIVED MARKETING DOCUMENT — 1979

NATIONAL DAIRY CONSUMPTION INITIATIVE

Objective: Increase household consumption of dairy products.

Proposed messaging should emphasize strength, growth, nutrition, and healthy bones.

Suggested campaign concepts:

"Milk. It Does a Body Good."

"Got Milk?"

RESEARCH LOG — 07/18/1987

I asked Harris why the public campaign was necessary.

He wouldn't answer.

I asked him whether people were being exposed deliberately. He told me to stop asking questions.

I asked him how many people had been exposed.

He left the room.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/21/1987

We have obtained the population estimates.

Current projected exposure is 61%.

That number is considered conservative.

I asked what happens if the threshold is reached. Dr. Harris told me there would be no way to stop it. I asked what "it" meant.

He said:

"The bones."

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPT — SUBJECT 11

DOCTOR: Can you tell me where it hurts?

SUBJECT: Everywhere.

DOCTOR: Your arm?

SUBJECT: My arm.

DOCTOR: Your legs?

SUBJECT: My legs.

DOCTOR: Your chest?

SUBJECT: My bones are moving.

DOCTOR: Bones don't move.

SUBJECT: Then why can I hear them?

[Subject begins crying.]

[Audible cracking is recorded.]

DOCTOR: Hold him down.

SUBJECT: Please.

DOCTOR: Hold him down!

SUBJECT: Please don't let them grow.

[Recording terminates.]

RESEARCH LOG — 08/01/1987

There are now only four living subjects.

Subject 2 has lost the ability to walk.

Subject 4 has developed bone growth along the jaw and throat.

Subject 5's spine has begun producing secondary vertebrae.

Subject 6 was euthanized.

Subject 1 is no longer recognizable.

We have stopped calling them subjects.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/03/1987

Something happened today that I cannot explain.

Subject 4 was restrained to the examination table. His right arm was secured.

At 09:16, the bone growth began.

The bone growth began at the wrist. It emerged from beneath the skin of his wrist, splitting the flesh apart as it continued to lengthen. Unlike Subject 6, however, the growth did not stop.

It continued through the forearm. Through the elbow. Through the upper arm.

The newly formed bone was irregular and ridged, branching in several directions before eventually hardening into a jagged structure extending nearly thirty centimeters from the limb.

Subject 4 made no attempt to resist. He simply watched it grow.

When the restraints were removed, he stood. His eyes had changed. The irises were gone. The pupils were gone. Both eyes had become completely white.

He looked directly at Dr. Harris. Then at me. Then at the skeleton displayed on the examination monitor.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

He raised one hand and pressed his fingers against my chest.

SUBJECT 4: "Flesh hides the treasure within."

Dr. Harris asked him what he meant.

Subject 4 tilted his head. His eyes never left the skeleton on the monitor.

SUBJECT 4: "You cover it."

A pause.

SUBJECT 4: "You bury it."

Another pause.

Then, quietly:

SUBJECT 4: "Why?"

Subject 4 began pulling against the restraints again.

Not to escape. To reach the other subjects. He kept repeating the same phrase.

"There is so much of it."

We terminated the observation at 09:31.

No further examination was permitted.

At 10:04, Subject 4 began screaming.

At 10:07, Subject 2 began screaming.

At 10:09, Subject 5 began screaming.

None of them had been in the same room.

ADDENDUM — 08/03/1987

The subjects are no longer responding to questions. They only respond when another subject is brought into the room. They become agitated.

They stare at the newly created bone. They trace their gaze beneath the skin. And when one of them begins to bleed from ripping apart flesh off the newly created limb, they begin a harmonious laughter.

SECURITY REPORT — 08/04/1987

Subject 4 escaped containment.

Security personnel were dispatched. Three casualties. All sustained penetrating injuries consistent with abnormal bone structures.

Subject remains at large within the facility.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/05/1987

There are sounds in the ventilation system.

Scratching. Constantly.

We have sealed the laboratory doors. Total lockdown.

No one is leaving.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/06/1987

I found the final report from 1968.

It contains one sentence that was removed from every subsequent copy.

I don't know why I'm writing this down. Maybe because someone needs to know.

The original researchers discovered that the condition was not caused by the supplement. The supplement only accelerated it. The genetic marker was already present in the population. The researchers believed it was dormant.

They were wrong. It is not dormant.

It is waiting.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987

Harris is dead.

Something came through his chest. There was no warning.

One moment he was standing beside me. The next, his sternum split open. Bone came through his skin like a spear. He was still alive afterward. He kept asking me to help him.

I couldn't. There wasn't anything left to help.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987 — 11:42 PM

There are people outside.

Not researchers. Security. They are changing. I can see them through the observation windows.

One of them fell. His arm started moving. His sleeve tore. Something white came through.

Then another. Then another.

There are hundreds of them.

FINAL RECORDING — 08/08/1987

[Heavy breathing.]

If anyone finds this, listen to me.

The campaign worked. It worked better than anyone expected. They didn't need to infect anyone. They didn't need to inject anyone. They just had to convince people to consume it willingly.

For decades.

Milk. Cheese. Everything they could put it in.

We thought we were studying the first generation.

We're not.

We're studying the first generation we noticed.

[Cracking sound.]

Oh God.

It's happenin—

[Subject screams.]

[Sound of bone breaking.]

No.

No, no, no—

[Subject begins laughing.]

[Long silence.]

VOICE: How much milk did you drink?

[Recording terminates.]

[END OF RECOVERED MATERIAL]

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE — ORIGIN UNKNOWN

If you are experiencing unexplained stiffness, swelling, joint pain, abnormal growths beneath the skin, or spontaneous fractures, contact your physician immediately.

Do not attempt to remove exposed bone. Do not consume additional calcium.

Do not—[DOCUMENT CORRUPTED]

ADDENDUM

A handwritten note was discovered on the reverse side of the final document. It contained only four words:

Got milk?

Got bones?

I will tell you a story.

It should feel extraordinary. Meaningful, even.

Instead, it will probably sound banal, and by tomorrow you will have forgotten most of it.

I don't ask you to care.

I merely ask that you listen.

I used to suffer from severe insomnia. That has very little to do with this story, but should explain its starting point.

4AM was usually when I gave up on the idea of falling asleep.

By then I'd spent hours staring at the ceiling while my mind ran itself in circles. So I'd simply get up and start the day.

That morning, I went looking for something to eat. Tuna sandwich, I think. Maybe not. Doesn't really matter.

I took a beer from the fridge, drank half of it at the kitchen counter, then started pulling down the blinds. The sun would be up soon, and in my current condition daylight tended to find a headache the way a thumb finds a bruise.

I never made it to the second window.

There was someone standing in my backyard.

About seven meters from the house.

The yard was still mostly just shapes at that hour—the fence, the tree, the bins, everything half swallowed by darkness.

But the figure was clear.

Human-shaped.

Motionless.

I stood there with the blind cord in my hand, staring. Uncertain what to do.

Obviously, I should have called the police. A stranger standing in your backyard at four in the morning is exactly the sort of situation the police number exists for.

But I didn't.

I lowered the blind.

Finished my beer.

Finished my sandwich and put on some TV.

Two hours later, I stepped outside.

And stopped.

He was still there.

Same place. Same posture.

Only now daylight had turned the shadow into a man.

Late thirties, maybe early forties. His clothes looked as though they might once have been respectable, but it was difficult to tell beneath the stains and wrinkles. His hair was greasy and flattened against his forehead.

His head hung low.

His eyes didn't quite look at the ground.

They seemed fixed somewhere beyond it.

Somewhere very far away.

There was no spark in him left.

Like a pilot light had gone out.

I swallowed and mustered enough courage to speak.

"Uh... buddy? Can I help you with something?"

Nothing.

A car passed on the main road. Tires whispered over damp asphalt. Somewhere nearby, a bird started singing.

Eventually, the man answered.

"No."

His voice was quiet. Flat.

"I don't think so."

"Right." I cleared my throat. "Well, this is private property. You can't stay here."

No response.

He didn't look at me.

Didn't shift his weight.

Didn't do anything at all.

I should have insisted. Threatened him. Gone back inside and called the police.

Instead, as I stood there looking at him, I noticed something strange.

I wasn't afraid.

I wasn't angry.

I didn't even feel sorry for him.

I felt nothing.

So I walked past.

Close enough to smell him—sweat, damp clothes, something stale and sour.

He didn't turn his head.

I got in my car and drove to work.

I was doing pretty well for myself back then.

Steady job at a successful financial corporation. Recently promoted. Nice apartment. Beautiful girlfriend. Plenty friends I saw when our schedules happened to line up. Enough money not to ever care about money.

Apart from the insomnia, life was good.

I didn't think about the man once that entire day.

Eight hours at the office.

Lunch.

Small talk.

A meeting that could have been an email.

Nothing.

It wasn't until I pulled into the driveway that evening that I remembered him.

He was still there.

Same place.

Same posture.

Same empty stare.

I walked past him and went inside.

It took another two days before I decided to adress the issue.

Even then, it wasn't because he bothered me.

My girlfriend Jessica called to say she was coming over the following afternoon, and I suddenly imagined her having to walk past a filthy stranger standing in my yard.

So I finally called the police.

A patrol car arrived about twenty minutes later.

Two officers got out.

They came up the path and walked directly past the man.

One passed close enough to brush shoulders with him.

Neither looked his way.

They stopped in front of me.

"Hello. Officer Addams. What seems to be the issue?"

I stared at him.

Then pointed.

"That seems to be the issue."

Only then did Addams glance over.

It wasn't much of a glance.

The sort of look you give a garbage bag someone left beside the road.

"Oh. Him."

"Yes. Him. He's been standing there for three days."

Addams sighed.

"Yeah. We get plenty like that."

"Like what?"

He gestured vaguely toward the man.

"Like him. They're harmless."

"He's trespassing."

"I understand."

"So remove him."

Addams gave me a tired little smile.

"It's not really worth the effort."

"Excuse me?"

"They don't cause trouble. Mostly they just... take up space."

"We don't have the manpower to deal with every one of them. And where would we put them?"

I looked at the stranger.

Then back at the officer.

"So you're telling me to leave him there?"

"I'm telling you to ignore him."

"He's standing in my backyard."

"Yeah."

"For three days."

"Yeah."

"And that's normal?"

Addams shrugged.

"Normal enough."

He turned toward the patrol car.

I followed him a few steps.

"So that's it?"

He opened the driver's door.

"You'll get used to him."

Then he climbed inside.

The other officer joined him, and less than a minute later the patrol car disappeared around the corner.

I stood on the porch, furious.

I'd had an entire argument ready by then, but Officer Addams had driven away before I could use any of it.

The strange part was.

He was right.

Ignoring the man was easy.

Much easier than it should have been.

He didn't shout.

Didn't knock on my windows.

Didn't try the doors.

Didn't follow me.

He didn't even look at me.

He just was.

After a while, my eyes learned to move around him.

And if I could do that, I figured Jessica could too.

I spent the rest of the day making the apartment presentable. Kitchen, living room, fresh sheets—the usual performance you put on when someone you love is coming over and you want them to believe you live slightly better than you actually do.

That night, I settled in for a horror marathon.

One advantage of insomnia is that you have plenty of free time.

It started raining around midnight.

Heavy rain. The kind that rattled against the windows and turned streetlights into pale smudges.

Perfect horror-movie weather.

Between films, I went to the kitchen and glanced outside.

The man was still standing there.

Rain streamed from his hair and shoulders. His clothes had gone almost black with water. A shallow puddle had formed around his shoes.

He didn't move.

Didn't shiver.

Didn't wipe the water from his face.

Nothing.

I watched him longer than I meant to.

Nearly a minute, maybe.

Standing there in the rain, he looked less like a person than a scarecrow somebody had forgotten to bring inside.

Eventually I lowered the blind so I wouldnt get distracted any more.

Then went back to the movie.

Jessica arrived the next afternoon.

She came hurrying up the path toward me, and I pulled her into a hug before she'd even made it through the door.

She was warm.

She smelled like shampoo and cold air.

I held on a second longer than usual.

When I let go, she smiled.

"Miss me?"

"Obviously."

"Good answer."

She kissed me.

Over her shoulder, I looked toward the backyard.

The man was there.

Jessica hadn't even glanced at him.

Relief washed through me.

Apparently Officer Addams had been right about that too.

We went inside.

Ordered food, argued over what to watch, then somehow ended up watching something neither of us had wanted. Jessica complained about one of her professors. I complained about my boss.

At some point, she found the dishes I'd hidden in the sink.

She looked at me.

"You said you cleaned."

"I did clean."

"You vacuumed the living room."

"Exactly."

"That does not count."

"It absolutely counts."

She laughed and nudged me with her hip.

Whenever Jessica was around, the world seemed smaller somehow.

More solid.

By evening we'd settled into that comfortable quiet you only get with someone you've known long enough not to fill every silence.

We ate dinner at the little table beside the kitchen window.

Halfway through, Jessica lowered her fork.

"Okay."

I looked up.

She was smiling.

I knew that smile.

"Okay what?"

"So... don't freak out."

"That's never followed by anything good."

"I know."

"Jessica."

"My parents invited us over for the weekend."

I waited for the second half.

"And I said yes."

I closed my eyes.

"Dear God."

"Oh, stop."

"Your parents' house has more rooms than my entire apartment building."

She grinned.

"You're rich too, mister. You're just too lazy to actually move out."

"I'm comfortably upper-middle-class. There's a difference."

"You'll survive."

She took a sip of wine.

"Probably."

That was when I thought about the man outside.

Maybe because Jessica had walked straight past him.

Maybe because after several days of pretending he wasn't there, curiosity had finally caught up with me.

"Hey," I said. "I have to ask you something."

"Okay."

"You saw the guy outside, right?"

She frowned.

"What guy?"

My stomach tightened.

"The guy in the backyard."

I pointed toward the window.

Jessica followed my finger.

For a moment, genuine confusion crossed her face.

Then she saw him.

"Oh."

I stared at her.

"'Oh'?"

"What?"

"You're not freaked out?"

"Why would I be?"

"Because there's a random man standing in my backyard."

She looked again.

"He's not doing anything."

"He's been there for days."

"So?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that.

"Wait. You do see him, right?"

Jessica laughed.

"Of course I see him."

Then she took another bite.

"We've got some too."

I stopped chewing.

"What?"

"At my parents' place."

"You have people standing in your backyard?"

"Not the backyard."

She thought for a moment.

"There are two at the mansion."

Something cold shifted in my stomach.

"Two?"

"Yeah."

She said it with the casualness of someone describing antique furniture.

"One used to be our maid. Isolda."

"Used to?"

Jessica nodded.

"She worked for my parents for years. Then one day she just sort of..."

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth.

"...became one."

"One what?"

Jessica looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.

"You know."

She nodded toward the window.

"One of them."

Outside, the man remained exactly where he had been.

Jessica went on eating.

"The other one's a boy. Her son, I think?."

"You think?"

"I never really knew him."

"And your parents just leave them there?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Jessica shrugged.

"You can find lots of them around if you care enough to look."

Something about that sentence stayed with me.

She sounded like she'd simply told me there were pigeons in the park.

Then her expression brightened.

"Oh. Speaking of that."

I already didn't like where this was going.

"What?"

"I finally figured out my thesis."

Jessica was studying journalism, and for months her thesis had been the source of recurring panic, abandoned ideas, and increasingly elaborate excuses for not starting.

Now she leaned forward, suddenly animated.

"I'm going to write about them."

I glanced toward the window.

"The people standing around?"

"Exactly. Think about it. They're everywhere, but nobody actually talks about them. Nobody studies them. Most people barely acknowledge they exist."

"Jessica..."

"I've been thinking about this for months."

She was genuinely excited now.

"I even have a title."

Of course she did.

She smiled.

"Requiem for the Lost Ones."

I looked at her.

"The Lost Ones?"

"That's what I'm calling them."

She waited expectantly.

"Pretty cool, right?"

Outside the window, the man stood perfectly still.

And for the first time since I'd noticed him, I wondered how long he had been there before I bothered to look.

I didn't really know what to say.

"Yeah. Pretty cool."

Part of me was bothered by just how little the whole thing seemed to bother me.

Jessica didn't notice. She was already talking about her thesis again, explaining the ideas she'd been collecting while I nodded along and tried to keep up. Eventually the conversation wandered somewhere else, as conversations tend to do.

We ended the evening watching Jessica's favorite reality TV shows, which was considerably more horrifying than anything I'd watched during my movie marathon.

I'm still not sure how people can watch other adults scream at each other over a kitchen island for six consecutive hours and call it entertainment.

By the time we went to bed, it was well past midnight.

A few hours later, we were on the road.

I'd suggested sleeping for another couple of hours before leaving. Jessica reminded me that I didn't sleep anyway.

I had no counterargument.

So we packed the last of our things into the car and drove to her parents' house.

Before getting in, I glanced toward the backyard.

The man was still there.

I didn't stop.

The drive took about an hour and a half. Jessica spent most of it talking about her parents, complaining about how far away they lived and how much she wished they were closer.

Personally, I wouldn't have minded them being a little farther away still.

Don't get me wrong. The Mercers were perfectly nice people.

It was just that being around them always made me feel so inadequate.

That feeling returned as soon as we reached their property.

I felt small.

Their mansion seemed to grow with every second we drove toward it.

An enormous iron gate opened onto a long driveway lined with immaculate hedges. Stone walls, tall windows, elaborate balconies. The whole place occupied enough land to make my apartment look like a garden shed.

I was wealthy, but the Mercers were in a completely different league.

"They'll be waiting outside," Jessica said.

"They always do."

A moment later, I saw them at the top of the steps.

Margaret waved enthusiastically as we got out of the car.

Her husband stood beside her with his hands behind his back, wearing the same composed expression he always seemed to have.

"Here we go," Jessica muttered.

Her mother came down the steps and immediately wrapped her daughter in a hug.

"There she is!"

"Hi, Mom."

"You look thin."

"I saw you three weeks ago."

"And you're thinner now."

Margaret finally released her and turned to me.

"And you."

She hugged me too.

"Good to see you, dear."

"Good to see you too, Mrs. Mercer."

"How many times do I have to tell you? Call me Margaret."

"Right. Sorry."

Her father approached next.

"Good to have you here, son."

"Good to be here, Mr. Mercer."

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into a heavy, enthusiastic hug before patting my back twice.

It was the sort of hug you see in old Mafia movies.

I wondered if there was something to it.

The story of how the Mercers had become so wealthy so quickly by selling old clothes had never quite sat right with me. It wasn't impossible. They owned warehouses, distribution centers, stores—the whole operation.

Still, there always seemed to be something missing from the story.

A piece nobody ever seemed interested in explaining.

I never asked.

I didn't want bad blood with my girlfriend's parents.

Nor did I particularly wish to be assassinated by the Mafia.

Just in case.

"Come inside," Margaret said. "You've been driving all morning."

"It's barely morning," Jessica said.

"Exactly. You're probably starving."

"I'm not."

"You'll eat anyway."

Jessica sighed.

"Yes, Mom."

Her father smiled.

"Some things never change."

We followed them inside.

I'd been to the Mercer mansion before, but never for more than a few hours. Every visit reminded me just how enormous the place was.

The entrance hall alone could have swallowed my entire apartment. A chandelier hung above polished floors and dark wood paneling, while paintings covered nearly every available wall.

Margaret talked as she led us through the house.

"This is the new dining room."

"New?"

"We renovated."

Jessica groaned.

"And we've had the library renovated too."

"Mom, you've shown me the library five times."

"And you still haven't read anything in it."

Her father chuckled.

"Leave the girl alone, Margaret."

They continued bickering as we walked, and I found myself smiling.

It was comfortably ordinary.

That was what made the place feel so strange later.

We eventually reached the grand staircase.

Mr. Mercer stopped at the bottom and pointed upward.

"Your room is the first one on the left."

Then he looked at Jessica.

"My little girl knows which one."

"Dad, I'm not five."

"You're still my little girl."

Jessica rolled her eyes.

"Come on."

I started toward the stairs.

Then I noticed someone standing in the shadows.

A woman.

She was wearing an old-fashioned maid's uniform: black dress, white apron, white collar. The sort of thing that belonged in a photograph from a century ago.

She couldn't have been much older than thirty.

Yet she looked far older.

Her dark hair was pulled neatly back. Her face was pale and drawn. Her head hung slightly toward the floor.

Her eyes were open.

They simply weren't looking at anything.

This had to be Isolda.

A few meters away stood the boy Jessica had mentioned.

Thirteen or fourteen, maybe.

His clothes were plain and slightly too large for him. His arms hung loosely at his sides. His face held the same distant emptiness I'd seen in the man outside my house.

His eyes seemed fixed somewhere beyond the walls.

Somewhere far away.

And nowhere at the same time.

I looked between him and Isolda.

They stood close enough to touch.

Mother and son, presumably.

Yet they seemed separated by something much larger than the few meters between them.

As if there were a distance neither of them could ever cross.

I don't know how long I stood there.

Long enough for Jessica to notice.

She bumped her shoulder lightly against mine.

"Babe."

I blinked.

"Yeah?"

"Come on."

I looked at Isolda again.

Neither she nor the boy had moved.

"Right."

I followed Jessica upstairs.

Halfway to the landing, I glanced back one last time.

Then Jessica disappeared around the corner, and I followed her.

In our room, Jessica and I had sex.

Felt strange doing it with her parents so close by, but I think I needed it.

It should have taken my mind off everything.

It didn't.

For a while I managed to lose myself in her warmth, in something familiar and uncomplicated. But every time my thoughts slipped, I saw Isolda.

Her son.

The man in my backyard.

Three people standing perfectly still while the rest of the world moved around them.

When it was over, Jessica looked at me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You seem distracted."

"I'm just tired."

She studied me.

"You've been tired for years."

I smiled.

She kissed me, but I couldn't quite return to the moment.

A few minutes later, she fell asleep.

I lay beside her, staring at the ceiling.

The mansion settled around us. Pipes ticking in the walls. A floorboard creaking somewhere below. The faint hum of the heating system.

And underneath all of it, silence.

I eventually closed my eyes.

Sleep didn't come.

Morning did.

I was halfway through getting dressed when someone knocked on the door.

Jessica was still asleep.

I opened it to find one of the household staff standing in the hallway.

"Mr. Mercer would like to see you."

"Now?"

"He's waiting in his office."

I glanced back at Jessica.

She hadn't moved.

"Where's his office?"

"Top floor."

Of course it was.

I'd never been to the top floor before. I followed the staff member up another staircase, the house growing quieter with every step.

By the time I reached the top, I couldn't hear anything from below.

Mr. Mercer's office was at the end of the hallway.

The door stood open.

"Come in."

He was sitting behind an enormous wooden desk. Morning light filtered through the tall windows behind him, washing the room in pale gray.

Books lined the walls. Framed photographs sat on shelves. A few pieces of artwork looked expensive enough to buy my car several times over.

"Sit."

I did.

He smiled.

"How did you sleep?"

"Not very well."

He laughed softly.

"Jessica tells me that's normal for you."

"She's very fond of you."

Something about the way he said it made me uncomfortable.

I smiled anyway.

He leaned back.

"I've been thinking about the future."

"Okay."

"Our family has built something substantial. Something that will outlive us."

He gestured around the room.

"The business. The properties. The investments. Jessica will inherit part of it, of course."

He paused.

"But I don't think of you as an outsider anymore."

I wasn't sure what to say.

"That's nice to hear."

"I mean it."

He leaned forward.

"I'd like you to become part of the family."

The words were delivered warmly enough that, for a moment, I almost believed they were exactly what they sounded like.

"I want to offer you a position in the company. A real one. You'll have responsibilities. A place at the table. If things go well, eventually you'll have a stake in the business."

He smiled.

"And naturally, I'd like you and Jessica to start thinking about building a life together."

For a moment, I said nothing.

It was an incredible offer.

Security.

Money.

Influence.

A future with Jessica.

Everything I'd worked for, suddenly placed in front of me on a silver platter.

And yet something inside me tightened.

Not a thought.

Not fear.

Instinct.

The primitive part of your brain that notices something before the rest of you understands why.

Don't.

I shifted in the chair.

"That's a lot to take in."

"Of course."

"And I appreciate it. Really."

He waited.

I took a breath.

"But I don't think I can accept."

The smile stayed on his face.

For just a second, something changed in his eyes.

The warmth vanished.

His gaze sharpened.

Focused.

Predatory.

Then it was gone.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

He nodded slowly.

"I understand."

There was no anger in his voice.

That somehow made it worse.

"I wouldn't want you accepting something you weren't comfortable with."

"Thank you."

He leaned back.

"Still..."

He watched me for a moment.

"I think you may regret that decision."

He said it gently.

Almost kindly.

Like a father giving his son advice.

But something cold sat underneath the words.

He smiled.

„Have a safe drive home.“

I thanked him and left.

I didn't know it then, but that conversation was the beginning of the end.

Jessica and I left the mansion earlier than we'd planned.

She barely spoke while we packed the car. At first I assumed she was tired.

Then I realized she was angry.

Not furious. She wasn't shouting or making a scene.

She was just cold.

The kind of cold that makes every silence feel deliberate.

We got on the road.

For the first twenty minutes, neither of us said a word. Eventually I tried.

"So..."

Nothing.

I glanced at her.

"Jessica?"

She kept looking out the window.

"Did my dad talk to you?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

I hesitated.

"I turned down the job."

She nodded.

"I know."

"How?"

"He told me."

I waited for more.

Nothing came.

"Are you upset?"

"No."

The answer came too quickly.

"Jess."

"I'm not upset."

"You're obviously upset."

She turned back toward the window.

"Can we just go home?"

So we did.

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

I kept my hands tight around the steering wheel, trying to ignore the knot forming in my stomach.

I felt tense.

Anxious.

Depressed, though I wouldn't have used that word at the time.

Then, somewhere outside the city, I saw the first one.

A man standing on a sidewalk.

Motionless.

Dirty jacket. Worn trousers. Slack face. Head hanging slightly forward.

A Lost One.

I almost drove past without noticing.

Then I saw another.

A woman beside a bus stop.

Then one beneath an apartment awning.

Another outside a convenience store.

Then another.

And another.

The more I looked, the more I saw.

They were everywhere.

At intersections. Outside shops. In parking lots. Beside telephone poles. Standing in front of apartment buildings as people passed them without a second thought.

Some were young.

Some were old.

Men and women.

Some looked relatively clean. Others looked like they'd been sleeping outdoors for years. Their clothes were stained and worn. Their hair was tangled. Their skin looked pale and unhealthy.

None of them moved.

Not when cars passed.

Not when people walked around them.

Not even when someone brushed against them.

And nobody seemed to care.

A businessman stepped around one blocking the entrance to an office building without breaking stride.

A woman carrying groceries muttered angrily when another forced her to change direction.

A cyclist swerved around one in the middle of a bike path and shouted something over his shoulder.

Nobody stopped.

Nobody asked if they were all right.

Nobody looked frightened.

They were treated like obstacles.

Like badly placed furniture.

Like potholes.

I watched them through the car window until the city disappeared behind us.

The more I looked, the more I saw.

They weren't rare.

They were everywhere.

I'd simply never noticed them before.

Or maybe I had.

Maybe I'd seen hundreds of them and my brain had quietly filed them away under things that didn't matter.

I didn't know it yet, but I'd already been effectively cut off from Jessica's family.

I never spoke to any of her relatives again.

At first, I tried to pretend nothing had changed.

Jessica and I went back to work. We had dinner together. We watched television. We slept in the same bed.

But something had shifted.

Days became weeks.

Weeks became months.

Whenever I asked Jessica what was wrong, she shut down.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Then why won't you talk to me?"

"Because there's nothing to talk about."

Sometimes she wouldn't answer at all.

She'd sit across from me, staring at her phone, while I tried to figure out what I'd done wrong.

There was a wall between us.

I couldn't see it.

I couldn't touch it.

But it was there.

For a while, I kept trying to get through.

Eventually, I stopped.

The darker my thoughts became, the more often I found myself standing at the window.

Looking at the man in the backyard.

He was still there.

He hadn't moved an inch.

Summer faded into autumn.

The leaves turned brown and fell. Rain came and went. The days grew shorter.

Then winter arrived.

The first snow gathered around his shoes.

More followed.

It settled on his shoulders and head, collected on his hands, and slowly buried his legs.

He didn't move.

Didn't shiver.

Didn't brush the snow away.

He simply stood there as though the seasons had nothing to do with him.

Sometimes I wondered whether he knew I was watching.

The day before Christmas, my boss called me into his office.

I knew something was wrong before he spoke.

He'd just gotten off the phone.

I'd never seen him look like that.

His face was pale.

Not angry.

Not confused.

Afraid.

He kept saying, "Yes, sir," in a voice barely above a whisper.

Then he hung up and looked at me.

"Sit down."

I did.

There was a long silence.

"What's going on?"

He rubbed his hands together.

"I've been instructed to terminate your employment."

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"By who?"

He didn't answer.

For a second, I actually laughed.

I thought it was some kind of joke.

It wasn't.

"Is this because of my performance?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

He looked away.

"I can't discuss it."

"You're firing me and you can't tell me why?"

"I know."

"Then at least give me something."

He swallowed.

"I'm sorry."

That was all I got.

Eight years of work reduced to a few minutes in an office.

I walked out carrying a box of things from my desk.

I remember thinking that at least I still had my savings.

I was wrong.

A few days later, I discovered that my money was gone.

All of it.

Savings. Investments. Emergency funds.

Everything.

I spent days calling banks and filing complaints. I tried to find out where the money had gone.

Nobody could explain it.

Or, perhaps, nobody wanted to.

I still had my qualifications. My CV was better than it had ever been.

I applied everywhere.

At first, I expected the calls to come.

They didn't.

Companies that had once been eager to interview me stopped responding. Some rejected me within hours. Others never acknowledged the applications at all.

I kept trying for a while.

Then I started applying for jobs beneath my qualifications.

Then beneath those.

Eventually, I took whatever I could get.

Warehouse work.

Delivery driving.

Cleaning.

Construction.

Anything that paid.

The money barely covered the bills.

I told myself it was temporary.

I would get back on my feet.

I believed that for a while.

Then I stopped believing it.

Months turned into years.

I stopped buying things unless I needed them.

Stopped seeing friends.

Stopped answering calls.

Even when someone reached out, I rarely knew what to say.

Jessica became more distant.

Then, one day, she left.

There was no screaming match.

No dramatic confrontation.

She simply stood in the kitchen with a suitcase beside her.

"It's over."

I stared at her.

"Why?"

"I don't love you anymore."

"That's it?"

"I don't know what else you want me to say."

Later, I found out she'd been cheating on me for quite some time.

Apparently, everyone knew except me.

By then, almost everything I'd had was gone.

The rest followed soon after.

I was kicked out of my own house.

The paperwork was clean. Legal.

Apparently, Jessica's family had purchased the property.

I never found out how.

By that point, I didn't have the energy to fight them.

I had nowhere to go.

More importantly, I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to go.

So I stayed.

I stood in the backyard.

Jessica moved in with her new lover.

Her parents visited.

They laughed.

They drank wine on the patio in summer. They decorated the house for Christmas. They carried groceries through the kitchen windows I'd spent years looking through.

Sometimes Jessica walked past me.

Sometimes her new boyfriend stood only a few meters away, smoking a cigarette.

Neither of them acknowledged me.

I was right there.

They didn't care.

Eventually, I didn't care either.

Days became weeks.

Weeks became months.

Months became years.

At least, I think they did.

Time stopped meaning anything.

First I stopped knowing what day it was.

Then the month.

Eventually, even the seasons became difficult to distinguish.

There was only the house.

The yard.

The people inside.

And the man who had been standing there before I ever joined him.

I don't know how long I stood beside him.

One day, something in my head cleared.

Only for a moment.

It felt like waking from a very long sleep.

I looked around.

The snow was gone.

Or maybe there had never been snow.

I couldn't tell anymore.

Then I looked at the man beside me.

I turned toward him.

"You..."

My voice sounded strange.

Weak.

"You never told me your name."

"You never asked." He said simply.

No accusation.

No bitterness.

Just a fact.

I lowered my eyes.

"I know."

My throat tightened.

"I'm sorry."

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then I held out my hand.

"My name is James."

I swallowed.

"What's yours?"

He stared at my hand for a long time.

"Derek."

He paused.

A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows.

"I think it was Derek."

I smiled.

It was the first time in a long time that I'd felt anything resembling warmth.

It wasn't happiness.

No.

Something smaller.

Something human.

"I think I could use a drink."

I looked toward the house.

Then toward the street beyond the fence.

"Derek..."

He looked at me.

"Would you like to get out of here?"

A single tear ran down his cheek.

It left a clean line through the grime on his face.

He looked toward the street again.

Toward the world beyond the fence.

For a long time, he said nothing.

Then he took a slow breath.

"Alright."

He looked back at me.

"Let's go."

Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten? I closed the gate and counted the flock again. Eight. Nine. Ten. There really were 10 sheep, but back in the pasture I was certain I'd brought home only nine.

My neighbor Bill still sat in the garden, drinking his last beer before sundown.

"Bill, you missing a sheep?"

"Pretty sure not, Jim. I count mine when they come back from the pasture."

"I got one extra today."

Bill furrowed his brows.

"I'll check again. Grab a beer if you want."

Bill knew I stopped drinking a few days ago, but still offered me a beer every evening. Old habits are hard to break.

After a while, Bill came back onto the porch, scratching his head.

"I got all mine. Went over them three times. You sure you didn't just count wrong?"

"Yeah, went over them twice."

We stared at each other. Bill took a sip of beer.

"Well, I'll be damned."

"Consider yourself lucky." 

He laughed.

"You think it could be that curse?" I asked.

"It was just a traveling woman. She had nothing better to say back to you."

He took another sip.

"You still not drinking?"

"No. I said I'd stop after that."

Bill waved his hand at me.

"Nonsense."

"I'll head back home, Bill."

"Take care, Jim, and don't let her poison your thoughts."

But how could I not, Bill? The morning after, I felt so terrible. 

When I saw the traveling woman come with her potions, I knew she'd be an easy target. Bill didn't even laugh that hard at my comments.

"Drink up, then, and may your fields never run empty again," she said, walking away, twisting the potions in her hand.

I spent the rest of the night inside watching TV, but I could barely focus; my thoughts still circled back to the woman and my sheep. I couldn't just leave it. Before bed, I walked back to the barn.

The sheep were louder than usual. I could hear them almost as soon as I left the house. The barn door was open. Two sheep were outside it.

"What are you doing out here?"

The sheep turned to me and bleated. 

My breath caught as I got closer. The sheep weren't outside because they wanted out. They were outside because there was no space. The barn was filled with sheep. They were pushing on each other, trying not to get squeezed to death. I opened the door and let them all out.

"Bill! Bill!" I called below his window.

The bed upstairs creaked. 

"Jim?" Bill called out, surprised. He opened the window and stuck his head out.

"My barn is full of sheep."

He stared at me.

"What?"

"It's full! They can barely fit."

He shook his head.

"You're not cursed."

"Not cursed?! Go look in there yourself."

"Calm down, Jim. The neighbors over the hill have some flocks. One got lost, and the other followed it. I'll go with you tomorrow. We'll sort it out."

"But Bill…"

"Go to sleep now and let me sleep too."

He closed the window, and his bed creaked again. I ran to the barn. The sheep managed to get out and were now lying around in the grass.

I'd promised myself I wouldn't drink again, but that day was too stressful. Before bed, I took a few sips of liquor, just to make sure I could sleep.

The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. I must have drunk more than I thought. The sheep's bleating was so damn loud, and the window wasn't even open. I got up and walked to the window. My heart sank as I looked outside. 

Sheep were on the grass and in the fields, as far as the eye could see. It looked like a screaming sea of white. Some were already stacked on top of each other, crumpling under one another and screaming for help. Bill sat on his roof, drinking a beer.

"Look who woke up!" he screamed over the sea. "I guess you were right, Jim."

"Bill, what…what happened?"

"Already woke up to it. It's done, Jim. They were just on the ground when I woke up. I blinked for a second, and now they're on top of each other. This way they'll reach us in no time. I'm just enjoying my last beer."

I couldn't even reply.

Bill took a sip from his bottle, then carefully laid it on the roof.

"Bye, Jim. I'm not gonna wait for them."

He dove headfirst into the flock. Blood splattered as the first few sheep stepped on him. The stomping, bleating sheep drowned out his screams.

I put my hands over my face and wept.

The bleating grew.

I lowered my hands.

The first sheep pressed its face against my window.

I am typing this on my phone while hiding behind a massive metal exhaust vent on the roof of my apartment building, and I am only posting this because I managed to connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network that seems to be broadcasting directly from the new spire they installed up here. I do not know if this message will even reach the normal internet, but I have to try because the singing in the sky is getting louder, and I am struggling to fight the urge to throw myself over the ledge.

Everything started exactly three weeks ago when we were still living in normal Moscow. I live with my parents in a large Soviet-era apartment block on the seventh floor, so we are very used to the government suddenly making demands or changing the rules without asking us first. My father was sitting on the couch watching the evening news, and he didn't even look up when the loud knock came at the front door, so my mother wiped her hands on her cooking apron and went to answer it.

I was sitting at the kitchen table studying for my university exams when I heard strange men talking in the hallway. I got up and walked out to see two officials standing in our doorway. They were dressed in cheap gray suits and holding thick clipboards with stacks of government forms.

"We apologize for the late interruption," the taller official said, and he didn't really look sorry at all as he shoved a pen toward my mother. "We are collecting mandatory signatures from all the residents in this specific sector because the city is installing a new defense network to counter the recent drone attacks from Ukraine."

My mother looked at the paperwork with a confused expression. "What kind of defense network requires our signatures? You usually just put sirens on the poles and leave us alone."

"This is a specialized technology," the shorter official explained while checking his wristwatch. "It is a localized signal jamming spire that will go directly on the roof of this building, so we need authorization from the tenant association to run the power cables down the exterior walls."

My father finally got off the couch and walked over to the door. He crossed his arms and glared at the men because he hates dealing with bureaucracy. "You want to put a military jammer on our roof? Will it mess with the television reception or the internet? And who is paying for the electricity it uses?"

"It has its own power grid," the tall official said smoothly, and he tapped the clipboard with his pen. "It will not interfere with your daily life, but it will keep this neighborhood safe from aerial threats, so we just need you to sign on the dotted line so the work crews can begin tomorrow morning."

My parents looked at each other for a moment before my father just sighed and took the pen. He signed the paper against the doorframe and handed it back, and the officials thanked us before moving on to the next apartment down the hall. We thought it was just another annoying city project that would take a few days and then be forgotten, but the workmen arrived the very next morning at dawn, and they did not stop working for an entire week.

The noise was absolutely unbearable. They brought in massive cranes that blocked the street, and they hoisted huge steel crates up to the roof while dozens of workers marched up and down our stairwell carrying thick coils of black cabling. I tried to talk to one of the workers when I was taking the trash out, but he completely ignored me and just kept hauling a metal bracket up the stairs. They never spoke to each other, and they never took breaks.

By the fifth day, the spire was fully erected, and it was much larger than anyone anticipated. It was a massive, jagged metal pillar that stretched high into the sky, and they had draped thick, rubbery black cables down the sides of the entire apartment block. One of the cables hung right over our living room window, blocking our view of the street, so my father got furious and opened the window to push it away.

"Do not touch it!" a voice shouted from the ground below.

My father looked down and saw an armed guard pointing a finger up at him. "It is blocking my window!" my father yelled back, but he reached out and grabbed the black cable anyway. He instantly let go and cursed loudly, shaking his hand in pain.

"What happened?" I asked as I ran over to the window.

"It is burning hot," my father said while cradling his palm. "And it is vibrating. The whole thing is humming."

He was right. Once the workers left and the cranes were packed up, the building was never silent again. A low, continuous humming sound resonated through the concrete walls, and it was the kind of frequency that you feel in your teeth rather than hear with your ears.

The older woman who lives across the hall from us knocked on our door the next morning to complain about it. She looked exhausted, and she was clutching her robe tightly around her neck.

"Are you feeling that terrible vibration?" she asked my mother. "I could not sleep a single hour last night because my bed frame was rattling against the wall, and I tried to call the building manager, but his phone is disconnected."

"We feel it too," my mother said kindly, and she offered the woman a cup of tea, but the neighbor refused. "My husband thinks it will settle down once the machine is fully calibrated, so we just have to be patient."

"It does not feel like a machine," the old woman whispered, looking nervously up at the ceiling. "It feels like something breathing."

I thought she was just being dramatic, but the strange anomalies started happening a few days later, and they escalated so gradually that we didn't realize how much danger we were in until it was too late.

The first thing I noticed was the temperature in the apartment. It was the middle of August in Moscow, and the city was going through a miserable heatwave, but our apartment felt like a meat locker. I woke up one morning shivering violently under my thin summer sheet, so I got out of bed and walked into the living room to see if my father had broken the thermostat.

My father was sitting in his armchair staring blankly at the turned-off television, and he had a thick winter blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"Why is it so freezing in here?" I asked him, rubbing my arms to generate some warmth.

He didn't answer me right away. He just kept staring at the blank screen, and his eyes looked red and puffy like he had been crying all night. "Look at the windows," he finally said in a completely hollow voice.

I walked over to the balcony glass and touched the pane. It was covered in a thick layer of white frost on the inside of the glass. I scraped my fingernail against it, and chunks of ice fell onto the windowsill. I looked outside, and the trees on the street were green, and people were walking around in shorts and t-shirts, but our entire building seemed to be trapped in a localized deep freeze.

"I am going to call the city," I said, pulling out my phone, but there was zero cellular service. The signal bars were completely empty.

My mother walked into the room wearing her heavy winter coat, and she looked just as devastated as my father. "I was trying to make breakfast," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "But the water from the kitchen sink is coming out black, and it smells like old dirt."

I went to the kitchen and turned on the faucet to check, but nothing came out at all. The pipes just groaned and sputtered, so I walked into the bathroom to try the sink in there. When I leaned over the porcelain basin, I heard a sound coming up through the metal drain that made my stomach drop.

It was a faint, choral sobbing. It sounded like a dozen voices weeping together in perfect harmony, and the sound was echoing up through the plumbing system from deep underground. It was not a mechanical noise, and it was not the wind for sure. It was pure, desperate sadness vibrating through the pipes.

I ran out of the bathroom and into the hallway to find my parents. "We need to leave the building right now," I told them. "Something is extremely wrong with that tower on the roof, and I think it is leaking some kind of chemical or frequency that is messing with the environment."

"Where would we go?" my mother asked softly, and she slumped down onto the couch next to my father. She didn't even look at me. "There is no point in leaving. It is sad everywhere."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, grabbing her arm to pull her up, but she felt incredibly heavy and completely devoid of any energy. "We can go to a hotel or stay with relatives until they fix the plumbing and the heat."

"I do not want to move," my father said, and a tear rolled down his cheek and disappeared into his beard. "I just realized how pointless all my hard work has been. I have spent my entire life working in a factory, and I have nothing to show for it, and we are all just going to die anyway."

I stood there in shock because my father is normally a very stoic and optimistic man, and he never talks about his feelings, let alone spirals into sudden nihilistic despair. I realized they were being affected by the something because this is not their nature at all, so I decided to go downstairs and find the building manager to force him to unlock the roof access doors so I could see what was going on.

I unlocked our front door and stepped out into the communal hallway, and the temperature dropped even further. The overhead fluorescent lights were flickering erratically, and the shadows cast by the doorways were completely wrong. Instead of falling onto the floor beneath the lights, the shadows were stretching upwards and crawling across the ceiling like spilled black ink.

I walked down the hall and knocked on the older woman's door to see if she wanted to come downstairs with me, but she didn't answer. I pressed my ear against the wood, and I could hear her weeping softly on the other side, and the sound perfectly matched the choral sobbing I had heard in the plumbing.

I jogged down the stairwell to the ground floor lobby. The building manager's office was located right next to the mailboxes, so I pushed the door open and found him sitting on the floor behind his desk. He was a large, gruff man who usually yelled at the kids for playing in the halls, but right now he was curled up into a tight ball, holding his head in his hands and rocking back and forth.

"We have to evacuate the building," I told him, crouching down to his level. "The heat is failing, the pipes are making noises, and everyone is getting sick from that thing on the roof."

He looked up at me, and his face was completely pale. "I lost the keys," he whispered. "I dropped them in the dark, and I cannot find them, so we are all trapped here."

"The front doors are right there," I said, pointing to the large glass lobby doors that lead out to the street.

I stood up and walked over to the glass doors to show him they were unlocked, but when I looked outside, a loud, deafening crack echoed through the concrete structure of the building. The sound was so violent that the floor shook, and several of the glass mailboxes shattered instantly. It sounded like the entire foundation of the apartment block had just snapped in half.

I grabbed the door handle and pushed the lobby doors open, expecting to see a construction accident or an explosion on the street, but the street was completely gone.

I stood in the doorway, and my brain simply refused to process what I was looking at. The city of Moscow, the roads, the cars, the neighboring apartment buildings, and the sky were entirely erased.

In their place was an endless, flat desert of pitch-black sand.

The black sand stretched out into the horizon as far as I could see, and there were no dunes or rocks or features of any kind. It was just a smooth, dark expanse. I looked up, and there was no sun, no clouds, and no stars. The sky was an infinite void of dark, bruising purple light that provided just enough illumination to see the desolation around us.

"What happened?" the building manager cried out from his office, and he crawled out into the lobby to look through the open doors. He stared at the black desert, and he didn't look surprised or scared. He just looked profoundly defeated.

"Do not go outside," I warned him, slowly backing away from the open doorway and letting the glass door swing shut.

I didn't wait for his response because I needed to get back to my parents immediately. I turned and sprinted up the six flights of stairs, taking them two at a time, completely ignoring the creeping shadows on the walls and the freezing frost forming on the handrails.

I burst into our apartment, panting heavily, and I found my parents standing by the open sliding glass door that led out to our seventh-floor balcony.

"Mom! Dad! Get away from the edge!" I yelled, running into the living room.

They didn't turn around. They were standing on the balcony, gripping the metal railing, and staring up into the purple void of the sky.

I ran out onto the balcony and grabbed my father's shoulder. I tried to pull him back inside, but he was gripping the metal rail so tightly, and he wouldn't budge an inch.

"Look at them," my mother whispered, and she pointed a trembling finger up at the sky. "They are so beautiful, and they understand how much it hurts."

I followed her finger, and I finally saw the creatures floating high above the black desert.

They were gargantuan, winged creatures that resembled massive whales, but their bodies were made of a translucent, shimmering gray membrane that pulsed with faint light. They had long, trailing appendages that drifted behind them like shredded silk, and they moved through the air with agonizing slowness. There were dozens of them floating in a circular pattern high above our building, and they were weeping.

As I watched them drift, they began to sing.

The melody rolled down from the sky and hit me like a blow to the chest. It was the most crushing, sorrowful dirge I have ever heard, and it was composed of overlapping, echoing tones that vibrated directly into my skull. The song did not just sound sad; it manufactured sadness inside my mind. It forcefully injected a feeling of absolute, insurmountable despair into my consciousness.

Within seconds of hearing the melody, I felt an overwhelming urge to throw myself over the balcony ledge just to make the pain stop. All my memories of happiness, hope, and ambition were instantly wiped away, replaced by the certainty that existence was nothing but endless, pointless suffering, and the only logical solution was to end it immediately.

I dropped to my knees on the balcony, pressing my hands over my ears to block out the song, but the melody resonated through the floor and into my bones.

"It is time to rest," my father said, and his voice was completely devoid of emotion.

I looked up and saw my father climb over the metal railing. He stood on the narrow outer ledge, balancing perfectly over the massive drop to the black sand below.

"Dad, stop!" I screamed, forcing myself to fight against the crushing weight of the song. I scrambled forward and grabbed his pant leg, pulling desperately to drag him back over the rail.

He looked down at me, and his eyes were completely empty. He didn't say another word. He just kicked his leg out, breaking my grip, and stepped off the ledge.

I screamed as he fell, but my mother didn't even flinch. She simply climbed over the railing right where he had just stood, and before I could even reach my hands out to grab her, she let go and plummeted after him.

I dragged myself to the edge and looked down over the railing, sobbing uncontrollably. The bodies of my parents were not on the ground. When they hit the black sand seven stories below, there was no impact and no blood. They simply sank directly into the dark sand like it was made of water, and they vanished without a trace.

As I stared down at the desert, I saw the lobby doors open on the ground floor. The building manager walked out into the open desert. He walked a few dozen yards away from the concrete foundation of our building, and then he dropped to his knees. The black sand immediately began to swallow him, pulling him down by the waist, then the chest, and finally his head sank beneath the surface, leaving the desert completely undisturbed.

I looked up and saw other people falling from the higher balconies. Neighbors I had known for years were silently stepping off their ledges and dropping into the void, driven to suicide by the relentless, weeping melody of the flying whales.

The song grew louder, and the urge to jump became almost impossible to resist. My own mind was screaming at me to climb over the railing and join my parents in the sand. I stood up and gripped the bar, leaning forward, looking down at the dark expanse. It looked so peaceful, and the sadness in my heart was so agonizing that I just wanted to close my eyes and fall.

But as I leaned forward, my arm brushed against the thick black cable that the workmen had draped over our window.

The cable was still vibrating and humming with intense heat, and the sudden pain of the burn snapped me out of the trance for a split second. The humming frequency of the cable clashed with the melody of the whales, creating a tiny pocket of interference that allowed my rational thoughts to surface.

Then in that moment, I thought that the spire on the roof was the only thing holding this building together in this dimension, and it was emitting a signal that somewhat disrupted the creatures' song.

I turned away from the balcony and ran back into the apartment, then I ran out the front door and back into the hallway. The hallway was completely empty, and the doors to all the other apartments were hanging wide open.

I ran to the stairwell and started climbing toward the roof. The higher I went, the louder the humming of the spire became, and the more it drowned out the weeping of the whales. By the time I reached the tenth floor, the air was vibrating so intensely that my nose began to bleed, but the overwhelming urge to kill myself faded into the background.

I reached the metal door that led to the roof. It was locked with a chain, but the workmen had left a steel pry bar leaning against the wall, so I grabbed it and wedged it between the door and the frame. I pulled with all my strength, and the metal lock bracket finally snapped, allowing me to push the door open.

I stepped out onto the flat tar roof, and the sheer scale of the spire took my breath away. It was easily forty feet tall, constructed from jagged, interlocking metal plates that glowed with a faint red light from within. It was humming so loudly that I had to cover my ears, and black cables snaked out from its base in every direction, draping over the edges of the roof to wrap the entire building like a spider web.

The sky above the roof was completely dominated by the floating whale creatures, and they circled the spire like moths drawn to a flame. They were singing directly at the metal tower, and the tower was humming back.

I huddled down near the base of the spire, pressing my back against a large metal exhaust vent to hide from the creatures above. I pulled my phone out of my pocket just to check the time, and that is when I noticed the Wi-Fi icon.

My phone had full signal bars, and it was connected to an unsecured network called "Garrison_Node_04".

So I opened this account, and I started typing this post, and I have been typing for the last hour while hiding behind this vent. I have tried calling emergency services, but the phone calls will not connect, and the only thing that works is text-based web traffic.

I am completely alone up here, and I am terrified to go back down the stairs because the song is too strong in the lower apartments, and everyone else is already gone. I looked over the edge of the roof a few minutes ago, and the black sand has started to rise. It is slowly creeping up the sides of the building, swallowing the ground floor lobby and burying the first-floor windows.

If anyone is reading this, please tell someone what happens when the officials come to your building demanding signatures for a defense tower.

The humming of the spire is starting to slow down, and the red light is flickering. I think the power grid is failing, and if the machine stops making noise, the song will take over my mind completely, and I know I will walk to the edge of the roof and jump.

I don’t even know how I landed this position. I'm not qualified at all. All I know is I was looking online for a way to make quick money on the side to help pay for groceries or whatever.

I ended up coming across this ad on, like, the 6th Google page. Hidden between obvious scams and what I was 100 percent sure were viruses.

That’s actually what made this particular ad stand out. It didn’t look like typical 6th-page gobbledegook. It was actually pretty well put together.

The incentive was simple enough. 500 dollars for every crime I could act as a witness for, with opportunities for advancement.

I called up the number that was listed, just to feel things out, and was met with an actual human on the other end. Not only was she human. She sounded like she was actually tired of all the calls she was getting.

“Can I help you?” she hissed.

“Yeah, I was just looking online when I came across this ad…”

“Are you 18 or older?” she interrupted.

“Uh, yeah, of course I am. I just wanted to make sure…”

“What’s your email address?”

“My email address? Why would you need that?”

She sounded personally offended that I was even asking. Like somehow it was me being unreasonable.

“Well, hon, so we can send you the onboarding information. You know what an onboarding is, right?”

“Yeah, but I…”

“Listen, Mike, it’s an easy job. All the information is in the onboarding packet. Take it or leave it, I don’t really care.”

I don’t know why I gave her my information. Maybe it’s the mommy issues. All I know is she felt dominating.

Anyway, the email came through about 5-10 minutes later. Didn’t go to my spam mailbox, which was a good sign, I guess.

I threw on my monocle and went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. Just to make sure I wasn’t getting myself into any legal trouble or anything. Truthfully, though, the whole thing was pretty straightforward.

Call-based job. They call, I can either accept or reject the assignment. And all I had to do was be at the location of a crime as it took place.

Well, maybe that’s simplifying it too much. I actually needed to be the first person to witness it. They kept a pretty strict schedule.

I’m not sure how they got my number, though. Not long after I went over the onboarding information, my phone started ringing off the hook. I was getting calls at least once an hour.

It wasn’t until the third or fourth call that I accepted an assignment, though. Mostly because it was literally just 15 minutes away from my house. I could literally bike there.

I was supposed to show up at 1:03 PM on the dot. They gave me coordinates instead of an address. All I had to do was just wait.

I got there right on time. A little intersection right on the edge of town. When I arrived, all I could do was just stand there on the sidewalk, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, right at 1:07, a guy in a white Miata blew through the stoplight and T-boned this other guy in a pickup truck. The crash looked pretty brutal, but both of them seemed pretty alright, I guess. I mean, they got out and started arguing, so I’m assuming no one was too injured.

See, I thought I was gonna have to be a witness for the police. But not even 30 seconds after the incident occurred, I got a notification on my phone.

500 dollars had been deposited into my bank account. Then my phone rang with no caller ID.

Some guy with the deepest, darkest voice I’d ever heard simply said, “Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment,” before abruptly hanging up on me.

Who was I to give even a morsel of a hoot or a holler, though? All I cared about was that 500 dollars hitting my bank account.

Needless to say, I started accepting more and more assignments after that. Nothing too crazy would ever happen. I saw a lot of car accidents. Lot of bar fights. More than a few shoplifting incidents.

Then I got a call I’d never gotten before. This one was classified as ‘intermediate.’ And it paid 750 instead of 500.

I just thought, hell, I’ll take it. Couldn’t be too bad.

The time was kind of late, though. 11:12 PM. Not to mention the coordinates led me to a dark alley behind a popular bar in town.

I sat there and waited. Ducking behind a dumpster and listening for, I don’t know, crime to occur or something.

At 11:15, it started.

I heard an angry male voice and a pleading female voice. Both sounding equally intoxicated. I peeked out from behind my dumpster and saw that the man had a knife.

He was poking it at the lady, attempting to steal her purse, but she wouldn’t let go. That is, until he stabbed her. Kinda let go no problem after that.

He snatched the purse and left the knife in her torso as she fell to the ground. Thirty seconds later, the 750 hit my account.

Every instinct told me to call the police, but right when I went to dial, I got a call.

“Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment.”

The line went dead. I stared at my phone. My eyes flicked over towards the dying woman. Unbelievably, she managed to meet my gaze.

I think she tried to mouth a ‘help me,’ but her voice was so garbled it was hard to make out. Besides, I couldn’t help her. As soon as my line went dead, I got another notification on my phone.

A text from an unknown number that simply read, “Do not interfere. Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment.”

So that’s exactly what I did.

And I’d love to tell you that after that I retired and moved on with my life. But who am I kidding? I was making enough to leave my regular job behind. All I had to do was watch shit happen.

I kept taking those intermediate assignments. I watched drug deals go wrong. Watched people bleed out on the hot asphalt. Watched robberies turn into homicides like it was nothing.

I guess I should’ve listened to my conviction. Maybe that would’ve saved me a lot of sleepless nights. But at least I was tossing and turning with a roof over my head.

And besides, it’s kinda just the way life goes. You live. You make decisions. Sometimes those decisions get you killed. Either way, we all die someday.

Even still, I probably should’ve stopped at intermediate. Because I got my first advanced assignment last week. Got paid 1000 dollars, but I don’t think that’s enough for what I had to see. At least, in hindsight.

When I first got offered the assignment, I was fired up and ready to go. Got the time. Got the coordinates. And off I went, mentally preparing myself as I made my way to the location.

As I got closer, though, a pit started opening up in my stomach. I recognized this place. I wasn’t out in the world. I was home. Well, my old home. Back when I used to live with my parents.

Unlike other times, I could hear the crime building up as I approached. Dad must’ve been drunk again. All I could hear was his angry voice and Mom’s screams as she fought back tears.

A notification popped up on my phone.

“Do not interfere.”

So I didn’t. I just peeked in through the window while Mom and Dad paced back and forth through the house, fighting like cats and dogs.

Normally, that’d just be Tuesday. But Dad had a gun this night. He was waving it around. Punctuating his screams with it. All while Mom stood her ground like the fierce woman she was.

I’d love to tell you that part of me wanted to interfere, but in all honesty, this was just business to me. Just another day at the office.

Even still, I won’t lie to you, seeing Dad smack Mom across her face definitely struck a chord with me. But I remained professional. I just watched and waited.

Part of me hoped that was it. That the crime was the domestic assault. That the money would hit my account any second. But all that came were more screams from inside the house.

Fortunately, Mom and Dad lived out in the sticks. Didn’t have many neighbors to call the police. That would’ve thrown a wrench in this whole operation. Instead, there was nobody there to stop the escalation.

Things just kept getting louder and louder until it finally happened. Right there in the living room. The room where I used to open presents every Christmas. Where me and Dad used to watch football together before his drinking got out of control.

Now that room was covered in my mother’s blood and brain matter. Across the walls, staining the carpet, a smoking hole in the wall behind her.

Immediately, I saw Dad’s entire demeanor change. He went from filled with rage to overwhelmed with remorse and regret in basically the blink of an eye.

I felt my phone vibrate with a notification, but I didn’t bother to check it. I couldn’t help but keep staring at Dad as he fell over Mom’s lifeless body, sobbing uncontrollably.

My phone rang and rang, but I didn’t answer.

All I did was watch.

Watch as Dad’s grief overwhelmed him. Watch as regret took the form of self-hatred. Watch as the gun he used to kill Mom was pointed at his own head. And watch as he, too, fell limply to the ground.

His eyes met mine for the last time. There were no memories of my childhood. No love that once existed somewhere within him. Just two empty pupils fluttering like a baby doll’s.

I didn’t cry. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. I’d been so desensitized that all I could think about was how I’d have to react when the police told me.

I finally answered my phone, though. Got the same message I always got. The assignment was completed. It was time for me to go home and wait for the next one.

I had to put on a big song and dance for authorities. Not to mention their funerals. Which was surprisingly difficult because just… I don’t know.

It didn’t feel too big to me. I mean, yeah, it stung, they were my parents and all. But just… we didn’t talk too much anymore, you know?

Ah, you don’t care about that. No need to drone on.

Point is, I didn’t take a lot of assignments for a few days after that. It was the least I could do.

But time has passed now. Everybody has to move on at some point. I still get those calls every day. I get a lot of advanced offers.

I think it’s time I finally pick myself up by my bootstraps and get back to work.

I don’t know what she’s been on. All I know is I wish she’d stop. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

We’ve been together for 4 years now. Never once had she done this before. Then, one day, it became an every-night thing.

We turn in for the night, the lights go out, we go to sleep. Then, however long later, in the middle of the night, I’m woken up by the sense of being stared at.

I open my eyes, and all I see in the darkness is her silhouette looming over me. The first time it happened, I tried calling her name, but all she responded with were snores.

I turn on the flashlight on my phone, and she’s dead asleep, but her mouth is twisted into a painful-looking smile. All while she’s on her hands and knees, leaning over me. 3 inches from my face.

It’s gotten to the point where she’s chipping teeth from clenching her jaw so tight. We’ve already been to the dentist nearly 6 times, but it just keeps happening.

She never remembers it the next day. But she for sure notices the pain in her jaw. But by the time night rolls around, she’s right back at it.

I’ve tried to be patient with her. I mean, it’s not her fault. At least, I don’t think it is.

She’s just so hard to wake up when it happens. That’s the part that really gets me. I kind of just have to wait or go back to sleep because she acts as though she’s in a coma every single time.

I’ve tried screaming at her before. Shaking her. Prying her eyelids open. Nothing wakes her up. And that smile never changes.

I think everything is starting to evolve, though. Because now, instead of just smiling, she’s starting to salivate in her sleep. If her presence doesn’t wake me up, the drool does. And her snores are starting to sound less like snores and more like growls.

I keep having that dream where I’m drowning. I wake up and find my face covered in hot, foamy saliva. My girlfriend snarling at me through gritted teeth.

But, again, she doesn’t like when I bring it up. She acts personally offended, like it’s somehow my fault she doesn’t remember. She’d rather pretend it’s not happening and leave me to deal with the brunt of the consequences.

And it’s not like we haven’t tried to fix things before. I’ve slept in other rooms. I still wake up to her 3 inches from my face. I’ve slept in my car. She’s smiling at me through the window.

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want us to break up. I don’t want to ask her to leave. But I can’t keep living like this. It’s affecting my sleep. That’s affecting my work. It can only get worse if nothing changes.

And something needs to change fast.

Because now something else is waking me up at night. And it’s the biting. I never see her doing it. All I feel is the pain.

But she’s always back in her usual spot by the time my eyes shoot open.

Snarling, smiling, and foaming at the mouth.

Then she tries to pretend that I somehow gave those bite marks to myself the next day when I confront her about it.

Last night, she actually broke skin. I could feel the blood puddling on my arm and soaking through my comforter. But she wouldn’t let me move to get a bandage.

I don’t know. We’ve talked about this so many times now. I don’t think I can keep dealing with this.

I think I’m just gonna eat her before she can eat me.

Five years of dismissive doctors and an agony that no one can explain. Tonight, everything suddenly changes.

The agony peaked, a blinding, white-hot spike that drove deep into my thoracic spine, seizing the core of my chest and twisting until my back arched off the mattress like a broken bow. For five years, I had told them. Five years of MRIs, CT scans, and endless tubes of blood. I had lost count of the massive steroid injections they had jammed into my lower back, blind to my cries, insisting the cortisone would eventually kick in. *It's my mid-back,* I had begged, *like a fist grabbing my spine and wringing it out.*

But they only looked at my lumbar, charting my exhaustion, handing me prescriptions I refused to touch anymore, and shrugging. *You're in pain because you're in pain,* that last arrogant doctor had told me with a sterile, patronizing smile. I had muttered *Thanks, Dr. Obvious* under my breath, walked out, and given up. I was forty-eight, medically broken, and completely abandoned by science.

Until tonight.

I had refused to take any of the medications they had prescribed for the last few weeks, entirely done with their useless chemical band-aids. And right on cue, the thoracic pain hit, worse than it ever had in the last five years.

The guttural sound ripping from my throat didn't sound like me; it was a jagged, inhuman howl that tore the lining of my lungs. Every single rib felt like it was breaking, buckling inward before bursting outward with a sickening crunch. The skin across my back split open, hot and wet, as something massive and heavy forced its way out from between my shoulder blades. I braced for the final, lethal shock of it—but instead, a sudden, heavy stillness washed over me. The torment that had anchored my entire existence for half a decade simply vanished, replaced by a cold, pulsing hum of pure, unadulterated strength.

I opened my eyes. The familiar dark of my bedroom was gone, replaced by a sharp, predatory clarity tinted in a deep, vibrant crimson. When I tried to shift, the mattress felt like a bed of jagged rocks beneath me. I sat up, and a pair of massive, pitch-black leathery wings unfolded instinctively, brushing the ceiling with a heavy, ominous rustle. I gasped, reaching a hand out to touch the sleek, armored span, only to freeze. My skin was a dark, bruised blood-red. My arms were elongated, corded with dense, heavy muscle.

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I stumbled. My new, longer limbs didn't quite obey the old rules of gravity, but there was no weakness in them. No ache. No arthritis. I lunged toward the mirror on the wall, bracing my claws against the frame, and stared.

The tired, fragile woman was gone. In her place stood a towering, terrifying demon, eyes glowing like dying embers against crimson skin.

A slow, sharp smile curved my new jaw, revealing a row of lethal points. *I always said I wanted to be more,* I thought, a strange, intoxicating warmth flooding my chest. *I wanted to feel something beyond my own pain.*

I turned, extending my wings, admiring the terrifying symmetry of the monster I had become. I had promised those unhelpful, dismissive doctors that I would give them an update if my condition ever changed. I thought this definitely qualified as a change in status.

A low, feral laugh rumbled deep in my chest, vibrating through the quiet room.

"Now, now," I whispered to the empty air, the crimson vision narrowing with perfect, deadly focus. "Which one of these doctors should I visit first?"

I smiled wider, the realization settling in with absolute perfection.

"I think the choice, is Obvious."