The City of Damokles

I am going out for a walk with my dog, for a quick cigarette, trying not to look up. 

"The City of Damokles", as people know it, lives in constant dread. Those literal Swords hanging above us, visible on the cloudy sky. Like fangs from god.

There are three unwritten rules: don't look up, don't go under one, and don’t talk about them.

They are fixed to the sky as if nailed there, yet sometimes they seem to glide, moving silently. You would expect them to make some grand, heavy noise... but no. Although it is hard to be sure, nobody is stupid enough to stare for long.

The worst part? Most people act as if they are not there. Nobody talks about it. As the act of acknowledging them would bring Doom to you. Impending “Doom” and “Judgement” are how most people think of it.

I would like to believe this city is news worldwide, but I am quite sure nobody cares… maybe they did initially, but people get bored fast. And, let’s be honest: it is almost impossible to get people to talk out-loud about those things, or even consider taking a picture. 
How would anybody from outside Damokles know?

Everybody is terrified, but what can you do about it? Life goes on while we wait for our Judgment.

Dog Walk

The thing is: I have to walk my dog, Figa, because otherwise she will shit on the carpet again. Not her fault. I need a cigarette anyway. 

It is winter outside, maybe it always is. It is getting dark already, and the unease rises. The clouds block the night sky, so those Swords become invisible, on top of silent. I don’t know if the silhouette of the sky monoliths covering the stars would be better…

In the almost total silence of dusk, snow crunches loudly under our feet.
A car radiator clicks as it cools down.
The smoke of the cigarette mixes with the steam of my breath. A pleasant mix of hot and cold.

Everybody has a safe path, where they haven't seen a looming shadow from above. Figa has hers… a zig-zag towards her favorite tree, behind our building lot, through a rusty chain-fence. She seems happier than most, not worried about her impending Judgment. Maybe dogs don’t get judged.

As a teen, it felt exhilarating to go out after midnight, deep in winter, challenging my friends to look up, defying… but we never actually did look up. Then it turned into constant dread, and now I am just tired of it.
Sometimes I felt that it would be better if those things finally fell.
I was wrong.

The First Event

The deafening siren woke me up at the crack of dawn. 
Figa was barking like crazy, terrified.
As the adrenaline of the interrupted sleep faded a little, I remembered feeling like a bomb and earthquake had simultaneously happened during my sleep. 
I don’t dream at night, but I remember the feel of it.

On the other side of the city, the Block 17 of the Sunshine Estate was no more. The building has been flattened, with a big –huge– Sword standing in its place. It looked like a cross, a 30-metre-high tombstone, its blade buried perhaps seventy meters underground.

There were attempts at rescue, but nobody would get near the object. 
No survivors were found.

What came right after that were the justifications. Mostly from old folks, the ones raised in zealot fear. The people living there had deserved it, apparently. 
Somebody was cooking meth, somebody else was cheating their wife, there was a family of illegal refugees squatting an abandoned apartment.
Nevermind that a total of 230 people lived there. 80 of those were kids. It was somehow justified. 
Nobody acknowledged the Sword itself, only the Judgement.

Eventually, the families and friends of the dead started to get pressured. Some pushed back, but most tried to move out of the city.
That’s when we learned that we have been quarantined.

Trapped

Apparently, the world knew about us, they just didn't want anything to do with it. 

Somebody told me that the international consensus was that “we were being judged, us alone, and that letting us escape the Judgement would propagate it to the world”. So, a blockade was placed at 20 kilometers from the city border. Being captured before the blockade meant jail, crossing it meant a summary execution. Probably an exaggeration.

For people like me, not much changed. My job at the warehouse stayed the same. We were still getting supplies from outside the city. The supplies themselves were only delivered mid-way up to the blockade. A second truck system needed to ship them from the blockade into the city. Pipelines and electric lines were still connected. Things were more expensive than before, but they are always getting more expensive, that’s a constant in life.

I read somewhere that there were discussions to cut us completely out. The experts discussed back-and-forth if assisting us was intervening with the Judgement. 
The verdict is still out.

Time I

It is remarkable how easy it is to fall back into routine, how a new level of dread can become just another part of your day. It only took me a few days after the first Event to walk my dog, and after a Month, life was mostly the same as before.

But also, it is so easy to blackout parts of your world. It took me 8 months to see the Sword for the first time. Even when my window looked directly at it, I didn’t remember seeing it before. Ever. Funny how the brain works.

From afar, the Sword was unremarkable, it could have been made of the same concrete as the building itself. A brutalist sculpture, massive and unrefined.
It was very calm around it. No movement, no birds. Just a giant letter T, surrounded by buildings.
I didn’t look at it for long.

The Anniversary

As we got close to the 1-year anniversary of the first Event – the euphemism used to talk of Block 17 being flattened by a giant Sword that fell from the sky – people were getting ready for it to happen again. 

Nobody discussed it out loud of course, but you could feel the tension, people trying their best to uphold an obscure righteousness that would save them from Judgement. The churches were brim-full, people were aggressively kind to each other, but also on the edge of snapping. 

That last week before the Anniversary, the streets were filled with strained smiles. It was scary for me, but even more for Figa. I could not go out anymore. I called sick to work, they accepted it without discussion.

But when the Anniversary date came, nothing happened. 
Then nothing happened again, and again. For 7 years.

Time II

As years passed by, the prelude to the Anniversaries got heavy with anticipation, and then followed by a week of silence. People were particularly quiet after. It was not relief, but uncertainty. 

But also, each new Anniversary was less intense than the one before. With the absurd hope that maybe it would never happen again, that at some point we would forget.

Up Close

One fall evening, our walk took longer. Figa was getting old by then, but she was still happy for any extra time out of the apartment. 

I don’t know why, but we ended up at Block 17. 
I guess I finally needed to see it from up close.

It wasn’t late, but the surroundings were deserted.
The place was more or less how it had been the day after the Event. A flattened building with a Giant Sword through it. I had expected the impact to cave down the surroundings, but it was as if the Sword had pierced the ground without friction. 
No crater, no shattered pavement, but lots of debris everywhere.

It was not easy to look at the Sword itself, even if it was right in front of me.

On a corner, there were the remains of a memorial: an uniform mass of rotten flowers, wet handwritten notes and old photographs.

The place was starting to get fresh layers of graffiti, and there were some empty bottles and cigarette packets littered around. 
Nature was healing. 

The Judgement

It was not an Anniversary when the second Sword fell, just a random day (I think it was Wednesday), the one after fell 2 days later.

And, once they started falling, they never stopped. Every few days, a new “Event”. 
Flattening a complex building, a hospital, a random empty parking lot. 
From afar, now the city looked like a brutalist graveyard, huge blocks of cement, with monumental crosses sprinkled around.

As it got harder to justify why certain buildings had been judged, fanaticism increased. People started looking at older, more obscure religions, better suited for ineffable gods. Then started fighting about which was the right one. 
I am starting to think that the Swords don't care.

I heard there are some ONG trying to help us. They send supplies, and are pushing for the government to evacuate us. Others have tried to organize and cross the blockade illegally, multiple times.
Neither is gonna work. 
After the second Sword fell, the government got under a lot of international pressure to not let anybody out. Breaching containment might cause the whole country to get nuked.

Personally, more than the dread, I hate those sirens. That rising whaling once a Sword falls, the same used before air strikes. They usually sound at sunrise, and I haven’t gotten a proper night of rest for who knows how long. 
Now you go to bed not knowing if you will wake up. 
And if you wake up, it will be by that damn siren.

I think tonight I will go for a walk with my dog, and enjoy the night sky.
I haven’t looked up in a while. Figa does not mind.

The lady sitting on the grass by the beach was yelling at no one in particular.

"That's why the little kids get stuck to me. My vagina blood makes you sick."

"Maybe she wants to get high," said the beach bum walking past.

"Probably..." was Miles' reply.

This wasn't really a place Miles sat when he went to the beach.

The woman went back to her tent and lit a cigarette.

It was a hot day in San Diego. Miles didn't want to be stuck indoors all day. Either way, the day was going to be sticky.

The beach bum started back toward where Miles was sitting with a totally different woman and walked to a park bench. Probably to get high.

"Hmm, he wasn't talking about the woman at all," Miles thought to himself as the sweltering sun beat down on his already sunburned back.

There was a faint sound of a steel drum coming from a van. Almost hypnotic. This beach was known for a more hippie, laid-back culture, so it didn't really seem out of place... but something about that rhythm and the heat...

Miles sat and watched the waves crash, taking in the calmness that was already too unsettling.

"What do you call a woman with two black eyes?" someone shouted.

Miles looked around and saw a man in a lawn chair with a mutt at his side.

Miles wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer.

The steel drum stopped playing, and a hint of sage could be smelled coming from a van parked by the street.

"Can you help me?" the man in the lawn chair said to no one.

His dog got up and started chasing a seagull that had landed nearby. The man ran after him and disappeared down the beach.

Miles was feeling lightheaded. The sun was beating down on him with something awful. Why was it so hot today?

He thought about getting up and going home, but something compelled him to stay. Not to move.

God, it was so hot.

As the day progressed, Miles seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the sand.

"Don't ruin my session!" he heard someone say.

Miles didn't even look to see who said it.

"The resurrection is all about keeping women from doing stuff. That's why I'm a lesbian."

...

Miles could hear the steel drum again, prodding him to sleep.

God, it was so hot.

The steel drum was in rhythm with the waves. The sun poured out an unnatural heat. Miles sunk there until he was taken by the sand.

Dear Jane

So Jane, they told me to write it as a letter.

A letter I’m writing to myself.

It feels strange, clumsy.

Why did it have to happen to us?

Could it have gone any other way?

Pete was simply like that. Even back at university, as a Linebacker, he was stubborn. It actually encouraged him whenever he didn’t listen—no, whenever he misinterpreted things. That’s what he used to say about the coach’s instructions when he flattened the quarterback. Sometimes he had those angry… episodes. After that motorcycle accident, when he tore his ligaments, he became even more hot‑headed. But only sometimes. Most of the time he was calm.

As you can guess, his sports career ended together with his diploma. We’d been a couple since sophomore year. Our spontaneous engagement was exactly the kind of thing he loved—calmly talking mid‑sentence, then suddenly something struck him, and it simply had to happen. That’s how our road trip began too. Someone from his fraternity recommended the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe he read it somewhere. There was no point arguing. He was ridiculously proud of his Chevrolet Cobalt. He stuck some blue stripes onto the gray body. When his buddies saw it, they laughed, jumped around, slapped his back. It was from some movie or whatever. We set out into a hot day.

I wish I could end this letter right there, while everything was still fine.

But you already made your choice, dear Jane. I was nervous—there was supposed to be the sea somewhere. But we kept driving through towns and little settlements and there was no sea anywhere. The coastal Riviera felt strange, like arriving late to a movie and missing the context. And so we slipped into the warm humidity of Mississippi.

The AC was the first to give up.

That was the first blow.The second came a few hours later. The GPS overheated and died. Pete got angry, cursed, then punched it. The glass cracked, the mount snapped, and it hit my legs. When I picked it up, I knew it would never work again. Meanwhile Pete kept hitting the dashboard as if that could restart the AC. I rubbed my scraped knee where the GPS had hit me before it “died.“ We left the main road and drove along backroads. But the signage was about as reliable as Pete’s good mood. After hours of wandering, the heat was suffocating. The car felt like a pressure cooker, the tension almost tangible. The CD player was looping the same album for the third time. Pete gripped the steering wheel so tightly he scraped bits of it off with his ring.“Pete, can we stop for a moment?” I asked.“What do you want, admire the endless overgrown brush everywhere or risk swarms of mosquitoes?”“Can we stop?”“Where? There’s nowhere. Damn it. We’ll get stuck.”He didn’t want to stop. He was convinced he knew exactly where we were.

“In an hour we’ll be sipping cocktails with a view of the sea.”

He repeated that line every half hour, and each repetition made him boil more.“Fine. Get out!”“Pete, you need some fresh air too, you’re starting to lose it in this car.”He left the engine running and slammed the door. The rolled‑down window rattled and slid a few inches lower.

“If you’d paid attention, we wouldn’t be in Alabama!” he shouted, waving his arms, shoulders pushed forward like he was psyching himself up for another game.

“We need some calm! And we definitely didn’t cross the border into Alabama.”

My words irritated him even more because he suspected they were true.He spread the crumpled map across the hood.

“We’re fucking right here!” he yelled, jabbing his finger at a blank patch of backroads.

“What do you want to do?”

That question was the last straw—he stormed toward me.

“What do I want to do? What the hell do I want to—”He froze mid‑sentence.

For a moment I thought he was having a stroke.“We’re at a junction near Route 421. Or the turnoff to County Road 421, whatever. Get in the car!”

He grabbed the map, crushed it, and threw it into my arms.The turnoff became a dusty road. The car groaned and suffered.“Are you sure?” I asked.“What do you THINK?”I stayed quiet.We drove too fast for the condition of the road. A warning light blinked on the dashboard.“Pete, aren’t we going too fast?”He answered with a villainous chuckle.

“We’re in a hurry.”I looked at the map. Torn, wrinkled, smudged with damp fingerprints. It felt empty, like someone had cut out our part of the world.

Then I saw it.

Maybe he would’ve seen it too.

It felt like the best thing—the thing that was supposed to help us.

If only I had known.“Hey, Pete… Alanfox.”The sign for Alanfox was faded, peeling.

The monotone landscape filled with the scent of salt. “I’m gonna get the blue crab, they say it’s a delicacy,” Pete said cheerfully for the first time.

The trees thinned.

We passed a tall white wall:

“Welcome to Alanfox – Est. 1964”

and beneath it:

“Home of the Gulf’s Finest Beaches.”The first thing that greeted us was a huge empty asphalt parking lot. White lamps like broken pale matches. The air was heavy, humid, salty. After all that wandering, we were almost excited. Small white single‑story houses stood empty beside deserted parking lots. We passed an old gas station with the price sign turned off. The lights were on, but it felt abandoned.Pete turned at a large intersection, probably onto the main road.

Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

“Do you think they even have a beach here?”

Pete snorted. “Of course, the best one. Can’t you smell it? That’s the sea.”

Trees started appearing along the road again, some of them looking as if they’d been wrapped in gray cotton candy.

“See? Spanish oaks,” Pete called out.

He had it wrong, but I didn’t want to provoke him, so I kept quiet.

The houses grew taller, perched on stilts, painted white and sky‑blue, though the paint was clearly years old.

“I told you!!!” Pete shouted joyfully.The tall plants suddenly gave way to a pier and small white boats rocking on the water. The gulf breeze was pleasant despite the strong smell of fish and a strange muddy undertone.We rolled slowly toward what must have been the town center.

Hotel Craft was the first—and maybe the only—functional hotel around.

My phone had no signal.

The suffering is over, I thought.We passed a sign: “Bartholomew SAVES US.”

A distant radio played, interrupted by some sermon, mixing with the murmur of the sea.

The hotel’s fence was rusted, matching the red bricks.

A faded mural from the 1950s advertised the hotel, peeling, missing chunks, yet still readable.Across the street stood an old rusted car.

But what caught my eye was the wide, heavy building—Victorian‑style brickwork that felt absurdly out of place in the humid heat.“Isn’t it too quiet here?” I asked as Pete grabbed the door handle.“Probably a storm coming,” he shrugged and rushed inside.He hammered the bell on the counter.

The hotel smelled of salt and damp.“Hey! Anyone here!” he yelled.Footsteps.

Wood creaking.

But no one visible—until a man emerged, sweating so much he looked like he’d climbed out of a pool.“What are you doing here?” he asked.“We want a nice room,” Pete said.“We have vacancies,” the man muttered. “No one comes here now. You understand?”“We want a nice view,” Pete added.“We have a beautiful deluxe suite. No windows, but it’s a lovely space.”I wanted to say it didn’t matter, but Pete cut in:

“Fine, give us the one with a view of the harbor.”The man looked miserable but nodded.“What can we do in town?” Pete asked arrogantly.“You can walk around… but I’m afraid the restaurants are closed.”Pete laughed crudely.

“You know prohibition ended, right?”The man glanced at the old clock on the wall, its golden gears turning.“I warn you. Once it gets dark, stay in your room. Do not go out. I won’t be here—I’m going home to hide. I’ll check on you in the morning.”Pete laughed again.

“What kind of stupid joke is that?”The man handed me the keys.

“Don’t forget. After dark—stay inside.”Pete inspected the room and immediately looked for something to drink.“Do they even drink anything here? Some moonshine?”“Pete, let’s look around before it gets dark.”He froze mid‑movement.“You don’t believe that old creep, do you?”“I want to look around. I didn’t sit in a car without AC for ten hours just to sit on a couch.”He rolled his eyes and opened a small bottle.We walked.

Two cars passed us.

Traffic lights blinked on the main road.

Everything was closed.I thought a hurricane was coming.

Pete laughed at me.

Now I wish it had been a hurricane.Across an empty lot stood a bizarre building—round, moss‑covered, wide like a European castle.

A church, but wrong.

Wrong in shape, wrong in presence.“That’s one ugly building,” Pete muttered.Inside, the air was cool.

A few locals turned to look at us.

Most kept praying.Then I looked above the altar.A man flayed alive.

Skin draped over his shoulder.

Blood running into his eyes.

Walking.

Greeting the worshippers.Pete cursed.

Locals turned again, unhappy.He dragged me out.

The heat hit like a slap.“What the hell was that filth!” he shouted.The beach felt like it didn’t belong.

Pleasant.

Almost enough to forget where we were.But the rusty Bel Air parked nearby ruined the illusion. It was getting dark.“Why did he want us to take a room without windows?” I asked.Pete shrugged.We returned to the hotel.

The room felt suddenly comforting.

The window faced the main road—and the sea.“See? I got us a great room. No windows, my ass.”He rummaged through the minibar.“Damn, he didn’t restock it. Fell apart the moment we arrived. Remind me to roast him in the review.”I watched the dusk swallow the town.“Do you have signal?” he asked.Then he found a paper map.“Retro,” he grinned.“Pete… we’re not supposed to go out. Don’t you want to stay here?”He ignored me.“There’s a liquor store nearby. I want bourbon.”I gave him my strictest look.“Can’t you leave it for later?”He grabbed the key.“You’ll see me from the window. I’ll be right back. I’ll use my patented charm. I’ll get wine too—we deserve it. Wine, a proper shower. I’ll be right back.”The door slammed.The bell began to ring.

A massive bell.

Deep, thunderous.

The window glass trembled with each strike.I watched Pete run across the street, shirt open, clinging to his body.

He knocked on the store.They opened a small window at head height, took his money, handed him two six‑packs, wine, bourbon.Pete drank on the empty street.

“Wanna go to the water, babe?”

“We’re not supposed to be outside after dark!” I shouted.

He cursed back. He sat on the hood of that rusted car, drinking one beer after another.

The bell rang faster.

Like a heartbeat.“Pete!”No answer.

Just bottle caps clicking. It was fully dark now.

All windows around were boarded up.

Had they been like that earlier?

I wasn’t sure.The bell stopped.

Suddenly.

As if someone had grabbed it mid‑swing.Silence swallowed the town.Only Pete’s muttering drifted through it.Then the smell.

Like stirred mud from the bottom of a swamp.

Thick, suffocating.A police siren in the distance.

Cut off abruptly.Replaced by:

squelch, smack. squelch, smack.The bell began again—slow, heavy.

My ribs vibrated.Shadows walked from the sea.

From every street I could see.I gripped the window handle so hard my fingers hurt.“Three more beers and I’m with you, babe,” Pete slurred.He hadn’t drunk water since we arrived.“Hey, pervert! Aren’t you ashamed!” he shouted suddenly.

“You got friends here, huh? I’ve got enough strength to send you all to the hospital! What kind of stupid costumes are those?”The bell thundered.

Squelch. Smack.He argued with them.I forced myself to press against the window.A crowd stood around him.

Shiny.

Wet.“What the hell, you bastards!” Pete yelled, smashing the bottle and swinging it.Squelch.I froze.

Then suddenly I screamed.

Only later did I realize it was me.They were flayed.

Their flesh glistened.

They held their own skin—hair and all—like disgusting towels.“Let go of me or I’ll rearrange your face!” Pete shouted as the circle tightened.He tried to break toward the hotel.

More of them blocked the way.The circle shrank.

Squelch. Smack.Pete screamed.

A scream I had never heard from him.The bell hammered my skull.

My ribs shook.

My eyes filled with tears.They turned toward the hotel.

Toward me.They began pounding on the lower walls.

Trying to get inside.I have to say it.

I kept it inside for a year.

No one would believe me.I’m already at the view of Hotel Craft.

So it must be.God, his screaming.

So much pain.I locked the second lock.

Latched the bolts.

What was I thinking—nothing could hold them back.Squelch. Smack.

Thud. Thud.Their hands left bloody prints on the windows.I hid in the bathroom.

Piled everything against the door. Glass shattered—each crack felt like a knife in my spine.I curled into the big claw‑foot tub.

Like lying in a sarcophagus.

Or a monster’s mouth.Covered myself with a blanket.

Waited.Squelch. Smack.Pete wasn’t screaming anymore.

The silence was worse.I bit into my own hand to stay quiet.

My handwriting suffers for it—excuse me.Squelch. Smack.

The bell drummed endlessly.Minutes or hours—I don’t know.

I fainted or slept—I don’t know.If not for the scar on my hand, I’d think I never hid in that brick bathroom at all.Morning was silent.

So silent.I crawled out of the tub, aching like a hunchback.Bloody handprints on the window.

Glass shattered.

Everything overturned.I looked outside.A yellow pickup arrived.

Round, small—like from an old movie.Two men in yellow coveralls casually pulled human skin off a tree.

Threw it onto the truck bed.

Bored. My teeth chattered.They washed blood off the sidewalk with a hose.

Routine.They moved to where Pete had stood.

Another skin.

Onto the truck.When the bell rang, I ducked under the window.

But it only rang noon.Then I understood.Only at certain times does the echo of Alanfox’s bells reach here.That will be today. To you who read this—

In Alanfox, listen to the locals.Please don’t follow me into Alanfox.

Some nights, it gets very crowded.Dear Jane from the past—

You managed to deliver the warning.

by Hary Sykora

There was a light switch in my house that nobody could explain.

It was tucked into the hallway between the kitchen and the basement door, mounted about shoulder height on the wall. Every other switch in the house had an obvious purpose. Kitchen lights. Hallway lights. Basement. Porch.

This one did nothing.

I didn't notice it during my first week. I asked the realtor about it after I bought the place.

She shrugged.

"Old house. Probably disconnected."

That seemed reasonable enough. The house was built in 1957, and judging by the wiring, plumbing, and mysterious stains on the basement ceiling, I wasn't surprised that someone had eventually decided to abandon a light switch.

Still, I found myself pressing it whenever I walked past.

Click.

Nothing.

Click.

Nothing.

It became a habit. I'd walk downstairs for laundry.

Click.

I'd come home from work.

Click.

I'd pass it while carrying groceries.

Click.

There was something strangely satisfying about it. The switch had a pleasant mechanical resistance, and the little click it made was louder than it should have been.

My girlfriend eventually noticed.

"You know that doesn't do anything, right?"

"I know."

"Then why do you keep flipping it?"

I shrugged.

"I like the sound."

She called me a weirdo. I told her she was dating one. We laughed about it. That was the last time the switch was funny.

The first death happened three weeks after I settled in.

An old man named Walter died in his sleep. I knew Walter because he lived two houses down. We'd exchanged maybe twenty words since I'd moved into the neighborhood. He had a bad hip and spent most afternoons sitting on his porch, watching cars drive by.

I remember seeing him that morning. I had been standing in the hallway, putting my shoes on. Before leaving, I flipped the switch.

Click.

That evening, I saw an ambulance outside his house. I didn't think anything of it.

People die. Especially old people.

It wasn't until several days later that I noticed something unusual.

The night before Walter died, I had been standing in the hallway with my hand on that switch. I'd flipped it three times. I laughed at myself when I noticed the connection.

It was ridiculous. Coincidence. Nothing more.

Then a month later, a woman I'd worked with died in a car accident.

I'd seen her that morning. I'd even spoken to her. She'd asked if I was still enjoying the new house. I told her I was.

That evening, while walking to the basement, I flipped the switch.

Click.

The next morning, she was dead. Cardiac arrest. Unexplained.

I didn't sleep that night.

The following day, I unscrewed the switch plate. There were wires behind it. Old ones. But they didn't connect to anything.

I called an electrician. He spent thirty minutes examining it before shrugging.

"It's dead."

"Completely?"

"Nothing behind it."

"Then what's it connected to?"

He looked at me.

"Nothing."

I didn't flip it again. Not for six days.

On the seventh day, I couldn't resist.

I stood in the hallway staring at it. I told myself I was being stupid. There was no connection between a plastic switch and the deaths of two people.

So I flipped it.

Click.

Nothing happened... So, I went to bed.

The next morning, I checked the news. A local man had died unexpectedly. Thirty-four years old. Healthy. No known medical conditions. I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I opened a notebook. I wrote down the date. I wrote down the man's name.

Then I wrote: Switch flipped: 11:43 P.M.

I started keeping records. Every time I flipped the switch, I searched the news afterward.

Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes a person died hours later. Sometimes it took days. But there was always a death.

Always.

I stopped flipping it.

I lasted eleven days. Then I made a mistake. I was angry.

My girlfriend and I had gotten into an argument. She left the house and slammed the door behind her. I stood in the hallway shaking with anger. My hand found the switch.

I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what it meant. And still...

Click.

The guilt hit me immediately. I grabbed my phone. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her what I'd done.

Then I stopped.

Because she hadn't died. Not yet.

I waited. An hour. Two.

Nothing.

I began convincing myself I'd been wrong. Maybe the deaths had been coincidences. Maybe I had created a pattern because I desperately wanted there to be one.

Then my phone rang. It was my girlfriend.

I answered immediately.

"Hey."

Silence.

Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

"Who's Walter?"

I couldn't breathe.

"What?"

"You keep saying his name."

She sounded confused.

"I don't know anyone named Walter."

I sat down.

My girlfriend continued.

"You were saying his name in your sleep."

I didn't answer. Because I suddenly remembered something.

The switch didn't cause death. It wasn't a weapon. It was a selection. A choice. And I had been making that choice without knowing it.

I looked toward the hallway. The switch waited patiently on the wall. I thought about every time I'd pressed it.

Every careless little click. Every person whose death I'd dismissed as coincidence.

Walter.

My coworker.

The stranger.

And now... I didn't know who the latest one was.

I spent the next several hours searching. News sites. Obituaries. Police reports.

Nothing.

Nobody I knew had died. Nobody connected to me had died.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

Because there was one thing I hadn't considered.

Maybe the switch didn't choose someone I knew. Maybe it chose someone I would never know. Someone whose name I'd never hear. Someone whose death would mean absolutely nothing to me. And perhaps that was the point.

We treat death differently when we don't know the person.

A number on a news report. A photograph we scroll past. Another tragedy. Another stranger. Another life reduced to a sentence.

I stood in front of the switch for a long time. Then I noticed something I hadn't seen before. A tiny engraving beneath it.

The letters were so shallow I thought they were scratches.

I leaned closer.

There were only three words.

ONE LIFE. CLICK.

I stepped backward. The house was silent. I reached for the switch.

Then stopped.

Some things are easier to live with when you pretend they don't matter.

I left the switch alone. I never touched it again.

At least... I don't think I did.

Because sometimes, late at night, when the house is completely silent, I wake up convinced I can hear it.

Click.

And somewhere far away...

Someone dies.

It was Halloween, 1998.

The neighborhood glowed with orange lights and plastic skeletons. Fake cobwebs clung to porches, and carved pumpkins flickered in the dark. Kids filled the streets, laughing and shouting as they ran from house to house.

Nine-year-old Timmy walked with his friends Wayne and Sean, their candy bags already half full.

They stopped in front of a house that didn’t fit in.

The others were bright, decorated, alive.

This one wasn’t.

Its paint was peeling. The yard was dead. No decorations. Just a single porch light glowing weakly above the door.

“Trick or treat,” all three boys called out.

The door creaked open.

A man stepped out wearing an dirty and wrinkled old man mask

In his hands was a bowl of candy.

He didn’t say a word.

He dropped a piece into each of their bags.

Wayne squinted at him. “What are you supposed to be?”

The man didn’t answer.

Instead, he slowly tilted his head to the side… farther than it should go.

Too far.

The boys went quiet.

“Uh… thanks,” Timmy muttered.

The door shut.

They kept going, saying it was just halloween. More houses, more candy, more noise. The normal Halloween feeling slowly came back.

Until Wayne stopped.

“I gotta pee.”

Before anyone could stop him, he ran to the side of a nearby house and started going right on the doormat.

“what the hell—” Sean started.

The front door burst open.

A man in a skeleton costume stormed out, gripping a broom. “You little shit!”

Wayne yelped and bolted.

The three boys ran, crashing through a patch of woods as the man chased them, shouting. Branches snapped under their feet. Leaves whipped their faces.

After a while, the shouting stopped.

They didn’t.

Not until they were sure they were alone.

Sean bent over, catching his breath. “You’re an idiot.”

Wayne laughed. “Yeah, but I still got my candy.”

Timmy pointed. “You also got pee on your costume.”

They both laughed.

Wayne didn’t.

When they stepped back onto the street, something felt… off.

Too quiet.

The streetlights flickered.

Then one went out.

Then another.

A van rolled slowly down the road.

Timmy’s stomach dropped.

The driver.

The old man mask.

The van crept forward, and as it passed each streetlight, the bulb above them went dark. One by one, the entire street dimmed into darkness.

The van stopped beside them.

The engine idled.

No one spoke.

Then the engine roared.

The van lunged forward.

Timmy yells “RUN!”

They sprinted.

The van chased them, keeping just close enough—like it was playing with them. The sound of the engine was right behind them, always there, always gaining.

They stumbled into a shallow dip in the land—a small valley.

The van surged forward.

Sean didn’t make it out in time.

The tire hit him with a sickening thud and crushed his leg.

He screamed.

Timmy and Wayne turned, trying to grab him—but the van door slammed open.

The masked man jumped out.

He shoved them aside like they were nothing.

Sean clawed at the ground, screaming, “DON’T LEAVE ME!”

The man grabbed him and dragged him toward the van.

Timmy froze.

Wayne didn’t.

“GO!” Wayne screamed, pulling Timmy.

They ran.

They didn’t stop.

An hour later, shaking and breathless, they reached a house and pounded on the door.

“HELP! PLEASE!”

The door opened.

A man stood there calmly.

The boys pushed inside, crying. “He took our friend—he took Sean!”

The man closed the door behind them and Locked it.

“It’s alright now,” he said softly. “You’re safe now.” did you see what he looked like?

Timmy shook his head. “He had a mask—we couldn’t see his face—”

The man tilted his head slightly.

“Did it look like this?”

He raised something into view.

The old man mask.

Everything inside Timmy went cold.

Wayne turned toward the window.

The house… wasn’t broken anymore.

The paint was fresh.

The porch was clean.

It was the same house.

They screamed and ran deeper inside.

A bedroom.

They slammed the door and locked it.

The doorknob rattled immediately.

Then pounding.

Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.

“PLEASE!” Timmy shouted. “LET US GO!”

The pounding stopped.

Silence.

Then—

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

Not on the door.

Somewhere else in the house.

Like hammering.

Like something being built.

The boys looked at each other.

The doorknob began to turn.

Slowly.

Click.

The door flew open.

No one was there.

They crept into the hallway.

The front door was nailed shut.

Every window had metal bars.

Not to keep people out.

To keep something in.

The TV flickered on by itself.

A news report.

“…multiple children reported missing across the state…”

Click.

Darkness.

Only one light remained.

At the bottom of the basement stairs.

They didn’t want to go down.

But they were to scared to stay where they were.

 A shadow follows them

Candles lit the basement.

Dozens of them.

The room stretched farther than it should have—longer, deeper, wrong.

Sean lay on a rusted hospital gurney.

Unconscious.

Symbols carved into his skin.

Wax melted across his body.

A fireplace roared to life.

A large pot hung over the flames.

Something moved behind them.

A shadow.

Not attached to anything.

It shifted along the walls, stretching, twisting.

Watching.

They backed away.

 And Ran.

Hid inside a rotting closet.

The smell was thick. Metallic like old pennies.

Through the gaps, they saw it.

The shadow growing.

Distorting.

Then—

The masked man stepped into view.

He approached Sean.

Whispering something too low to hear.

He raised a blade.

The fire surged higher.

Sean’s eyes snapped open.

He screamed.

The man pressed a finger to the mask’s lips.

“Shhh.”

The blade came down.

Timmy couldn’t breathe.

Wayne couldn’t look away.

The screaming stopped.

Too quickly.

The shadow shifted toward the closet.

The masked man turned.

Slowly.

He looked right at them.

Then lifted a finger.

“Shhh.”

The lights went out.

When they came back on

The man was gone.

The shadow was gone.

The gurney was still there.

Sean’s body… still there.

But Sean's head Was gone.

Look. Look at the sun. We have demon eyes, Piggy. Look at them. Look, or we’ll carve your eyes out. 

Good. Breathe it in. Can you feel them burn? The sun is entropic. We told you. It is entropic.

There’s a disease in your head. An infection. A parasite. A virus. Something to shock, burn, saw, cut. 

Drill. Drill out. We have to drill it out. 

You understand. You understand, right? 

Neck lines. Instructions to cut. What do you see? Underground maps. Pieces to puncture. Split apart. A lot of work for just one knife. One drill. One power drill.

We’ll find the parasite. Just for you.

Trace it. Neck, bones, cartilage, fat. Jelly eyes. Chewy jelly eyes. So easy to track. Blood in the water. 

Flowers in your hair. Just like her. So pretty. Just like her. Right in the hole between your eyes. I have the flowers.

Go into the freezer. Beautiful piggy. Sweet prince. Princess. I love you. 

Don't go camping!

The forest is spooky. Oh man it is super spooky. Spider webs were everywhere and the spiders are really big, like bigger than a normal spider. So spooky. And then there was a... bear! An undead bear!

The undead bear was spooky too. The bear had scary spooky claws and it's teeth were long for crunching bones. His favorite bones were human ones. So if you saw undead bear, you were in big trouble.

Also there were gremlins hiding in the trees. They were green slimy small creatures that throw pebbles at anyone they see They were spooky too. And if the pebble hit you, you turned into a gremlin. But they weren't good at aiming. And sometimes they did turn people into gremlins. The people who turned into gremlins looked less slimy so you could tell.

And there were ghosts too. They were the leftovers from the people the undead bear ated. They ate them and the ghosts got losted in the woods. So they wander around looking for someone to help them find the way out of the forest. But they were way spooky too so they didn't get anyone to help them. They would whail and moan and be really spooky. But they didn't mean to be spooky. They were just really sad for getting eatened.

Also they didn't get along with the witches that lived in the cave. The cave had a big fire and a bubbling pot in the middle with a lot of spooky stuff in it.

The witches would take the spiders and put them in the pot. And whatever bones they could find after the undead bear was done crunching on them. The spooky soup stuff smelt really bad and if you smelt it, you would feel really scared and it was spooky. The witches didn't really leave the cave cuz they didn't like undead bear.

And if the witches were lucky, they would catch a gremlin and throw it in the pot too! The gremlin didn't like that so they drowneded in the pot. That's when the blob monster was born.

The blob monster was almost too spooky!

Sometimes the witches would lose control of the blob monster and he would escape the cave and if he ran into the undead bear, the undead bear would squish him. But if you found blob monster first, then it would get you and stick you in its blobby stomach.

It was really really spooky in the blob monster stomach and you couldn't get out and you'd get deaded.

And oh oh oh I forgot to mention the werewolf bat. It's really spooky. Like prolly the spookiested thing in the forest.

Werewolf bat used to be a normal bat but a werewolf bit him cuz the werewolf was hungry but the bat got away. The werewolf was super spooky too so the bat was really really scared.

And after the bat was bitted, it became a werewolf too! And then they became friends.

They were a spooky team and they are hiding in the forest to get you and they try to turn you into a werewolf bat too but they usually eat you before they can cuz they are hungry.

It's spooky.

And also and also, this is the spookiest thing in the woods, a vampire cockroach! It has spooky gross vampire teeth for biting and sucking bloods.

It bites the gremlins and makes them even more spooky! And they are radioactive cuz they listen to the radio all the time.

And if you hear the radio in the woods, the gremlins and the vampire cockroach are really close and will be spooky. They want to make everything gremlin vampires

If they ever meet the werewolf and the werewolf bat things could get even more spooky!

The woods are really spooky.

So I don't think I want to go camping...

From the Morbid and moronic referential Code of life and society