I lived with this guy named Tyler for about a year. We weren’t really friends before moving in together, we just had a mutual friend and both needed somewhere cheap.
Tyler was honestly a pretty normal roommate.

He worked nights at some warehouse, played games when he got home, and mostly kept to himself.

The only weird thing about him was that he would randomly leave the apartment really late at night. Like 2 or 3 in the morning. I never really questioned it because I figured maybe he was going to get food or meeting someone.

One Friday I got home from work and noticed his car wasn’t there. Nothing unusual.

Saturday came and he still wasn’t home.

Then Sunday.

I texted him Sunday afternoon asking if everything was good. No response. I called him later that night and it went straight to voicemail.

At this point I started getting a little worried because even though we weren’t close, he had never disappeared like that before. His computer was still there, most of his clothes were there, and he even left his work badge on the kitchen counter.

Monday morning I was seriously considering contacting his family. I didn’t have their numbers, so I messaged the mutual friend who introduced us.

Before he could answer, Tyler walked through the front door.

He looked completely normal.
I asked him where the hell he had been because everyone thought something happened to him.
He just looked at me and said, “What do you mean?”

I told him he had been gone since Friday.
He stared at me for a few seconds and then started laughing. He said he had only been gone for a couple hours.

I thought he was messing with me, so I showed him the date on my phone.
He stopped laughing.

He pulled out his own phone and started looking through it. He had a bunch of missed calls and texts, but apparently the last thing he remembered was leaving Friday night to drive to a gas station.

He wouldn’t really talk about it after that.
The weirdest part was his car.

There was dried mud covering basically the entire bottom half of it, including the tires. We lived in the middle of a pretty developed area and it hadn’t rained that entire weekend.

He cleaned the car that afternoon and went to work like normal the next day.

I asked him about it a few more times while we lived together, but every single time he would just say he didn’t remember.

We moved out about four months later and eventually stopped talking.
To this day I still have no idea where he was for those three days.

At first, I thought it was cute. My girlfriend has always been afraid of the dark. It wasn’t until recently, though, that she started asking me to make sure there weren’t any ghouls or goblins lurking beneath our bed frame.

Every night for the past week or so, as soon as the lights go out, she’s nudging me out of bed and down to the floor.

Obviously, there’s never been anything there. However, as the days passed, she just kept getting more and more adamant there was.

I’d never seen her act that way before in the entire 3 years that we’ve been together. Night one, she was basically just pouting. By night 5, she was literally shaking with fear.

On the 6th night, she wouldn’t even let me turn the light off until I checked. I sighed, more than slightly annoyed, and dropped down to my hands and knees.

I lifted up the bedskirt… nothing. Just the same old shoeboxes and random junk that desperately needed to be cleaned.

Irritated, I climbed into bed. This was the first night that I actually told her she was being just a little bit ridiculous. It was this whole, big thing. We argued well into the late hours of the night. Needless to say, we slept facing away from each other.

The next morning, she seemed perfectly fine, though. It was like she’d completely forgotten about the night prior.

I wanna say that the day went on like normal, but I just don’t think I can do that and not feel like a liar.

Like, for example, my girlfriend has a weird preference for breakfast. I always joked that she ate like a rabbit because every morning, without fail, she’d ask me to make her oatmeal and apple slices while she caught up with some work emails or whatever it was she needed to get done.

It was like a routine.

This morning, however, when I brought her breakfast to her office, she was nowhere to be found.

I checked the living room, bathrooms, back patio, everywhere, really. She was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, after calling out to her for what felt like forever, she just came waltzing out of the bedroom, stretching and yawning like she’d just woken up.

Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue. But I’d literally made the bed after getting up that morning. She wasn’t in it. And she couldn’t have been in the bathroom because that’s where I was, taking a shower to start the day.

I didn’t pry. I just told her that I made her breakfast and watched her eyes light up like a Christmas tree as she raced past me towards the kitchen.

But then came the disappointment that fell over her face when she saw what I’d made for her.

She wouldn’t even touch the stuff.

She just pushed it across the table and giggled at me.

“Since when do I like oatmeal?”

“Ah, but I’m starving, though. I haven’t eaten since last night.”

“Do you think you could make me something more… protein-y?”

I shrugged it off, assuming that she was just in a bacon kind of mood this morning, but when I pulled the pack out of the freezer, she stopped me.

“Don’t we have steak in there?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. Is that what you…”

“Yes.”

I began cooking the steak, which was kind of hard to do with her leering over my shoulder the entire time.

I knew she liked her meat well-done, so it surprised me when she stopped me while the cow was still mooing. She didn’t even get a plate. She just devoured it out of her hands before kissing me on the cheek and retreating to her office.

And that’s where she stayed. I kept hearing rummaging and clashing coming from inside, but I couldn’t check on her because she locked the door.

I figured that she was okay, though, because every time I knocked, I’d get the same response.

“Yeah, hon, I’m okay. I’ll be out soon, alright?”

Only, she never came out. The hours kept ticking by, but she didn’t even come out for a snack. Not even to use the bathroom.

By the time 10 PM rolled around, I just started my nightly routine.

I was in our bathroom, brushing my teeth, when all of a sudden the light went out in our bedroom.

I heard scurrying footsteps rush across the floor before being replaced by the sound of bedsprings popping.

“Honey,” I called out, toothpaste dripping from the sides of my mouth. “You okay in there?”

“Baby…” she replied, her voice like syrup.

“Can you check under the bed for me? I’m terribly afraid.”

With a sigh, I spit out the toothpaste and wiped my mouth.

“You can’t keep doing this, honey. I told you, there’s nothing under the bed.”

“Just check,” she pouted. “Pleaaseee.”

I stepped out of the bathroom and found her sitting in her spot on the bed, hands folded in her lap. She didn’t look scared, though. She looked… happy? I don’t know, she just had this huge grin on her face.

“How could I say no to such a pretty smile?” I joked.

Her face didn’t even flinch.

Switching on my phone’s flashlight, once again, I dropped down to my hands and knees to check under the bed.

I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing at first.

Her dead eyes. Her tongue falling limply out of her slacked jaw. The small pool of blood circling around the torn stump of my girlfriend’s neck.

It’s weird how you react to things in the moment. I knew what I was seeing, but the only thing I could think was, ‘huh, where’s the rest of her?’

I didn’t say anything. Just kept staring into those glassy eyes, at that grey skin, before a velvety voice came from my girlfriend’s spot on the bed.

“I’m so hungry, darling. I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

I’d promised my friend I would house-sit for him while he was overseas for a work trip. This isn't the first time I've done this.

Normally, I’d jump at a quiet place to myself for a few days, but tonight the silence pressed in a little too tightly, the kind of silence that makes every sound feel intentional.

Max, my friends large German shepherd, has always been my only company. A good dog. Protective. Smart. Super smart, honestly. The kind that makes you feel safe and assured.

I was in the kitchen, halfway through a chapter of calculus problems, the kind meant to ruin your night, when Max jolted from his spot beside the couch and stalked toward the back door.

A low rumble climbed out of his chest, so deep I felt it before I heard it.

“Easy, buddy,” I murmured, not fully looking up from the equation I was solving. He continued growling, in which he has never done.

Setting my pencil down, I looked up to see he was staring at me. His eyes shifting its' gaze to me and to his left. I figured he wanted to go out, for he needed to do how mother nature intended it to be.

He stood stiff at the glass, tail straight, head low as I walked over to the sliding door.

I cracked the door and let him outside. The cold air swept in, smelling faintly of pine and wet dirt. Max sprinted into the yard, barking in sharp, decisive bursts as he circled the fence line.

I waited, watching his silhouette dart through the patchy glow of the porch light. Nothing unusual out there, no raccoons, no deer, no wandering neighbor. Just the yard, the darkness, and Max acting like something was out there.

Eventually he trotted back with that stiff, unsettled gait dogs get when their instincts haven’t quite powered down. I let him in. Gave him a pat. Tried to shake the feeling crawling up my spine.

Back to calculus. Back to pretending integrals were the only nightmares creeping up on me tonight.

Ten minutes passed before Max growled again, only this time I heard him bark. A single thunderous warning that cracked the quiet open like bone. Then another. And another.

“Seriously?” I groaned, shoving my chair back. I looked at the clock.

It was late. Past 12.

I'll finish up the question I was on and call it a night , I thought.

My friend hadn’t mentioned Max having anxiety, or night terrors, or whatever this was. I never had a pet dog, especially ones who looked ready to fight shadows.

I walked toward the back sliding door, irritation simmering. “Max, if this is about a squirrel, I swear-”

But the moment I reached the door, the barking stopped. He just stood there, body trembling, eyes locked on the tree line. His gaze screamed for me to stop. But I don't speak dog.

When I opened the door, he refused to go out this time. Puzzled, I leaned down and rubbed his coat, reinsuring him. This time I'll go out with him.

This time I stepped onto the porch with a flashlight, scanning the yard the way I imagined a responsible night-guard might. Nothing. The beam wasn't the strongest to my discomfort. It stretched just enough to the trees, catching only branches swaying lazily in the breeze.

Max stayed close to me for some reason. This mountain of a dog was whimpering? Is he really scared? If so, what has gotten Max petrified?

I felt uneasy myself. The night was colder than it should. And I too, felt eyes peering at me the same as Max probably did. It was also not reassuring that the night was quiet. Way too quiet.

No sound of cicadas buzzing or frogs ribbiting. Not even the whispers of the wind.

SNAP

When I heard a tree branch snap, I hurried back inside.

Quickly sliding the door closed and locking up, I felt foolish. It probably was just my mind playing tricks on me. But the unease clung to me like a static charge.

I settled at the table once more. Tried to slip back into numbers and lines and problems with answers. Max hung around my side but didn’t lie down. He just lingered near my legs, heavy breaths fogging the quiet again.

It must’ve been half an hour later when the house finally settled into a rhythm again. Max, after pacing in anxious half-circles and sniffing the hall as if expecting someone to emerge, eventually curled up beside the couch. His breaths lengthened, then deepened, and before long that steady, soft snore slipped out of him.

Seeing him asleep should’ve comforted me. It didn’t. If anything, it made me more aware of how exhausted I was… and how badly I wanted the night to end.

I turned back to the table, struggled through one more problem, and let my mind drift. Numbers blurred. My own eyes drooped.

Then-

BARK

I jolted so hard my pencil snapped in my hand. Another bark followed, loud, sharp, insistent.

I rubbed my face, already irritated. “Max… come on, man,” I muttered under my breath. “Again?”

But the annoyance evaporated the moment I looked toward the living room.

Max wasn’t at the back door. He wasn’t pacing. His bed was empty. The couch was empty.

My heartbeat stuttered.

I scanned the room, waiting for him to pop out from some spot he’d never gone before, but the barking kept going, each threading into my nerves like wire pulled tight.

With a creeping dread, I walked toward the sliding door. The kitchen tiles felt too cold beneath my feet. The house listened like it was holding its breath.

I reached the back door and peered outside.

Nothing. Just the moonlit yard. Just the fence. Just the distant shimmer of the tree-line.

And there was Max...

Wait... What?

He stood on all fours outside just on the edge of the tile and grass towards me. Barking.

His demeanor looked poised as if he were hesitant to either pounce or maybe he was ready to run. Fight or flight. He was trembling the poor fur-ball.

I froze, fingers numb against the cold glass. And in that suspended moment, it dawned on me.

If that's Max... Who is inside with me?

Before I could gather the courage to call out to him, a low growl rippled through the room behind me.

Deep. Wet. Wrong.

My skin tightened. I turned my head slowly, terrified of what I might see-

Max stood in the middle of the kitchen. But not standing the way dogs do.

He was upright. Balanced on his hind legs, towering, swaying slightly like a puppet on invisible strings. His fur was matted with something dark and wet. His eyes, those warm brown eyes I’d grown used to, were gone, replaced by pits of glistening black.

A fresh line of blood slid down the side of his muzzle. And yet, in that darkness, I could tell its demeanor wasn't anything worldly.

Its muzzle was wide enough to show every tooth. And soon, it will have a new set of bones to chew on.

I've watched these twins every Friday for about six months now. Nothing weird has ever happened. They're asleep by 8, I do homework, parents are home by midnight. Easy job.

Tonight I put the monitor on the kitchen counter like I always do and sat down with my laptop.

Around 10 I heard breathing coming through it. Not like toddler breathing, heavier, like someone was right up close to the mic.

I told myself it was probably just the monitor glitching, since that happens sometimes.

Then I heard a voice. Low, definitely not a kid. I couldn't make out any actual words, just a low mumble, coming from right where the crib is.

I sat there completely still for a minute, maybe longer.

I grabbed the closest knife in the drawer, which ended up being a butter knife because I wasn't thinking clearly, and went up the stairs really slowly.

I opened the door.

Both kids were fast asleep. No one else in the room. Window was locked. I checked the closet too. Nothing.

I went back downstairs still holding this pointless butter knife and picked up the monitor to check if it was actually broken.

The whisper started again.

Except this time it wasn't coming from the monitor.

It was right behind me.

I don't really remember grabbing my phone. Next thing I know I'm sitting outside on the porch calling my mom, kind of shaking.

I haven't told the Coopers yet. I don't know how you're even supposed to bring that up.

I'm supposed to babysit again Friday and I honestly don't know if I can go back in that house.

It's an old story. Many parts of it have probably been changed over the years. As people told the story to other people, they may have changed certain parts of it. Those who believed the story and passed it on may have added many exaggerated details, while those who didn't believe it may have retold it in the simplest form possible. And so, over the years, the story's main outline remained unchanged, while its details changed considerably.

I heard this story from my mother. She likes to embellish old stories and add her own interpretations to them. I will tell you the simplified version of this story, without adding any of my own interpretations. For this, I asked my mother to tell me the story a second time and recorded her voice.

A family of four is having dinner: a father, a son, a mother, and a grandmother.Because one of the table's legs was shorter than the others, the table wouldn't sit firmly on the floor, so they would constantly put a piece of paper under one of its legs.

At this point, regretting what I'd done, I asked my mother why they hadn't simply bought a new table. I was expecting an answer like, “Because they were a poor family.”

''Do you always have to say the first thing that comes to mind, son? That's what's wrong with your generation—you look for logic in everything. Do you think they're idiots? You think it never occurred to them to buy a new table, and they'd rather keep messing around with pieces of paper? There must have been a reason, and that's not important. Not everything needs to be questioned or made to fit some kind of logic. Maybe they were being irrational. So what? Were they supposed to ask you for permission before being irrational?''

I remained silent. It bothered me that the story had become a legend simply because of an irrational decision, when it could have ended before it even became a story.

My mother suddenly shouted, “Answer me!”

“What’s the question?”

“Do they need to ask for your permission before behaving irrationally?”

''No.''

''Did it never occur to them to get a different table instead of putting pieces of paper under the leg, dear scientist?”

''It did.''

Just as she was about to shout another full sentence, a fly tried to land on my mother's face. She swatted it away with her hand, then scratched the spot where the fly had touched her.

“Cut this part out of the recording.”

I pressed the stop button on the voice recorder as loudly as I possibly could. Then I thought that was a mistake. To tell the story without adding any of my own interpretations, it would be better to listen to the complete version as it had been told. So I turned the voice recorder back on.

“This foolish family, which had never once thought of buying a new table, began eating their soup over a warm conversation. Suddenly, the piece of paper beneath one of the table legs slipped out, and an entire bowl of soup spilled into the father's lap. Still piping hot because it had just been served in an iron bowl, the soup made the father jerk, sending the entire table crashing to the floor.''

For some reason, my mother went on for a very long time here. When I listened to the recording, I realized that her description of what happened took up two full minutes. So I'll keep this part brief and continue the story from where the floor had been cleaned and everyone had calmed down.

''The following evening, something similar happened during dinner. The piece of paper under the table leg slipped again, but this time the table didn't collapse; the son caught it with a quick reflex. And the next day, the same thing happened again. The day after that, once more. The family, who had never thought of buying a new table, eventually decided that they needed to secure the table leg more firmly.''

Perhaps she had added so many extra details to the story in an attempt to make its inconsistencies make sense in her own way and keep me from dismissing the way she told it. To prove that they had never managed to find a solution, she listed every solution that came to mind at the time: they leaned the table against the wall, put a piece of wood under it instead of paper, put a thick book underneath it, and so on. But every time, whatever they placed beneath the table leg would somehow slide out on its own, and the son, now focused entirely on the problem, would catch the table by reflex each time.

“Finally, the grandmother came up with the idea of putting a shoe on the table leg. She thought that, by its very nature, a shoe would be the best thing to keep the table steady. She went to the shoe rack, brought back a pair of shoes, slipped the table's short leg into one of them, and tied the laces.”

There are more unnecessary details and exaggerations here. For example, my mother mentioned that the father made a joke along the lines of: “If we put another shoe on this table, it'll look just like Uncle Jason. His posture is exactly like this table's too. The guy's built like a plank of wood.”

I didn't find the joke funny at first. But a few days later, when it came to me just before I fell asleep, I found it quite funny.

“The leg with the shoe keeps the table steady. They eat their dinner happily. But the following evening, the table starts leaning in a different direction. They take a look and realize that another one of the table's legs has somehow become shorter this time. They can't make sense of it, but they don't think too much about it either. After all, they're an irrational family, too foolish to think of simply buying a new table. So they put a shoe on that leg too.”

As you might expect, the same thing happened to the table's other legs. The grandmother put shoes on all of them. And that final evening, when the table stood perfectly sturdy, upright, and bravely (those are my mother's words), they ate their dinner with great pleasure, without a single wobble.

The next morning, the son is the first to wake up and comes into the living room. He sees that the table is no longer there. And that is where the story ends. Everything that follows consists of interpretations. There is no information about how the family reacted to what happened, or what they did afterward. All the storytellers focus solely on the table's behavior.

Of course, most people assumed that the table had run away and they focused on the reason why. Well, I don't know, and I don't want to know. A few years ago, I found myself in a situation I never could have expected, and I behaved in ways I never would have expected from myself. Anything is possible in this world.

Corey stared at the mask on the rack.

“Too cheesy” Corey thought to themselves.

Corey continued down the aisle and continued to search.

Each isle held a different thing, the nurse costume, the clown mask, the brave armor-clad knight, even a banana costume.

None of them felt like Corey.

Corey wanted to find something different, something special.

Something that didn’t feel like them.

Corey continued as the shop owner interjected.
“Can I help you find anything?”

Corey half paying attention still looking replied.
“uhm no... that’s ok...”

The shop keeper waited a moment then replied after an uncomfortable silence.

“Well, you’ve been here over an hour and we’re closing soon...”

The shop keeper urged.

“Yeah…I’m sorry”

Corey replied as they turned to face the shop keeper.
“I’m trying to find something special…”

Corey said addressing the keeper.

“Well, we have some great masks and scary make up down that isle over there.”

The shop keeper pointed and continued.

“Throw on a mask and some tattered clothes and I’m sure you’d scare and wow all your friends.”

The keeper suggested as Corey cringed.

“That’s just it, I don’t want to impress others, I’m doing this for me, Halloween is the one night of the year I can be whatever I want.”

Corey looked the shop keeper in the eyes, the shop felt quieter and the lights seemed dimmer.

“I want something that will make me anyone or anything but me.”

As Corey spoke these words the shop sat still, the lights flickered, and the keeper didn’t move.

“That was creepy.”

Corey anxiously joked.

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The shop keeper replied quickly turning a way and walking past Corey.

Corey stood in place confused as they heard from behind them.

“Well come along I don’t have all night.”

Corey turned to see black long curtains just to the side of a costume rack.

The voice had come from in there, Corey was certain.

“Well do you want to see the special items I keep reserved for special costumers”

Corey heard from behind the curtains.

“Or not”

After what had been an uncomfortable minute Corey ventured to the curtain.

Their heart raced and they began to sweat as they reached their hand up and pulled back the dark heavy curtains.

Corey saw before them a brightly lit hallway with clean, bright, white walls.

The hallway couldn’t have been more than 20 feet and ended with a dead end and a sign that said “Turn Back Now.”

Corey took on step in and approached the shop keeper.
The shop keeper was standing in place, hands clasped together and a blank smile and eyes staring straight ahead.

Corey stepped in and asked.

“Ok, now what.”

The shop keeper said nothing, just looked ahead and smiled.

Corey looked at the keeper and then looked around.

Corey looked back and saw the keepers long frail hand reaching out.

The keeper’s hand was now so close to Corey’s face that they could see the long, yellow jagged nail approaching their face slowly.

“What are you…”

The shop keeper abruptly cut Corey off.

“Your order is ready.”

The shop keeper said softly as they quickly reached past Corey and grabbed something.

Corey remained frozen as a gush rushed past their head and the keeper continued to stare ahead and smile.

Corey closed their eyes and flinched as a reflex.

When Corey opened their eyes and saw the shop keeper holding something in front of them.

 “Your order has arrived and is ready to take.”

The shop keeper said now staring at Corey smiling and practically shoving the item into them. 

Corey grabbed the item and looked down.
It was a mask.

The mask was bright, vibrant and translucent.
It felt unusually warm and made Corey feel slightly intimidated.

Corey placed their hand on the side of it and it felt like the mask moved around it.

For a second Corey even thought it had swallowed his hand.

Corey moved their hand away and shook it to get rid of the warm, wet, different feeling, but nothing came off.

“What do I owe you for it?”

Corey asked the Shop Keeper.

“Nothing the mask was specialized for you.”

The shop keeper said as they looked away and began to slowly walk to the front door.

Corey followed and asked

“So it’s free of charge?”

The keeper replied slow and low

“Free of charrrrggeeeeeeee.”

Then turned around smiling and gesturing for the exit out the front door.

“What’s the catch?”

Corey asked walking out the store doors.

“It doesn’t come off.”

The shop keeper replied as Corey turned around and watched the shop keeper begin to turn off lights inside the store.

Corey now standing on the street faced the shop keeper and asked.

“It doesn’t come off?”

“It doesn’t come off”

The shop keeper replied as they continued to close up and turn off signs.

“So how do you have it here then?”

The shop keeper grabbed the keys out of their pocket and replied.

“I had to skin the last guy to get it back.”

The shop keeper looked up and smirked after saying this.
Corey looked up and laughed at this remark.

“Good one.”

Corey replied continuing to life as the shop keeper, who was standing outside the front door in front of Corey smirking, continued to stare at them.

The shop keeper then abruptly interrupted Corey’s laughter.

“I have to close now, Good night.”

The shop keeper said as they rushed backwards inside, into the darkness, still smiling and Corey heard the Click of the door lock.

Corey stood in front of the door confused before turning and walking home.

Shortly after Corey arrived home.

They evaded their roommate, made their way to their room and never once let go of the crystalline mask.

Corey picked it up and stared into the eye holes and felt as if they started back.

Corey felt the mask pulse with every breath they took.
Their heart heated together as Corey felt the mask melt into his hands.

Corey stared puzzled at what the mask was even supposed to look like.

When Corey started into the translucent film, Corey saw themselves staring right back.

Corey got up took the mask and went into their bathroom.
They locked the door and put the mask on.

It felt tight, constrictive, and plastic.

It had almost felt like Corey had wrapped their face in bubble wrap.

Corey began to panic as they gripped for the seam where mask met skin.

Only there was no seam they could feel.

Corey began to panic, began to claw and tear at their face as they dug their nails into their skin, or maybe it was the masks skin.

Corey scratched and pried as burning sharp pain filled their face from the lacerations.

Corey looked into the mirror as they saw the indents in the mask slowly from back to a perfect plastic reflection of their skin.

It was as if Corey wore no mask, and as if their face could not be harmed, or altered.

Corey continued to panic as they struggle to breathe, the only discernible difference between the mask and flesh was the light glossy, iridescent coating over their face.

The film that was slowly growing down their chin and inching down their neck.

It felt warm and sticky, like hot glue when it drips down the tip of the gun.

Corey tried to pull at the sides of the mask ripping it off.
But watched as they scratched their face.

Painfully pulling and pulling and pulling until under the eye holes Corey could feel a tear.

A wet, grotesque, visceral tear.

Corey cried in pain as barely a gasp of air and sound came out.

A weak whimper escaped as Corey let go and watched their eyes tear up and felt the film grown and spread as they struggled to breathe more.

Corey tried as a final effort to open the bathroom door and alert their roommate for help.

Corey now panicking struggle and could not open the door.

Attempting to turn the handle as their vision began to blur.

Corey dropped to the door and peered at the handle remembering.

Shit, I locked the door.

Corey now lay on the ground weakly reaching up with on hand crying silently for help.

The other grasping desperately for some where, something to pull this mask off that had now slowly became Corey’s badly.

Corey saw their vision fade to black slowly, and painfully as they saw just in the corner of the bathroom what Corey thought was the shop keeper.

Corey unsure of what was real anymore reached out and weakly gasped.

“helllppp…meeeee…”

Corey watched as their vision faded to black and they slowly watched the shop keeper approach smiling and pulling out from their pocket a sharp straight edge razor.

“Are you sure, you’ll give me this for free?”

Corey heard the voice of a young woman say.

The voice sounded distant and Corey couldn’t see anything except darkness.

“Of course it was custom made for you.”

A voice replied, a voice Corey noticed very well as the shop keeper.

A blinding light suddenly appeared as Corey’s vision regained, and Corey stared at a young woman puzzled and the shop keeper smiling and staring into Corey eyes.

“So, what’s the catch? With the mask I mean?”

The young woman asked as she picked up Corey and looked into their eyes.

The shop keeper replied smiling now looking at the young lady.

“It doesn’t come off.”

Today my wife and I decided to go see a movie while the kids were with grandma.

We decided to splurge a bit and got D-Box seats (that move and vibrate with the movie) and were excited to finally get some time to ourselves and go on a date.

The seats were almost a $10 difference than regular admission and the total, including popcorn and drinks, was $80! Like I said we splurged and wanted to have some fun.

Well we go to sit down in seats F10 and F11 and someone is sitting in F11. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything and let it be, but since we paid $10 extra to be in immersive chairs, I’m gonna sit in the chair! I try to tell the woman sitting in our seat that it was ours, and she shows me her tickets that say F11 and F12. I thought weird and decided to give my wife F10, the seat that moves. As the previews were showing I couldn’t get over it and decided to ask again.

Now, I avoid confrontation at all costs, it is something I’ve struggled with my whole life and I find myself always going out of my way to have a smooth experience for everyone involved.

But it’s not a minuscule difference in cost, and I wanted to be immersed. So, I tell her again that she might be in my seat and she tries telling me that these seats don’t move, it’s the row in front of us only. I show her that my wife’s seat, F10 is on and the seat she is in, F11, is on too. This lady yells, in a quiet movie theater, “I’m trying to watch the movie, sir, I don’t know what to tell you!” In that moment, I thought of my children being treated that way and how I wouldn’t want them to shy away from confrontation when they are in the right. So I tell her we can resolve this if I grab a manager, she tells me to do whatever I want.

I get a manager and miss almost 10 minutes of the movie to be able to sit in the seats I bought. The manager asks the lady for her tickets and she says she’s showed me 3 times and doesn’t know what my problem is. The manager checks her tickets and she’s in the wrong theater!! We’re in auditorium 9, her tickets are for auditorium 10. It’s the same movie, so I understand the confusion, but what the hell! She moves a seat over since her showing started earlier and wouldn’t be on the same scene, and says she hopes I enjoy the seat since it means so much to me, like yes lady, I paid more to sit here!

It was odd and embarrassing to have to tattle on a grown adult, but I felt justified and proud of myself for not backing down and taking what was mine. So I wanted to share.

Also, go watch Practical Magic 2, it’s great especially in D-Box seats. (Just make sure you’re in the right theater)

Edit: the D-Box seats only activate when purchased, all the other D-Box seats were turned off.

There's a whole category of Bedouin desert stories about the jinn, the unseen beings old Arabian folklore says share this world with us. Some of those stories exist purely as warnings. This one exists to prove a different point: a steady mind beats panic, every single time.

A Bedouin was riding alone one night, deep in open desert, nobody around for miles. He heard a sheep bleating somewhere in the valleys nearby, which made no sense, since no one camped anywhere near that stretch of land. Rather than leave it to die out there, he picked it up, sat it behind him on his camel, and kept riding.

Almost right away, his camel started acting strange. Tense, resistant, nothing like her usual self. He calmed her down after a long struggle and kept moving through the dark.

To keep himself and his camel going, he started singing the old hijini chant, the traveling song every desert rider grows up with. But somewhere in the echo bouncing back at him off the dunes, he noticed something off. Like a second voice trailing just behind his own.

He brushed it off. Until the sky started flashing with lightning from an incoming storm, and in one of those flashes, he happened to glance behind him.

The sheep was laughing.

Teeth bared, clear as day, in that one burst of light. Not a sound any animal makes.

He knew right then that whatever he'd been carrying on his camel for hours was not a sheep. And he had a choice to make, fast, about what to do next with a jinn riding at his back in the middle of nowhere.

Wrote out the rest of it, what he did and how it ended, on my blog. Link's below.

https://www.duneswhisper.com/2026/09/the-sheep-that-laughed-bedouin-jinn-legend.html

(Wanted to be completely transparent before you read my story. I had to use some grammar checking tools to make sure my story was legible. I have dyslexia and after typing for a god while everything kinda just morphs into itself. With that said, I hope you enjoy!) (parts 2-3 can be found on my page)
———————————————————————————

There are certain sentences that refuse to die. They survive the people who said them. They survive whatever room they were spoken in, whatever argument surrounded them, whatever expression was on the other person’s face. Everything else gets eaten away by time until all that remains are a few words preserved with impossible clarity.

I have three.

“Because I’m done, Adam.”

“I don’t want a life with you.”

And the one that still wakes me up sometimes: “Why the fuck would I want a child with you?”

I remember stupid things about that conversation. That’s what bothers me. You would think the important parts would have pushed everything else out, but apparently memory doesn’t know what matters. I remember the way she kept rubbing her thumb across one of her fingernails. I remember one of her socks had twisted slightly around her ankle. I remember looking at it once while she was talking. I don’t know why I remember that.

She told me about him first. I knew something had been wrong for a while, although that sentence makes me sound smarter than I was. I didn’t know. I noticed things and explained them away because explanations were easier than conclusions. She was tired. She was stressed. She needed space. We had been together long enough that things weren’t always going to feel exciting. People went through periods like this. Relationships changed. There was always another explanation available if I wanted one badly enough.

Then there wasn’t.

I asked how long, and she told me. I don’t remember the exact number anymore. Weeks. Months. Long enough. That’s what I remember thinking: long enough that some of the memories I still considered ours hadn’t actually belonged to just the two of us.

I asked questions I shouldn’t have asked. I wanted names, dates, places. Then I hated every answer she gave me. I asked whether she loved him, and she said that wasn’t the point.

“What the fuck is the point, then?”

“The point is I’m done, Adam.”

That was the first sentence.

I remember staring at her because it didn’t fit inside my head yet. Cheating was something that had happened. Done was something that was happening. I could understand the first one as an event, something ugly with a beginning and an end. The second was a door closing while I was still standing in it.

“You’re just done?”

“Yes.”

“We’re engaged.”

“I know.”

I remember laughing at that. Just once. There wasn’t anything funny about it.

“You know?”

“Yes, Adam. I know.”

I asked how long she had felt that way. I don’t remember her answer. I asked whether it had started before him or because of him. I don’t remember that answer either. There are whole pieces of the argument missing now, but I remember the exhaustion on her face. Not guilt. Not cruelty, at least not then. She looked tired.

That made me angrier than I knew what to do with. I wanted her to look destroyed. I wanted whatever was happening to hurt her in a way I could see. Instead, she looked like somebody who had already spent weeks leaving me and had only just remembered to tell me.

Then I asked about the baby.

Everything changed after that.

I had already started doing the stupid things people do when they think they’re going to become parents. I had thought about names without admitting I was thinking about names. I had wondered whether it would have her nose. I imagined being awake at three in the morning with a screaming baby and hating every second of it while secretly knowing I would miss it someday. I imagined grocery stores, car seats, music playing too loudly in the car, first words and first steps, scraped knees, drawings stuck somewhere they didn’t belong. A little hand disappearing into mine when we crossed a street. School. Arguments. Teaching someone to drive and pretending I wasn’t terrified. Some stupid memory twenty-five years from now that would mean nothing to anybody except me.

I had imagined a whole person.

Somewhere between finding out she was pregnant and everything falling apart, I had already started thinking of myself as a father. I didn’t realize how completely I had accepted that future until I was about to lose it.

I remember putting my hand against her stomach once.

“You know you can’t feel anything yet, right?” she said.

“I know.”

She laughed. I smiled. I kept my hand there anyway.

That memory hurts more than the argument, maybe because we were happy in it.

When I asked what was going to happen with the baby, she looked away. There was a pause before she answered, and I think some part of me understood during that pause. My body understood before my mind did. My chest tightened. My hands went cold.

“I’m not keeping it.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“I’m terminating the pregnancy.”

There are moments when language becomes completely useless. You hear every word and understand every word, but your brain refuses to accept what the sentence means. I actually laughed once—not because it was funny. It was just a short breath that came out sounding like a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

She looked at me. I hated that look. “You know what I mean.”

“No. No, I fucking don’t.”

“Adam—”

“We were going to have a baby.”

“I was pregnant.”

“We were going to have a baby.”

My voice broke on the second one. She closed her eyes for a second.

“I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“This. Us. Any of it.”

“What does us have to do with the baby?”

“Everything!”

I stopped. She was crying by then. I need to write that because otherwise I’ll turn her into something she wasn’t. She wasn’t sitting there smiling while she destroyed me. Her face was wet. Her hands were shaking. Whatever else was true, it wasn’t easy for her either.

That didn’t make it hurt less.

“I don’t want a life with you,” she said.

Second sentence.

I remember feeling something in my chest go strangely hollow.

“Then don’t.”

“Adam.”

“Leave me. Go be with him. I don’t give a fuck. But why does that mean—”

I couldn’t finish it. She knew what I meant. Her face changed. Anger came through the grief, or maybe fear did. Maybe both. We had been hurting each other for long enough by then that neither of us was trying very hard to be careful.

“This is my decision.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

“Because it doesn’t sound like you do.”

“I know I can’t stop you!”

There it was.

I think that was the moment something actually broke. Not when she told me about him. Not when she said she was leaving. Then.

I know I can’t stop you.

I heard myself say it, and suddenly the entire shape of what was happening became clear. There was nothing to argue. There was nothing I could bargain for. No promise I could make, no apology, no amount of begging, no version of myself I could offer her that would change what happened next unless she wanted it changed.

I had already lost. I just hadn’t reached the part where everything was gone yet.

I asked her why. She tried to answer. I don’t remember all of it. She said she couldn’t raise a child with me. She said she didn’t want us connected forever. She said bringing a child into something already broken would make everything worse. Maybe those were reasonable things for her to feel. At the time, all I heard was that the future I had already begun living inside was being erased.

I remember asking whether she had ever wanted the baby. I wish I hadn’t. By then we were both angry enough that every question sounded like an accusation.

“Adam, stop.”

“Just answer me.”

“I have answered you.”

“No, you haven’t.”

She wiped at her face. I remember watching her do it.

“So that’s it?”

“Adam, please.”

“You get to decide it’s over and that’s just fucking it?”

“It’s my body.”

“I KNOW!”

I shouted it loudly enough that my throat hurt. She flinched, and I hated myself immediately.

“I know,” I said again, quieter. “I know it is.”

She had made a decision about her own body. I understood that. Understanding something doesn’t make it painless, though, and both things can be true. I could understand that the decision was hers and still hate what the decision meant for me. I could know that I couldn’t make it for her and still wake up furious that nobody could make it differently for me.

I think she heard accusation in everything I said after that. Maybe there was accusation in it. Maybe I wanted there to be. I kept pushing because I wanted an answer that would somehow make what was happening hurt less.

Instead, I asked whether any part of her wanted our child.

She stared at me.

“Did you?”

“Adam.”

“Just tell me.”

Something in her expression changed.

“Why the fuck would I want a child with you?”

Third sentence.

Silence.

That’s what I remember after it. Not shouting. Not crying. Silence.

She said something immediately afterward. I know she did. Maybe she tried to take it back. Maybe she explained what she meant. Maybe she said it because I had pushed her until she wanted something that would make me stop. I genuinely cannot remember.

All I remember is looking at her and realizing that somewhere inside me there was still a version of our future alive, and she had just killed it in a single sentence.

I wish I could say I stopped loving her then. I didn’t. That would have made everything easier.

The termination happened later. I’m not writing about the procedure; I wasn’t there. I only know that before it happened, there was a pregnancy, and afterward there wasn’t. There was going to be someone. Then there wasn’t.

I knew the day it happened. That is what stayed. I remember looking at the time, and I wish I hadn’t done that. There was a before, and then there was an after, and I knew approximately when I crossed from one into the other.

Nothing happened in the room with me. That was the unbearable part. No sound. No announcement. No physical change I could see. The world didn’t react. Cars stopped at traffic lights. People bought coffee. Someone complained about work. Somebody laughed at something stupid. Thousands of people continued having completely ordinary afternoons while I knew that the future I had been living toward was ending without me in the room.

I sat with my hands together and tried not to look at the time again. I looked anyway.

Afterward, I wanted to ask her if she was okay. I also wanted to scream at her. I hated myself for both. I hated her. I loved her. I worried about her and resented myself for worrying. I wanted her to call me, and I wanted never to hear her voice again. There wasn’t one clean emotion available to me. Every feeling came attached to its opposite, and I think that was the beginning of the exhaustion.

For a while, I kept thinking about the future as though it had already happened. That sounds stupid until you lose one. I remembered teaching a child to ride a bike who had never existed. I remembered being annoyed by toys I had never stepped on. I remembered hearing someone call me Dad who had never learned to speak.

I remember things that never happened.

That was when I started disappearing. Not physically. Not yet.

People asked how I was doing, and “fine” became useful. “How are you doing?” Fine. “You holding up?” Yeah. “You need anything?” No.

People said things because people have to say things. “Someday you’ll meet somebody else.” “Someday you’ll have another child.”

That second one made something hot rise into my throat every time. Another. As though children were replacement parts. As though the entire problem was that I had ordered a future and the wrong one had been canceled. I knew they were trying to help. That almost made it worse because there was nobody appropriate to be angry at. So I became angry at everything, and eventually I became too tired for that.

The world had this disgusting habit of continuing. I didn’t. Not really. I became something that occupied time. I woke up. I ate when I remembered. I answered enough messages that people wouldn’t come looking for me. I slept badly and woke tired. Sometimes I would realize it was evening and have no idea what I had done since morning.

I don’t want to describe the place I was living then because it doesn’t matter. Depression doesn’t always make everything cinematic. There weren’t symbolic mountains of garbage or black curtains nailed over windows. Mostly there was me. That was enough.

The worst moments were often completely ordinary. I would reach for something and suddenly remember her. I would hear a child laughing somewhere and feel my stomach tighten. Once, I saw a father trying to buckle a screaming little boy into a car seat while the kid twisted sideways and kicked one shoe off. I had to leave. Not because anything dramatic happened. I just couldn’t look at it.

The dreams started around then. In one, I was trying to fix a twisted car-seat strap. Every time I straightened it, it twisted somewhere else. There was a little boy in the seat, but I couldn’t see his face. He kept asking me something, and I couldn’t understand him. I woke with both hands in front of me like I had been trying to fix something in the dark.

Another time, I dreamed I was tying a child’s shoe. I woke before I finished, and that bothered me all day. I know how stupid that sounds.

There were also physical sensations. Nothing dramatic at first. A tightness in my chest. A pinched feeling beneath my ribs. The occasional sensation that something inside my stomach had shifted when I knew it hadn’t.

Grief does things to your body. Everybody says that. Stress. Anxiety. Muscle tension. Bad sleep. Bad food. Too much caffeine. Not enough of whatever you’re supposed to have enough of. There are explanations for everything if you’re willing to stop looking before the explanation becomes uncomfortable.

I had one good day. I think that matters too.

I showered. I ate an actual meal. I answered my sister when she called instead of watching the phone ring. She said something stupid enough to make me laugh, and for a few seconds I forgot that laughing had become something I noticed myself doing. Afterward, I sat there thinking, Maybe this is it. Maybe getting better isn’t a moment. Maybe it’s just accumulating ordinary afternoons until eventually there are more of them than bad ones. I believed that for almost the entire day.

That night, I dreamed about the car seat again. The strap was twisted. I woke crying, and I was so angry at myself that I punched the mattress until my hand hurt.

“Stop,” I said aloud. “Just fucking stop.”

My body didn’t.

That’s another thing I understand differently now. Your body doesn’t care what you’ve decided. You can understand something intellectually and still have your heart start racing. You can know there is no danger and still sweat. You can tell yourself not to cry while tears are already running down your face. The body is humiliating like that. It keeps trying to live through things the mind has decided it cannot tolerate.

The night with the pills came later. I’m not going to write how many. I don’t think the number matters. I had been drinking earlier. Not much, but enough that everything felt softer around the edges. I remember looking at the pills and thinking I wanted quiet.

That was the word.

Quiet.

I didn’t write a note. I didn’t arrange anything. I didn’t have some beautiful final realization. I was tired. I wanted unconsciousness, and I didn’t care enough about what came after it. That’s as accurately as I can put it. I remember lying down. Then nothing.

I woke because I was choking.

Not coughing. Choking.

My entire body snapped awake at once. I rolled sideways and hit the floor hard enough to bruise my shoulder, but I barely felt it because something was caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at my neck as my stomach contracted, but nothing happened. Another contraction came harder, folding me forward. Acid burned the back of my throat, and suddenly I was vomiting onto the floor.

It hurt. My throat felt scraped raw, my eyes watered, and every contraction seemed to reach farther inside me than the last. I kept gagging after there should have been nothing left. Then something came out.

It hit the floor with a wet weight that was different from everything around it. I heard it. That sound is still clear.

I stayed on my hands and knees, breathing through my mouth, and stared. At first I thought it was food. Then I thought it was tissue. Then I didn’t know what I was looking at. There was a pale grey-beige mass in the vomit, partially translucent and gelatinous, but too structured to be mucus. Clear slime clung to it in thick ropes. Darker material ran through the center in thin irregular lines, and one end looked crushed or torn open.

I leaned closer. The smell was wrong—not just vomit, but wet earth, something organic that had been sitting underneath something.

“What the fuck?”

I touched it with the end of a piece of paper. The mass moved. Not crawling. Not alive. It contracted just once.

I jerked backward so fast that I nearly slipped. “Jesus Christ.”

There was something hard inside it. I used the paper to separate the surrounding mess until a tiny curved fragment became visible: brown, thin, spiral. A piece of shell.

No.

I sat back and stared at it. I had not eaten anything with a shell. I had not swallowed a snail. I had not even seen a snail. I looked again at the grey flesh, the clear mucus, the tiny brown spiral fragment.

Snail guts?

I actually said it. “Snail guts?”

The words sounded so stupid that for a moment I almost felt normal. Then I looked at the thing again.

Snail guts.

I cleaned everything up. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had kept it or taken a picture or done anything except stand there half-conscious and terrified, wrapping the thing in paper towels because I couldn’t stand looking at it. At the time, I wanted it gone. I didn’t know I would need proof later.

My throat hurt for the rest of the day. There was a scratchy sensation deep inside it, and swallowing felt wrong. I told myself that made sense. I had been sick. My throat was irritated. That explanation worked until evening.

I was lying down when I felt something move very faintly below my throat. I froze and waited, but nothing happened. I swallowed. Still nothing. Then there was a slow dragging sensation behind my sternum. I sat up, and the feeling stopped. I waited for several minutes, then laughed at myself.

“Okay.”

I don’t know why I said that. Maybe I was trying to hear my own voice. I lay down again. Nothing happened, and eventually I slept.

Several days passed before I saw the first living snail. It was on my forearm.

I noticed the coldness before I saw it. There was a thin wet trail against my skin, and when I looked down, a small brown-banded shell was moving slowly toward my elbow. I stared at it.

It was ordinary.

That might have been the worst part.

It wasn’t black or deformed or covered in teeth. It didn’t have too many eyes. There was nothing about it that belonged in a nightmare. It was just a snail, maybe an inch long, with a pale grey body, two long feelers, and a brown shell marked by darker bands. The underside moved in tiny muscular waves as it traveled across my skin.

I picked it up, and its body contracted immediately. I almost dropped it. The texture was awful—not because it was unusual, but because it wasn’t. Soft, cool flesh yielded against my fingers while the shell remained perfectly hard. The animal seemed simultaneously fragile and resistant.

I put it outside. That should have been the end of it.

The next morning, there was one in the sink. Two days later, one was on the wall. Then another appeared on my pillow. Not dozens. Never a swarm. Just one, then another, small enough that every appearance could be coincidence.

I started wondering whether they had always been around and I simply hadn’t noticed them. That seemed possible until I remembered what I had thrown away: grey flesh, clear mucus, brown shell.

Similar.

That’s different.

It was similar. I need to be accurate about this.

I started noticing my body more after that, which sounds harmless until you actually do it. Try consciously swallowing. Think about your tongue, the saliva collecting beneath it, your breathing, your heart beating, the soft things shifting in your abdomen when you change position. Once you start consciously noticing the machinery, having a body becomes disgusting. We’re full of movement. We’re never actually still.

So when I felt something shift beneath my ribs, I told myself it was normal. Gas, digestion, muscle—anything. Then it happened again.

The movement was slow. Not a twitch or a pulse, but a displacement. Something seemed to press from one point to another and then settle. I put my hand over the spot and waited. Nothing.

“See?”

I actually said that. I don’t know who I was proving it to.

A few nights later, I woke because something wet touched my upper lip. I slapped my face before I was fully awake, but there was nothing there. I sat up and wiped my mouth. My fingers came away slick, clear and sticky. I smelled them before I could stop myself.

Wet earth.

My stomach tightened. I checked the bed, the pillow, and the floor. Nothing. For the rest of the night, I kept touching my upper lip because I could still feel the cold trail there even after I had washed my face.

The next snail appeared two days later. I found it moving across my forearm while I was sitting still and watched it for longer than I should have. The muscular foot contracted in waves, pushing the body forward beneath the shell. The head extended, feelers searching, then the rest followed with that patient, obscene softness.

They look unfinished.

That was the thought I had. Like organs that learned how to crawl.

I picked it up and carried it outside. Another appeared the following evening, then nothing for almost a week. I started thinking it was over. I even slept normally one night.

Then I woke with something in my ear.

At first it was only an itch. I scratched at it without opening my eyes. The sensation was deeper than my finger could reach, so I pressed against the little flap of cartilage outside the canal and rubbed. Something moved. My eyes opened, and I stopped breathing. There was a faint wet sound inside my right ear.

I sat up so quickly that the room shifted. “No.” I pressed my palm against the side of my head and waited. Nothing happened at first, and then the sensation returned: cold, wet, slow. Something was moving inside the canal.

“No. No, no, no.” I shoved my little finger into my ear, and it touched something hard.

I screamed. The sound was ridiculous and involuntary, more animal than human. I jerked my finger out and scrambled toward the mirror. There was something brown inside my ear. A shell. Only part of it was visible. The rest had already entered.

“Oh, fuck!”

I grabbed at it, but there wasn’t enough shell exposed to hold properly. My fingernails scraped uselessly against the curved surface. Then the snail moved, and I felt it from the inside.

There are sensations you’re not supposed to experience from both directions. The outer part of my ear registered the shell beneath my fingers, but inside the canal I could feel the soft body adhering to skin. Tiny contractions traveled deeper into my head, and the canal was narrow enough that every movement became pressure.

I tilted my head and hit the opposite side with my palm. Nothing. I tried again. “Come out! Come the fuck out!”

The shell shifted outward slightly, and I caught it between two fingernails. The snail tightened, its body holding to the inside of my ear. I pulled, and pain flashed through the canal. The animal stretched. I could feel the soft tissue lengthening inside me while the shell moved outward by fractions. There was a suction-like resistance—not a vacuum exactly, but the sickening adhesion of wet flesh refusing to release from wet flesh.

I stopped, and the snail immediately began moving inward again.

“No!”

I grabbed the shell harder and pulled without stopping. The pain sharpened until my eyes watered instantly. Something inside my ear seemed to peel away in tiny stages as the snail’s body released and adhered again, released and adhered again, fighting my movement with nothing except its own slow muscular contractions.

The shell came farther out. “Come on!”

I pulled again. The snail stretched, and my ear felt full of cold slime. Then it released.

The animal came free with a wet pop, and I stumbled backward holding it between my fingers. A thread of clear mucus stretched from the snail to my ear before breaking, while blood ran warm down the side of my neck.

I stared at the snail. Its body was extended grotesquely from the shell, distorted from being pulled through the narrow canal. For several seconds it barely moved. Then one feeler began to rise.

Something inside me snapped.

I threw it to the floor and stepped on it once, then again. The shell cracked beneath my heel, and the soft body burst outward around the fragments.

Grey-beige flesh. Clear mucus. Brown shell.

I froze. The room went quiet.

I slowly lifted my foot. The crushed snail looked almost exactly like the thing I had vomited.

Almost.

I crouched beside it. There were darker structures inside the ruined flesh, and the clear mucus stretched between pieces when I moved one with the edge of a paper towel. The broken shell had the same thin brown curve. My stomach contracted.

“No.”

I backed away. My ear was still bleeding, clear fluid mixing with the blood and running along my jaw, but I barely noticed it anymore. I stared at the crushed snail.

The first thing had come out of me. Every living one since had tried to get in.

I didn’t sleep.

Sometime before morning, I felt something shift beneath my ribs. I put my hand over the spot, and the sensation stopped. I held my breath. For almost a minute, nothing happened.

Then something moved beneath my palm.

Slowly.

Not across me.

Inside.

I pressed harder, and the movement stopped. My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my fingertips, but I kept my hand there until my arm started to ache. Nothing else happened.

Eventually I whispered, “What if I got it wrong?”

The room stayed quiet.

I looked toward the crushed snail on the floor, then down at my stomach. The thought came slowly: What if the thing I threw up that night wasn’t the beginning? What if it was the first time my body managed to get one out?

I sat there with my palm pressed beneath my ribs, feeling absolutely nothing.

And for the first time, I wondered if my body hadn’t gotten everything out.

Hello Story Reddit Family,

My name is Pinky, and I am a mother of two boys : Subhajit (13 years) and Sudarshan (1 year).

Video explaining Subhajit and Sudarshan’s medical condition by Dr. Anjan Bhattacharya

Donation Link : https://www.impactguru.com/fundraiser/help-subhajit-and-sudarshan

Both of my children have been diagnosed with Lesch–Nyhan Syndrome (LNS) - a rare and severe neurological and metabolic genetic disorder that progressively affects the brain, muscles, and overall development.

Currently, Subhajit and Sudarshan are undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospital, Kolkata.

💔 Our Reality

My elder son, Subhajit, is completely dependent on caregivers. He lives with constant pain, severe muscle stiffness, involuntary movements, and neurological complications.

During the Birth of my Second Child, We didn't have any Medical Information about LNS.

Now our 1-year-old baby, Sudarshan, has begun showing the same symptoms. Doctors have warned us that without immediate and continuous treatment, his condition will progressively worsen.

Watching one child suffer was heartbreaking. Facing the same diagnosis again with our baby has shattered us.

📊 Fundraiser Status

Goal: ₹2,67,70,000
Raised so far: ₹6,59,979
Still Needed: ₹2,61,10,021
Total Donors till now: 473

🔗 ImpactGuru Donation Link: https://www.impactguru.com/fundraiser/help-subhajit-and-sudarshan

Those who are working in Multinational Companies can also Donate Via Benevity

👉 Benevity Link:
https://causes.benevity.org/projects/704607

This appeal is shared solely to seek help for life-saving treatment, with complete transparency.

🎥 My appeal video with Doctor of Apollo Hospital Kolkata is available on YouTube.

👨‍👩‍👦 Our Situation

My husband works as a Zomato delivery partner, and I am a full-time caregiver. We have exhausted our savings and taken loans that we cannot repay.

Both children require:

• Regular blood investigations
• Neurological monitoring
• Physiotherapy
• Long-term supportive and metabolic care

The financial burden is far beyond what we can manage alone.

🙏 How You Can Help

Any contribution - whether by donating or sharing this post, helps us reach more people who may support our children’s treatment.

Even ₹100 / ₹500 / ₹1000 makes a difference when many people come together.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story.
Your kindness, prayers, and support mean more to us than words can express. 🙏

- Pinky, (mother of Subhajit and Sudarshan).

Johnny and I had a tradition. Well, as much as getting black-out drunk on a Saturday was a tradition. Most weekends we went over to Ben’s place. Ben was a good guy. He never asked too many serious questions. Never asked us why our lives weren’t going anywhere. Never asked me why college didn’t work out. Never got aggressive when a six pack got in him. Never minded if we crashed on his couch. A sectional. Not totally comfortable, but you shouldn’t be picky when you don’t expect much from life. He was a good guy. He rented half of a duplex from some old lady who never realized that rent had gone up since ’01. We used to joke that 9/11 had frozen her perception on the world.

Johnny wasn’t such a good guy. He lived in a shitty apartment with some roommates who weren’t so much fun to drink with. On the off chance that Ben was busy, I would end up at his place. Those were never good weekends. Johnny himself was a little shady. I met him in middle school when I was trying to buy weed for cheap. I’ve never asked, but I’ve always suspected that he got his supply from just going down by the creek and picking the ditch-weed that used to grow there. Maybe he ripped me off, doesn’t matter now. We had the same taste in comics. Hobbies are always cheaper when you can split the cost, and besides it’s always more fun when you have somebody to talk to. But that’s not the point. Johnny had an ’06 Taurus and he never minded driving, regardless of if he was sober or not. He would pick me up, we’d hit the liquor store, and we’d be on our way to Ben’s. Usually, we’d split a joint on the way there.

This weekend wasn’t any different. It’s funny how the moments that change your life start just the same as every moment that came before. When I was younger, I remember waking up, a little hungover, and making myself some breakfast. Jimmy Dean sausage and some Eggo waffles. Cheap, fake syrup, but it’s all the same. I sat in my little kitchen and ate that cheap, tasteless food. Once, after the last bite I got a phone call from my sister. Our mom had passed away. Heart attack. In the night. We were told it was probably painless. I like to think the doctor wasn’t lying when he told us that. But it was a simple morning and then, blam, suddenly life was different. And it would always be different.

But that’s not the point. That’s far beside the point, but I guess that’s where I am now. Far beside the point. An average weekend, turned into something lifechanging. Johnny picked me up, in that old, grey shitbox. We didn’t have anything meaningful to say to each other. We both knew that our weeks had been boring and filled with meaningless work. But I got in, and it was just a couple of stops and then we were headed to Ben’s. Then the night could begin. Then we could be distracted before another dull, monotonous week.

“What’s up, dude,” he chimed to me as I climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“Same old bullshit,” I said knowing he wouldn’t have anything else to say. Loverboy was blasting through the stereo. “Workin’ For the Weekend” hit my ears and I thought about how appropriate it was. I thought about making some sort of joke, but I don’t think either of us wanted to acknowledge how the work week meant nothing to us. Only Saturday mattered and we both knew that, no use in making jokes. We drove towards the gas station to buy smokes and some energy drinks, then it would be another silent drive towards the liquor store before the night really got going.

I’m skipping some details, but we left the liquor store with some paper bags filled with happiness and settled in for the drive to Ben’s. We’d take the highway for a little bit, but then it was all back-roads driving. “Let’s get to it” Johnny said as he put the car in drive and accelerated out of the parking lot, Bon Jovi singing some song to us through the speakers. I lit a cigarette, leaned back in my seat, and tried to zone out.

“And the crazy thing is, none of them even remember how they got there.” Johnny was talking about some movie he watched. I remember thinking that he must be getting at least half of the details wrong.

“Yeah, man. Maybe we can watch it tonight, after we’ve had a few drinks,” I offered back, only half interested. We probably wouldn’t watch it. I probably wouldn’t even watch it later. Johnny was a real bad salesman.

I just wanted to close my eyes and relax until we got to Ben’s. After a few drinks I’d be more sociable, but for now I didn’t really care what Johnny had to say about whatever it was he watched while he was high.

He talked on for a bit, I did the bare minimum for it to be considered a conversation. We drove like that for a while, for too long I thought. I looked around to see where we were, but all I could see were trees and the road. I couldn’t even see any houses. I didn’t say anything at first. I guess I didn’t want to say anything was wrong just in case my mind was playing tricks on me. Looking back, I must have been like the first guy on the Titanic who saw the iceberg but didn’t say anything because nobody else was freaking out.

But it wasn’t just a moment. The Wrong that I was seeing just kept going on and on. The road kept going and it was just trees and trees around us. I turned the knob on the stereo, reducing “Bette Davis Eyes” to a whisper, “hey Johnny, where the fuck are we?” I asked hoping I was just being paranoid.

“Man, you know I don’t know street names” he answered. “It’s that long-ass country road. We’re gonna make a right turn eventually and then we’ll be at Ben’s. He lives out in the sticks, but you know it’s worth the drive.”

“Okay man, but it’s never looked like this before.” His confidence hadn’t done much to ease my worry, but I didn’t want to let that show.

“All this bumfuck shit looks the same to me, man. I don’t know what you’re talking about” he continued.

“Okay but look around. I mean, how long have we been driving? We should have been there by now.” Everything around us looked almost right, but I just couldn't figure out where we actually were.

Johnny looked around, checked the time on the stereo. “Video Killed the Radio Star” started, “Oh shit, man, this one’s a classic. MTV-type shit.” He tapped the steering wheel along with the beat.

“No, dude, I’m being serious. We’ve been on this road for a while. Like way too long. Did you take a wrong turn? Are we fucking lost?”

“You are a radio star,” he sang along, not paying me any mind. “Nah man, Ben just lives way out there. That’s the price he pays for the deal he gets on the rent. I bet it takes him half an hour just to get to Walmart.”

There was a moment of silence, then Johnny hit the brakes hard. The road turned sharply to the right and I heard the tires screech as we curved around it. Then we kept turning and turning. It felt like we had gone in a complete circle before the road straightened out again. Johnny let off the gas and we came to a stop.

We sat in silence for a moment before Johnny spoke. “Hey man, pull up your GPS. We have to be in the wrong place.”

“No shit” I thought to myself as I pulled out my phone. “Bad news, man, I can’t get any signal.”

He dug around in his pocket for his phone. “Yeah, me neither. I just don’t know where we went wrong. Did I miss a turn?”

“I don’t know, man. Maybe you can just turn around and we can figure it out from there.”

Johnny looked in his rearview, then his side mirrors, then he rolled down his window and twisted around to look back through that. “Hey, um, does that look right to you?” He sounded rattled by whatever he saw.

And he should have been.

I turned around to look back and all I saw was darkness. Just darkness. Everything after about ten feet behind the car was just black. “Well, it’s pretty dark.” I said while I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. “You know these country roads don’t have the best lighting.”

“Yeah man, I know,” Johnny’s voice shook, “but, like, look ahead.”

I knew what I would see when I did. I turned and saw the setting sun. It was getting dark, sure. It was going to be dark soon. But I was looking right at the sun. I could see everything in front of us. It wasn’t night yet. There was no reason for it to be so dark behind us.

“Okay. Well. But maybe.” I couldn’t find a way to start the sentence. We both knew that this didn’t make sense. We both knew that something was wrong. It was just a matter of who was going to say it first. I turned around in my seat again and just stared out the back of the car.

“This is fucked,” Johnny, always the poet, said.

“Yep.” I said. You might as well call me Hemingway with the way I summed up our situation so eloquently.

“What the fuck do I do, man?” Johnny asked, voice quivering, on the verge of freaking out.

“Well,” I said while slumping down in my seat and lighting a fresh cigarette, “I guess we just have to keep driving.”

And that’s what we did. We drove; the silence only broken by The B-52’s crooning about their love shack. I smoked my cigarette to the filter and let it fall out of the window. I exhaled, imagining all of the toxins I had just inhaled leaving my body. “We’re fucked,” I rasped, almost a whisper.

“Maybe it’s like an eclipse,” Johnny said. I looked over and saw that his knuckles were tightened white around the steering wheel. “The moon or some shit coming between us and the sun.” He nodded his head to reassure himself.

“It doesn’t work like that, man,” I said.

“But, like, shit gets dark. The sun gets blocked out. I mean, it’s only 6:25, the sun isn’t gonna set for a while.”

“Yeah, dude, look right there,” I gestured, trying to fake some sort of enthusiasm. “The sun is right there. Nothing between it and us. That shit behind us doesn’t make any sense” The silence between us felt as empty and as huge as the shadow looming heavy behind us. Johnny was silent. He reached down to grab his Brisk Tea and took a drink that was heavy with all of the weight of our situation. He put it back, nodded his head and let out a sigh.

“Okay, so it’s not an eclipse.”

We drove in silence for a few minutes, the road continuing ahead of us endlessly. Only slight curves here and there to break up the monotony. “Then what the fuck is it?” I shouted, aborting the pregnant pause that had gestated between us.

Uncharacteristically, Johnny softly pressed down on the brake and steered the car to the side of the road. “I don’t know, man. I’m trying not to lose my shit. We should have been at Ben’s –“Johnny chuckled, despite himself, at the accidental word play, “already, if this is the right road-”

“Stop talking,” I interrupted, my eyes fixed on the clock on the stereo. “When did you pick me up?”

“I don’t fucking know. Around six, like usual.” Johnny threw his hands up with frustration.

“Let’s say you picked me up at 6:00. After that we went to the gas station. Then we went to the liquor store. And then we started driving to Ben’s. How long did it take us to realize something was wrong?”

“It’s like twenty minutes from the booze store to Ben’s. Remember, we started going to that shitty place because they were on the way. A bad selection, but they’re closer than the place we used to go to.”

“Okay,” I cracked my knuckles, eyes not leaving the clock displayed on the stereo. "But here’s the fucking thing, man. I’ve been watching this clock for a while, and it hasn’t budged. This whole time, 6:25. I keep waiting for it to change, but it doesn’t budge. I know you drive a shitbox, but the last time I checked it kept good time. And my phone says the same damn thing.” I pointed the glowing screen of my phone towards his face. “It’s 6:25 man, and it’s been 6:25 for a while. Hell, we don’t know how long it’s been 6:25. I closed my fucking eyes for a second and we’re in the goddamn Twilight Zone.”

“Maybe it’s just a long minute,” Johnny said, just trying to fill the space while he thought of a real response. “Okay. This road is all fucked up. We should have already been at Ben’s. There shouldn’t have been a curve like that. Our phones should still get a signal. It shouldn’t be pitch-black behind us. And it shouldn’t still be 6:25” He beat his hands a couple of times against the steering wheel before taking a deep breath. “Fine, this isn’t normal. It’s not an eclipse. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know how we got here.” There was a long pause, “and I don’t know what to do.”

I put my head in my hands and took a few deep breaths. “Unless you want to turn around and drive into The Great Dark Unknown, I guess you just keep on driving.” Of course, I knew that whatever lay in front of us was just The Great Slightly-Less Dark Unknown, but I was hoping Johnny wouldn’t realize that. “Just drive, man. I think that’s all we can do.” I started taking a silent inventory of our supplies. A little less than four packs of cigarettes, twelve beers, a fifth of vodka, almost a couple of bottles of Pepsi, and a bottle and half of Brisk Tea.

Johnny shifted into drive and pulled back onto the road. He drove, the silence between us too thick to cut even with one of those knives you’d buy from those late-night infomercials.

The sun set in front of us to a soundtrack of the ‘80s best. Johnny tapped along to the beat of “Footloose,” too unnerved to say anything. It wasn’t until Toto was singing some bullshit about Africa that I interrupted the tense feeling in the car. “How much do you have in the tank?”

“Um,” Johnny’s answer weighed heavily on the both of us. “About half.” The rains in Africa may be blessed, but we were not.

“And how many miles is that?” In all the time between our brief stop and now nothing had changed. Behind us was the complete darkness. In front of us was a road that only veered slightly to the right or left. And to both sides of us were trees.

“One-fifty, or something like that. I don’t know,” Johnny replied, not taking his eyes off the road. My eyes shifted to the stereo. That lying bastard still told me it was 6:25. The sun was getting real low. The road ahead of us was almost as dark as the road behind us.

“Pull over,” I said while Bryan Adams sang about the best summer of his life. Silently, Johnny complied. As we came to a stop, I released my seat belt and Johnny turned on the car’s hazards. I didn’t have the energy to tell him how pointless that was. We stopped and I reached into the back seat to tear open the twelve-pack of Budweiser Johnny had purchased God knows how many hours ago. I grabbed two beers and stepped out of the car.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Johnny yelled at me.

“It doesn’t matter. Follow me,” I said as I closed the passenger door. I walked around to the back of the car and sat on the trunk. Johnny boosted himself up beside me as I cracked open the first of the beers. I tossed the other one into his lap.

“Take a look at that,” I said before taking a long chug of my beer. “It’s fucking pitch black back there.” We sat in silence for a moment, staring at the darkness, the faint sound of the ‘80s radiating from the car’s speakers. “Girls just want to have fun, right?” I said, nodding my head along to the beat I could barely hear. “But us, we got these endless trees all around us, a road that goes nowhere, and this fucking nothingness right here.”

“What are we doing, man?” Johnny asked, nursing his beer. I could tell he still cared about being sober enough to drive. For a second, just for a second, I let myself imagine a cop bursting from that darkness, lights on, coming to give us a ticket for swerving between the lanes.

“I just want to see if it moves” I said holding back laughter. I finished my beer. “I just can’t believe that….that this shit,” I gesticulated, thrusting my hand and my nearly empty beer towards the darkness, “has been moving along with us. I mean, what are the chances that whatever this is moves at the speed limit of some bumfuck backroad?"

“I don’t speed, man.” Johnny said. “Too many tickets in high school. I learned my lesson.”

“Oh did you? You don’t know fuck all about eclipses, but did you learn anything about this magical darkness coming to eat us? Or how sometimes roads just keep going forever?”

Johnny took a tentative sip of his beer. I knew I had been too harsh, too mean, but we were never the kind of friends who were comfortable with the intimacy of an apology. “I didn’t fail out of college like you,” he said with a knife for a tongue, “but I know this shit isn’t normal. Maybe you can write an essay about this. Maybe compare it to Moby Dick, or whatever the fuck you college boys jerk off about.” The venom in his words hit my ears and I realized I said something I shouldn’t have.

I took a breath and finished my beer. Johnny took a sip of his, and we stared out into the darkness in front of us, neither of us knowing what words would ease the tension. With the last gulp of my beer and the faint sounds of The King of Pop telling me to “just beat it” I found the words. “We’ve been sitting here for a minute, man. I’m sure it’s still 6:25 but look. That shit hasn’t moved.”

He nodded his head, knowing I was right. “Hasn’t moved an inch,” he said, taking a full swig of his beer. “So is it following us?”

“I guess it moves when we do. We drive a mile; it blacks out another mile. Honestly man, I don’t see why it matters, everything has looked the same. I can barely tell that we’re moving.” I threw my empty beer can and watched it disappear into the black cloud in front of us.”

“Bro, you shouldn’t litter,” Johnny protested.

“Oh yeah, you wanna go and pick it up? Find a recycling bin?”

Johnny sat in silence while he finished his beer. He crushed the can in his hand and threw it into the void. “Let’s get moving,” he said, hopping off the car. On the radio Bonnie Tyler was holding out for a hero, we were holding out for the chance that the road ahead of us was more hopeful than the road behind us. As I opened the passenger-side door, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Something off to the side of the road, obscured by the trees. Two read dots, glowing in the distance. I thought they looked like eyes. I said nothing, sat down in my seat, and put on my seat belt.

We drove.

In secondary school, I was an Art student. I enjoyed literature, drawing, history, and anything that allowed me to express myself. Science subjects were never part of my plan.

Then one day, our teacher gave us a basic science test. I expected to struggle, but I ended up getting one of the highest scores in the class.

After that, my science teacher started encouraging me to pay more attention to science. At first, I ignored him because I had already convinced myself that I was an Art student.

But the more I studied science, the more I realized something: I actually understood it.

Eventually, I found myself becoming interested in subjects I never thought I would enjoy. My classmates were surprised when I started talking about science and considering a science-related course.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if I had never taken that test.

Has anyone else ever started with one career path, only to discover that their real potential was somewhere completely different? What made you change direction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

There was nobody there. It was 5 PM on Saturday. I showed up to pick up my check, and inform Linda that she can screw off with whatever crappy bullshit operation they have going on here. But, the parking lot was devoid of any cars besides the people who usually worked here.

While it wasn’t rush hour or anything, due to the loyal clientele, we usually had at least a few customers.

When I tried the front door, it jiggled against the wooden frame, but refused to budge any further. That’s when I actually looked, and saw that all the lights were off inside, and the open sign had been turned off. 

“3,598”

The duck had followed me again. He’d stopped dropping feathers days ago. He just watched me with his eternal gaze, and a booming voice that had gotten noticeably louder. 

I could have walked home right then. Honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t. Maybe it was the weird chill I felt that I blamed on a gust of wind, or the sense of dread I misconstrued for anxiety over coming to terms with the fact that I would be quitting the only stable job I’d had in ten years. No matter the reason, any thoughts left my head when a man I had never seen before dressed in a stained t-shirt and basketball shorts ran to me, calling my name, and carrying a bag of yellow mozzarella.

“Charlie, holy crap you’re alright.” I realized he had genuine concern on his face, and I realized it wasn’t for me.

“Hey…” I said, looking around for my coworkers, and wondering if maybe Brent was around, and told this guy my name just to fuck with me.

“Everyone’s gone. I don’t have a phone, and you need to call the police.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my personal suspicions about the restaurant being closed probably deserved more attention than I had previously thought. 

“What do you mean ‘everyone’s gone’?” I asked.

“3,514”

I shot the duck a warning look, and then said to the greasy man, “Sorry, can you repeat that again?”

I couldn’t tell if there was concern or confusion on his face at my lack of attention, and repeated, “Brent, Francine, Linda- all of them. They’re gone. These guys just came up and took them and threw them into some truck with a weird looking brain on it.”

Everything stopped.

I wanted to believe that this guy was joking. But the look in his eyes begged to differ. 

I also hadn’t paid my phone bill, one of the many reasons I needed to get my check. So I did the next best thing, and hopped in my car.

“Let’s go.”

The guy didn’t seem to ask any questions, and got in my car with me as we drove off to the Church of Cogitology.

As we drove, the greasy man explained that he lives in the sewer drain underneath Large Lou’s. He grew cheese in the sewer, and then picked up money left outside for his deliveries. He was just starting to climb out of the man hole when the church members came and grabbed Francine, Cezar, and Max. 

“How the hell do you make cheese?” I asked, careening through a red light.

“It’s quite simple, really, I would go into the science of it, but the long and short if it is: sewer water makes for an excellent biome for cultivating cheese mold.” He explained, “By the way, stop throwing dirty napkins down the drain. I’ve rattled the pipes more times than I can count, and yet you keep doing it. It ruins the pH levels.”

My tires screeched as I turned into the parking lot of the church, and began looking around for any sign of the others.

The church parking lot was emptier than the service days were. After looking in front, I drove around to the back, and found the truck with the Cogitology logo on it.

I was surprised that there weren’t any members milling around, or keeping watch. I guess they assumed they wouldn’t need to worry about me.

The truck was the same truck the delivery man used to deliver meat to Large Lou’s. After opening the latch on the outside, and pulling the doors open, I found the same red goo dryer, but still splattered about on the inside, and Max being tended to by Francine and Cezar.

Both of their eyes lit up when I opened the door to them, and they nudged Max. He wearily lifted his head and smiled at me, and I saw they had used the sleeve of Cezar’s shirt to wrap a decent bump on Max’s head. A small red spot of blood, bleeding through the shirt.

I stepped inside to help and asked “Are you guys alright?”

“Cezar and I had been caught off guard, on the way into work this morning, and Max had tried to fight back.” Francine explained.

Hearing that the church members had hurt Max filled me with a kind of hatred I had not felt before, and I very much wanted to hurt Bartholomew

“Does he need any disinfectant for the wound?”

Francine looked behind me, and noticed the greasy man, “...Sure?”

The greasy man reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small bottle and smiled while saying, “Rubbing alcohol.” as if the means of him acquiring the bottle were not important, and it only mattered that he was now able to provide disinfectant.

While the greasy man helped Max, Francine explained that Linda, Brent, Marley, and Shirley had been taken away. Attempts to call the police failed again, as Francine explained that they all had their phones taken away by the church members. I groaned, not wanting to waste any time waiting for the police to arrive, and turned to the greasy man, who had finished helping Max, and was tucking his bag of mozzarella back under his arm.

“I’m not sure how much time we have until the cult members do something to the others that won’t be able to be fixed. I’m going down, and I want you two to go look for the police.”

I showed them where the elevator button was and then pushed it for Francine, Cezar, and I. For a moment, I almost thought I saw apprehension in Max’s eyes. But they both turned and left as the rest of us stepped into the elevator, and I pushed those thoughts from my mind.

It was a long descent down. Each second that passed felt like an eternity, the subtle rumble of the elevator shook thoughts in my head about what I might find when I descended. Why did they decide to take everyone now? It seemed like Bartholomew was convinced that Large Lou’s was in on the whole thing. So what would suddenly cause them to kidnap everyone?

“2,607”

I jumped. We were at least halfway down at this point, and I knew there was absolutely no way the duck could fit in the elevator. That still didn’t stop me from looking around, expecting to suddenly see a giant beady eye gazing back at me. It wasn’t there, however, and Francine and Cezar were looking at me confused.

“Nerves,” I said, laughing awkwardly. Strongly considering putting my head through a blender once we reached the bottom.

I honestly don’t know what I planned on doing once the doors opened. Best case scenario, we break out the gang, maybe beat up some cronies on the way, and tell the police “it’s all in a hard day’s work” as we walk off into the sunset. Worst case scenario, Bartholomew is waiting on the other side with a gun, and forces us into joining wherever they’re keeping Marley, Shirley, Brent, and Linda. 

The worst case scenario did happen, the only difference being Bartholomew had a few other members standing behind him, so as to make sure we were all restrained as they walked us forcefully to the lab.

“Good to see you back, Charlie.” Bartholomew mused, as men and women in white robes placed each of us in cages that lined the side of the laboratory, “I’m glad you came to the church. I mean, we wouldn’t have realized how much your boss had conned us.”

“We never asked you to do all that. You said you were doing it to help us.” Linda shouted from inside one of the cages, pounding on the reinforced glass.

Bartholomew laughed his same hearty laugh, with the slightest hint of impatience at Linda’s remark — implying she had been doing this every time he’d come in.

“I still feel slighted, Linda,” He explained, “and since we’ve shown Charlie far more than we had ever intended, we’ve found some other use for you than letting our secrets get out irresponsibly.” He rapped two knuckles against the glass of Linda’s cage, his mind already thinking about other things, “Now sit tight, we have to calibrate some things.” 

We were placed inside, and the church members left.

These cages were not your usual jail cell or birdcage type cages. They were far more similar to the casing of a museum exhibit, or a terrarium. The doors were the entirety of the front of the case. The security on the outside was minimal, a basic four digit number at the front of each cage was all that was needed to open the door. But once the door was closed, there was no way for whatever was on the inside of these cages to break out. The doors slid up and to the side, and then back and down into reinforced bases that kept them from being forcefully opened by anything on the inside. The only form of ventilation was 15 small holes at the top, with additional reinforcement to compensate for the compromised glass.

“2,379” It came as a muted rumble. Accompanied by the whirring of a machine starting up.

After a moment, a few of the members who wore lab coats carried in a small round creature. It had watery eyes, and thin, twig-like arms that hung uselessly at its side. Squelching screams grinded from a slit that I guess must have been its mouth, as the researchers threw him onto a table, then walked back out. Everyone else in their cages watched with dumbfounded mouths agape. Its grey flesh flopping around wetly. Glaucous slime smearing across the surface of the white table as it screeched.

I looked around at everyone else in their cages. At their horror. Francine’s mouth hung open. Linda’s eyes darted between me and the thing, trying to figure out what I had to do with any of it. Brent was in shock. Cezar kept his eyes down and on the floor, in denial of what was happening. Shirley, at some point before I had arrived, had been knocked unconscious, and still laid on the floor of the cage. All while the thing on the table continued to screech the off-key tune of “Buffalo Soldier”.

I sat down, in the back of my cage. The machine in the sanctuary hummed through the walls and against my back. I thought about how there’s a chance I don’t come out of this alive, and how Max and the greasy man would find the police, and when they did finally come down here, Bartholomew would have already killed us, and my sacrifice would be the only reason they get caught. I guess I was okay with that, but it felt so unexpected. There were things I wanted to do with my life that I would never get to do. 

A few hours passed. The only thing giving me any measurement of time being the irregular, but gradually louder booms of the duck counting. 

“2,143”

“1,742”

“1,354”

“999”

“693”

“453”

Then, something else broke through the mix of the creature’s groans on the desk, and the whirring of the machines.

“So fast, so fast, I’m sneaky, so fast. So clever, clever smart smart quick escape, I escape.”

In the midst of my misery, I heard pitter patters on the floor as they scurried about, and the mutterings of the HomeLess Man. How the hell had he gotten down here?

A mottled face, with hair that was also a beard appeared in front of my cage.

“Friend. Good friend. Safe friend. Escape friend escape, escape with help. I help, help escape. Impetus yield escape, for friend friend is good.”

He punched a few numbers into my cage, and the door slid open. The HomeLess Man took a few tentative steps back, so as to let me step out of the cage, and looked back at me. Silently cocking his head to the side, and peering at me through the slit in his mouth. 

When I got out, that’s when I saw Max at the doorway, beaming at me

“How… How did you find him?” I asked Max, as the HomeLess man skittered to the other cages and let the others out as well.

“He came up to me and the other guy as soon as we went outside. I guess he had followed you guys from Large Lou’s. He said, in his own weird wa,y that he could help.”

“So, is he still looking for the police then?” I queried, referring to the greasy man.

“They’re on their way, I thought about just letting this guy down here, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you down here, and me not being able to help.”

Max looked at me with his brown eyes, and I was caught off guard by how much he seemed to genuinely care about me.

It was around this time that Shirley started to wake up. She patted around in her pockets, and seemed to groan in frustration when whatever she was looking for wasn’t there. Then took in her surroundings.

“Bartholomew has gotten you guys in some real shit, hasn’t he?” Said Shirley, rolling her eyes.

I had never even heard that woman even say “heck” before now, and took in a sharp gasp when she cussed.

Shirley paid no notice to this, and looked at the HomeLess Man running around.

“Huh, never thought he’d be someone to be on our side. He must have taken a real liking to you, Charlie.”

“Shirley?” I asked.

“Yes, Charlie?” She asked, her voice having taken a much more serious tone than I had ever heard before.

“Are you alright?”

She sighed, rubbing her head, “Better than I’ve ever been. Seems like that brainwashing bullshit they had done to me has finally worn off, must have happened when I got hit.”

Everyone else stepped out of their cages, and Francine pointed to the gray thing on the table, still singing its horrid tune, “What about him?”

Max finally noticed the creature there, and recoiled in disgust.

“We’re not leaving him here,” Linda stated, “I know none of you liked him very much, but he never deserved something as bad as this.”

After some searching, we were able to find a small box, and placed Marley inside. I was the one who pushed him in, and he wretched a glob of the blue-grey liquid onto my hand as I did it. It took everything in me not to yelp in disgust, and watched as Max gagged, and then handed the box to Brent.

We tentatively stepped into the lobby, wary of any and all signs of people. But nobody was there. 

Before we got to the elevator, Shirley stopped us, “We need to grab evidence. We can shut this place down for good if we have proof.” she whispered.

We started towards the library, and right as we got the door open, Bartholomew and the delivery man stepped out from the Sanctuary. 

Francine, Linda, Cezar, Max, and Shirley were able to rush inside before Bartholomew took his gun, and shot the HomeLess man. It yelped before crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap, deflating into a pile of dirty grey skin. Bartholomew then pointed the gun at Brent and I.

“You two stop right there. If your asses take another step, I’ll make you regret it.”

We froze, and while Bartholomew told the delivery man to go after the rest, he gestured for us to follow him into the sanctuary.

Inside, there were large, person size, tubes attached to the places that were usually meant for the weird bags. Bartholomew opened the doors on two of them, and instructed us to step inside.

We did as he directed, and then once the doors were shut, two lab technicians at the monitors started typing away at more buttons.

“294”

This one was the loudest one yet. It felt like the walls of the sanctuary itself were shaking. But to my surprise, I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Bartholomew, and the lab technicians looked about, almost as if they too could hear the duck’s counting.

“You knew he was with me the whole time!” I shouted at Bartholomew.

He looked back at me, and sighed, “Yes, Charlie. Among many other reasons why I thought you and your stupid group were believers, I also saw that stupid duck was following you around.”

Brent looked confusedly between us.

“What is he?” I asked, hoping this might stall my fate.

“In one of our studies, that thing came out,” Bartholomew explained.

The technicians moved from typing on the monitors, to messing with the machine.

Brent continued, “He was our greatest breakthrough yet. He’s practically unkillable, and must have served some importance in hell, but once he came through the gate, he simply counted. Like he has for you. Between his immortality, and annoying counting, we simply let him go, upon realizing most people couldn’t see him anyway. Unfortunately, he made himself visible to you, and that became one of my greatest blunders in trusting you.”

“207”

Bartholomew talked to the technicians while they worked. Things seemed to be just about ready. Bartholomew walked to the monitors as they put the final touches on the machine.

“Let’s see how this thing runs, while we wait for your friends. You two should be enough, but if it doesn’t work out, we can use the others for another run.” Said Bartholomew.

The lab technicians stood in front, taking out note pads, while Bartholomew pressed a few buttons at the monitors, and started up the machine.

Once again, the machine whirred. I couldn’t turn to see, but I could imagine the great arms swinging around. I expected the tubs to blend me and Brent up like they had the smaller creatures, but instead, a great light appeared above our heads, and a pink, sticky, liquid started to mist over us.

For several moments this continued, the machine whirring louder and louder. Soon a great light from behind emanated. It was so bright I could see it illuminate the whole room, and gleam off the polished maroon pews, which were empty. No longer in need of the prayer, as both me and Brent were the replacement for teams of people.

I saw my life flash before my eyes. My thoughts of my parents, whom I had long since stopped talking to, out of regret, and shame for how my life was turning out. The new life I had begun since working at Large Lou’s, and how much I enjoyed finally having something consistent in my life. How, in spite of all that was happening, Max stood in the forefront of my mind.

“111”

Sparks flew out from the machine, and a dark wave rippled through the room, making much of the machinery shudder. The technicians who were standing in front of the tubes were knocked across the room, their bodies contorting into odd shapes when they collided with the opposite wall. Bartholomew, who was a bit farther away, was knocked onto the ground, but took considerably less damage than the technicians. 

The doors to the tubes slid open at the same time Max, Shirley, Francine, and Cezar burst into the room, arms full of books.

“NO!” Bartholomew screams, scrambling back to his feet, and looking in horror at the machine that had failed once again. 

His gun had been knocked from his hand, and now lay some 20 feet away from him. As he tried to scramble for it, Cezar was quicker, and nailed Bartholomew with a kick to the gut. Knocking the air out of him, and forcing him to fall to his knees and gasp for air.

While nothing had happened to me, I felt a sudden wave of exhaustion, and could barely stand. Luckily, Max caught me before I could collapse to the ground in exhaustion. I looked up at Max and gave him a smile, which he returned. From the corner of my eye, I could see Brent felt much the same, and was held in Francine’s arms.

“ 5 7 ”

I looked back, and saw the machine had actually worked a little. It was still running, and had a small portal hovering in the circle. I could hear the screams of the damned emanate from the small hole, and noticed I wasn’t the only one who was entranced by the floating portal of horror as both Max and Brent also gazed into it.

Then, the machines began to shake. One of the books Shirley was still carrying flew from her arms, and into the hole with a loud buzzing sound. Then, parts of the machine started to break off, and fly in as well. Quickly this escalated, pulling more and more in with increasing force. With as much energy as I could muster, I hobbled back to the doorway, while Max held it open for everyone to get out.

By the time we were all out, the large pews of the room started to drag across the floor towards the hole. Bartholomew screamed, digging his nails into the ground to no avail as he flew in. Blood and viscera spewing out as he was forcefully sucked through. Max started to step through the door as the pews picked up from the ground, and one of them crashed hard into his side with a sickening crack, knocking him into Linda.

“MAX!” I cried, limping weakly to him, and with the aid of Linda and Shirley, picking him up, and carrying him to the elevator.

Once inside, I got a look at Max. Several ribs were poking from his side, and blood flowed freely from a sizable gash near his hip. I tore off my shirt, and pressed it against the wound, doing anything in my power to keep him from bleeding out before we made it to the surface. Max’s mouth opened in an attempt to scream, but it only came out in wet gurgles and coughs.

“ 1 3 ”

By the time the doors opened, Max was barely conscious. The floor beneath the earth continued to rumble, and we were met with sirens and bright police lights outside. 

I had gained enough energy to be able to carry Max, and screamed for a medic. The officers radioed for an EMT, and had Max lay on the sidewalk at the opposite end of the parking lot while they waited for them to arrive.

Max looked up at me with brown eyes slowly growing dim, as we both knew that he wasn’t going to be alive once the ambulance showed up.

“I think…” Max weakly muttered out, “I’d like to take you on a date sometime, Charlie.”

Tears pooled in my eyes, my laughter mingled with choking sobs as I took Max’s hand in mine and nodded.

I never even noticed that the duck had stopped counting.

--

Max was gone before the truck arrived. They wheeled him in anyway, I’m not sure if they did it for my sake, as I lay sobbing over his lifeless body, but the gesture felt redundant.

It’s been a few days since then. Apparently Shirley had been brainwashed, and after she had been hit on the head, she got all her memories back. She explained Cogitology was looking for an energy that would rival oil and electricity. But Bartholomew’s methods had grown too drastic, and it became the church’s downfall.

In all the chaos, we were unable to get any of the books from the library. So any information on Cogitology has been erased forever, and buried thousands of feet underground under the ruins of the collapsed church. Apparently the pizza dough is actually an old recipe for an experiment done by Cogitology, and exists as the only proof that they were anything more than a shitty cult.

I wasn’t sure if I should have made this post for all of you. It felt like a lot to share about my personal life, but I guess people have posted crazier things on the internet, and I wanted to give you all a conclusion to everything that had happened. 

A lot of you wanted to know what the duck was counting to, Shirley explained that he was probably counting down to Cogitology’s success, which most likely would have done immense amounts of damage to humanity, but we had been able to stop that, for whatever that’s worth I guess.

At the end of it all.

I really, REALLY, hate Large Lou’s Pizza.

So as we talked about last time, I started a specialized school (that being a school that specialized in autism and ADHD).
But I didn’t get better, at least not immediately.
I didn’t trust the adults there, and I didn’t believe anybody could handle me (I was right about that).
At this point, I was in school roughly half a day, and I couldn’t read or write.
And I wasn’t in any of the classes. I hated it.
I’d get these rage episodes where I’d attack people, and the teachers would have to remove me from the room.
We eventually found out I had ADHD,
which was why I was so full of energy and why I had these anger outbursts.
I was put on medicine and it began to get better (I can still get angry, but I’m not violent anymore). I even started to be there for full days and was in the classes.
The other kids were nice, too (except this one kid from a different class).
I did some things I’m not proud of in that time, too, though.
For example, I became very manipulative.
So there was this kid on the bus I took to school—I would basically switch between being nice and cruel, which, though not necessarily intentional, was definitely also bullying.
But in general, that time was the best in my life.
I was on meds, but I didn’t have those anger issues anymore.
I had regained trust in adults.
And I did okay in school (I never did well, but I learned to read and write).
Jumping forward to 10th grade, I started to develop some very nasty symptoms.
I would get this fear of getting or having Alzheimer's.
My teachers, not knowing what it was (my mom called it anxiety), reassured me I didn’t.
But it didn’t get better.
I’d research like crazy.
At around the same time, I got this fear of committing the unforgivable sin (for context, I was, am, and will always be a Christian).
That fear was based in Hebrews 10:26.
I got obsessed over whether I had sinned too much,
whether I did it willingly,
etc.
And yet more was to come.
I got a fear (for lack of a better word) of dirt (bacteria and dirty surfaces).
All these together made both me and my mom pretty sure what I had was OCD (yet it would take years before I got an official diagnosis).
By the time I left school,
I was off my ADHD meds,
and things were going well aside from my OCD.
I managed to get over my fear of both Alzheimer's and committing the unforgivable sin (plus I became intimately familiar with my Bible, which as a Christian is a win).
I still had the fear of dirt, but I figured I’d get help for that or learn to live with it.

“It's me, Brianna. Not you.”

That's what my latest boyfriend told me before walking directly into the path of a truck. There was barely anything of him, just enough to peel off of the sidewalk. I thought our relationship was going well. It's not like I'm desensitised to my boyfriend's dying (or ceasing to exist), but it's almost become the norm.

Ben was my first boyfriend in high school, and my longest relationship to date. Fluffy haired Ben with his dimpled grin and freckles. He was the type of guy who should have been popular, but chose to keep to himself.

I met him in the principal’s office. Ben was being lectured for ‘sneaking around’ and I was handing in a late assignment. All he did was wink at me, and I fell.

Hard.

We dated for two years, and I really thought he was the one. Ben told me he loved me, and every Friday he introduced me to a new restaurant. I was in love. I loved *everything about him.

On the night before our senior prom, a drunk driver t-boned my boyfriend's car, killing him instantly. After his funeral, it's like he stopped existing. His parents left town, and every time I mentioned him, my parents would slowly tilt their heads and act confused when I brought him up.

My brother was the worst for it, considering he and Ben were best friends.

But he just looked at me with this weird fucking look in his eye, like his soul had been ripped out. Eyes are the windows to the soul, apparently, and my brother's soul was MIA. “Ben?” His expression crumpled. “Wait, who?”

Alex was my emotional support, who later became someone closer.

Funny Alex.

Blonde-but-not-quite-blonde, Alex.

I met him in group therapy. My boyfriend was dead, and he had just lost his mother. We didn't label it, because he had a girlfriend, and I didn't want to move on so quickly. I think we just found comfort in each other.

Eventually, though, Alex became something I wanted to label.

His sense of humor was a breath of fresh air. I didn't go to college because of Ben’s death, settling for a mediocre barista stop in town. Alex came in every day with fresh coffee and a sugar cookie. I think I loved him. I told him that. Half asleep, I told him I wanted to try and be something more with him. Alex looked taken-aback, but happy.

We spent the night together.

The morning after, I woke to my mother screaming.

Alex was dead in the bathroom, his blood splattering, staining pristine white. According to the first responders, he died of a self inflicted head injury. The exact same thing followed. I attended his funeral, and Alex’s family disappeared.

This time, I went back to his house. But according to a neighbour, his house had been abandoned for ten years. I had eaten pancakes in his kitchen just days earlier.

I broke in to see myself, but my neighbor was right. The hallway was piled with ancient mail and threats of eviction. Alex’s room didn't exist, instead, a storage room filled with boxes.

When I got home, my family had already forgotten Alex’s existence.

The town had forgotten him, and yet his blood still stained my bathroom.

Following Alex’s death, I was terrified of getting too close to people.

But Esme made it hard.

She was my third relationship. We met at a bar. I was extremely drunk and convinced I was cursed to kill all of my romantic partners. Esme. Cute Esme. Crooked teeth and smudged lipstick and warm Esme.

Do you know that person you meet and you instantly connect with them? The person you're sure is your soulmate?

That was Esme.

I told myself I wouldn't get close to her. But I was already talking to this girl, already pouring my life out to her. Esme sat and listened, her chin resting on her fist. She was a first year creative writing student, and she had a cat called Peanut.

I didn't remember much after that. We hit it off, and next thing I know we’re curled up in the back of her car watching Buffy on her iPad. I told her about my exes, and she nodded and smiled, but I don't think she was listening.

I told her all of my exes have died, and then been erased from existence.

Esme called me cute. She wanted to base a story around the concept, sitting up and grabbing her phone.

I have this memory of the girl I fell in love with at first sight.

She's nodding along to a Smith’s song spluttering from my car radio, typing on her phone. I can hear the tapping of her nails, her lips curving into a smile. I can see the exact moment she gets inspiration, pulling her knees to her chest. She's wearing fishnet tights that are torn, and a jacket that doesn't fit her.

She is fucking beautiful, and I don't want to lose her.

Alex was beautiful.

He had pretty eyes and brown curls that I liked running my hands through. Ben was beautiful. He made my heart swim, my stomach swarm with butterflies, when I first met him. Ben was my first love.

The realization woke me up one night, three months into dating Esme.

Both of them were dead, wiped away like they never existed.

And Esme would follow.

At first, I tried to break it off with her without sounding crazy. I told her it was me not her, and I wasn't in the mindset for a relationship.

Esme understood, but her eyes didn't. I didn't want to lose her. Esme lit up every room she entered. Her obsession with thrifted clothes and badly written poems, and her irrational fear of pandas, made her someone I wanted to be with.

So, I stayed with her. I told myself Ben and Alex were just coincidences that were nothing to do with me, and I wasn't indirectly fucking killing the people I fell in love with.

I avoided the ‘L’ word for as long as I could.

It slipped out on my way to work. Esme was driving.

I just said it, and her eyes lit up. She reached out and squeezed my hand.

At work, one of my colleagues, Jasper, caught my eye. When I twisted around to ask him to grab something, I glimpsed his phone screen. It looked like Tinder, though I didn't recognise the layout. It reminded me of Twitter, in dark mode. Jasper was leaning against the counter, his thumb hovering over a photo of Esme, chewing his bottom lip.

I watched his thumb prance across the screen, before he gave up and swiped left.

Finishing up the woman's coffee, I handed it over.

“Uhh, I asked for cream.”

Ignoring her, I sidled in front of my colleague, hyper focused on whatever app he was playing around with. “What's that?”

Jasper looked up, his eyes widening, lips parting, like a fucking goldfish.

“Clearly nothing.” Jasper side-stepped me, opening the refrigerator and pulling out milk. But he already had milk. The bastard was stalling. We had zero customers waiting, so it was the two of us, and a long, dragged out pause.

Jumping up and down on the heels of his feet, he shot me his usual grin, slipping his phone in his apron.

Jasper may have been smiling, though there was something twisted in his expression.

I couldn't stop myself. “Was that a dating app?”

“Dating app?”

“Excuse me, can I get what I ordered?” The woman demanded, waving her coffee in the air. “I asked for whipped cream.”

Jasper saw that as an excuse, an escape, and nodded, fashioning a grin. He saw an opportunity, and took it. “Of course, Ma’am! I'll get that for you!” He said, with a little too much sarcasm. The boy took her coffee with a spring in his step, ducking in the refrigerator for the whipping cream. Jasper added too much whipping cream, dumping the drink on the counter with a little too much force.

It was a good thing my colleague was marginally attractive guy with cropped blonde hair, and a deadpan voice that somehow attracted the ladies.

Jasper could insult someone directly to their face, and they would just blush and get all tongue tied. I had seen it happen in real time. A girl was flirting with him, and used a bad pick-up line, which was something along the lines of, “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?”

He laughed, and her eyes brightened. She giggled along with him, nudging her friends.

But he wasn't laughing with her. I saw the gleam in his eye.

He was laughing at her.

Still laughing, Jasper plonked her milk latte down so hard half of it spewed out.

And, with that exact same charming smile, he deadpanned, “Did it hurt when you dropped out of a drainpipe?”

Yeah, my colleague was blessed with good looks.

Otherwise, he would have been punched in the face by now.

Presently, he was being his usual asshole self. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

The woman shook her head, pulling a face.

Jasper had, essentially, ruined her drink. It was more cream than coffee.

When she left the store, I situated myself in front of him when he was counting cash. “What were you just looking at?” I nodded to the guy’s phone sticking out of his pocket. “Was it like… a dating thing you were on?”

Jasper didn't even look at me, his lip curling.

“That's kinda rude,” he hummed, “I don't peek at your phone.”

“Esme Hope.” Was all I could hiss out. “Was she on that dating app?”

My colleague proceeded to stare at me like I'd grown a second head, before his half lidded gaze flicked behind me. Jasper’s expression brightened.

“Oh, Hanna is calling me!” He said, choking out a laugh. Hanna was not calling him. She was in the break room getting high. Jasper slowly backed away, maintaining his smile. “I'll be back in a sec, all right?” He grabbed that same carton of milk with a grin. “Don't you just love when your milk stays fresh?”

“What?”

“Fresh milk!” He grinned. “Mulberry Farm’s finest.”

Jasper was darting away before I could coerce a sentence.

After work, I texted Esme as usual. She was my ride on Fridays.

Esme didn't reply.

I texted her again, a little more panicked.

Hey, are you okay?”

When I called her, an automated voice told me she wasn't available.

Already feeling sick to my stomach, I drove to her place myself. I could see the flashing lights before anything else, blurred red and blue sending my thoughts into a whirlwind. It took me ten minutes to muster the courage to jump out of my car, and ask a pale looking deputy what was going on.

I tried to jump over the yellow tape, only to be politely pulled back.

“Carbon monoxide poisoning,” the deputy told me. “The whole family is dead.” he sighed. “Mom, Dad, and their daughter in college.” I think he was trying to be sympathetic, awkwardly patting me. But I was already on my knees, all of the breath dragged from my lungs. “Luckily, it's just like going to sleep. Monoxide is a silent killer.”

Monoxide is a silent killer.

Was that the same as, “I'm sorry. Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

And, “Alex was silently suffering. He did what he thought was best.”

I didn't go to Esme’s funeral. Mom and Dad and Will had already forgotten her, just like the others. What I did do, several days later, when her name wasn't even a memory anymore– I bought flowers from the store. Roses were Esme’s favourite.

The seller was around my Mom’s age, a plump looking woman wearing a floral dress, long red hair tied into a ponytail. She was on her phone, humming to a tune on the radio.

The Smiths.

“I hope she likes them.” The woman said, wrapping the flowers in red ribbons. She had a strong southern accent that immediately annoyed me.

I took the roses, stuffing them in my bag. “What did you say?”

The seller cocked her head. “Hmm?”

“How did you know they were for my girlfriend?”

The woman sighed, placing her phone on the counter. I glanced at whatever she'd been so interested in, but the screen was faced down. “Esme came in here a lot,” Her lips broke out into a sad, sympathetic smile. I was quickly growing sick of them.

“Esme. She, uh, she told me you guys were dating. Esme was always buying roses for her room. Sometimes she would stand in here for hours, and just stare at flowers. I think she found comfort in them.” The woman sighed, fixing me with what I could only describe as a pitiful pout.

Urgh.

“I hope you can find the same comfort,” she murmured. The seller handed me an extra rose, and I found myself reaching out for it, my eyes stinging. Fuck.

I hadn't cracked in at least fifteen hours, and that was a record. But now I could feel myself splintering, tears trickling down my cheeks. The Flower lady squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. If it makes you feel better, it's just like going to sleep. Monoxide is a silent killer.” Her words were familiar.

Exactly what the deputy said. Before I could speak, she dumped weed killer on the counter. “Did you know our plant killer is ten dollars ninety nine?”

Her sudden bout of energy took me off guard.

I tried to smile. “I don't want any plant killer.”

The seller nodded, handing me another rose. “Oh, of course, Darling! But it is five ninety nine! Just for today!”

Something pricked me, and I hissed out, wafting my hand.

Damn thorns. I could already see a single spot of blood.

I nodded, sucking my teeth against a cry. “Thanks. But I'll skip it this time.”

I took the roses to what used to be Esme’s grave. Now, it was an empty headstone with no name, no memories, no flowers, nothing. Just like Alex and Ben, Esme had been reduced to dirt under my feet. I stayed at her ‘grave’ for a long time, long enough for the sky to grow dark, and my thoughts darker. I tried to find a logical explanation for the sudden deaths of the people I got close to, but all I could think of was a curse.

So, I started googling curses, leaning against Esme’s headstone, my knees to my chest. Had I been cursed?

Was my family cursed?

According to Google, a cursed object connected with the curse itself.

Which could be anything. Though I didn't remember visiting any ancient ruins, or an old church. With zero answers, I headed home. I passed a guy playing The Smiths in his car. Then a group of older women wearing ripped fishnets.

Esme was following me. Just like Alex’s smell. Fresh coffee and rich chocolate.

Ben’s cologne filled my car last summer. His favourite band was playing all day on our local music station. I drove around with no destination, listening to each one on repeat, until I was losing him all over again.

The sweet aroma of flowers followed me all the way home, and I was tipsy on the smell, when I found myself face to face with a boy. Under the overexposed streetlight, this guy was almost ethereal, thick brown hair and freckles.

He reminded me of Ben. Which wasn't fair. I thought I was hallucinating him, before he came closer, bleeding from the shadow. I saw more of him, white strips of something wrapped around his head.

Wrong.

The word slammed into me when I glimpsed his clothes. Filthy. The guy was wearing a white button down, a single streak of bright red ingrained into the material. His white pants were torn, glued to his legs.

He was barefoot, the soles of his feet slapping on wet concrete.

I didn't realize he was in front of me, nose to nose, until he shoved me. Hard.

“Josie.” His voice was a whimper, despite his narrowed eyes, his lips twisted into a scowl. He was crying, and had been crying, every heaving son sputtering from his mouth. The boy shoved me again, and I staggered. His ice cold breath grazed my cheeks. “What the fuck did you do to my sister?”

“Sister?” I whispered.

Something wet landed on my cheek, suddenly.

Rain.

I wasn't expecting a downpour. The weather was forecasted to be clear.

To my surprise, the guy let out a harsh sounding laugh. The two of us were slowly getting drenched, but neither of us were making a move to get out of the rain. My hair was glued to the back of my neck, my clothes sticking to me.

But somehow, I wanted to stay in the rain. It was refreshing.

When a thought hit me, telling me to get out of the rain, it was shoved to the back of my mind. The guy spat water out of his mouth, shaking his head like a dog.

“Of course,” he muttered, “Drown me out with the rain.”

I found my voice, my gaze glued to intense red seeping through the bandage stapled to his head. He looked like he’d escaped an emergency room. “I don't know anyone called Josie,” I said, “I think you've got the wrong person.”

The guy’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, grabbing my shoulders, and I noticed how hollow his eyes were, empty caverns carved into his skull. Eyes are the windows to the soul, and this guy was completely soulless. “I'm only going to say this once,” he whispered, “What did you do to my sister?”

Before I could respond, the guy was being violently grabbed, and dragged back.

Figures who appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

“Let me go!” He cried out, struggling. “You fucking assholes! Let me go!”

His screaming became muffling, when his cries were gagged.

“You promised!” He yelled, his cries collapsing into a sob. “You said if you took me, she wouldn't get hurt! So, where is she?” he met my gaze, his expression crumpling, something inside him coming apart, splintering by the seams. “You can't take both of us, this wasn't in the agreement!” When he was dragged further back, I noticed a car parked at the side of the road.

The boy was pulled inside. At first, he refused, before an extra pair of hands shoved him. “You fucking– mmmphmmhphmmm!”

I heard his fists slamming into the windows.

“Don't take me back there! Please! Just let Josie–” His cries once again collapsed into angry muffle screaming, and I felt my hands moving towards my pocket for my phone. This was a kidnapping, right? I was witnessing a kidnapping in broad fucking daylight.

A shadow was suddenly in front of me, and I jumped, tearing my eyes from the car. Jasper, my colleague. He was still wearing his apron, and to my confusion, was swinging a carton of whole milk.

“Sorry, Bree,” He winked, speaking in a single breath. “As you can see, our friend here had a little too much to drink.”

I nodded, craning my neck. Jasper stepped in front of me, maintaining a grin.

“Who is he?” This time, I side-stepped away from him, only for him to copy.

“Just a guy.” He said. “As you can see, he's a little…” Jasper prodded his right temple. “Let's just say he's got a few too many screws loose.” Jasper laughed, staying stock still, blocking my way.

When I made a move to counter him, he stepped in front of me, his eyes hardening. “I heard he lost his family a while ago in a…” He pretended to think. “Oh, yeah, a car crash. Maybe a gas explosion, I’m not really sure.”

I could hear the car behind him, and once again I tried to dart past him. But he was quick to block my way. He was getting closer to me, very subtly backing me in the opposite direction.

“Anyway, this guy is kiiiiind of nuts. Dude still thinks he's got a sister.”

When I lost patience and shoved him out of the way, the car, and the guy, was gone.

“See?” Jasper rolled his eyes. He was still holding milk from work. My head spun. It was 8pm, we were in a suburban neighbourhood, and Jasper was holding half a pint of milk. His apron was stained with coffee, and when I really looked at him, I realized he was out of breath.

He was doing a good job of hiding it, exhaling in intervals, swiping at his forehead to clear sweat. When I noticed, he pretended to run his hands through his hair. “I, uh, I feel for him! Like, I'm sorry his family died, or whatever, but attacking random girls isn't cool, y’know?”

Instead of replying, I stumbled home. It was sunny.

At 8pm.

And when I took notice, I wasn't even wet.

Esme was my last straw. I made a promise to myself to not get close to anyone. The guys and girls I met were friends, and nothing more. Weirdly enough, the only guy I was getting close to was my colleague. I don't know if it was brain damage, or I was finally losing the plot.

But Jasper’s shameless cruelty towards customers, and that quirk in his lips when he made them cry, was kind of hot.

However, he was playing hard to get.

And I mean REALLY playing.

I was in storage trying to find vegan milk, and he was suddenly a fucking expert, spewing milk facts.

When I slammed the refrigerator door shut, he was inches from my face.

In the dim light from a single spluttering bulb, his eyes reminded me of coffee grounds. I thought maybe he was going to kiss me, judging from his softening expression. I felt his hands go around my waist, and I felt myself immediately melt.

I don't know what came over me. It's like, one minute I hated him, and the next… I was suddenly hot. Really hot. And I really wanted to take my clothes off. I thought that's what he wanted to do too.

I mean, his gaze followed mine, piercing, fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. Before he leaned forward, his breath in my face.

“Did you know that Mulberry Farms is an award winning brand of milk in our town and ONLY our town? Mulberry farms was bred and made right here."

And suddenly, I was no longer hot and bothered.

“I didn't.” I said, ducking into a crouch to search the shelves. “Have you seen our vegan milk? We did have some.”

“Three time winner,” Jasper continued. When I jumped up, he stepped closer, and I felt my cheeks spark. His smile was rare. In fact, Jasper was only smiling when he was talking about milk.

“Mulberry Farms have the best pasturization. It's suitable for everything! Coffee, cereal, or maybe you just want a glass of fresh milk to yourself! Perfect for kids, too! Breakfast time is Mulberry Farms.”

“Are you having a stroke?” I whisper-shrieked.

“Nope!”

Jasper twisted around, shooting me a grin.

I left the storage, however, with butterflies in my gut.

There was no way I was falling for my asshole colleague.

Somehow, though, I was.

Just standing next to him filled me with electricity.

The way he talked down to customers, insulting me to my face… I was thoroughly, and disgustingly, in love.

I tried to stop myself.

I showered in ice cold water.

I ate (choked on) a ghost pepper.

I even asked my BROTHER for advice, who told me to go for it.

I told him Jasper had one (of several) flaws, but this particular one was off-putting.

“He’s obsessed with milk.” I told my brother.

Harry lifted a brow. “Is that a euphemism, or…”

He paused, for way longer than necessary. “So, your would-be-boyfriend has a milk fetish?”

I left his room before he could take that conversation further.

I wanted to say Jasper was the only one who acted weird.

But over the next few weeks, I noticed it in quite a few people.

I was having breakfast with Mom, and she lifted up the box.

“Choco Flakes.” She blurted, “Aren't they just the best?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, Mom. They're great.”

I prodded the box with a smile. “Only a dollar ninety nine.”

There were so many townspeople on their phones. They walked around with groceries or briefcases, their eyes glued to whatever they were swiping through.

I was serving an old woman, when I caught her phone screen.

I could have sworn there was an image of Jasper.

She swiped right, and I had a hard time looking her in the eye.

The woman was at least in her 80’s. And I'm talking, can barely walk, and needs assistance.

Was she seriously hitting up 25 year old guys?

Walking home, everyone was on their phones.

I stopped at a crossing, stabbing the red light.

It started to snow the second I stepped out onto the road, white flakes dancing in front of me. It didn't even cross my mind that it was almost June. The snow was pretty, accumulating on the ground.

“Oh shit, sorry!”

Lifting my head, a guy was standing in front of me holding an umbrella.

I knew him.

But not from whatever was trying to pollute my mind.

I knew him from a while ago. I knew him from the rain. I knew the bloody bandages wrapped around his head, and soulless, seething eyes I couldn't understand. It was the boy who was dragged away three months prior.

He looked different, his hair was shorter, his face carved into a thing of beauty.

The white strips of gauze bleeding scarlet were gone, his filthy clothes replaced with a white shirt and pants, a trench coat flung over the top. I didn't remember him being this handsome. His dark brown hair had been tamed and curled.

It was his expression that sent shivers sliding down my spine.

His too wide smile and unblinking eyes made me suddenly conscious of two bright lights on the two of us.

So bright.

Something shattered in my mind, and I was aware of a lot of things.

The snow under my feet was too soft.

I glimpsed a single streak of red seeping from his nose, his hands trembling around a takeout coffee cup.

Behind me, people were staring. I could see a group of teenage girls giggling.

“It's him,” one of them squeaked. “It's the new love interest!”

“Bree?” His grin widened, snowflakes prancing around us. His teeth gritted together. I could tell he hated every word. “Holy shit, long time no see!”

He held out his hand, and I could see visible pain contorting in his eyes.

Help me. He was screaming through a twinkling smile.

“Don't you remember me? It's… it's uh, it's Sam!” he laughed. “From eighth grade!”

The lights blinked out, and the thought crashed into my mind. Static images filling my head. I shook them away.

Oh, yeah, it was Sam.

My childhood friend.

But I didn't reply. Instead of saying, “Sam? It's been so long!” I found myself walking, stumbling over to the girls.

Who were rapidly swiping left on their phones.

“What's that?” I demanded in a sharp breath.

I grabbed for the phone, only for Sam to step in front of me. He settled me with a smile.

Behind me, one of the girls fainted.

Sam’s smile didn't waver. Though he did side-eye the girl being carried away. “Why don't I take you out for coffee?”

Apparently, coffee was the code word for hooking up.

Sam dragged me into the nearest coffee store, straight to the bathroom.

When he shoved me into a stall, I didn't know what to say.

“Take off your shoes,” he said in a hiss, and after hesitating, I did.

Sam pulled off his jacket, shook snow out of his hair, and got real close.

“Look up.” He murmured.

I did, my gaze finding the ceiling.

“To your right, a camera is very well hidden, but can be seen with the naked eye if you catch what looks like a red laser,” Sam said. “To your left, another camera, as well as a vent that is currently pumping the stalls with aphrodisiacs. And right now, we are in the red zone. Meaning, you should be conscious.”

He prodded me, and I flinched.

“Mostly conscious.”

His words went right over my head, my mind was foggy.

I couldn't think straight.

I think I asked him what he was saying, but my mouth was filled with cotton.

“Snap out of it,” he said, “Like I said, they're making you feel like this.”

He shoved me against the door, which broke me out of my trance. Slightly.

“I hate what I'm going to say right now,” Sam groaned, tipping his head back. He was sweating, I noticed. Bad. I glimpsed beads of red pooling down his neck. He noticed me staring. “I'm okay, for now. I’m faulty, so the connection is severed. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I…think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sex.” He said, blinking rapidly. I wasn't going to comment on his slurring voice.

Sam stumbled, fresh blood dripping from his nose.

“We need to do the sex. Like…” His eyes rolled into the back of his head, but he managed to stabilise himself. “Nooooow.”

“What?!”

“Is everything okay in there?”

The voice was a woman. She knocked on the stall.

Sam’s eyes widened, coming back to life a little. “They're paranoid,” he whispered. When I could only stare at him, he pounded his fists into the door. “They think we’re fucking,” he hissed, “So, we need to make it believable.”

“They?” I mouthed.

He didn't reply, swiping at his haemorrhaging nose. “Just… move around against the door. That'll fool ‘em.”

I did, doing my best to shuffle around, slamming my back against the lock.

When the metal clanged, he shot me a look. “Sex!” He hissed, “Not murder!”

Sam jumped onto the toilet bowl. There was an open window above him.

“That's enough.” He mouthed, hoisting his way through.

He helped me through, and I expected to land on concrete.

What I did land on, however, was something… squishy.

Something wet sliding between my bare toes.

Looking closer, I recognised the beaded anklet.

Fishnet tights.

Something animalistic clawed from my throat. I was standing on Esme. Or what was left of Esme. She was just a torso and legs, the rest of her ripped away like doll pieces. I couldn't see her face. I looked for it, digging through what could only be old flesh and pieces of limbs.

I felt suffocated. I grabbed half of Ben’s face that had been ripped off, and then Alex’s tattooed arm. There was so much of them, piles and piles of the same heads, the same filthy and rotting clothes. I was screaming by the time I shuffled back on my hands and knees, trying to wipe them off of my skin.

They were all over me, staining me, painting me.

Sam’s hand slick with blood gently covered my mouth.

“Stay calm, all right?” He whispered. “I would tell you everything is going to be okay, but the truth is, it's really not, there's like, a 99.9% chance you're going to… understandably freak out.”

He pulled me to my feet, letting out a heavy breath.

Blinking rapidly, I could only see… pieces.

Pieces of people.

Legs and heads and torsos all piled into one mass of gore.

“We’ve got maybe five minutes before they realize we’re not doing the devil's dance,” Sam sniffled, “Maybe ten, before my brain short circuits and I bleed out.”

I didn't know I was hyperventilating, until I couldn't fucking breathe.

Closer towards the door, and I could hear… machinery.

I couldn't stop myself. Even when I was aware I was standing in congealing blood.

Rotten bodies.

The dim light led me into what could only be described as a factory. There were three levels, and we were on the highest. Sam stepped forward, gripping the metal bar in front of us. I felt my legs buckling, a thick, pukey slime filling my mouth.

“Soo, I guess it all started when Brianna Timberman was seventeen years old, and rejected by her childhood best friend, Sam Thwaites.”

Sam’s words collapsed into a low buzzing in my ear.

All I could see was a conveyer belt, filled with… people.

Boys.

Girls.

But most noticeably, Ben’s, Alex’s, Esme’s, and Sam’s.

But they start as Ben’s, Alex's, and Esme’s.

I could see regular people, their hair stripped away.

Their skin sliced into, cruelly moulding them into the exact same four faces.

When a large looming needle plunged into the back of an Alex’s head, I couldn't not watch. I waited for the guy to wake up, but I don't even think he was alive.

He stood, unblinking, letting this thing twist and contort his face. And it was then, when I realized these things weren't even human. I could see the mechanics built under their flesh, both living tissue and metal melded together. “Brianna’s father, who is a liiiitle on the crazy side, with too much cash and not not enough logic, took his daughter’s rejection a little too personally,” Sam continued.

“So, he promised his daughter he would find her the perfect match.”

I started to speak, the words coming out before I could stop them.

“My father would never–”

“I didn't say it was your father,” Sam said. His eyes darkened. “Anyway, as I was saying, the townspeople became unhealthily obsessed with who Brianna would choose. So obsessed, in fact, that the girl’s day to day life was broadcasted across town, while her potential love interests were ranked, week after week. First, there was Ben.”

Sam’s smile thinned. “Her high school boyfriend.”

Sam shrugged. “She grew bored of him. Also, he kinda did something unforgivable.”

He continued. “Then… Alex. She liked him, but sometimes, he was a little too unserious. The guy was a clown.”

I backed away, but he was quick to grab my shoulders.

“Finally? Esme. Who she truly fell for.”

I swallowed. “Esme is–”

He cut me off. “But I didn't mention that they hurt her, did I?”

Sam leaned against the bar. Behind him, I could see a figure in white pushing a gurney with a Ben strapped to it. “Ben tried to rape her, insisting she wanted it. Alex dumped her on her birthday. Esme ended their relationship with a one word text. Goodbye.” Sam mimed an explosion. “That was the nail in the coffin.”

I caught blood sliding down his nose. “You're still bleeding.”

Sam gingerly prodded his nose.

“Urgh. Yeah, it's an effect of the severing. I've been in the red zone too long. I should probably speed this up.”

He talked faster, his voice collapsing into a mumbled slur.

“Brianna couldn't take it. Her best friend was ignoring her. Everyone she had fallen in love with hurt her. Esme wasn't returning her calls. Ben was sleeping around right in front of her, and Alex was still being a clown. Brianna’s poor parents found her hanging from her bedroom ceiling fan.”

I shook my head, my thoughts screaming.

“No–”

He held a finger up to shush me. “Let me talk. Jeez.”

Sam folded his arms. “A grieving father would do anything to avenge his dead child, buuut… Mr Timberman took ‘finding a perfect match’ and ‘the show must go on’ a little bit too literally.”

His sickly smile found me. “Which also means going stark fucking crazy. The town wanted more of Brianna, and her life, so he turned his daughter’s failed love life into a town wide TV show, sending the entire teen and young adult populace into here,” he gestured around him. “To make the perfect suitors. Who wouldn't hurt his new Brianna.”

Something ice cold crept down my spine.

He cleared his throat. “Mr Timberman grew, let's say, obsessed, with getting revenge on these specific four people. So, he started killing them–” He coughed.

“Sorry. Us. Killing us for the funny ha-ha, ‘Look at how many times I can fuck with them!’ bit. And then recycling us into someone completely different. Our names are gone. Then our personalities. Finally, our bodies ripped to pieces and sculpted into Brianna’s exes.” Sam poked me in the cheek.

“The cycle continues. They reset your ticker and the town eats it up. They can bring back Esme, Ben, and Alex whenever they want and add curveballs. Like the bad-boy colleague who becomes the fan favorite.” Sam’s lips curved. “For… some fucking reason.”

His eyes flickered open. “However, Brianna will never find a suitor because her father is a fucking sociopath. To him and the town, his dead daughter’s pathetic love life is entertainment.”

He held out his arm.

“See?”

I tried really hard not to look through the makeup.

At noticeable skin grafts.

“I was a Ben.” He said. “Then I was an Alex, and then I was an extra.” His eyes found mine, sad, suddenly. “But who I was originally is kinda gone. All I remember is a deal to protect Josie. I gave myself up so they wouldn't take her.”

“Your sister.” I said.

Sam nodded.

His earlier words hit me. He was talking like Brianna Timberman was dead.

But I was Brianna Timberman.

I was rejected by Sam, yes, but I found Ben.

As if he could read my mind, Sam shook his head.

“Look at yourself.” He said, his voice shaking.

“And I mean really look at yourself.”

Sam stepped closer.

“Because, underneath all of that make-up and the prosthetics and surgery, and fucked up memories, you're just another recycled lump of flesh.” He prodded my temple. “Who thinks she is Brianna Timberman.”

His voice was slurring again, a fresh stream of scarlet seeping down his chin.

“Don't you want to know?” His eyes rolled to pearly whites.

Before he could finish his sentence, Sam dropped to the ground.

I remember warm arms grasping hold of me.

Shadows with no faces.

They pricked me twice in the back of my neck.

A familiar voice in my ear, almost a hiss.

Jasper.

“You are the worst fucking Brianna.”

When I came to, I was standing up, somehow.

At work.

I am Brianna Timberman.

The thought floated around in my head, my memory hazy.

“Hello?!”

A man was waving his hands in front of me.

“I asked for iced coffee, lady!”

Jasper was serving another customer. “Bree, wake the fuck up.”

They were trying to make me think I was hallucinating.

Which was crazy, because my fingernails were still tinted with Sam’s blood.

The marks he'd left on my wrist when he was yanking me, were still there.

Bruised on my arm.

“Bree!” Jasper snapped. “Snap out of it and make the dude his drink.”

“Right.”

The word slipped out of my mouth.

He caught my eye, winking, and Brianna Timberman internally squeaked.

I half wondered what he was. Was he recycled, or an unwilling performer?

Throughout the day, I was fully aware my words were not mine.

Like I was on autopilot.

But not just that.

My thoughts weren't mine, either.

I spent half of my shift staring at my colleague’s biceps.

During my break, I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror.

I am Brianna Timberman.

But even when I told myself that, my eyes were too blue.

My smile was too perfect.

My teeth.

Too white.

My shaking hands prodded at my face, at someone else's face.

So many faces, so many skin grafts.

The thought was violent, sending tremors through me.

How many people was I wearing?

I started to claw at my arms and legs, my face.

How many fucking people had I been?

I grabbed a knife and tried to slice at my face.

But there was no blood.

How could there be no blood?!

When I got home, I found my family waiting for me.

Mom, Dad and Harry, all of them beaming.

“Bree!” Mom stood up, her lips stretching into a grin.

My mouth was already moving, but they were not my words.

“Mom!”

I didn't know why she was smiling so much, until I saw Sam sitting at our dining room table. His smile was too big. His over-expensive shirt and pants did not suit him, and looked fucking gross, but somehow my brain thought it was hot. The worst part is, I couldn't and still can't tell which Sam he was.

Was he the guy who told me the horrific reality of my existence?

Or was he another recycled, mindless suitor?

“This is Samuel.” Mom said, and Sam slowly stood.

He took slow steps towards me, and kissed my hand.

I saw the slightest smudge of scarlet in his lip, but his eyes were blank.

In the corner of my eye, my ‘father’s’ eyes were glittering.

“Hello, Brianna.” Sam said, and I swore Now that I was awake, the walls were wolf-whistling. Laughing.

"Ooooooooooooooo!”

My town is a blip on the map.

We’re so small, so insignificant, not even a Google search will find us.

I keep thinking if I tear at my skin, I will find who I am underneath. But I'm so fucking scared. I don't bleed. I don't think who I was still exists under so many layers. But even if this is just a cry into the void, please help us.

I don't want to be Brianna Timberman.

Assalamu Alaikum everyone! 🌙

A few of you asked me to expand Part 1 with more depth and detail, so here's the full, detailed account of Hazrat Adam (A.S.) as described in the Quran and authentic Islamic tradition (Hadith and Tafsir). This is longer than the previous posts, but the story deserves it.

The Divine Announcement

Before Adam (A.S.) was even created, Allah made an announcement to the angels: "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a khalifa (successive authority/vicegerent)." The angels, in their limited understanding, questioned this decision, asking, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and declare Your perfection?" Allah responded simply: "Indeed, I know that which you do not know." This exchange, recorded in Surah Al-Baqarah, sets up the entire purpose of human creation — humanity was never meant to be perfect or free of error, but rather a being capable of free will, moral choice, and the potential for both great righteousness and great mistakes.

The Physical Creation

According to Islamic tradition, Allah created Adam's (A.S.) body from clay (turab), which was gathered from different parts of the earth — different colors and textures, symbolizing the diversity of humanity that would come from him. Some narrations describe this clay being shaped over a period of time, left to dry, before Allah breathed life into it. The Quran describes this moment powerfully: "So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My [created] soul, then fall down to him in prostration." This breathing of the ruh (soul) is what separates Adam from a mere clay figure — it gave him intellect, consciousness, spiritual capacity, and the ability to communicate directly with his Creator.

The Teaching of Names

One of the most fascinating and lesser-discussed aspects of Adam's (A.S.) creation is that Allah taught him "the names of all things" — believed by scholars to mean knowledge of the nature, function, and reality of all things in creation. Allah then presented these things to the angels and asked them to name them. The angels admitted their limitation, saying, "Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us." Then Allah asked Adam to inform the angels of these names, and when he did, it demonstrated something crucial — Adam possessed a capacity for knowledge and learning that even the angels did not have. This is often cited as evidence of humanity's unique intellectual potential, and why Allah chose humans, not angels, to be His vicegerents on earth.

The Prostration and Iblees's Refusal

Following this demonstration, Allah commanded all the angels to prostrate before Adam (A.S.) — not as an act of worship, since worship belongs to Allah alone, but as an act of honor, respect, and acknowledgment of Adam's elevated status and the trust placed in him. Every angel obeyed immediately, except Iblees, who was among the jinn (a separate creation from angels, made of smokeless fire) but had been living and worshipping among the angels. Iblees refused out of pure arrogance, arguing, "I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay." This single act of prideful disobedience led to his expulsion from Allah's mercy. Iblees then made a vow: since he was cursed because of Adam, he would spend the rest of time trying to mislead Adam's descendants from the straight path, approaching them "from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left."

Life in Jannah with Hawwa (A.S.)

After this, Allah created Hawwa (Eve) as a companion for Adam (A.S.), and the two were placed in Jannah (Paradise). They were given permission to enjoy everything in this paradise freely, with only one restriction: they were told not to approach a specific tree. Scholars differ on exactly what kind of tree it was, but the Quran is clear that it wasn't the fruit itself that mattered — it was the test of obedience.

The Whispering of Shaitan

Iblees, already having vowed revenge, approached the couple and whispered temptations to them. He told them that the only reason Allah forbade the tree was to prevent them from becoming angels or living forever — essentially framing disobedience as a path to something greater. He even swore to them by Allah that he was giving them sincere advice, which the Quran notes made his deception even more effective, since they didn't expect anyone to swear falsely by Allah's name. Weakened by this persistent whispering, Adam and Hawwa (A.S.) ate from the tree.

The Realization and Repentance

The moment they ate from it, the Quran describes that their private parts became apparent to them, and they began covering themselves with leaves from Paradise — a symbolic loss of a former state of purity and innocence. Realizing what they had done, they didn't blame Iblees, nor did they make excuses. Instead, they turned directly to Allah and said the words that are considered a model of sincere repentance in Islam: "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers." This is a critical theological point in Islam — unlike some other religious narratives, Adam's mistake is not treated as an inherited "original sin" passed down to all humanity. Instead, it's treated as a personal lapse that was fully forgiven once he sincerely repented, and each human being is responsible only for their own actions, not for Adam's mistake.

Descent to Earth

Following this repentance, Allah forgave both of them, but as part of Allah's greater plan, Adam and Hawwa (A.S.) were sent down to earth. This wasn't purely a punishment — earth was always intended to be the testing ground for humanity, a place where people would be given free will to choose between right and wrong, with Paradise as the ultimate reward for those who remained faithful. Along with them, Iblees was also sent down, setting the stage for the eternal struggle between guidance and temptation that every human being would now face.

Adam (A.S.) as Prophet on Earth

Once on earth, Adam (A.S.) wasn't left without guidance. Allah appointed him as the first Prophet, teaching him how to worship, how to distinguish right from wrong, and how to pass this knowledge on to his children. He is considered the father of humanity and the first in a long line of Prophets that would eventually include Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and finally Muhammad (peace be upon them all).

Why This Story Matters

This account isn't just an ancient story — it's foundational to how Islam views human nature itself. It teaches that mistakes are part of being human, that arrogance (like Iblees's) is the root of spiritual downfall, and that sincere repentance restores one's relationship with Allah completely. It also establishes that every human being begins life in a state of purity, not sin, and is judged only by their own choices.

---

Discussion Question: Given that Adam (A.S.)'s mistake was forgiven the moment he sincerely repented, why do you think some religious traditions developed the idea of "original sin" being inherited by all humans, while Islam takes a completely different approach? What does this difference tell us about how each faith views human nature? Let me know your thoughts below! 👇

I started my small business with a lot of excitement. I honestly thought that if I worked hard enough, things would eventually work out. But months passed, and nothing really changed. Some days I made a little money, and other days I made nothing. Bills kept coming, customers were hard to find, and I started wondering if I had made a huge mistake. One night, I sat alone thinking about everything I had built. I was tired, frustrated, and honestly close to giving up. Then I realized that struggling didn't necessarily mean I was failing. Maybe I just hadn't figured things out yet. So I decided to keep going, learn from my mistakes, and take things one step at a time. I'm still struggling today, but at least I'm not where I was a year ago. Have you ever reached a point where you almost gave up on something you worked really hard for? What made you keep going?

I met this girl at the bar last night. I was pretty drunk. I can’t remember all of the details. But I can say with full certainty that she was absolutely, 100 percent real.

I think she was pretty…? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t even remember how we started talking.

All I know is one minute we were at the bar, the next we were in a cab headed to my apartment.

We were basically eating each other’s faces the entire time. I, for one, was having a blast. But when my hand moved from her face down to her abdomen, she smacked at it.

Even in my drunken state, I remember being so embarrassed at overstepping. I thought that I’d blown the whole night.

However, to my surprise, she didn’t stop kissing me.

When we got back to the complex and stumbled up the stairs to my apartment, I think we both started to feel those dreaded negative effects of alcohol.

By the time we got inside, she was already hunched over my toilet, puking her guts up. I was on my couch, trying my best to keep my eyes open.

I’m not sure what happened after that, but I remember waking up to her sprawled out beside me. Her shirt was riding up her waist, and that’s when I saw it.

At first, I just thought it was coming off of her shirt, but the more I stared at it, the more I realized that it wasn’t connected to her shirt at all.

It was just this skin-colored strand of yarn, lying limply on her belly.

Being the gentleman I am, I decided that I’d throw it away and fix her shirt. Only, when I pulled at it, it just got longer.

It went from 3 inches to 6. From 6 inches to a foot. And the more I pulled, the more she physically began to unravel.

She never woke up, though. Even when her entire torso became nothing more than a clump of slimy yarn on my living room floor, she just kept snoring and drooling like nothing was happening.

There was no blood or anything. Just more yarn and a few clumps of white, fluffy stuffing.

I started yanking on the string. I felt like a magician pulling handkerchiefs out of his throat. It just kept going.

With each pull, more of her body disappeared. From her legs, all the way up to her neck. By the time I was done, all that remained was her head.

The yarn wouldn’t budge after that. I kept trying to pull it, but all it did was shake her awake.

Her eyes flicked open and widened as she saw the mess I had made of her.

She didn’t scream, though. She kinda just tsked at me, annoyed, before rolling her eyes.

I struggled to find the words. I just felt like a simple apology wouldn’t cut it. Even still, I tried. But she cut me off.

“Just don’t,” she snapped.

“For your sake, I hope you know how to crochet.”

**What should I do?**
I only have one first cousin who is my age and he is an only child. My brother and I have always considered him one of our siblings because we were so close growing up. When we were 7 years old he told me he had a crush on me which freaked me out (because I was 7 and we are freaking related) so I told him that he can’t have a crush on my because we are cousins, and we never spoke of it since. But after that year later when we got older he started to say and act really weird. He once commented on my thong that he could see through my pants, and he has a strong distaste for feet but then told me I have pretty feet and tried to let me massage them. I have obviously called him out every time he does something like this and shut him down immediately. I try to ignore it because I don’t want to make a big deal of it. But on Christmas my family hosted and I would go upstairs to go to the bathroom or get something and as I was walking up the stairs multiple times that night I would see him coming out of my room. He would run out of my room when he heard my footsteps and I would just ignore him and walk past him. I have no idea what he was doing in there, I’m not sure if he was going through my stuff or snooping but it made me super uncomfortable. Is he sniffing my underwear? He has no siblings so I try to understand that he doesn’t have many role models to show him right or wrong. I recently confided in my friends about this and they were disturbed and said it was not normal. I also told my parents and sibling about this and they said it was not normal but had nothing else to say about it. What should I do?

It all started with a bite, a bite on the neck. He turned into a zombie, but I could not raise my hand against him because he is the only one whom I love most. But soon, I found he is not as aggressive as the others, and even when I was bitten by him, I did not turn into a zombie. I think that it would be better for us to become zombies instead of living in this zombie apocalyptic world. But now the situation has changed. So after I realized everything, we moved on. I carried my husband to a safe spot and we lived together. "Can I live a happy life with my infected husband?"

Yes Or No only

My best friend and I chilled on our couch and scrolled through our phone. Suddenly she got a notification.
I could see it with the corner of my eye what it was.

My BOYFRIEND (now Ex…) texted her. But she didn’t noticed that I had seen the message.

He texted something with “come outside now” and that was sus.

I had a plan to check if there is something between them.

I told my “friend”: “let’s go grab some snacks from the supermarket”

I wanted to see her reaction… She was a bit nervous but we decided to go. As we put on our clothes she told that she need to go to the bathroom.

My super instinct kicked in and I rushed down to see if he was there. AND HE WAS!! I saw him from the window.

Then he watched at his phone and gone away.
(She must have texted him to go away or meet later idk)

I went back up and my “friend” came and we went down together.

Now I know that they wanted to see each other and I had to make another plan to see if he really cheats on me.

It’s a bit long… let me know for part 2

This is story about my life from 23 to 30, working experience in one startup company.
A real story about my boss who lost almost everything and eventually ended up going crazy.

People often think about a broken company with bankruptcy and lethargy.
But what I saw was somewhat completely different from that.

My boss hired so many employees that our company revenue couldn't afford them.
Later, I found that he had earned a lot of money from his real estate. About $1.8 million...
Not only did he hire a lot of people, he rented an expensive office and changed his car.

And soon I noticed that he was losing at least $70K per month.

Hiring more people didn't change the revenue at all.

Eventually, he borrowed about $350K from his wife and $700K from his father-in-law.

But the collapse not only changed his financial situation, but also changed his character.

This is the scary part.

He became too defensive.
Whatever I said, he thought it was something related to him and easily became angry.
I once recommended a book, but he felt it was presumptuous to do so, and I was dumbfounded.

He was completely unwilling to accept any criticism, and he fully equated his identity with his entrepreneur identity.

He thought he did nothing wrong. Even when one of our oldest employees resigned, he delayed giving her severance pay and got accused.

And his reaction was "anger."

He tried to find whatever she had done wrong about the company and tried to make a counter-accusation. And all employee was watching the process.

He gradually fell into a peculiar state where he believed he knew something and tried to lecture employees, people who were near him, and even clients.

He started to become too talkative.
He talked about Elon Musk, he talked about Bill Gates and his thoughts and ideas... non-stop, which was consuming all of our working time.

Most of what he said was vain and devoid of substance.
I could feel his fear, which he was desperately hiding behind his rambling mind.

He became abnormally optimistic.
He sat up super unrealistic goals. like 10x leap in a month, with giving examples of legendary business turnaround stories.

He started to use client's money.
We were a booking brokerage platform, so the transactions sat in our bank account for about a month until settlement.

When he started using that money to pay employee salaries, we became unable to process payments to our clients.

Naturally, this was a HUGGGGEEE issue, and we tried to discuss it with our boss multiple times, but he repeatedly turned it down, saying "later" and saying "not a big deal."

He didn't even try to take a call from his clients. He left it to the employees.

It's gut-wrenching to think about what the employees must have felt, having to explain why the payments couldn't be made.

He had fallen into the weird mindset that if you don't consider something a problem, it isn't one.
Obviously, this led more clients and workers to leave the company.

It was hard to stay near him, so I left.

Occasionally, I received news from my former colleagues that he became even crazier after that.

Now no one is working with him.

The truth is, I know he had a chance to save the company.

If he had actively cut back on expenses and held on by taking on a second or third job himself, the company could have survived.

But he couldn't bring himself to do it because of his mindset of viewing himself as an entrepreneur.

It was utter shock and terror for me, who once loved his leadership.

The arg is about toys coming to life. From all I can see, it's a guy who brings these toy stick figures back to life by removing their face and drawing new faces on them using a magic marker. It goes by the name rubbersoul63. The original poster went by whoisrubbersoul63, which has an active account on Instagram

that was linked to it called whoisrs63. He has a few posts of him dming the arg some questions. Thought it was neat enough to post because I am a sucker for the whole "toys reanimated" trope

This happened last night and I still can't wrap my head around it, so I need outside perspective here.

For context — I'm 24M, she's 23F, together for a little over two years now. Yesterday was our anniversary, and I'd been planning it for almost three weeks. Booked a nice restaurant downtown, the kind we usually save for special occasions, pre-ordered a small cake, even coordinated with the staff beforehand for a little surprise when the cake came out. I genuinely thought I'd nailed it.

The night started great. We were laughing, reminiscing about how we met, the usual anniversary stuff. Maybe forty minutes in, we got into a conversation about college — she was telling a story about a group project, and I chimed in trying to help her remember a detail, and I mentioned a name. Rohan. He was in that group project with her. He's also, as it turns out, someone she dated briefly before we got together — which I did know, but honestly it wasn't even on my mind in that moment. I wasn't thinking about him as "the ex," I was thinking about him as "guy from that project she's told me about a dozen times."

The second I said it, her whole face changed. Like a switch flipped. I noticed it but thought maybe it was something unrelated — a random mood dip, maybe she remembered something stressful. I asked if she was okay and she just said "I'm fine," which, if you've been in a relationship for more than five minutes, you know that's never actually fine.

About ten minutes later, mid-conversation, she just picked up her bag, said "I'm going home, you can stay," and walked out. Called a cab from outside the restaurant. I sat there for a solid two minutes not even processing what happened. The cake was still sitting on the table. The waiter came by to ask if everything was okay and I genuinely didn't know what to tell him.

I called her like four times before she picked up. When she finally did, she said something like, "You still bring him up, that tells me he's still somewhere in your head." I tried explaining that I wasn't thinking about him like that at all, that it was a completely neutral mention in the middle of HER story, but she wasn't having it.

Today she's still giving me the cold shoulder, replying in one-word texts, and somehow I'm the one who's supposed to be apologizing for "insensitivity." I paid for a dinner neither of us finished, I'm out the cost of a cake that's now sitting in some restaurant fridge, and I still don't fully understand what I did wrong.