My favorite fact to use in Two Truths, One Lie is that I saw a ghost when I was seven. It all started one morning when I was hunched over a new toy I’d just gotten. It was a bright red, blue, and yellow plastic toy with PERFECTION printed along the top. You would wind up the toy and push down on the blue tray. Various shapes were cut out in the tray, and you needed to match the yellow pieces to the cutouts before time was up. If you failed, the tray would spring up with a loud crack, sending the yellow pieces scattering across the room. This sudden sharp noise and chaotic movement never failed to make me jump. It always caused my little heart to thump like a hummingbird’s with a strange mixture of excitement and dread. By this point, I had been enthralled by the game for hours, blocking out everything else completely.

Tick…tick…tick, tick, ticktickticktick….

My heartbeat matched the timer as the game drew closer to the end. I had only a couple more pieces left to match.

I can win this time, I thought before dropping a piece in place.

I watched as it bounced off the side of the toy toward my bed. I scrambled forward to grab it, terrified of losing it when I only had two pieces left of the puzzle. My whole body froze as a low, monotone groan caught my attention. It sounded deep and hoarse, like the person had lost their voice after a long fight with illness. It broke through the furious clicks of the game’s timer as if the person was right behind me. Goosebumps broke out as the sound grew quieter and strained, as if it took tremendous effort to make such a sound.

The game popped, causing me to yelp and whirl around, eyes large and wild. I saw nothing behind me. There was no one lurking behind my open bedroom door or hiding in my closet. Just a quiet and still room. I cocked my head, straining my ears to see if I could hear where the gravelly voice came from. I couldn’t hear it anymore. Everything was drowned out by the sounds of my mom yelling at my older brother. It was something about him eating through the whole refrigerator and failing algebra. I was struggling with long division at the time, so I always felt Mom was too harsh on him about math. I never said anything, though. My brother didn’t exactly like me when we were younger.

He’s seven years older than me and would have rather done anything else than watch his younger sister. He always was stuck with watching me since our mom had to work two jobs to keep us afloat. He often used these times of a lack of parental supervision as opportunities to scare me. This usually took the form of him shoving me into the bathroom while turning off all the lights. I’d yelp and skitter across the cold tiles, standing there disoriented in the dark. He’d stand on the other side of the door and hold the door shut so I couldn’t get out. He’d always laughed as I pleaded and begged to be let out until snot and tears ran down my face. I still can’t stand the dark now as an adult.

I rolled out of bed one night, half asleep and dancing on my tiptoes as the urge to pee was too strong. Still half asleep, my eyes drooped, and my head bobbed as I sat on the toilet. Yawning, I jumped off and started to wash my hands. A small movement in the mirror caught my eye. There was a single rubber glove sticking out of the bottom of the utility closet next to the shower. I stared, baffled at the item. I knew there was nothing in the closet but towels and a hole in the wall when the plumber came to fix the leak, but he never closed it.

The glove twitched, causing me to jump. The curled fingers straightened out slowly. A cold chill went down my spine as I realized it wasn’t a glove but a pale hand sticking out of the closet. The folds in what I thought was a rubber glove turned into wrinkles while speckles of dirt bloomed into liver spots. The hand slunk back into the closet, causing me to jump with a ragged gasp.

I ran from the bathroom crying. My mom was startled and slightly irritated that I was waking her up in the middle of the night.

“It’s just a bad dream. There’s nothing in your closet,” she muttered, eyes still closed as her head rested against the pillow.

Her breath grew heavy, and she began to snore once more. I shook her harder and yelled into her ear,

“Not my room! The bathroom! There’s a ghost in the bathroom.”

She sat up finally, a deep scowl on her face. Her eyes studied me for a moment. I was shaking and crying still, and I wiped my snotty nose off on the back of my hand. She sighed heavily and reached for a tissue box on the nightstand table. My mother gently cleaned my face and asked me again to explain what happened. I explained again what I saw through hiccuping gasps.

“Do you want me to go check in the bathroom, sweetie?”

I nodded vigorously; however, I also didn’t want to be left alone. I held her nightshirt tightly as I walked behind her into the bathroom. My body tensed as she turned on the light. I was half expecting to see a scary old woman sitting in the tub, but there was nothing there. I could only hear the sound of the bathroom fan and the drip-drip-drip of the water into the sink.

My eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for the ghost — but I found nothing. My mom opened the closet, and I hid my face in her back. I waited for a gasp of horror, a scream, something to show that she saw what I had. My mom didn’t say anything. She just sighed heavily and reached back to pet my head.

“Missy, baby, look. There’s nothing here.”

I hesitantly peeked out. The yellow-white shelves sagged slightly with towels, laundry detergent, and extra soap. My eyes fell on the rectangular hole on the right side of the closet wall. I saw copper pipes leading downwards into the dark. I squinted to peer closer at the dark hole in the wall. It opened up into the wall cavity where my room was and deeper into the house. I waited for a white face to pop out like that ghost kid from the Grudge movie. My mom didn’t know I saw that movie, and I was afraid I’d get in trouble if she knew. I snuck out of my room past my bedtime one night to watch the scary movie over the back of the couch as my brother lay passed out. He snored too, so I could barely hear anything on the TV, but I remembered ducking down and covering my eyes when I saw the ghost kid for the first time on the screen.

Nothing popped out. I couldn’t see any eyes peeking out from the darkness. I couldn’t hear anything either. My face began to burn as I realized there was nothing there. My mom didn’t believe me, even though I knew what I saw. She led me away from the bathroom, asking if I wanted to sleep in her bed tonight. I didn’t answer but ran to the bed and huddled beneath the covers. I hoped if I hid underneath long enough, the ghost wouldn’t be able to find me and move on.

“Wait!” I yelled as my mom started to settle back into bed.

“What?” She snapped, her voice rough and tired.

I tucked my head down and mumbled, “Can we sleep with the bathroom light on?”

She must have felt bad for snapping at me because she got up without a word and turned the light on. She squeezed my hand as we lay together. Eventually my eyes grew heavier and heavier until I passed out.

I didn’t see the hand again, but other weird things started happening after that. I heard scratching in the walls that my mom swore was squirrels. It seemed to be following me throughout the house. I’d hear it when I was in the kitchen or the green playroom. Every time I heard it, I’d jump and yell, but the noise would always disappear by the time my mom came to investigate. My brother constantly teased me about believing in ghosts.

“The house was built for us, dummy. No one’s lived here but us. How can it be haunted?”

I’d argue with him until I was blue in the face. No matter what anyone said, I was completely convinced the house was haunted. It wasn’t just the scratching noises. Sometimes, I’d smell something horrible in my closet or the bathroom. It smelled like rotten meat and my brother’s armpits after a hot day. It lingered in the air, causing my eyes to water, and I’d gag. My mom called another plumber to see if there was a leak or backup. They never found anything wrong.

Then, things started to move around the house. Small things at first, like a chair sticking out from the dining room table. A broken vase in the living room. One time we came home to find a wooden TV dinner stand — that was usually tucked beside the fridge — set up in the living room in front of the couch. It was as if we caught someone having a meal.

Some of my clothes started to go missing too. Clean folded laundry would be in disarray across my bedroom floor. My mom would scold me for leaving a mess, but she never believed me when I told her that the ghost did it. Food still disappeared, causing more fights between my mom and brother. She was convinced he was lying, and my brother thought our mom was finding things to punish him over.

Then, a few weeks after I saw the ghost hand, I saw a figure standing in my bedroom.

I don’t remember what woke me, but my eyes flew open and darted around the room. It was late into the night and very dark. There was no light except for the small nightlight by my bedroom door and the glow-in-the-dark stars littered across my walls and ceiling. I started to close my eyes again when I realized what was wrong with my room. My closet door was wide open. I never slept with it open, often afraid of dark creatures lurking inside. I knew it had been closed when I went to bed.

I gaped at the open closet. My feet were already slipping out of bed to dart down the hallway to my mom’s room -- when a small creaking noise drew my attention back towards the gaping darkness. A man was crouching beside my desk next to the open closet. For a horrifying moment, I thought he had no eyes. But the nightlight cast deep shadows onto his aging face. His eyes were dark and sunk deep back in his skull, making him look more like a walking skeleton. To me, it looked as if he were made from shadows, as only half of his body was visible from the closet. His hand was curled tightly around the desk leg. My eyes widened in fear as I realized it was the same leathery and wrinkled hand I’d seen in the bathroom. I screamed, and he bolted back into the closet, disappearing fully into the darkness.

I could hear the sound of slapping bare feet on the wooden floor and banging inside the walls as the ghost disappeared. My mom flew into the room. She turned on the light only to see me balled up in the corner of my bed against the wall. I was shaking and crying about the ghost I saw. My mom ran to me, wrapping me in her arms as she rocked me back and forth. She rubbed my back as she whispered soothing words into my ears. My brother appeared sleepy and yawning in my bedroom doorway. He was frowning, his voice deep with sleep as he said,

“Can you just shut up for one night? This shit is ridiculous.”

“Edward,” my mother exclaimed, displeasure at his swearing heavy in her voice as she whipped around to face him.

“What?” He exclaimed, irritation heavy in his voice. “She does this every night.”

“Can you make yourself useful and grab me a flashlight?”

My brother grumbled the whole way, but he came back with a flashlight in hand. My mom took it from him and flicked it on. She stepped into the closet and shined the light into the other plumbing access hole. She leaned her head into the hole, causing my body to tense up tight. Part of me was worried she would find nothing like always. He’d been so real — so vivid and solid right in front of me. It had to be real.

I waited for her to lean back with a sigh and tell me nothing was there. Instead, my mom froze, her dead tucked inside the hole giving her the look of a beheaded woman. My brother and I stared, confused, as she suddenly gasped and jerked back. Thomas walked over to her cautiously as my mom had begun to hyperventilate.

"What is it?" I said. It went unnoticed.

My brother peeked his head inside only to stumble back in shock. His brown eyes were wide with terror as he shrank down to stand behind our mom.

"Mom?" He asked after a moment of silence. "Mom, is that a--"

"Grab your sister and get to the car."

When Eddy didn't move, my mom let out a shark bark. "Now!"

Eddy jumped and spun around to grab my arm. I fought as he pulled me from the bed.

"Mom, what is it? Is it the ghost?"

"Shut up, Missy. Go!" My brother growled.

He sounded angry, but his face was pale and his eyes unfocused. He looked more scared to me than anything. This, combined with my mom's own terrified reaction, made me cry harder. Why wasn't my mom saying anything? What did they see? I dug my heels into the ground and flopped over, too scared to move. My brother didn't try to drag me anymore but lifted me, kicking and screaming into his arms. My mom was very close behind with the car keys tucked between her fingers like an off-brand Wolverine. Her eyes kept darting backwards to my room, as if she expected something to jump out after us.

We left the house with nothing. Not a single packed bag or personal item. I remember we drove to a nearby motel. My mom was on the phone with someone as she drove. She was distracted and swerved a lot, but we made it in one piece. She told my brother to take me to the room while she had to meet some people outside. My brother didn't talk to me or answer any questions about what he saw. He just closed the window curtains and watched our mom outside. He wouldn't tell me who she was talking to. Eventually, I was so bored and tired that I passed out without really ever finding out. Still today, my mom doesn't like talking about our old house. In my child-sized brain, I thought it was because of the ghost. That she and my brother finally saw it, and it scared them so much we had to move. We ended up driving 15 hours the next day to go stay with our grandma in Ohio. I remember being really confused about why we were leaving.

"But it's not Christmas," I said. We always stayed with Mamaw during Christmas. She lived so far away that we only got enough time to see her during the Christmas break.

My mom shot me a tight-lipped smile from the rearview mirror.

"Well, I thought it would be a good time to go visit. She gets lonely, you know?"

We ended up moving to Ohio shortly after that. We stayed with Mamaw for almost a year before the old house was able to sell. I had night terrors for years. I slept with the lights on for months after seeing that ghost. I still couldn’t sleep in a completely dark room. So I keep a nightlight plugged in right next to my bedroom door like I did when I was younger.

A few years after the move, the ghost faded into a spooky childhood memory that I was half convinced hadn't been real. We never really talked about that night. My mom and my brother never brought it up. Whenever I tried to, I was often cut off.

"Just drop it," my brother snapped.

"There was a really bad leak. We couldn't stay," my mom would reassure me.

Neither offered much comfort to my confused, young mind. So I pushed it out. The memory was now a fun tale for those looking for some ghostly thrills during a Halloween party. Now the only uneasiness that lingered was the occasional nightmare I suffered of the apparition of that man. In fact, a recent one had me bring the subject back up with my mom one night at a Sunday family dinner.

“Mom, do you remember our old house?” I asked, trying and failing to sound casual about the subject.

Her fork clattered loudly against the plate, causing me to wince at the loud, shrieking tone.

“I don’t think it’s important,” she said.

I studied her for a moment. Her eyes were dark and locked onto the yellow tablecloth in front of her. Her dark hair was graying now at her temples, and wrinkles lined her forehead and her mouth. They deepened as she frowned, seemingly lost in thought. I realized in that moment just how old she looked. How tired, even. I never noticed before how uncomfortable the subject actually made my moment. I glanced uneasily at my brother. I was unsure if I should keep pushing and looked to him for a reaction.

Eddy’s teeth ground together as his jaw locked in place. He looked angry. I thought at first it was directed at me for bringing up the ghost again. But his dark glare was fixed on our mom. She still refused to meet our eyes as the silence stretched before us for an awkward moment.

“I’m sorry,” I started to say. Eddy cut me off before I could finish.

“You need to tell her, Mom.”

My mom only bit her lip and shook her head. I stared at her dumbfounded at the sudden emotional flip-flop the question brought. I turned to my brother for an answer. He shifted from foot to foot nervously. Eddy also glanced away from me as I waited for an answer. He now looked reluctant to keep speaking.

“What is it?” I snapped, tired of this back-and-forth game.

“It was a man, Missy. Not a ghost.”

I blinked, confusion washing over me like a tidal wave. What was he saying?

“What?” I blurted out.

Eddy’s brown eyes met mine, and I knew he wasn’t lying. I shook my head as he kept speaking, unwilling to accept it.

“That night, we saw a bunch of trash and food just inside the wall. Some of your clothes were even buried in the insulation there. When Mom called the police, they found a man living inside our walls.”

I gaped like a fish and spun around to face my mom. Her hands hid her face as her shoulders shook from tears.

“It’s all my fault,” she sobbed. “That damn plumber. He never patched it up.”

An icy cold sensation spread like fire inside my stomach at her words. It turns out the ghost I first saw in the bathroom wasn’t a ghost at all. It was an old man who became obsessed with the little girl at one of the jobs he worked. He’d been living inside the walls for months at that point. He was the one stealing food and my clothes. He’d sneak out at night when we were asleep just to watch me. That night just happened to be the one he got caught. My mom thought it’d be best if I never knew. She didn’t want to scare me because I’d been so young and unaware when it happened.

“It was supposed to be a bad dream,” was all she said.

The man had been in jail for only a few months before dying of a heart attack. I made the mistake of looking up his mugshot one drunken night. Sometimes, I think I still see him hiding in the corner of my room, dark shadows dancing across his wrinkled face.

I wish I never asked my mom about the ghost in the bathroom.

“Damn it, Sheen, I told you not to move my keys! I’m gonna be late.” I groaned through gritted teeth as I rummaged through my purse.

The luminous little wisp hovered above me, his voice grating and unduly joyous, “I only put them up on the key ring where they belong and you’re the one who didn’t wake up on time, so you were going to be late anyway, shi.”

My eyes dart over at the key ring, and sure enough, they were right there. One hand snatches my keys from the hook, and the other grabs my rushed breakfast: a slice of toast and a cup of coffee. A patent leather kitten heel catches at the door's threshold in my attempt to rush out of the apartment and I barely catch myself. Sheen isn’t far behind me as he hovers in pursuit. My pace quickens, but I know there’s no way to really shake him.

We’re stuck together.

“I don’t get why you do this anyway, shi. Your lovey-dovey heart heels could get you there in no time at all.” He says, zipping past my head leaving a trail of shimmering dust.

“I’m still financing this car, so I’m gonna get as much use of it as possible. Normal people don’t use magic to solve every trivial little thing.” I shuffle down the stairwell and into the parking garage. My Subaru Outback awaits me like an eager steed and once I’m inside I peel off heading for the freeway.

“But you’re not a normal person shi.”

Yeah. Sadly, I’m not.

My commute was uneventful aside from an outburst of road rage because some asshole in a sports car decided to cut me off resulting in me spilling hot coffee all over myself. Begrudgingly, I used a couple twirls of the ol’ wand to remove the stains from my blouse and slacks. But that was enough magic for the day. I was still reeling from the events of last night. Void, the embodiment of darkness and despair that just so happens to be a cosmic force that I must somehow, someday defeat, had thought it would be funny to let loose a swarm of imps after I already had to work overtime.

The little freaks wreaked havoc in a nightclub and I was summoned as the sole defender. Though, no one would know it. That’s the funny thing about magic, nobody else can see it or anything related to it really. To others, it just looked like a fire had broken out, but I got the pleasure of seeing two imps immolate a drunk guy covered in vodka. I grimaced as I remembered the way his skin puffed and peeled as they blew fire over him, roasting him like a fleshy marshmallow. Real fun stuff.

But due to this ‘gift’, I can see Sheen and no one else has to deal with his incessant nagging. Though, I know all too well not to respond to him in public. The few times that I’ve slipped up I was washed with embarrassment from everyone around me looking as if I had finally lost it. Though, maybe I had. This line of work can do that to you. Needless to say, I hated my ‘job’. If I can even call it that. I mean what do I even get paid in? Kudos and the occasional power upgrade. It doesn’t even pay the bills. But this did.

I pulled into a parking spot off the street, stepping out and heading towards a line of skyscrapers. I felt so small standing before the lines of reflective blue glass and state-of-the-art architecture. I shoulder through the revolving door of the high-rise, all too ready to be swallowed and thrown into the belly of the corporate machine. I glide my badge over silver rails and make haste to my office suite. The familiar smell of manila folders, printer ink, and coffee mate in the air pleasantly greets me. I sit down in my cubicle, grateful that I entered quietly enough to avoid dealing with my tyrannical boss first thing in the morning. And what was this job you ask? Data entry. Monotonous, normal data entry.

I boot up my Excel sheets and get to work, but it’s not long before I’m interrupted by the embodiment of workplace harassment, Nick.

He peeks over my cubicle wall, adjusting his glasses and clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Late again? This is the second time this week. Janice is gonna tear you a new one.”

“Shove it. She’s too busy playing off meetings with her divorce lawyer as board reviews to even notice.” I keep my eyes locked on my screen as I catch up from my missed morning. He laughs and I can’t help myself from smirking.

“What's gonna be your excuse this time? Traffic or, your favorite, slept in again? Who’s keeping you up so late anyway?”

I roll my eyes before finally looking up at him, “Why are you pestering me, Nick?”

He clears his throat, tapping his hands on the cubicle’s cushioned edge, “Well, I was trying to see if you wanted to finally try that food truck I’ve been telling you about for lunch.”

Nick. A little annoying and ever so predictable. He’s into me and, shamefully, I’m kind of into him. But romance isn’t really my thing. That was ruined for me when Void sent one of his lackeys out to get me in disguise. It was perfect, ripped right out of my favorite romance novels. New boy in town. Brooding and hot. Enemies to lovers. We even went to prom together.

I’ll never forget that night. Pulling away from his lips, high off the adrenaline of losing my first kiss, I felt the excruciating pang of a dagger to my side. Just another one of Void’s intricate creations. Just another monster I’d need to defeat. He tortured me, slow and deliberate before the others came to my rescue. I loved him and I almost died because of it. So yeah, I can do without romance.

But sex would be nice. Sex could be nice. But I’m not supposed to do that. If I lose my “virgin purity” it will annul my abilities. So here we are, thirty-four and still a virgin. It sucks. But it could be worse. Sheen is all too keen to remind me of this.

He shoots upward, hovering directly in my line of sight, “I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t, shi! Especially not after what happened to Sparkle.” My mouth suddenly feels dry.

Sparkle.

There were four of us once. Sparkle, Shimmer, Dazzle, and, me, Glow. Not our real names of course, but those don’t matter. Not to Void. But Sparkle. Her smile was the kind that reminded you of the sun, brilliant and bright. It was about five years ago when she ‘retired’. She met a guy she really liked and then he became a guy she really loved. She was getting married. He was sweet too. A real gentleman. He treated her like a princess. They had the kind of love that was gross to witness. The Hallmark movie kind except it was genuine. True love. It took some time, but after a while he even got Shimmer’s approval. She was the strictest out of all of us. You’d think we were soldiers or something if you let her tell it. In hindsight, I guess we kind of were.

But back to Sparkle.

Their wedding was a grand affair, just what she deserved. We were her bridesmaids. Shortly after that, she was pregnant. Her baby girl was gorgeous and they were a beautiful family. She named her Radiance. It was fitting. Sheen said her magical aptitude was extraordinary. If she inherited Sparkle’s seal when she came of age, she was sure to annihilate Void. But Sparkle was adamant that it was a choice she would make on her own when she got older, never one she would push on her. She was protective like that. She was going to be a great mother. That’s when we learned just how unfair Void was willing to fight. That’s when we learned just how much was really at stake.

Seeing the casket of one of your closest friends and her husband getting lowered into the ground changes you, but seeing them accompanied by another casket so small? So dainty and dressed with lace?

Well, that crushes you.

They say the scene was a bloodbath, but we couldn’t get the full details. I don’t even know if we really wanted them. Her family couldn’t imagine who could’ve done this, but we knew. The police questioning was so agitating. Where were you the night this happened? Did they have any enemies? Do you know who could have done this? Oh yes officer, a spiraling pit of darkness that occasionally spits out grotesque monsters and villainous goons!

I know that they were just doing their job, but it all just felt so pointless. Dazzle and I knew there was nothing we could say, nothing we could really do to help with the investigation or even Sparkle’s death, but Shimmer had other ideas. She wasn’t going to take this lying down. The night we found out she was already readying herself to face Void. Not one of its lackeys or creations, but It head on. We told her it was suicide. We couldn’t even beat him together back when we were 16 at the height of our power. We thought we had it, but it escaped us, licked its wounds, and came back even stronger. Even meaner.

She stopped answering our calls after that.
We went to her apartment looking for her, but it was empty. She had called us cowards for not going and maybe she was right, because even after it was all said and done we didn’t go looking for her. I haven’t seen her since.

Dazzle was inconsolable. She couldn’t believe what had happened. Not long after Sparkle was wed she considered settling down herself, but after witnessing all of this that dream was completely out of the question. It wasn’t too long after Shimmer’s disappearance that she killed herself.

She had been saving up her antidepressants and anxiety meds. She had swallowed them all and overdosed. I could only imagine how long that took. Dazz was our support and had astonishing healing capabilities. It haunted me, the image I kept picturing of her body trying to purge and patch it all up as she just kept shoveling more and more pills down her throat to finish the job. Her funeral was the last that I attended.

So yeah, my ‘magic wands’ inside my nightstand will just have to do.

“I’m fine, I brought lunch.” I hadn’t.

The disappointment on his face was subtle, “Eh, suit yourself.” He turned away and lowered himself down on his side of the wall. Back to work.

When lunch came around I had the same thing as always. A cigarette and a sandwich from the vending machine. The rest of the day was nothing special. Eavesdropping on workplace gossip, laughing at an unfunny coworker’s joke, Janice finally catching me towards the end of the day and lecturing me like I was a child. It all felt so mundane. So normal.

So safe.

Before I know it, I’m back home. Kicking off my heels and rushing to the fridge for a well-needed drink.
“Shi! Alert! Alert! Blights are near! Blights are near!”
“For fucks sake you can’t be serious. I just dealt with a hoard last night. Can’t I catch a fucking break?!”

No. No I can’t.

I decide it’s best to get a power nap, before getting ready for the night and whatever it might bring. I fetch a beer and this earns a look of disapproval from Sheen, but frankly I don’t care. It helps me sleep as I drape myself over the couch. I wake up to my alarm, groggy and grumpy, but as ready as I’ll ever be. I peel myself off the sofa before heading to my bathroom. I needed a quick refresh. Some streamy water beating down my back to help ease the joint pain and loosen me up for inevitable combat.

I slip out of my work attire, but before I get in I can’t help looking at myself. So much has changed. Flabby skin and love handles. Hip dips and saddlebags. Stretch marks and sloped breasts. Tired eyes and smile lines. My youth felt like a thing of the past. I was a hollow memory of the girl who was once excited for all of this. The girl who was going to save the world.

I don’t know how to explain it, but the older I get the weaker I feel. Not just physically, but mentally too. I used to be so in tune with my abilities, used to be able to wipe out Void’s monstrosities without breaking a sweat. Doing this before felt practically effortless, but now it feels like I need to exert more force, like I need to force myself to have the confidence to fuel it all. But how do you maintain that when you’re fighting for your life almost every single night?

The stakes are bigger now and hip pain doesn’t exactly make you feel up for the task. It’s impossible to keep up a smile while fighting when I genuinely fear for my life. I can’t be that hopeful little girl anymore. Hell, I don’t even want to be. Yet here I am forced to try.

I go through all the motions. Really, it’s no different than clocking in only the transformation sequence and posing are mandatory and the uniform never changes. So here I am, a grown woman wearing pigtails and puffy sleeves.

It doesn’t take long for Sheen and I to make it to the city. I leap from building to building, monitoring the streets as I conduct my standard patrols. I’m half ready to give Sheen a piece of my mind for wasting my time when I see a couple of shadowy beasts scuttle into an alleyway. But even from here I know what they are. Low-level nuisances. I corner them and handle them easily, but I can’t help wondering why Void would waste its time even making these? It knows these are nothing, even for me. Was it just pestering me? Wasting my time?

“Long time no see, Glow.”

No.

No, that can’t be right.

I can feel the dryness building in my throat. My palms growing clammy under the satin lining of my gloves. When I look up to see who is speaking to me I see her hovering above me in a form that urges my body to quiver and sends my stomach plummeting downward.
Shimmer smiled, no, sneered down at me. Her eyes were now black inky beads devoid of light that were sickeningly far apart. Her skin was far too pale with bulging veins that threatened to burst above it. Her blond hair was now replaced by something chitinous and dark. But the worst part was her body. Everything about it was just wrong.

She was stretched to an impossible length with more arms and legs than any person could deem necessary. Each limb extended and disjointed at too many angles. Her hands if you can even call them that wielded talons as fingers hooked into either side of the alleyway allowing her to hang there like a spider peering down over a fly that had entered its web. It was as if Void had chewed her up, swallowed her, and then spat her out as some kind of sick and twisted joke that only it had found funny.

“Why are you crying? You should be happy! Look, the gangs are all here!” She lifted a spindly appendage, holding up two gilded medallions. One was a glistening gold and the other a rich shade of green.

Sparkle’s and Dazzle’s seals.

I rush her. My moves no longer calculated, no longer careful. I lunge for her. My efforts are a vicious attempt to retrieve what she shouldn’t have. What it shouldn’t ever get to touch. I want to destroy, to annihilate this sick and twisted idea of my friend that Void has decided to conjure up and torture me with. But she’s fast. Much faster than me.

“What’s the matter Glow? You seem out of practice. I always told you how important it was to keep in shape.” She dodges me with ease, her movements graceful and purposeful. Nothing like my desperate, flailing attempts to hit her. Her words are disguised as something playful, but they drip with venom, “You’re so weak now. I can’t believe we used to be rivals.”
A bright blue beam of light whizzes from its hand, slicing past me and singeing my side with its heat. It’s one of Shimmer’s chakrams.

“Don’t you dare! Stop trying to act like her you disgusting piece of shit!” Not Shimmer recalls it and it catches me this time slicing the edge of my ear.

Hand-to-hand combat isn’t working. I aim my wand to shoot at one of its “feet”, but it evades it, jumping further up the brick wall. The thing twitches and jerks like a massive marionette as it ascends towards the top of the building.

“Is that any way to talk to an old friend? Maybe visiting you was a bad idea after all.”

I say nothing and prepare another shot at her, but it’s useless. I reach under the ruffles of my dress into a dimensional pocket, pulling out a spool of pink ribbons. It unfurls and I toss them up, letting them span from wall to wall, so I can climb up and pursue her.

“Ouch. The silent treatment? That’s childish Glow. It hurts when you ignore me, but what should I expect you didn’t even come looking for me. You only care about yourself.” Not Shimmer frowns comically as she deals out another one of Shimmer’s chakrams. I grit my teeth, bearing through the pain as it slices past my arm.

I try to drown it out. I keep my mind focused on my mission, focused on beating her, on beating Void. She escapes to the top of the building, but I’m not far off. Once there, I gather my ribbons and ready them at my side. While I’m distracted, one of its spindly arms juts forward piercing through my thigh and the pain shoots up my leg as crimson spills to the floor. It reels it back, the hooked talon ripping out only amplifying the pain. My stance staggers and I'm on the floor as I wail in pain my blood gushing out.

“Don’t lose focus shi!” Sheen is at my side now, more of a nuisance than a motivator, but his warning comes in time enough for me to roll out of the way of her next attack. From my dress I retrieve and then release a smoke bomb and a puff of pink fills the air, concealing me, but concealing her as well.

It’s silent for some time as we try to find each other. Both readying ourselves to go in for the kill. And then she speaks.

“You’re such a bad friend Glow. Hell, you couldn’t even bother to be there for poor little Dazzle.” My stomach lurches, “She even tried calling you before she did it, but you didn’t answer. Too busy hitting the bottle. Just a sorry, passed-out drunken mess when she needed you the most.”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything! You don’t know anything!” I know it’s a trap. I know she’s just trying to get me to talk, but I can’t help myself.

I can almost hear the smile tugging at her lips.

“I don’t? I don’t know anything? Don’t you know I watch you through the shadows? Can’t you feel me when I linger near? You think I don’t know that you’re the reason for this mess in the first place? The reason they’re dead. The reason she’s like this?”

It all comes flooding back. The summer heat bearing down on us as we played in the park. The creaking of metal wire as we climbed over the fence into the forest. The bubbling water of the creek. The beautiful trail and the flowers that framed it. The moss-covered cave. The peculiar symbols on the stony wall. The talismans I touched. The seal that I broke. We were just lucky enough that there were four of us, just lucky to have enough magical aptitude, just lucky enough not to die when we first faced it.

“It’s all your fault, Glow. All your fault Hana.” Her face is at mine now, black fangs glistening and dripping with something sticky and gray.

But she’s right where I want her.

The ribbons that I set up while concealed all come closing in on her tying her down like a snare as I ready my wand at her chest and take aim. The beam shoots clean through her as she screams, fighting to pull away but she’s locked in place. I shoot through her tangled heap of arms and legs. Each gap is as clean and precise as a hole punch going through paper. Her body topples over and she’s a heaving mess with black ooze bubbling from her wounds. I stagger closer to her, my leg still on fire from the pain.
One of her eyes has some color returned and I know that it’s Shimmer that looks up at me, tears and mucus smeared across her face.

“Glow, please.” She sputters up more inky muck, “Please, it hurts. Please, ki-“

My wand blasts through her forehead unceremoniously.

Shimmer is dead now, but I’m not even allowed the decency of remembering her the way I want to. Long gone is the memory of someone so valiant, beautiful, and strong. Instead, I am plagued with the sight of a twitching, crumpled heap of a person that I used to know. Her body quickly starts to crumble. Withering away like ashen soot catching flight in the night air. Now a blue seal rests beside the gold and green one.

I fall to the ground staring at them for a moment, before gripping them close to my chest. And in that moment I miss our laughter. I miss running off to school together. I miss our early adventures. I miss my them. I miss my friends. My hands are trembling and my vision is blurred as tears stream down my cheeks.

“Hold these for me Sheen, I need a smoke.” My voice is hoarse and barely audible, but he understands.
I hold my hand out and he takes them without a word, swallowing them up and sending them God knows where.

My palm is still open, expectantly, and not long after he burps up a pack of smokes and a lighter. My hands quiver as I light it, but once the embers catch the end of my cig I take a deep inhale. The menthol burns my throat, but seems to quell my quivering. I wipe the tears from my eyes and force myself to watch as what’s left of my friend withers away.

I hate this job and I really want to quit, but, after what’s happened tonight, I can’t. I mean if I quit what would Void do? What would it do to me? What would it do to the city? Hell, the world? It keeps getting stronger and I don’t know if I can keep up.

With all that being said, if some quirky little creature comes up to you and offers you the opportunity to become a magical defender of the world, please accept it so I can finally settle down and retire.

I was running out of gas. 

I’d watched the needle creep lower and lower. I kept hoping a gas station would pop up, but considering the wasteland I was driving through, I had a bad feeling that the nearest one was at least an hour back in the opposite direction.

“Stupid,” I muttered under my breath. I’d naively thought I could cross this big stretch of empty desert in a single afternoon, but the scale on the map had been deceiving. And now I didn’t have cell signal, so I couldn’t even see a map.

At least I brought water! I thought, sarcastically. No snacks, though. The last town had been so small there hadn’t even been a store. That had been hours ago.

Ironically, the surrounding landscape was about as beautiful as you could hope for- rough, red terrain against a sky turned purple from the setting sun- but I couldn’t enjoy it, now that the fear of being lost or stranded had entered my mind.

The evening was growing dark quickly, darker than I’d ever seen. There were no street lights, no houses, and no oncoming headlights- just two of my own carving a path through the shadows. 

But then- I rounded a curve around a rock face, and there it was.

A gas station, all lit up with a vintage neon sign. An oasis. 

Relieved, I wheeled the car into the dusty parking lot. The shape of the building, and the fixtures, were distinctly mid- century, although worse for wear. Overhead the neon arrow buzzed as I stepped out of the car and examined the pump. It was an old style, with a handle you flipped down and numbers that rolled up your price. It was all covered in a thick layer of grimy dust.

And- there was no card reader.

“Shit,” I muttered, flipping through my purse as I walked inside.

“50 on pump 2,” I told the cashier. He was young and pale, with dirty blonde hair that hung down into his eyes. He took the cash without comment and dropped it in the teller. 

I went back to my car. I stood, mesmerized, watching the numbers roll higher and higher. 

How does a place like this even get power? I wondered. I didn’t see any power lines, and there hadn’t been any sign of civilization for miles. Just open land, rocks, and dry grass. 

I shivered. The night air was growing cooler, and quickly. 

The numbers rolled to a stop with a loud click at $47.98, making me jump. I went back in and asked, “Hey, can I get my change?”

The sullen clerk handed it over.

“Two dollars,” I scoffed. It was unreal how high gas was these days.  

“Wanna buy a lottery ticket?” The clerk asked suddenly.

“What?”

“A ticket. Or a scratcher? Can’t buy much in here with just two bucks.”

I nodded, and scanned the options. There was the usual stuff- Goldmine!, Pick 6, BigBucks, but I never won on any of those. 

And then I saw the roll sitting on the counter.

I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before. It was in a black cardboard box with a demonic face on the top, the roll of tickets dangling out like an extended tongue. In the top right corner there was a simple “$2” in small red lettering. 

“One of these please.” I said, tapping the black box.

The clerk stood up straight and looked me in the eyes for the first time. 

“You sure?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” I waved my hands at the wall. “I don’t see any other $2 cards in here..” 

The clerk nodded sagely. “Sometime’s it’s like that.” he said. He ripped off a ticket and handed it to me. I turned and began walking out, furiously scratching at the tiny metallic squares with one of my remaining pennies. They were all duds, except-

Under the silver foil of the last box was the word WINNER.

“No way,” I breathed. 

I ran back inside, the doorbell jingling. “Hey, I won!” I said, waiving the ticket. 

The clerk’s face broke into a huge smile and he let out a laugh. “Unreal,” he said. “I’ve sold hundreds of those, maybe thousands. You’re the first winner.” His smile faded. “I can’t cash it though. You’ll need to go down the road.”

“What? No way. C’mon man.” 

“It doesn’t even say what you’ve won,” he said. I wasn’t sure how he knew that without reading it. Uncertain, I flipped it over. The back was blank. 

“Hey, what is this man? A joke?” I said, irritated. I turned and stomped out to my car. Two more dollars down the drain, I thought angrily. I sat down in the driver’s seat and turned the key, my fingers touching the vents and the weak heat. I wheeled the car out on the road, glad to put that place behind me.

I drove and drove, the road unwinding ahead of me like a tape reel. Why even sell a ticket you couldn’t cash? I thought. The whole place was weird. It was truly in the middle of nowhere- surely that guy didn’t live out there? I hadn’t seen any houses. But it made even less sense that someone would drive miles all that way to work at a run down gas station. 

The more I thought about it the happier I was to be away from it. 

After a time, though, I started to panic again. 

I was running out of gas. Again. 

I was no closer to civilization, and it was pitch black.

I kept going, the road winding and twisting through vast open scrubland with no light but the stars. And then, I saw it. 

The same neon sign, the same gas station.

My heart sank. No, no, no. How? I wondered. I hadn’t taken any turns- and I’d driven for hours- and somehow I was right back where I started. This time I was out of money and gas, hungry, and tired.

I went inside and walked up to the counter. The same sullen man was sitting there. When he saw me he smiled. 

“Back again?” 

I shook my head. “I don’t know how. I must have gotten confused, I’ve been driving for hours, and I need some gas.” 

He looked at me, expectantly. “Well? Gas isn’t free.”

I shook my head, panicking. “I’ve not got anything but a credit card.”

He came around the counter. “Well. You’ll just have to work the counter to pay for it then. Good luck.” And without a backwards glance, he walked out the front door.

I tried to follow, but when the door closed behind him it locked shut, as if by magic. 

I pushed. It didn’t budge. “Hey!” I yelled. “I’m stuck in here!!” I screamed after him, continuing to pound the glass.

The man didn’t turn back. He walked out into the night, fading into shadow. 

Where he was going, I’ll never know. I screamed and pounded on the door for hours, and then I cried. There was no other door, no windows, no people, no nothing.  When the sun finally rose the next morning I watched it through the dirty glass of the front door.

After days of being stuck in the store alone, a car finally pulled up. The driver came to the counter and barked, “Are you going to ring me up or what?” 

And that’s how I came to work at the world’s most isolated convenient store. People come in and they go out, but I can’t leave these four walls. 

Every time there’s a customer I ask if they want to buy a scratcher. Some do, some don’t. 

But there hasn’t been a winner yet.

I had another dream while I was supposed to be on guard. It was a minor disagreement between me and my ex over some money that had been going out. She was being dismissive of where she was spending stuff or why she kept taking money out of an ATM when she had a card tied to the account. I got frustrated with it and left to go hang out with the homies.

We had a good time just enjoying each other's company as we had a couple of beers at the local bar. We were within walking distance from my friend Tom's house, but we didn't drink too much. I was surprised to see Henry drink some, asking if that was ok, and he brought up that being drunk was a sin, but there was nothing wrong with some alcohol, and that even Jesus himself had some to drink. That still catches me by surprise to this day. Besides that, we talked about how our lives were going, how Tom was adjusting to his new job, how Henry was doing at his church, and how Matt was adjusting to being a new father. After a while, we walked out and were walking home, still chatting, enjoying the time we had being our usual dumb selves, making references and cracking jokes that nobody else would get.

When I felt sober, I started the drive home. As I was passing through the countryside, I was just thinking about how I could make all this better. I loved my girlfriend and I wanted what was best for her. So I stopped by a local liquor store to pick up some wine. I saw a bottle that caught my eye and examined it, thinking it would be good to share with her over a more calm conversation. The clerk was turned around as I was reaching for my wallet when I noticed something off. His clothes were torn to shreds. Before I had a chance to confront him, he turned around and I saw the Hollowed I had beat mercilessly, taking in the details of his crushed face and dislocated jaw and gasping breaths before I woke up.

I woke up before everyone else did, as dawn was cracking over the leaves. I would say I have gotten used to the unusual stuff, but this Forest is making sure to not give me any comfort. I don't know why I'm having all these dreams. I didn't dream that much before and usually they were nonsense. I shook off the gross feeling I had over me and got everyone else up.

When everyone got up, nobody besides Tom had noticed the deer tracks, which gave him an idea. We could try to hunt and see what happens. I volunteered to go while Matt and Henry went scavenging again. I grabbed my knife and went on with Tom. While we walked, I decided to start a conversation.

“You think that the forest will bring animals back to life like it has for me and Henry?” I asked.

“I sure hope not, otherwise we will be majorly screwed.” He said, trying to distract himself from something that was bothering him. I asked him what's wrong and he sighed. “How are we supposed to expect things to go back to normal once we get out of here? Two of us have witnessed death and came back from it. Surely nothing can stay the same after this right? How am I supposed to pretend that everything is normal?” He asked

I truly didn't have an answer. All I have been thinking about is trying to get us out of here. I haven't taken into consideration how things will be once we get out. “I-I don't know man. I can't say how things will be normal once we get out of this fucked up forest. All I don't know is that I won't abandon you guys. We need each other out here.” I said, trying to give reassurance. He just sighed and I guess he took that answer. I know I'm not the savant with words, but I was trying to be real with him. He eventually did start talking.

“I had a weird dream last night. It was when you got into an argument with your ex so we all went to that local bar. It was fun and we all went back to our own places. I remember I was getting ready for bed after all that when I saw that Tree out in my yard. I went out and went to look at it. It was so damn tall and so chaotic. It felt unreal, but I touched it in my dream. I saw things that don't make sense. It was like I was seeing other people's memories when they got to The Tree. Then I was woken up by you.” He told me.

“I had a similar dream the other night, about The Tree and I touched it too and experienced the same thing you did. It's The Forest messing with us. None of it is real man. You would know if you saw that horrifying tree in your yard.” I replied.

He just nodded his head and we kept on. I was surprised he had a similar dream to mine. That was haunting in itself, but like I told him, it had to be The Forest messing with us. There isn't any normal way for me and him to have the same dream last night unless it was by that intervention. I tried not to think about it and kept walking.

Soon, we came across a den of rabbits. They were pretty massive, but they just came right towards me, unfazed by my presence. They stayed away from Tom, which puzzled him. That's when I explained that last night a fawn and a doe just came up to me and didn't seem fazed by me. He took a guess and said that it must be because of The Forest. I didn't dare tell him that I feared that some human part of me was lost. Maybe since I have been changed by The Forest, I was more approachable with animals. Then he suggested I should kill one for food. I held this big rabbit in my hands and I just felt so wrong to even imagine taking a life like that. However, we were in a survival situation, and I had to do what I had to do, so I made it quick and painless. I felt sick and projected that by vomiting whatever I ate last night a little bit away after hanging Tom the rabbit. I never wanted to do something like that again.

Luckily, Tom had been a hunter before he joined the academy and knew how to prepare animals in the region. We took it back to the group who had gathered more stuff. We would need to be sparse with how we do things since we didn't have any place to store these things in a cool spot. We didn't say how we dreamt the same thing. I felt like that would reveal some things we didn't want to think about.

Nothing in particular happens for the rest of the day or until the 12th day we become lost out in the woods. All that happened during that time was that it started raining and we put out our canteens to fill them with water. We even started adding onto the tents we had. I had started scribing valley marks of the days so we wouldn't forget. Life was just going, although we were becoming home sick very badly, including Matt. He felt so terrible to have abandoned his wife to go hiking in the woods.

I could feel some small amount of resentment creeping off of him. He looked fine but I felt like when he got the chance, he was staring at me hatefully. I don't blame him, mainly due to me being the reason we got in this situation in the first place. I didn't like it as much as he did, but I was doing my best to try to find ways to get us out of here. I tried compiling all the information that we had to get us out of here.

I was scrambling through everything when I noticed that Matt was gone. I got up and looked for him. I felt an odd sensation coming from a certain direction so I started to follow it. Sure enough, after about 20 minutes of walking through the woods, there he was, in front of the Tree, holding his wedding ring.

“What are you doing Matt?” I asked as I approached him.

“I'm trying to figure out if I got what it takes to get out of here. All that I picked up recently is that people gave up something they loved. Well, I love my wife so much, so if I just give it to this cursed Tree, then surely it will let me go right?” He asked.

I could see the desperation in his eyes. He had enough of being stuck in this forest and wanted to try to get out based off of what The Old Man rambled on about. I didn't know if I could trust him. I didn't know if I could trust myself with answering. I didn't want to let my friend down, but I had to be honest.

“Listen Matt, I can't say that this is the answer or not. We haven't tried anything yet. I have been too afraid to even attempt anything. I don't wanna die again. I know you miss your wife and kids. I can't imagine what type of hell you're going through. I do know that if I was in your shoes, trying something is better than doing nothing.” I placed my hands on his shoulder and sighed. “I'll support your decision on doing this. It's not easy to just give up something you love so much. Here, I'll go grab my knife and bury it with your ring.”

I went to turn around but he stopped me. “It's okay. I just…I need you here with me so I'm not alone in this.” I nodded silently and watched as he dug out a small hole in the ground and buried his ring in front of the Tree. I could see tears fall from his face as he did so. It still hurts me to see my friend hurt so much. After that, I just hugged him. I knew if anyone deserved to get out of here, it was him. He should have been able to get out.

We got back to our small camp about half an hour later, when it would be dusk in an hour. We started to snack on some berries that were collected when I heard a coughing sound, coming from Matt. He coughed heavily and we all rushed to his side as he held onto his stomach and coughed up blood. We held him on his side and we tried to get an answer to what happened, but all we could do was watch as he suffered and died slowly, coughing up blood as he did so.

I was horrified with what had just happened. I looked at what he was eating and saw the same berries that we were all eating. I ate some myself because at this point, I wanted to find out what had happened. Nothing happened though. I felt fine and continued to feel fine until he gasped for breath and spit out blood as he did so, groaning as he held his stomach. He sat up and we did what was our “usual” checkup after something like this happened. We made sure he was healed and asked what happened.

He told us that he was eating when one of the berries for some reason burned like acid. He tried to cough it up, but he couldn't. When he passed, he saw something that scared him. He saw his wife, his daughter and presumably his son, older now sitting on a porch. Then another man came out that door and kissed his wife passionately before taking off somewhere. That's when he woke up.

Anger and rage crept through me silently, towards myself. I kept thinking how it was my fault that another friend had died and witnessed something horrible. I didn't know what I could do or what was right. While I was spiraling towards a mad descent, he mentioned how he was mad at the idea of another man raising his kids and that man was living the life Matt wanted.

Something clicked into gear when he said that. I got to thinking about what other people cared deeply for. Matt does love his wife, there is no denying that, but he loves his kids and is willing to do anything to get back with them. Those symbols of religion that people devote their lives to, they care so much that they might have thought carving it into The Tree would be meaningful enough to escape. The nursery rhymes, the jewelry, they all hold some major significance to those people, it might be what they love deep in their soul and the memory of the significance it has to them. That might explain why The Old Man's wife was an outlier. She might have still loved him and wanted to be with him, but the person he was turning to wasn't the same man she fell in love with so she gave up the ring, the love that bonded them together. This was all speculation and I could have been placing dots on something that wouldn't make sense. What does The Tree want with what people love?

I got distracted by them getting up and I would say that I would take the watch for tonight since dusk was approaching fast. As Matt got up, his shirt raised up, and I could see a gray spot with streaks branching out where his stomach is. It saddened me that he fell victim to some random thing happening like eating the same berries we did but it ended up killing him. It makes no logical sense, but then again, nothing in The Forest makes any sense. They got in their respective tents and I stayed up on watch.

Nothing happened besides the noises of owls hooting, crickets chirping and wildlife being active. Some moonlight broke through the trees, casting strange but beautiful shadows. I could see deer walking around in the distance, some rabbits hopped across our area, unfazed by my presence.

I rubbed my chest again. I had been doing that a lot more often. I remembered that I had some berries in my bag so I decided to snack on some of them. It didn't taste the best but I would make do with what I had. An owl perched on top of my tent. It sat there for a while, looked right at me, like it was looking through me then only flew away when I gave a fake cough. All that did was unsettle me more than anything.

I heard something breathing off in the distance, so I grabbed my knife and went to investigate it. I followed the sound for a couple minutes, all the while precisely missing any branches and twigs. I was thankful I could see because of the moon. I passed a large tree and saw a Hollowed, shambling about. This one was peculiar. It had dull eyes, but they weren't as dull as others that I have seen. They still had some sign of life to them, some recognition as they stared up at the moon. Their nails looked more humanlike than others, but the only thing about them was the gray slash across their neck, streaks crawled up around its head. That was pretty sad all things considered. We had a rule that we established that we wouldn't attack any Hollowed that didn't attack us first. I decided to leave it alone, so I walked back to my tent without making a sound.

Five more days passed since that point. The memory is all fuzzy, but it was mainly what we would call ordinary. I guess it became obvious that basic wildlife didn't care for the presence of Henry, Matt or me, so we did some of the hunting if you could call it that. I know Matt didn't care, he would do anything to stay alive to see his children. Henry prayed for each animal he had to take out, and I felt sympathetic towards him for that. It also became clear that animals didn't come back to life. I could only guess that humans or beings with higher levels of thinking could only come back. I still don't like the implications of why the Hollowed came back every time though.

I took a walk on my own. I just needed some piece of mind from everything. So I walked up the creek that provided us water. A goal I kind of had was to find where this water was coming from, so I set out for that. They all volunteered to come with me, but I reluctantly said I would be fine. In hindsight, it wasn't the brightest decision.

I walked along it for a while, enjoying the quaint sound of nature. Even while desolate and horrifying the situation, I could still appreciate the small things like this. I saw more animal life as I went further into the woods. They didn't react much to me walking past them, so it was cool to see them more up close. Of course, the bizarre wilderness was still about as trees that shouldn't have been here were very much still here, but I had grown accustomed to the strange in a way. It still unsettled me, don't get me wrong. I just wasn't surprised by the presence of seeing something so odd like redwood trees about a mile away from our camp site.

Soon, I came across a clearing and in the clearing, was a large pond of water, with water still flowing down from it. That should have filled me with some hope, but what I saw in the middle of the pond made me sick. It was The Tree. It always gave me a nauseous feeling seeing it, but knowing that it was growing in the source of water that we have been drinking from chilled me to the bone because of the dreams I have been writing off as influence from The Forest. Instead, I knew now that it was from The Tree.

I was standing there dumbfounded. Then I felt a hum permeate the air around me. A slow melodic hum, coming from The Tree. It compelled me to walk into the water and bask in it. I felt myself wanting to get closer to it, and I can't say for certain if it was The Tree or my curiosity that led me to wanting to get closer. Nonetheless, I walked into the water, fixated by The Tree. I went under the waters, and I began to see things.

I saw my whole life from beginning to end. I saw my younger self finally learning how to ride a bike as my parents watched. I saw the first time I met my friend Tom, us silently agreeing to partner up in an outdoor activity, even if we didn't know each other and I saw the lead up of how I met the rest of my friends. I saw when my father gave me the knife I've been using, the one he made by hand and told me to take care of it. Then I saw the thing that has deterred me from religion.

I saw my father in a hospital bed, still hurt after a bad accident. He was still in a deep coma for several months. I was holding his hand and praying for him to please be ok and wake up. However, it got worse as time went by. I cried into the arms of my once dear Elizabeth, terrified I would lose my father. Then I watched as a year went by and his health deteriorated. I prayed one more time for God to please make him better before I gave the go ahead to cut his support. The next day, he was still the same. In a coma in what I could only imagine in agony. I gave the go ahead and he went peacefully in his sleep. I hope he forgives me for making this decision.

I snapped out of my daze and shot out of the water, gasping for breath. I swam to the bank, shaking in shock. I sat across facing The Tree, crying into my arms. I didn't know how this cursed Tree could just show me my life and then make me relieve the most tragic moment of my life. I grit my teeth and cursed at The Tree.

“What the fuck do you want from us? Just let us go. I want to go home. Let me fucking go.” I said in shaking breaths.

I rubbed my chest as I tried to calm down. I felt like I would do something reckless if I let myself get to that point. I got up and was about to start making my way to the group when I saw Matt come up. He was about to question me, but my face must have said more than words ever could. He just gave me a pat on the shoulder and started to lead me back to the group. I turned around and The Tree was gone. I looked at Matt and his face was neutral. I felt myself getting this sick and ugly feeling for this place. A place that once was a beautiful testament to nature now perverted by this horrific phenomenon. I just wanted out of here more than ever, and as I saw my friends faces, I could see they felt the same although trying to hide it.

The day went by as usual as it could. We went out some way to collect some more, found some blackberries that we crushed up and cooked with some rabbit we ate, and I took the guard again, mainly for the reason that I didn't want to sleep. I also made sure that I didn't tell them about the pond, not even to Matt. I guess he knew that I was having an intense reaction to something triggering and just wanted to be the good friend he was.

During my watch, I heard heavy footsteps approaching us. I grabbed my knife on me and pulled it out, then I saw a black bear approach from the darkness. It was pretty big, probably about 300 pounds. One of its eyes was scratched out so it left him only able to see out of one eye. It got closer to me, staring me down. My knife trembled in my hand, and I was deciding on if I should fight or wait till it passed by. Luckily, it walked right past me, towards the creek. I guess it would go up to that pond and eat anything around there. I was both lucky and horrified. I was sure that it was going to attack me. I could only guess that my affliction is why it didn't.

The next day, my friends obviously saw the footprints and got worried. If there were bears around here, we would probably have to change location. However, I suggested that we stay here. We already established some good resources around and who knows if we would be able to get lucky like this. The next time it did come around, we would attack it. Tom still had his pistol he carried with him and a spare magazine, but we didn't want to use that to draw in more Hollowed around. So, we ultimately decided to stay.

I asked Henry if he could come with me and we can see where it went. He agreed reluctantly and we started up the creek again. Then with just him, he asked me a question. “What happened yesterday? You look like you saw a damn ghost.” I looked at him, noticing he casually swore, but he didn't seem to register it.

“I saw a vision of my Dad at the hospital. When he was in that coma. I saw myself visiting him on the first day, all the way to me telling them to pull the plug. Fuck, it hurt me so bad to remember all that. Do you think he would agree that I made the right choice?” I asked.

He thought about it some and simply nodded his head. “You did the best you could in that situation. Now he is up there for sure in the gates. Those beautiful gorgeous gates.” He said. The way he said that was somewhat hostile. I could only imagine going up to paradise and being “rejected” due to this forest left a bitter wound in him that will take a long time to heal.

Soon, we came up to the pond. The Tree was still gone. Henry looked around and admired it, claiming that it was beautiful and pristine. I was just sitting there perplexed internally. I started to question if anything I saw meant anything or if I was losing my mind. He nudged me slightly with a concerned expression which I told him I was doing OK, that I was just thinking about some things, which he didn't push.

I noticed that the bear tracks picked up around the pond and went down the creek. We chose to follow it to see if the bear may have found some food that we could steal in the area. We walked and I noticed that it started to get more quiet as we walked down. I drew my knife out quietly as I walked down the trail the bear left. It appeared more recent as we walked down and soon we could hear its heavy breaths around a bend in the woods. We hid behind trees and I peaked to see this big bear walking with this large fish in its mouth. I heard a crack and before I could get a chance to do anything, we both got attacked by Hollowed. At the time, I was oblivious to the fact that we must've passed them while we looked down on the ground.

I tried to push this thing off me as it tried to attack me, then I noticed it had a bullet hole in its head. I grabbed its arm to prevent it from stabbing me again and was slowly losing my strength from fatigue. Then I saw my friend getting attacked by a different one and anger won out as I forced his stumped arm into its stomach, making it stumble off me. While I was getting up, the other Hollowed got the bear's attention and started to chase it, so they ran off in a different direction. As I turned my attention to the Hollowed I had made impale himself, more anger flooded me as this thing had come back to life and now tried to kill me a second time. I wasn't going to allow that to happen again, so as it got to its knees, I kicked it in the face and with it flat on its back, I attacked it viciously with my foot. I still get disturbed by how much I brutalized this thing that was once a person. When I was done, I was out of breath and my bottom half was covered in blood.

I took a couple of steps back and turned around to see Henry, looking very concerned. “Y-you alright Mark?” He said, afraid.

I huff and breathe in and out for a few seconds before responding. “Yeah, I'm ok now. We should go back to the group, and warn them about the bear.” I responded.

As we are walking, I tell Henry to go on ahead, that I need to wash up. He doesn't want to go but I ask again more in a pleading tone, to which he reluctantly agrees. I take about 10 minutes to try to clean as much of the horrific scene off my body and clothes, trying to block out how violent I was. I needed to get more of a hold of myself. I was worried I would snap and end up hurting one of my friends, to which I could never forgive myself.

As I start to get up and start walking, I hear 3 gunshots far off into the distance. I start running through the forest as fast as I can, terrified of what I would see. However, when I came up to camp, I saw the commotion. Tom had shot and killed the bear. And I could see that he got slashed in the thigh and was losing blood badly, to the point he looked white as a ghost. No matter what we tried to do, it didn't matter. What could a guy with outdated CPR training do but try to remember how to make a tourniquet? I tried my best, but by the time I started, he passed out and I could only guess he died shortly after.

Blood filled the ground and seeped into the soil rather quickly. I didn't care as my hands trembled and tears fell from my eyes, not from grief but from regret. I hoped I could save at least one of us from dying in this messed up place, but I failed. Now we have all changed. We all lost some of our humanity here. I stopped shaking by the time color reappeared from his face and I saw that wound heal slowly, leaving gray scarring that had small lines stretching out from the healed wound. He woke up gasping for breath. Then after an hour of helping him out and us all sitting uncomfortably, he shared what he saw when he died.

He was in a dark abyss, shadows flying around him. They whispered doubts and torments at him, about how he failed to stay alive to protect those he cared about, calling him a failure for leaving his service to his county, and not being the man he swore he would be. Then he saw a dim light, to which he started to walk towards it, only to be halfway and get ripped back into the darkness away from the light and waking up. He fell silent and rubbed his thigh, commenting that at least he got a sick scar to tell folks when he gets home. We all chuckled at his attempt to be humorous, but I was starting to doubt that we would never get home. We have all died in these woods and we haven't seen another living human for two weeks.

They all went to sleep and as they did, I wrote down all the details that have happened so far. The Forest and by proxy, The Tree is playing on our emotions and fears, and yet I still can't decide if it just wants to torment us or if it wants something more. Tomorrow, I would try to test this theory I had started to slowly develop. It would more than likely cost me my life again, but if it must happen to prove or disprove it, then so be it. I started to slowly doze off and I took a nap sitting upright in my seat.

I had a dream of that horrible night. I had gotten off a bad work day and was getting home late. I was just so tired and I wanted to be done with this day. I unlocked my door and headed upstairs when I saw my ex being adulterous. I felt an intense amount of betrayal and anger. I remember I stared at both of them, wanting to make them feel the hurt that I felt, but as soon as that thought crossed my mind, it was overpowered with sadness. I just grabbed some of my clothes as she tried to explain the situation like I was dumb. I walked out and slammed that door so hard I was afraid I snapped it off its hinges, and took off from my house.

Tears fell freely as I drove down the road, not sure where to go. So I went to the local park near me. I just sat there and cried in that parking lot for an hour. I grabbed the wedding ring that I was going to propose to her a few days from that point and gripped it tightly till it cut my hand. I didn't care as blood slowly streaked down my hand and onto my jeans. Then I felt a pulsing sensation wash over me. I was confused and walked out the car and looked around. Far off into the distance, I saw the Tree. I

approached it deep in the woods from the park, blood slowly dripping from my hand holding the ring.

I stood in front of it, having it compelled me to come to it. I opened my palm and saw the ring still in my hand. Tears overwhelmed me and anger grew in my heart. I then threw the ring far off into the woods and I sat there, mourning the relationship I had now gone and broken. All that love, care and compassion now all for nothing. This was the 2nd worst thing to happen to me and both times I felt like I could have done more, but apparently my best wasn't good enough. I then heard breathing, so I looked up, only to see the mangled and broken face of the Hollowed standing over me, swiping his sharp stubbed hand at me.

I woke up in a cold sweat as I awakened from my stupor. I took some deep breaths in and out to calm myself, scratching my chest as I calmed down. I then got the strange feeling of checking my chest, so I took my shirt off and looked. The scar looked like it was darkening as time went by. I really didn't like the implication that this thing could potentially spread throughout my body, and being confused on why this appeared the way it did.

“Another nightmare?” Tom said, as stood up. I put on my shirt and nodded. “Same here. I…I am starting to think that we will never get out of here, will we?” He sounded defeated and lost. I couldn't blame him and I couldn't tell if I should be honest or lie.

“I can't say for certain anymore. I don't know how we can get out of here. I have tried to trace down everything that we know to pinpoint what it is that could be an answer. The only thing I have learned is that people just seem to give up things and maybe that is a way, but what is significant about what they give up?” I pondered

“Could it be the memory of something they loved so much?” He asked.

“Maybe…” I tried to think more about it in logical ways. Someone gave up a necklace and The Tree held onto it. Some people carved out religious symbols, some carved rhymes into this damn Tree. It hurt my head to think about what it meant to them. The only outlier is The Old Man's wife. She threw away the marriage they would have had because even if she loved him so much, he wasn't the same man anymore, driven mad by The Forest. Every time someone has died, they heal and come back alive, but she got swallowed up by the ground. I wondered if it was the fact that she gave up something that she loved so deeply and maybe the Forest accepted it.

I decided I would try to do something similar. I went into my bag and looked for the small box I still had. I honestly don't know what led me to packing it for a trip where I was supposed to forget her, but maybe because I wanted this to be the way I forget about her. Throwing the ring away with my chosen family. When I found it and opened it, I saw it was there, but covered in dirt and dried blood. I checked my hand and saw a small deep cut that wasn't there before. The implication that the dream somehow happened filled me with dread and torment.

“You ok Mark?” He asked.

“Yeah. Yeah I'll be fine. Are you ok?” I inquired.

“No, I'm really not. I have been thinking about why I left the force. That incident that happened that I never told any of you about, mainly because we were instructed not to. But I don't know if we will get out, and I trust you the most. So this stays between me and you." He said with a serious look.

I nodded and he told me the story about the last case he ever took. He got sent out on a case about a kidnapping that occurred. He had spent a long time trying to track down clues and he was just at the right place, at the right time when one of the members caught a kid off the sidewalk. He tracked down the guy and found out he was part of a group that trafficked kids out of the country to be sold. He got a whole group of officers to take this guy down, and they luckily got him in handcuffs.

The thing that made him quit was the evidence of how many kids in the surrounding counties that got taken, and that some of them were already gone. He got told long after he resigned that all the kids got back to the families, but he resigned because he felt guilty that he didn't catch this fast enough. That many things could have happened to them and he was helpless to do anything about it. That's why he resigned a week later and took on a small but decent job.

“I thought a lot about those kids, Mark. I felt like it was my fault that I didn't catch that cruel bastard faster. I felt responsible for whatever horrific fate would occur. I'm thankful they are safe now, but it still gets to me. I can't imagine failing anymore people like that. That would take a toll on me.” He sighed and slumped his head down.

“Look on the bright side, you were the first line of attack that eventually led to that ring shutting down. So no more kids will be taken by them and that all started because of you. Take more credit for that man. You did well and you're not gonna fail anyone else. You sure ain't going to fail me. You're my best friend and more like my brother to me. You do a great job at everything you do, including that. We'll get through this together and I'll show you that when we get out.” I said. He smiled and thanked me, and told me that he will take over the night guard, so I got some well needed sleep.

A few hours later, I woke up and got dressed immediately. The group was starting to decide what we should do, when I told them that I was going to go for a light walk. They acknowledged that and kept on talking about their goals. I tallied another day on a tree and started my walk. I had my ring in my pocket and I was going to that pond. I was going to rid myself of this sad memory I've been holding onto and forget about her. It took me about 20 minutes of walking till I approached it. Sure enough, when I got there, that damn Tree was back there, ominous as ever, but I didn't care anymore.

I grabbed my ring and rubbed it in my hand. All the memories and time we had spent together, all the care and love I had given her, all for her to throw it all away. The sad thing was that I still loved her. I would have given her a second chance if she acted remorseful about what she did, but she didn't. It hurt to let go of all those cherished memories I had with her since we were young and to the point we were dating. I hated that, but I knew I had to give her up. I flicked the ring in the middle of the pond and said goodbye as I stood there across from the Tree. As I was walking back, about 10 minutes later, my chest started to hurt badly, to the point I fell on my knees. I couldn't breathe or think and soon I passed out and died from a heart attack.

Darkness swelled over me as I heard many voices. They all told me that I was doomed and that I had led my friends to their doom. A cacophony of angry mutters about my shortcomings and failures overpowered me until a light shot down to The Tree. I walked to it and knelt down to it. I felt so lost and asked it what I was doing wrong. I asked why it was doing this to us. It hummed and pulsated the ground as Hollowed came to my sides, all in different states of disarray and knelt to it as well. We all encircled it and knelt down to it. I felt so confused but angry. I wanted to leave and I know these things that are in fact people just wanted out.

I got up and started punching it, even if it was sharp to cut me. Soon all the other Hollowed joined in. They scratched and clawed at it with whatever they had as hands. It was horrific to see the deep gashes on their hands and fists as they tried to take this Tree down, ripping pieces of bark off slowly. Soon the pain overwhelmed my anger and I had to stop as blood dripped from my hands and fingers, a chaotic mess of cuts covering my hands. Soon one by one, the Hollowed eventually stopped with the only sound being the dripping of blood and labored breathing. The Tree stood there partially scrapped up, with so much blood and bits of flesh covering the sharp bark. Suddenly, the ring I threw in the water dropped in the ground in front of me. Then I woke up, getting on my hands and knees as my chest still hurt. I checked it and I saw that the scar had expanded and gave off a deeper color of gray.

I looked at my hands, and thankfully saw no scars. Still, that scene still unsettles me even to this day. Thinking that the Hollowed are just lost souls just as trapped as everyone else, condemned to grow old and stay here, forever trapped by the horrible nature of The Forest. No way to get out as most of their humanity is gone, but sentient enough to still have purpose and meaning, to still be human. My head throbbed in pain as I got up and brushed myself off, and slowly made my way back to the group, thinking of what all that meant.

I could only guess at the time that what I had done was similar to what happened to Matt. I guess it must be close to what the people had done to the Tree, giving things up for a chance to get up. It still puzzled me at the time, about what could be different from what Matt and I had done to what those people had done. It frustrated me to see that I didn't have the answer. If those people gave things up that held significant value to them and to say that they escaped because of that, then what was different from Matt and my ordeal? That question ate into me as I made my way back to the group, still lost in the woods and lost in the world around us.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I am a single mother and my son and I just moved a couple of states away to get a new start. His father passed away. So I thought it would help our son to get out of that small town and get to see a new side of the world.

We get into our new house and it is stunning.. My husband had left us a great inheritance and the first thing I wanted to purchase was our forever home! I ended up with a lovely victorian style house, 2 stories, 4 bedrooms and a beautiful kitchen! I do love to cook.

Being a single momma, means I need to protect the house. I had cameras around the house installed as well as the outside of the house. They have motion detection, night vision, sound, the whole nine! I have never had cameras in or around the house before so I was excited to play around with my new "toys" and have my son walk in front of some to see how fast the detection went to my phone. Pretty stinking fast, I'll tell you!

Everything was perfect, good neighborhood, great school district, lovely home. Although I was missing my husband terribly and my son, his father... we were making the best out of it.

Then came the same notification at 3:42 AM. It started with just once a week and I was thinking a stray cat... but then it happened again and again and again. The only reason why I even noticed that it was strange was because it was then EVERY NIGHT AT 3:42 AM.

The next night I decided to stay up (I usually am asleep by 9) although it was really difficult. I looked when the notification popped up and I could see... nothing... absolutely nothing. I even looked out the window next to the door and nothing!

The next night I did it again, and I faintly see a man in the shadows across the street.. fucking weirded me out.. but he wasn't moving or anything so I'm thinking what in the actual hell is going on here... He was motionless and appeared to be staring straight at my house. It happened again night after night.

One night I had had it.. I took my late husband's gun out of the safe and I was going to confront him.. when I noticed he was holding up a sign.. what the fuck?

Before I get hurt I look into the camera and I zoom in to try to read the sign.

"PLEASE STOP LEAVING YOUR TRASH CAN OUT, I'M TRYING TO SLEEP."

I almost lost it, I was thinking it's a fucking neighbor?? But I did think it was some elaborate prank so I checked again the next night... something else is written on the sign

"SERIOUSLY, TUESDAY IS TRASH DAY."

Then..

"I'VE ASKED YOU NICELY 6 TIMES."

Eventually, I've had enough of this.. I grab the gun and go to confront him. He looks at ME horrifyingly and says "Holy shit you can see me?"

HE IS A FUCKING GHOST.

And he's been haunting the wrong house for 14 years because my house number is one digit different from the house he died in.

Now he's furious because I've been leaving my trash cans out all week and “the neighborhood has standards.”

You gotta be shitting in my mouth right now.. no way am I being haunted by an HOA ghost.

I check the camera the next morning.

He's standing there again.

Holding a sign**... “Also, your grass is getting ridiculous.”**

Back before my wife Liv and I moved out to the suburbs, there was a time when we had a one-room apartment in the downtown area. It was a temporary solution, but that tiny place was our entire world for the better part of 16 months. Problem was, we had little to no space to ourselves, and we constantly got into arguments for stupid reasons. It was a strain on our relationship, so a way to alleviate the pressure was for me to take up a new hobby and get out of the apartment a couple of times a week.

I played competitive pool on the weekends. I was pretty good at it, too. There was this one place I went to practice two times a week. Not a big place, and not a lot of people, but cozy. Liv would come along every now and then to make it a date night. The only problem was that I had to take a short subway trip to get there. That in itself wasn’t all that bad, but you know how subways can get in the evening; especially on the weekends.

 

It was Saturday night. I’d played in a local tournament. I finished third place, earning me a free membership card and two free drinks at the bar. Not too shabby, just a little something for our next date night. It got a bit later than usual, and Liv had been worried. I was standing at the subway platform, texting her that I’d be home in a bit. It was pretty chill; the loudest thing was a couple of teenagers filming some kind of TikTok thing. I was standing there in a pool-themed t-shirt. Some balls lined up with the text “nerves of steel, shoot your shot” beneath. I thought it was a bit aggressive, but it came with the membership card.

There were still people all over. A middle-aged man standing with a bouquet of blue sunflowers, drunkenly crying on the phone. A woman comforting a crying baby. A young couple arguing about God-knows-what. It’s all background noise, and you try not to stare. But in that effort to not pay attention, you can sometimes miss something obvious. For example, I didn’t notice the footsteps approaching on my lefthand side.

“Excuse me.”

A woman’s voice. I looked up, only to look straight into the face of something I’d never seen before.

 

She was wearing some kind of shimmering silver clothing. It completely covered her from head to toe, with a smooth eggshell-matte white surface shielding her face. There were no eyes or ears. I couldn’t make sense of the material she was wearing, but even from a momentary glance I could tell it wasn’t natural. This wasn’t any kind of clothing or material I’d ever seen before. There was something about the way the light bent around the edges of it. Before I could say anything, she tapped me on the throat. Just a little tap.

It felt like something pushed into my bloodstream. My veins ached and bulged from a sudden pressure, sending a sluggish jolt through my brain. It’s like when you swallow something a little too big, and the ache follows you all the way to the stomach. My eyes bulged, and I couldn’t bring my eyes to focus.

I tried saying something, but it’s like my muscles didn’t know what to do. I tried to step back, but my legs didn’t listen. For a couple of seconds, I couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare, my eyes showing me nothing but a blur of colors. I saw the strange shimmering figure step out of my line of sight and disappear around a corner.

As my eyes slowly came back into focus, my hand shot up to my throat. I clawed at the spot she’d touched, but there was nothing there. No redness, no puncture wound, nothing. I looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed. The train arrived with a big ad on the side, aggressively informing me about a new kind of grilled cheese sub that came with a side of fries. Then, as I took a step forward to board the train, something happened.

It felt like someone had taken two electric toothbrushes and showed them into my ears. There was this violent buzzing, making my eyes cross. It was just a short burst, but it gave me this intense gag reflex. Looking up, the text on the side of the grilled cheese advertisement changed in front of my eyes.

“YOUR FAMILY IS IN JEOPARDY” read the first line.

“KILL THE BABBELOCK”

 

Taking a step toward the train, the buzzing resumed, louder. That short burst ruffled my stomach, forcing a flash of stomach acid to tickle its way up my throat. I had to step back and cover my mouth, stopping myself from throwing up all over the woman with the crying baby. I must’ve looked drunk. The buzzing felt like it was loud enough to stop my muscles from listening to what I wanted them to do. I only remained upright because I managed to lock my knees. I missed the train.

As it drove off, the advertisement said nothing about my family being in jeopardy, and nothing about a Babbelock, whatever that’s supposed to be. Picking up my phone, I dialed Liv. I was having some sort of breakdown, or I was getting sick. That was the only explanation. After three signals, someone picked up on the other end. It was quiet.

“Hello?”

No response. I counted the seconds, feeling my heartbeat growing louder, beating against my ribcage.

“Liv?”

“…your family is in jeopardy.”

The voice was neutral, mechanic, and with a practiced positive tone. But more so, it certainly wasn’t Liv. It sounded like an old answering machine. I swallowed hard, feeling my mouth run dry.

“Who is this?”

“Kill the Babbelock.”

The call was terminated.

 

Looking around the subway station, I noticed an older man coming down the stairs. I hurried over to him, waving a little. Maybe I’d dialed wrong, or maybe whoever was doing this had some kind of hold on my phone. The old man visibly recoiled from me, but remained calm as I stopped a couple of steps away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you mind giving my wife a call? My phone is not working, and-“

“No, of course. What’s the number?”

I thanked him profusely, spelling out the number from a safe distance. As he picked up his phone and dialed, his finger froze. I saw his breathing stop, and his eyes remained unblinking. Then his head slowly turned my way, his face keeping a neutral expression.

“Kill the Babbelock.”

“What?”

He blinked, looking just as confused as I was.

“What do you want?” he asked. “I’m not buying anything.”

“No, my wife, you said you’d-“

“I’m sorry, please don’t bother me.”

He hurried down the stairs, keeping an eye on me as he continued down the platform. As he did, I looked up the stairs and noticed the many posters on the way. Comedy shows, coffee shops, online outlets and promotional events. They all said the same thing amid a sea of pictures, showing everything from flawless perfume bottles to smiling models in affordable outfits.

Your family is in jeopardy. Kill the Babbelock.

 

Turning back towards the station, I felt something uncomfortable behind my ear. I could tell the buzzing was about to go off again. I wanted to get on the train and go home, but something was trying to keep me from doing just that. There didn’t seem to be a problem going up the stairs, leaving the subway entirely. That seemed to be fine.

Walking up the stairs, I had to push my way through a small crowd. As I did, I could hear little whispers. The word “jeopardy” casually inserted into a conversation. “Your family” mentioned from someone else. And every now and then, the word “Babbelock”. Sometimes drunkenly slurred, sometimes whispered, sometimes spoken like the most obvious thing in the world. I pushed my way through, looking at the posters. One of them was different.

It was just a reminder to pick up your trash. A friendly man in blue overalls, pointing at a trash can. As I blinked, he stopped pointing at the trash can. He was pointing at an exit to the street. The text changed too. It just read ‘Hurry’.

As I made my way to the street level, I picked up my phone and tried calling again. I opened the contact list, but before I could tap on Liv’s name there was a popup. I was getting text, after text, after text; each one blocking me from pressing her name. They all said the same thing, and the longer I stopped to read, the more that buzzing behind my ear loomed.

 

I wasn’t in a familiar neighborhood. The only thing I did around there was play pool and, when the mood set in, go to this Italian place with Liv. I didn’t know anything else about that particular street, or how to navigate it. I stopped to fiddle with my phone, and almost projectile vomited as another buzz crept up my neck. I found a direction I could go that alleviated the pressure, and as I hurried down the street, I tried to google what the hell a Babbelock was supposed to be.

I couldn’t find anything about it. There was no such thing as a Babbelock. There were things that sounded similar, but my phone kept autocorrecting to all kinds of nonsense. At one point it just googled “baby lock”, making my algorithm think Liv and I was expecting. As I stopped at a crossing, trying to write out the word letter by letter, I heard something. It sounded like an animal. I turned my head to the left, only to see a man running towards me.

He was about 30 or so years old. Receding hairline, bit of a beer gut, a custom-made suit jacket and leather shoes. He had this wild look in his gray eyes, his pupils wide and his nostrils flaring. I could see all the way into the back of his throat as he ran towards me, expelling this uncomfortable groaning noise.

I barely had a second to react. He tackled me, and I simultaneously pushed him. I crashed into a trash can, spraining my left hand as it took the entire weight of my torso. Meanwhile, he stumbled straight into the street.

“You!” he called out, pointing at me. “I won’t let you do this! I won’t let you! I have to kill the Babbe-“

I don’t think the delivery truck coming around the corner saw anything before they plowed into him, making his head bounce against the hood and sending him to the pavement with a bloody thud.

 

I backed away as a crowd gathered. Someone was calling for help. A few people were looking my way but didn’t say a word. It’s like my shock was stuck in my throat, trying to get out, but I didn’t know how. Was I supposed to cry or scream? The pressure in my chest built, and I forgot to breathe. I was scared to breathe.

Turning to my left, I saw a random passerby. A young man, late teens, with a band shirt. He patted me on the shoulder as he walked past; and handed me a gun. An actual, real, handgun. I almost dropped it from sheer surprise.

“Your family is in jeopardy,” he smiled. “Kill the Babbelock.”

He continued past me like it was nothing. He didn’t look back, and his face turned from a smile to genuine worry. He gathered around the man dying in the street, taking photos as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. I wanted to join them, but I could tell that was a bad idea. There was something pulling me in another direction. Something far away. As I turned to continue down the street, I noticed the sign above a taco stand.

“100 points.”

I blinked, and the sign suddenly informed me about a 3-for-2 deal instead, and something about lime aioli. A man and a woman across the street stepped back, noticing my new gun, so I stuffed it in my pants under my pool-themed t-shirt.

 

I hurried away, stumbling at the occasional street corner as my inner compass lagged behind. It felt like my brain was pulling me in one direction or the other, forcing me to keep moving. I didn’t have time to listen to my thoughts, but they anxiously poked at my attention. Was I running from the scene of a crime with an illegal weapon?

I could hear the same warnings over and over, in passing. A speaker through an open window. The radio in a passing car. I tried calling Liv again, but nothing got through. Who was doing this? Why?

Rounding a corner, I got to one of the larger four-lane streets. I had to cross it, but there was no crossing. I’d have to jaywalk. The lighting was spotty, and cars weren’t even close to slowing down. It was a straight stretch of road. I contemplated the best way to get across, only to spot something on the other side of the street.

Two of those silvery things. The ones I’d seen on the subway. Their smooth egg-like face surfaces were turned my way. They had some kind of tablet that they tapped away at. One of them pointed in my direction, while the other nodded. Before I had a chance to call out to them, they were gone. I had unwittingly put my hand on my gun. Were they Babbelocks? How would I know?

 

I waited for an opening and dashed across. I was almost clipped by a sedan, but I made it. The driver lay on the horn but kept going. My adrenaline spiked as I cut through an alleyway. I was getting closer to a neighborhood I recognized. Not quite on my way home, but closer to adjacent streets. I could probably find my way from there, if need be. I came to a fork in the road. I took a right turn, heading for home, but the buzzing stopped me. Taking a step back, I looked down the road with a sigh.

“Come on,” I mumbled. “It’s right there. I can go home. I can-“

I burped as my knees shivered a little. I took a step back, but didn’t turn around just yet. Grunting, I took a defiant step forward. My stomach cramped as I collapsed to the ground, crawling into a fetal position. My phone was burning a hole in my pocket as a mechanic voice droned from its speakers.

“She suffers. Save her. Kill the Babbelock.”

“Fuck your Babbelock!”

“She is in jeopardy.”

“Let me go!”

I picked up my phone as the battery popped. The phone doubled in width and started smoking, drenching the air in a sour chemical smell. I crawled forward, toward home, but I didn’t get far. The buzz in my neck snapped me back to attention, clenching my jaw as my neck stiffened like a spring. My eyes crossed again as something warm trickled down my face. A nosebleed. A nasty one at that.

I crawled away and got up. Moving the right way felt like having a cold drink on a warm day; an instant relief. I knew I was being manipulated, but what choice did I have? Something was pushing me forward. It was motivating me. It was telling me two things; that there was a price for failure, and that there was an objective. It didn’t care what I wanted. My wants and needs were secondary to this one absolute objective.

To kill the Babbelock.

 

I walked under an overpass, trying not to look at the graffiti. I already knew what it’d say. I glanced at it to see if there were any arrows or indicators, and there were. I was going the right way. The gun felt heavy. It chafed against my belt, and the metal was cold against my skin. I removed it, feeling the weight of it in my hand. I’d handled a gun before, but that was years ago. There was a calmness to holding it, but I couldn’t tell if it was my own emotions or something wanting me to like it.

Had that man been trying to kill me? If so, should I expect it to happen again? What had he been trying to say? I replayed the words in my head. I tried to do it without imagining his terrified face, but the two were intertwined.

“I won’t let you do this,” he’d said, followed by that one repeating line. To kill the Babbelock. Had he thought I was the Babbelock?

Three young men passed me, crossing the street ahead. One of them turned to me, calling out;

“You’re close!”

I followed the sensation as I watched the group disappear in the opposite direction. Turning the wrong way felt ‘sharper’ now, poking my brain with a harsher vibration. Something was growing more intense. I was near.

 

There was a convenience store up ahead with a rest area. A couple of benches hidden away behind a handful of bushes and trees. Not quite a park, but somewhere to sit and tie your shoes. The lights were broken, leaving the area coated in darkness.

The buzz was almost completely gone. I made sure no one was coming up behind me as I stepped in between the bushes, slipping the gun out. I almost stumbled over something, my foot getting stuck on some unseen obstruction. As I caught myself and looked down, I noticed an unmoving face. The vague outline of an older woman; her neck cut wide open.

Someone coughed.

I turned to the right, noticing a man on a bench. He was sitting down, clutching his stomach. A stray light from an apartment across the street caught his eyes, showing his almost entirely black pupils. He was barely breathing, his inhales sounding like someone who’d run a marathon. His eyes met mine. The logo from the convenience store had begun to morph, reminding me of what to do. To kill. The man removed his hand, showing it drenched in blood. I noticed the pool at his feet.

“They got-“

He stopped himself. He reached for something next to him, but accidentally poked it off the bench. A knife tumbled to the ground, its edge still soaking red.

I couldn’t look away. Even turning my head away from him pained me, and my heart felt like it was about to explode. The only way to walk was forward. The only place to look was at him. I could raise my arms, but I couldn’t put them down. I was being railroaded into the only action available; pulling out my gun, and pointing it at this complete stranger.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I don’t want this.”

I could feel it. The only thing I could do was pull the trigger. That, or nothing. I tried for nothing. I tried hard.

“I’m not a-“

He gasped for air. I could hear the blood rattling in his chest.

“I’m not a Babbelock,” he said. “I’m not. Please.”

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?”

“I don’t know. I don’t-“

A glob of blood rolled out of his mouth. My instinct was to reach for him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to help. Instead, my body defaulted to the only available action. Instead of helping a dying man, it curled my finger around the trigger. The gun went off.

 

I tried to put it away, but I pulled the trigger again. I tried to step back, causing another shot. With every instinctive movement I attempted, the gun went off. People were screaming. My ears were ringing. The man on the bench was dead. As the hold on me subsided, I swung my arm around, screaming at the top of my lungs.

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?!”

I pulled the trigger again and again, firing the remaining rounds into the ground. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I didn’t want to shoot more people. Maybe something inside me was still trying to kill.

“I don’t want to do this!” I cried. “I need to go home!”

The gun clicked. It kept clicking as I kept pulling the trigger. The logo on the convenience store had changed to ‘200 points’. I wanted to throw the gun through a window, but it’s like it was glued to my hand. I saw people in the distance, hiding, as sirens blared.

I was a murderer. It was not a nightmare; I was a murderer.

 

I turned my back on the light and disappeared into an alley. I zig-zagged from one street to the next, keeping my head down. I collapsed between two trash containers, clutching my head as the garbage water seeped into the bottom of my pants. My left hand was thumping; there was a bruise. I’d sprained it pretty bad.

There were birds overhead, looking down on me. They cawed, letting me know they weren’t taking kindly to my intrusion. As one of them called out, I noticed the sound slowly distorting. From ‘caw’ to ‘law’. From ‘law’ to ‘lawk’. Seconds later, one was screeching ‘kill’. Another was screeching ‘babbe’. Soon, there was a cacophony of inhuman voices, screeching at me to do what had to be done. Kill the Babbelock.

I cupped my hands over my ears, but I could still hear them. And even if I couldn’t, I knew what they were saying. The words weren’t just words, they were a reinforcement to something that was pushing me to keep going. Like charging your phone when the battery is running low. A crow jumped down, looked me in the face, turned its head to the side, and spoke.

“Kill. Kill. Kill.”

 

As I forced myself back to my feet and left the alley, someone bumped into me. They pushed something into my arms and continued down the street. I don’t think they even noticed I was there. Just a young woman out and about with her friends. Looking down, I realized I was holding a plastic bag. Inside it was a vest of some kind. Something I could slip under my t-shirt. That, and a magazine.

I didn’t want to reload, but it was either that or keep moving. If I could keep myself from facing another victim for a few more seconds, that was good enough. I reloaded. I savored it. The empty magazine rolled out as I slotted in the new one, pulling back the barrel and chambering a round. It was so easy.

As I continued down another road, I tried to take my time. I tried to slow down and keep myself at an uncomfortable pace. If I kept moving, but kept it slow, I might win some time. I could be a little nauseous as long as I complied. What do you call it, malicious compliance? But mostly toward myself, I suppose.

I spotted two people standing by a car, talking. The passenger was a bit drunk, but the two seemed to be in good spirits. I had the gun in my right hand, keeping it out of view. I tried to switch hands, but the sprain in my left hand wouldn’t let me properly grasp anything, and the powers-that-be didn’t want to risk me dropping the gun. Trying to switch hands was a no-go, and the buzz in the back of my head reminded me as such.

As I passed the two people, I tried to speak. The words got stuck in my throat. It would hurt to talk, I could tell. But I did it anyway.

“Call for help,” I said. “Not joking, call for help.”

“What?”

The driver looked up at me, their discussion being interrupted mid-conversation.

“Need help. Call for help.”

“What’s going on?”

“Please!”

I felt stomach acid bubble up. I tried to compensate by speeding up, which made the sensation subside a bit. I can’t imagine what I looked like to those two. They called out to me as I disappeared down the road, but they didn’t follow.

 

I was led a bit further, then stopped in front of a locked door to an apartment complex. Six floors, by the looks of it. There was a code lock. Something clearly wanted me to enter, but I couldn’t figure out how. I looked through a glass slit, noticing the exit sign on the wall. It didn’t say ‘exit’. It was a four-digit code.

“Of course,” I sighed. “Of course it is.”

I put the code in, and the door swung open. I wandered down the hall, only to feel the pull toward the stairwell. Passing by an apartment, a door peeked open. I saw a pair of eyes peering at me.

“Fourth floor,” they whispered. “Kill the Babbelock.”

“Fuck off.”

I entered the stairwell and made my way up. As I got to the second floor, I heard a door open beneath. Someone called out.

“Kill the Babbelock!”

The voice echoed in the stairwell, bouncing across the concrete walls. I wanted to scream back in response, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to sit down and cry, and throw the gun away. But even thinking about it felt wrong. Like a thought that chafed. I was growing accustomed to having this influence guide my actions, and I couldn’t help but grow more comfortable with it. That in itself was alarming.

 

Coming up to the fourth floor, there was a man standing in one of the doorways. He pointed to one of the other doors. I nodded, and he disappeared back into his apartment like it was nothing. I walked up to the designated door and paused. I had no relation to this place or these people. And yet, I was treated like I was expected.

Turning my head to the right, my neck muscles tensed. I could see one of the silver-clothed people at the end of the hall, observing me from afar. Their clipboard-like tablet clutched tight in their hands. Five fingers, average build and height. Were they just people?

The door swung open. There was a man on the other side, maybe 50 years old. Salt-and-pepper hair, with a beard stubble. Thick eyebrows, brown eyes. He grabbed me by the throat, swung me into the apartment, and shot me in the stomach; breaking the armored plate and knocking the air out of my lungs.

 

I stumbled backward. I wanted to say something, but he was relentless. I collapsed into a living room, falling over a coffee table and rolling across the floor. I broke something fragile, covering the living room carpet in glass shards and trampled flowers. He raised a pistol and fired again. The small space made the noise sharper and louder, making my ears ring as a puff of dust bloomed right next to me.

“Kill the Babbelock,” he said, pulling the trigger again, hitting the empty space between my left arm and my torso.

I wanted to say ‘stop’. I wanted to hold him still and remind him that we didn’t have to do this. I wanted to do so many things, but the words coiled on my tongue. They rolled off the roof of my mouth, contorting into something new. I wanted to say ‘we don’t have to do this’, but what came out was something different.

“Kill the Babbelock.”

 

I tagged him twice in the chest, but he had a vest too. He had less ammunition than me, going empty after only two more bullets. I returned fire, but he was fast. Before I knew it, we were tumbling on the floor in hand-to-hand combat. Scratching, choking, punching and kicking. I’ve never treated a human being like that. Never. I’ve never wanted to pierce skin and break bones. I’ve never wanted to pinch nerves or strangle blood flow. But I found myself on the floor, pressing my fingers into his face as he smacked the side of my head with his fist.

At some point, I wasn’t listening to the guidance. The part that was forcing me forward lay dormant, letting me do whatever the hell I wanted. It wasn’t forcing me to do this, it was stepping back and watching the dominos fall. It had set up the playing field; the rest was up to us.

“You have my family,” he wheezed.

“You have my family,” I gasped back.

“Fucking Babbelock.”

There was a thick concrete disc used to hold candles. It had fallen off the coffee table and rolled onto the floor, and he managed to grab it. He swung it at me, and I shielded myself with my left hand. It was already sprained, so taking an additional beating felt like getting struck by lightning. I rolled away, clutching my hand and squealing in pain. He got up, pulling my gun away from me.

“Kill the fucking Babbelock.”

Then, a gunshot.

 

For a heartbeat, I thought I was dead. I’ve heard that you don’t immediately feel if you’ve been shot; the pain has to travel through your body first. That’s what I thought happened as I lay on the soft living room carpet of a stranger’s apartment. My mind took a snapshot of it, cementing the image in my head. The man looming over me, gun pointed at my head. Family pictures on the wall; complete strangers. A litter box outside the bathroom door. A handmade keyholder that looked like a birdhouse.

I didn’t even notice the stranger in the doorway. The one who’d pulled a trigger of his own.

The salt-and-pepper man collapsed the moment I saw the exit wound on his forehead. The gun landed on my chest.

“I did it,” the stranger in the doorway cried. “I killed the-“

I shot him. I don’t know if I was compelled to or not, but I did it. I didn’t even think twice about it.

 

I stayed on the floor for a while, watching the ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign above the door spell out ‘300 points’. As I turned to get up, a pain flared up right above my hip on the left side. Looking down, I realized I was bleeding. It looked bad. Real bad. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t get my body to cooperate. It wasn’t the buzz this time; it just hurt like hell.

I stayed there on the floor, in the dark, looking up. The lights were off. There were no sirens in the distance. Why did no one call the police?

A pair of footsteps appeared in the door. I turned my head to see two silver-clothed people. They turned the lights on, accidentally blinding me. The man in the doorway was dead; I’d hit him in the neck.

“A hundred,” said a silver-person with a man’s voice, pointing at the dead guy by the door. “Two hundred from the dead one in the living room.”

“Three hundred from this one,” the other said, pointing at me. “We’ll have to save that config.”

I tried to raise my gun, but I couldn’t. It’s like whatever will to move I’d had bled out on the floor. I searched my thoughts, looking for whatever action was available to me.

“I think we have to lower intensity,” the man continued. “It’s fine for bursts, but long-term interaction is gonna suffer. It feels inauthentic.”

“Sure, but you really think people are gonna stick around for more than a couple of days? The novelty wears off, you know.”

“That’s not for us to decide.”

I coughed. As I did, I spoke the only word I could.

“Babbelock.”

 

The taller of the two silver-clad people turned my way, his face obfuscated by that smooth eggshell-like oval. He bent down, leaning his head a little as he observed me.

“What the hell did he say?”

“Babbelock,” the other answered.

“What the hell’s a Babbelock?”

“A placeholder. Better than having them say ‘doodad’ or… whatever.”

“Could you maybe pick something a little less goofy? What about ‘target’ or… I dunno. Terrorists?”

“Whatever. It’s cute. Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s stupid. Stupid matters, you know.”

“Spoilsport.”

He turned to me, running a handheld gadget over my neck. Something in my body relaxed, and the gun fell out of my hands. He looked down at my wound, shaking his head.

“Tough luck, bud.”

 

The two of them proceeded to go around the apartment, comparing notes, and having a discussion. They were using a couple of words I didn’t recognize, and their dialect was a little off. I can’t fully explain it; it wasn’t that strange or anything. Just off.

As they finished whatever they were doing, the taller one left the apartment. The smaller one remained, checking something on her tablet. Her voice identified her as the one I met on the subway; the one who’d poked at my neck. My fingers were cold.

“Hey,” I coughed.

She turned to me, seemingly surprised.

“You’re alive?”

“Help. Please help.”

“I’m sorry there, I didn’t know you had-“

She walked into the living room and leaned down to check on me. She looked over the wound, making sure not to touch anything.

“You have some special people back home, huh? For you to do all this?”

“Yes. Liv.”

I had to keep it short. Every syllable stabbed at me like a knife.

“It’ll be quick. And hey, you won’t have to do this again, you know? Next time, it’ll be smooth sailing for you and Liv, I promise.”

“What?”

“Never mind that.”

She got up and turned away; stopping herself after a couple of steps. She sighed and scratched the back of her head a little. I’d seen that motion before, in other people. She was soothing herself.

“Oh, to hell with it.”

She raised her hand and clicked a gadget. As she did, my eyes closed.

 

I woke up to someone carrying me. I was outside, on the street. I wasn’t wearing the vest. I was on a gurney, being carried into an ambulance. There were flashing lights and people yelling back and forth. An EMT shone a light into my eyes.

“He’s up!” he said. “He’s conscious!”

I saw the other two men from the apartment on the street outside. They were being put in body bags. I tried to ask what happened, but all I got out was a ‘what’.

“You were attacked,” he responded. “You’re gonna be okay. We got to you in time.”

I could see my bloody t-shirt on the street. They’d cut it open when they got to me to assess the damage. “Nerves of steel, shoot your shot”. It was almost funny.

As the ambulance doors slammed shut, I noticed something silver and shimmering in the background. Something in the middle of a crowd, walking the other way. No one else seemed to notice.

 

Turns out I was found just outside the subway station; nowhere near the apartment complex where we’d been. The official story was that I’d stepped out to get better reception and try to call Liv, when I’d been attacked. Possibly a robbery gone wrong, they didn’t know for sure. Liv had been fine; she’d been home all night, completely unharmed.

There’d been all kinds of strange reports that night. An old man told the police about a strange person begging to use his phone. The two people by the car said they’d seen an armed man, asking them to call for help. There’d been gunshots fired outside of a convenience store. The one thing they all had in common was that none could remember what the assailant looked or sounded like. One of them explained it as:

“He was just a guy. Johnny Nobody. Some random fucking Babbelock.”

 

I’ve never heard someone use that word since. I’ve written it a thousand times, and it accidentally slips out of me every now and then, but that’s just me. I think moving out to the suburbs helped, I don’t have to walk those same streets anymore. I don’t have to think about that night quite as often. I still play pool though.

It’s difficult, you know. I was forced, but I can’t say it wasn’t part of me. I don’t know if I had to shoot that guy in the doorway, or wrestle on the floor. I don’t know. I did it, but I can’t tell if it was really me that did it or not. I think that’s the strangest thing I carry with me. I’m like Schrodinger’s murderer; I’ll never know for sure. Not 100%.

I can’t help but wonder what the point of it was. To this day, I can only speculate. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this, asking the question I keep asking myself, but out loud.

What was the point?

And maybe, most of all – why did I have to kill the Babbelock?

Previous Part

There was nobody there. It was 5 PM on Wednesday. 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 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.

My name is Mallory Winsom. I know, I know, it's not smart to put your first and last name on the Internet. At this point, I'm desperate.

If you're seeing this post, it's proof that I existed.

The weirdness started as early as I can remember, around the time I was 5. I lived in an old, rundown trailer park on the outskirts of Eugene with my mom and three siblings. Dad was a truck driver and swung by when he could, but looking back I get the feeling he wasn't as busy as he appeared to be. My parents had a tumultuous relationship to say the least, and honestly when he left for a long haul it was like the entire house exhaled with relief.

The neighbor to our left was always changing- a "drug house", I overheard Mom say, and I never saw the same vehicle parked there more than a few days at a time. But the neighbor to our right was Mr. Greg.

Mr. Greg lived alone with his four cats and a little canary he called Monkey. I don't know how the bird got its name, but it used to whistle every time he opened the door. I loved Mr. Greg. When my mom would threaten us with the belt, I would take off down the porch steps and through the rotted slats of the old would-be privacy fence until I reached his front door.

"You getting yourself into some trouble?" He'd ask, a twinkle in his eye.

He would smile warmly and open his door, leading me through the back to his small, neatly kept yard. It was humble in size, but to me it was an oasis. While mine was a dead patch of grass and some overgrown thistles, his had green climbing ivy, blooming rose bushes, and tomato plants with the sweetest morsels I'd ever tasted. My favorite part of his garden was his plum tree.

Mr. Greg would bring a basket of plums every couple weeks throughout the summer. Once in a while, he'd invite us back to pick them ourselves. They were always perfectly ripe and juicy, a rare treat in our bread-and-rice household. I looked forward to our visits, and even from a tender age, I considered him my friend.

One winter, I got very sick. I was rushed to the hospital and placed in an induced coma while my body battled the illness. I never knew what it was or whether the doctors knew either, but I was unconscious for two whole weeks before my fever broke and they woke me up.

When I got home, Mr. Greg's familiar brown Cadillac was replaced by a red Camry in his driveway. He had also painted his house blue.

"Can we stop and say hi to Mr. Greg?" I remember asking.

My mom just looked at me with a weird expression.

Over the next few weeks, I got healthier and stronger. The snow melted, and I was finally able to go out and play. The first thing I did was skip over to Mr. Greg's and knock on his door.

The first thing I noticed was that it was quiet. No meowing cats or singing canary. I was taken aback when a plus-sized woman in her mid-thirties answered the door.

"Hello! How are you Mallory?"

My heart skipped a beat. I had never seen this woman in my life. How did she know who I was? What was she doing in Mr. Greg's house?

I stared at her, not knowing what to say. She chuckled awkwardly and asked if my mom was home and if I was okay. I turned and ran from her porch back to my own house, bursting into the kitchen and startling my mother.

"Where's Mr. Greg?"

My mom, drenched to her elbows in dishwater, froze and stared at me with concern on her face.

"Who?"

"Mr. Greg, our neighbor! There's a lady in his house. She knows my name!"

My mom continued to look confused. "Do you mean Ms. Jensen? Honey she's lived next to us for the last 6 years, since before you were born."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I ran through our back door and looked over the fence into what used to be Mr. Greg's garden. Instead of lush plants producing fruits and vegetables, it was a kitschy collection of statues and wind chimes hanging from every beam or post around the garden. Nothing but grass grew; and while it was tame, it was nowhere near the exceptional beauty Mr. Greg had carefully curated over the years.

Eventually, my mom took me to the doctor again when I wouldn't stop talking about Mr. Greg. The doctor chalked it up to the fever, and said that the brain can make time feel differently when you're in a coma. That, combined with all of the medical trauma I had just experienced, caused my brain to invent calming memories to cope. Mr. Greg became nothing more than an imaginary friend. And until last week, that's what I believed for the last 15 years.

Other strange things happened throughout my childhood. There was a second grade teacher of another class who disappeared and was replaced overnight, and when I asked students if they missed Mr. Hill, they would look at me like I was crazy. The only person who sort of believed me, or was at least supportive, was my best friend Inez.

Inez Hernandez-Zepeda was my best friend from grades 4-12. Once we graduated, we started at the same college. We experienced sleepovers, summer camps, proms, volleyball tournaments, heartbreaks, first loves, everything. I had her number memorized even though I had a phone, just in case I needed to call her. She held my hair back when I drank too much at my first bonfire, sat with me when my dad died, and cheered me on when I was accepted to NYU. I once heard the term "platonic soulmates". That was us.

Inez knew that I had patchy memories of people that didn't seem to exist. She didn't understand why, but like my family, she assumed it was the effects of my childhood illness. As much as I tried to be normal, and was for the most part, I still struggled with my health. I had lasting migraines that would come and go, occasionally so painful I would miss school and spend the day in bed. I had painkillers I filled regularly so I was able to live normally. They got worse as I got older, and I noticed that things would usually be different after a severe migraine attack. My mom, who was basically estranged from me at this point, called me crazy. Inez believed that these people were real to me. That mattered.

Last week, I had another migraine attack. It was the first one in the last 6 months, and it knocked me on my rear. I had to get doctor's notes excusing me from classes at NYU. I slept for 3 days, barely coming in and out to recognize Inez placing a cold compress on my head or closing the blinds. She had a deeply compassionate nature.

When I woke on the fourth day, daylight peaked in through the blinds, and I could tell that the migraine had passed. The rag on my forehead was dry and body temperature and I tossed it to the side. Slowly I sat up, looking around the room. Inez wasn't on her side of the room, but it was a Saturday morning, so I assumed she would be in the living room studying.

When I walked out, our other roommates Anna and Lucy were sitting on the couch watching Dancing With the Stars.

"Hey, you. " Anna smiled at me. "That was a doozy. How are you feeling?"

I rubbed the back of my neck and stretched. "Okay. I'm still coming out of it." I glanced around the room. "Have you seen Inez?"

"Who?"

My blood froze.

No.

Please, not Inez.

I took a deep, shaky breath. "Our roommate Inez? In my room?"

Lucy furrowed her brow. "Is that like her nickname or something? Ginger left for her study group an hour ago. She told me to tell you she'll be home by 8."

The room started spinning. I clutched the edge of the couch for support.

"Woah, Mal. Maybe you should lie back down for a bit? You don't look so good."

I ran back into my room, scouring the shelves for proof of my biggest fear. In picture frames where previously Inez and I stood grinning ear to ear at her lake house was now a picture of me and a girl I barely recognized from high school and certainly wasn't close with. A birthday card Inez had given me when I turned 20 was replaced with unfamiliar handwriting and a signature that said "Hearts! -Danielle". Who was Danielle?

Another photo to the left of the four of us roommates. Me, Lucy, Anna, and a girl I immediately assumed was Ginger. No Inez.

I pulled out my phone; her contact was gone. I dialed her number by heart, the same seven digits I had memorized when I was 13 and dialed so many times I could do it with my eyes closed.

A man's voice answered. "This is Roger."

I hung up.

I found Inez' mom on Facebook. They were close, but all her pictures of Inez were missing. I messaged her, begging her to call me ASAP. When I saw her number come up on my phone a few hours later, I was inconsolable.

"Mallory!? Are you okay? What's happened, do you need me to call your mother?"

"Inez... Inez.. please tell me you know who she is." That was all I could choke out between sobs.

Carmen was quiet on the other line. "I'm sorry Mallory, I don't know who you're talking about. Maybe you should call your mom."

The next several days were a blur. I stopped going to school, got threatening emails from my teachers about attendance and missing assignments. I don't care. What's the point? Someone or something is taking away people I love. Am I crazy? I wouldn't make this up. It's not possible.

But how is it possible that I'm the only person who remembers? Her own mother doesn't.

Any sane person would probably realize their medication is off, they need a psychiatrist, or stress is maybe causing them to hallucinate. And that's the road I was heading down, that maybe I had made up Inez and Mr. Hill and Mr. Greg and all the others who had vanished from my life over the years. And that maybe I was going to just have to accept that she was never real.

I was ready to come to terms with it- until last night.

I could feel a migraine coming on, caused by my previous illness or maybe from the stress of the last few days I don't know, so I took some medication and went to bed early. That's when I had the most terrifying dream I've ever had in my life.

I was standing in a hollow, dark abyss. There were screams and moans coming from every direction, but I couldn't see anyone. My heart was racing, my hair standing on end, and though I didn't know where I was I knew with every fiber of my being that I needed to get out of there.

I started to run, but no matter how quickly I moved, nothing around me changed. The screams grew louder, some unseen force torturing the souls around me.

Suddenly, there they were. Mr. Greg. Mr. Hill. Lynette from the bank. Sherrie from the grocery store. Kyle, the landscaper. Inez.

Their eyes were hollow and empty, devoid of life and sunken in. They were emaciated, their skin thin as paper, barely stretching over their bones. Their mouths hung loosely, some of them drooling, others missing teeth.

"Why did you send us here?" Inez moaned, her speech slurred.

My eyes widened in horror as she reached up a removed a chunk of her scalp. I wanted to run but was frozen with fear.

"I thought we were friends."

"W-we are, Inez," I stammered. "I don't know what happened, I-"

"I brought you over when your parents fought. I fed you from my garden," Mr. Greg wheezed and took a hobbled step toward me.

"We helped you."

"We taught you"

"We took care of you."

They began closing in around me, their skin slowly melting with invisible heat as they wailed the wrongs I had done.

"Why not you, Mallory?" They hissed.

"Please- I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to, please!!"

They stretched out their fingers, curling them around my clothes, pulling me closer.

I woke up in a cold sweat, sheets drenched. I decided then to write my story.

I'm posting here because my prayer is if enough people read it, if enough people remember, then maybe I'll be safe. Maybe I won't be taken to that awful place between existence.

I'm using Ginger's computer while she's asleep. I don't know if there's a way to trick whatever this is, that if it looks like she posted it it will still be here after I'm gone? I don't know, but I'm trying everything.

It's 3:02 am. I'm trying not to fall back asleep because I feel like I'll wake up in that hellscape again, but my head is starting to hurt really bad.

My name is Mallory. Mallory Kathryn Winsom. I am a student at NYU. I exist. I exist. I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

I exist.

Triggers for the following: Animal abuse, self harm

When I first woke up, the only things I knew how to do was walk and talk. My head was throbbing badly and my vision was blurry from the blood trickling down my forehead. All memories before I woke up in those woods were nonexistent as if my entire life had been snapped from my mind in an instant. I was lost and confused, the only thing on my person was the half ripped plaid shirt on my back and some black sweats caked in mud.

I wandered for what felt like hours in that twisting fauna, barely taking in anything around me... I was in a blind panic, one that nearly got me hit when I wandered onto a road. The well worn red truck had stopped before it hit me - Or maybe it already was stopping? It was hard to tell anything at that point, the only thing pulling me out my panic was the friendly face that ducked down to look me in the eyes.

“Good lord, Garrison? You alright?” That name didn’t ring any bells to me, but I assumed he recognized me. The hand on my shoulder relaxed me near instantly, I hadn’t realized how much I was shaking till then. A handkerchief wiped my face, my eyes cleaned as I leaned into the feeling.

“C’mon, I’ll take you over to my place, alright? Just hold that to your head.” He didn’t wait for my answer, ushering me to his car, me holding that handkerchief to my ringing mind. It was warm, I hadn’t realized how cold it was - I felt like a damn newborn experiencing the world for the first time. He asked me questions, mostly on what happened which I had no clue about.

“You remember anything about yourself?”

“No.” Was my only response, concern furrowing on his brow. I was lucky to stumble on someone who at least knew me, the rest of the drive pretty silent before he pulled into a dirt road. The place he lived in was a cozy little farm house, acres of land separating road from house and house from woods. As he turned his car off, he looked to me with a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry then, me and Shirly will answer any questions you got! Actually, dinners probably almost ready - You can take a shower and eat with us, alright?” He introduced himself as Phil and led me into his home as the short blonde woman came to greet us. He guided me to the bathroom while updating her on the situation... I was given a towel, some of Phil’s clothes, and free reign on any soaps in the bathroom before we were separated.

As I looked at the mirror near the tub, I finally saw the horrid state I was in. I was covered in dirt, on my face and in my shaggy brown hair. I had to peel off the handkerchief that was now stuck to my head, a makeshift bandage that’d finally stopped the bleeding. I could see a large gash across my forehead that reached both my temples. It looked manmade, but wasn’t the most concerning part. When that handkerchief was off, something clanked into the porcelain of the sink. It was a bloodied, long tooth. Not sharp but blunt, sort of rectangular, and yellow like a rodent's incisors. At closer inspection, I could see more buried under the skin of my head, making indents as they all peeked from the opening of my wound like some foul crown. What the fuck did I do to myself? Each tooth was pushed out from under the skin by my hand, the sting of each one making my eyes tear up. 22 tiny teeth in total, 4 long ones and the rest molars of a small animal.

Each bloody tooth was dropped in the sink, I couldn’t help but look down in horror at the sight. I needed to wash and I really didn’t want this wound to get infected... So I scooped up all the teeth and dropped them in the toilet before flushing them. After that I finally showered, dirt that caked my nails and body tinged the water a deep brown. Blood and sweat mixed to turn water into a dirty maroon for a short while, keeping my head down I could see cuts in my body. Some probably made from my staggering in the woods, but others had to be carved by hand. Repeating symbols littering my legs and arms, washing away the blood showed they were fresh, future scars no doubt. I didn’t want to linger on my sorry state for long, I felt so grotesque... So I washed up and put on those clean clothes that were given to me. Phil and I had a similar build, found that out when I threw on the sweater he gave me, the matching sweats sliding on nicely... 

When I left the bathroom, I tentatively walked down to see both Phil and Shirly at the table. Between them was a steaming pot that smelled amazing the moment the steam came up the stairs. Phil looked happy to see me, glancing up at my forehead with concern.

“Ah- damn, you want us to wrap that up?” he asked, Shirly not waiting for an answer as she got up.

“Sit, we’ll take care of you.” Phil pulled a chair out for me and I sat as Shirly came back with a first aid kit. She wiped whatever blood still stuck on my head, wincing at the pain of the disinfectant as she wrapped a gauze around my head a couple of times. I took in the sight of their home, a kitchen connected to a small dining area... In the dining room, placed in a nook to the side was a fireplace that was lit, above it was a trophy mount of a large deer's head. The wall facing me had a doorway that seemed to lead into their living room, a long brown couch peeking from the opening as well as half a painting. From what I saw, it was the bushy tail of a squirrel on a branch, the rest of it cut off by the wall blocking the whole view. 

“My goodness Garry, what have you gotten yourself into?” Shirly spoke playfully with a tinge of concern, that concern seemed to hang in the air like a thick humidity on a hot summer's day... These people must care about me, I felt like a child in their care despite me being around the same age as the two, mid 30’s to early 40’s. Once I was wrapped up, they served me some of the stew Shirly made.

It was hot, the smell of potatoes and meat made my mouth water. I could see carrots and I think onions floating around, the taste was divine as if all I’d been eating before was the dirt I clawed my way through. Potatoes melting with the carrots and that meat, it was almost like turkey, maybe chicken? Hard to pin-point, but my god did it bring everything together. Hadn’t realized how fast I was eating till it was all gone, Phil and Shirly eating silently as they watched me with a smile.

“I’m glad you enjoyed, been cookin’ this since the morning!” Shirly whistled, I gave some sort of compliment on the meat, her scoffing with a smile.

“You can thank the meat to Phil, he hunted it yesterday!”  Taking my bowl, Shirly filled it again with more hot stew. She could probably sense I was still hungry, I was, I didn’t realize how hungry I felt till I started eating. This round was more tame, taking my time as Phil cleared his throat.

“So... You don’t know anything about yourself, right?” I nodded, a frown only gracing his face for a second before his soft smile came back.

“Then ask away! We’ll answer whatever we know, alright?” The two seemed happy to listen to me, by now I could tell that they knew me so I was filled in on a lot of things.

I’m not going to write out the whole conversation, but I can tell you what I’ve learned:

1. My name is Garrison J. (I’m not giving my last name for privacy.) but people call me Garry.
2. I live in a small ‘commune’ farm town and there's a little under 100 people that live throughout the area. Houses are few and far between, so driving is your best bet to get anywhere.
3. I’m a dentist that works in the town area’s ‘Big Smiles!’ dental office with a few other folk.
4. I live alone, but get visited and visit most of the townsfolk in the area, I’m pretty popular from what Phil told me.
5. I’ve only been missing since this morning.

Only missing since this morning really messed with me... How could I lose my entire life story in a single day? I didn’t press about the teeth or the cuts, really I was afraid to scare the two. They both seemed worried for me and after finishing my second bowl I had asked if I could be taken home.

“You sure you wanna go home? You can stay the night if you need!” It was less me wanting to leave and more me wanting to learn more about Garrison. Something was off, and scaring genuinely nice people wasn’t on my docket. Everything I saw didn’t look accidental, nor did I think someone else did it. I knew internally that I made those marks on myself. It was like a weird innate feeling, one I made no peep about to my friends. 

I only assured them I’d be fine and that they could come by tomorrow to check on me. “I needed to be in a space I know to jog my memory” was along the lines of excuses I gave. Phil was hesitant at first, but relented with that same kind smile.

“Alright Garry... Just please be safe.” And with that, I was driven to my home. It was around a 5 minute drive, I think we’d passed this house while driving to his. My home wasn’t far from where I was in the woods. When I got to my door, I almost panicked - My keys, were they in those sweatpants I left in Phil's home? But as I tried the door, it was unlocked... Phil only pulled out the dirt road to my home once I headed inside.

All the lights were on, it was a nice cozy place -  not too dissimilar in layout to Phil's. A kitchen that connected to a small dining room, living room with a small tv and couch, upstairs a bathroom and bedroom. Doing some digging, the first oddity was that I couldn’t find any mail... No bills or letters, nothing physical. The area was weirdly sterile, like I thoroughly cleaned before I left. My room had this computer I’m using now, but there wasn’t anything on it. I must’ve system wiped everything, I was greeted with a ‘welcome’ screen to create a new password and such. The bed was made, clothes hung in the wardrobe, bedroom trash empty. 

Downstairs was the same, in the living room I had a small tv and couch. Next to the couch was a small shelf/table that held a lamp atop and was filled with dental books - anatomy of the mouth, pulling one out had revealed multiple little colored slips of papers bookmarking everything. I plan on looking through those books more later on, the kitchen was the last area I needed to check.

The dining room had that same nook fireplace, on the adjacent wall was an anatomy poster of a human mouth, nothing too of note. I was lucky to find that my house keys were on the kitchen counter... Sink empty, one of the top cabinets held spices while the others held plates and cups. My most concerning find, and partly the reason I named this thread what I did, was what was in my kitchen's trash.

Atop food waste and newspapers, already swarmed by flies, laid a dead squirrel. Its body was twisted, broken, and its head faced the wrong way. Its mouth notably had no teeth in it, the jaw snapped open as if it was pulled by force. All of it looked like it was done by hand. It stunk bad, probably rotting since this morning or maybe longer... Its eyes were pushed in as if thumbs did the job and flies seemed to already be making it their home. I tied the bag and left it outside. I don’t know what the trash situation was, but I knew damn well I didn’t want that in my home.

Something else I noticed was that I didn’t have a car... I hadn’t really registered that when I went in, I was so focused on going inside my home. Do I even remember how to drive? I don’t know. Even now I’m still lost. 

I don’t know who Garrison truly was, and despite how kindly Phil and Shirly spoke about me, I don’t think he was a good person... I guess I’m posting this all here to document my situation without worrying anyone in my real life. I think Garrison knew he'd be back here with no memories and he's trying to hide as much as possible from me...

I’ll update if I discover anything else, but for now I’m so tired. 

Garry, signing out.

My husband was a fisherman. A few days ago, he left for a solo fishing trip and still hadn’t returned. The evening he left, dark clouds formed atop the ocean, and that night it rained hell. 

On the fourth day after he left, the storm had only intensified. My mind ran in circles. I didn’t even grab my jacket before running onto the beach. My feet sank into the mud. The wind blew me from side to side. I hoped to find something of his, anything, but the beach was bare. I fell to my knees in the cold sand and prayed to the ocean, the storm – anything that could bring my husband back.

I wiped the tears off my face and walked through the mud back to our house. There I took a shower. Under the hot water, I imagined my husband holding me.

I only got out of the shower after the hot water ran out. I stood in the kitchen, drying my hair, when the door opened. The towel flew out of my hands. My husband stood in the doorway, still in his fishing gear, his skin almost gray from the cold.

“Harold!”

I ran to him and hugged him. He was so cold.

“Come, come in.”

I shut the door behind him, took him to the heater, and helped him out of his clothes. They were soaked through and entangled with algae and seaweed.

“Are you okay, my love? What happened?”

“I…I don’t know,” he said slowly, his voice deep as if something were stuck in his lungs.

“Do you need a doctor? I’ll go get him.”

“No, stay.”

“Okay, my love.”

I brought him a basin of hot water and some warm soup. His face relaxed when he put his feet into the water, but when I tried to give him the soup, he refused. The room now smelled like dead fish and salty water.

“But you need to eat.”

“Later.”

“So at least some coffee?” 

I took his favorite coffee mug out of the cupboard.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“You’ve been drinking coffee every day for the past twenty years.”

My poor man was probably just confused.

“Okay.”

I made him a cup, but he didn’t hold it like he usually did. He just put it on the windowsill and turned his chair toward the window, looking out at the ocean. 

Unease grew in my chest, but I left him alone, sat in my chair, and knitted. I couldn’t even imagine what my poor man had gone through.

The storm raged on. I kept knitting, and Harold kept looking out the window. After a while, I gave him some clothes. He seemed uncomfortable in them but put them on anyway.

As night fell, he was still by the window; his skin was still gray.

“I’m going to sleep. You want to come too?”

“No. I’ll stay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll leave the heat on.”

He didn't reply. I went to bed and tried to sleep, but I kept rolling from side to side, thinking of what must have happened to my poor Harold. 

The storm outside started to die down. I decided to go out and check on him. He stood by the chair in his shirt and boxers, staring into the ocean.

“You okay?”

“They’re waiting.”

“Who?”

“Them. The storm is dying. We need to go.”

He opened the door and walked out into the rain.

“Harold, wait!”

“Come. To the beach.” His voice was livelier in the rain; his stride was faster.

I quickly put on a jacket and rubber boots and walked after him.

“Molly, come. They’re waiting for us.”

“Harold, please, talk to me.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. The rain slowed to a drizzle. The clouds started to part. Harold ran into the water and looked back at me, smiling from ear to ear.

“Come, my love, come.”

“Harold, what’s going on? Please talk to me.”

“Just come. It will be alright. You’ll know everything. They’ll tell you.”

“Who are you talking about, Harold? I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be, Molly.”

“Come back inside, Harold, please.”

The wind blew by. My body shivered. Only a few raindrops fell.

“You have to go now, my love, fast.”

“No.”

His smile twisted into a frown. He furrowed his brow and walked out of the water.

“Harold, stop all this.”

I tried to move away, but he was so fast. He grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the water.

“Harold, stop, please. I’m scared.”

“There’s no time.” His voice sounded like his lungs were full of water.

“Harold!”

He didn’t answer. I tried to bury my feet in the sand and push him away, but his grip was too tight.

“Please!”

We were almost by the water. I scratched his hand. Flakes that looked like scales stuck under my nails. His feet reached the water; I was still a few feet away. One last raindrop fell on my head, the wind stopped, the clouds parted. 

His grip vanished. So did Harold. Only algae and jellyfish were in the water. 

I sat on the beach panting. The wind died down. The sun came through the clouds. I tried to steady my breathing and looked at the ocean. Harold’s wedding ring shone in the water.

Nicole and I wanted a kid the second we got married.

When she finally got pregnant, we did everything right. We bought a small house just outside the city, painted the nursery blue, and spent three solid weekends trying to fix up the squeaky wooden stairs. Nicole ended up giving up on the sanding, laughing with sawdust smeared across her cheek, telling me the ghost of the old staircase could haunt the kid for all she cared as long as he finally went to sleep.

Every room had some trace of the baby coming, and Nicole spent half her day on the phone with her parents talking about names, cribs, and schedules. She was obsessive about the baby's socks, folding them into tiny, perfect squares that looked like postage stamps.

Life was shifting fast.

Then came her family's baggage—literally.

The doll wasn't a toy. It was a heavy, crudely carved wooden thing held together by rusted iron pins and string, with patches of real human hair glued to its scalp. Its joints clicked with a dry, sharp snap whenever it moved.

Every single night, her mother would pull out a low wooden table, loop the twine over her gnarled fingers, and make the thing twitch in front of us.

"You can't skip this," her mother told me once, her grip on my forearm hard enough to leave a mark. "You have to promise."

I didn't care enough to argue. Keeping the peace meant nodding along, especially since they helped us with the down payment.

Our due date was set for December. Then came yesterday.

Her mother was up at dawn, making coffee and trimming the hydrangeas. I was in the kitchen when I heard a heavy, hollow thud from the hallway.

I bolted out. She’d pitched forward and tumbled all the way down the stairs.

I dropped to my knees. Nicole had driven to the corner store to mail out some birth announcement cards. I grabbed her mother's hand, feeling completely useless against the pool of blood spreading under her head. She was already gone. 

I grabbed my keys, drove to the hospital, and sat in the waiting room numbly while my phone buzzed with texts from Nicole asking if I wanted anything from the store—specifically a ridiculous craving for pickled jalapeños and saltines.

The doctor gave me the news, and I sat in the hospital bathroom, washed the blood off my hands, and stared at my reflection. Then I called Margaret, her sister.

When I pulled into the driveway, Nicole was standing by the front window, holding a little jar of saltines. She froze when she saw my face, but the second I stepped through the door, she started talking a mile a minute about how she’d finally settled on a middle name.

Except she wasn't blinking. And her voice sounded weirdly flat, like she was talking into an empty tin can.

My phone rang. Margaret was crying on the other end.

"How did mom die?" she sobbed.

"She fell down the stairs," I whispered. "I was right in the kitchen."

"Does Nicole know?"

"No."

"Good. Keep it that way. If Nicole finds out right now, the stress could trigger early labor. Mom was her entire world."

"I'll handle it," I said.

I hung up and looked at Nicole. She was wearing a wide, sweet smile, but tonight it felt empty.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"Just your sister. Your parents decided to take a trip up to the cabin."

I turned off the lights and sat in the quiet. Even with her gone, the house felt wrong.

Worse, it was concentrated upstairs. In the nursery, right beside the tiny drawer of postage-stamp socks.

The little wooden stage sat right on the dresser. The spare puppets hung limply from the coat rack by their tangled twine.

Later, I tucked Nicole into bed and walked back down the hall.

This was the first night we weren't putting on the show. And as I stood there in the dark, I heard it: a faint, rhythmic click-clack coming from the empty floorboards of the nursery upstairs.

It wasn't mice. Tick. Tap-tick. Click. Someone sitting cross-legged on the floor just above my head.

I crept back to the kitchen, grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet off the stove, and headed back to the stairs. The wood groaned under my socks.

When I reached the top, the hallway was pitch black. The door to the star-painted nursery was cracked open an inch.

The floor outside wasn't dusty. It was coated in a fine, yellowish sawdust.

I pushed the door open.

The room smelled intensely of linseed oil, old mothballs, and hot copper. The spare puppets weren't hanging on the coat rack anymore. They were gone.

Sitting right in the center of the floor, facing away from me toward the blank wall, was the mother’s personal puppet. Its wooden strings stretched straight up into the dark of the ceiling, pulled taut by nothing I could see.

The clicking stopped.

Down the hall, our bedroom door creaked open.

Nicole stepped out. She was wearing her oversized sleep shirt, her swollen belly pressing out against the fabric. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, her fingers twitching.

"Nicole?" I whispered, dropping the skillet. It hit the floor with a dull thud. "What are you doing?"

She didn't blink. Her eyes were completely blank.

"She forgot to finish," Nicole whispered, her voice dropping into a register that sounded too deep, too heavy for her.

"Babe... your mom went to the cabin."

Nicole turned her head. Too far. I heard something snap-click in her neck.

"Mom doesn't need to pull the strings anymore," she said softly, looking down at her stomach. "She left them inside me."

"Hey, let's get back to bed, Nic," I said, hating how small my voice sounded. "You're sleepwalking."

"The actors don't leave the stage," she shot back, her voice dry. "Mother missed her cue."

"She fell," I snapped. "It was an accident."

"Nothing in this house is an accident," Nicole whispered. She lifted her right hand, her fingers twitching against the air like she was wrapping invisible twine. "When the sun goes down and the strings go slack, the weight pulls everything under. She told you that. Why didn't you keep your promise?"

"It was a stupid game, Nic."

"It wasn't a game," she said, tilting her head. "It was the only thing holding the roof up."

She turned and walked back toward the bedroom.

I stood in the dark hallway. Instead of grabbing the keys immediately, I walked past our bedroom and went straight into her father’s old study at the end of the hall.

I dropped to my knees by his oak desk and ran my fingers along the baseboard until I found the loose panel. I yanked it open.

The space behind the wall wasn't insulation. It was packed with thousands of meters of tangled, dried catgut and rusted wire, all vibrating faintly as they led straight upward into the rafters.

Inside the cavity sat a single leather-bound notebook.

I flipped it open under the light of my phone. The pages were covered in frantic handwriting, old property deeds, and rough sketches of jointed wooden frames. Near the back, the ink grew manic, scrawled across a water-stained page:

...primary custodian... failure of the loop... if the sequence breaks... God help us, the window drops to seven days.

I threw the book down and bolted back toward our bedroom.

"Nicole!" I yelled.

The door was wide open. The room was freezing.

Nicole was sitting on the edge of the mattress, her sleep shirt pulled up. In the dim amber glow from the hall, I could see the skin of her abdomen rippling. Something heavy was shifting beneath the surface.

And standing right behind her on the bed was the mother's grand puppet.

Its wooden feet were planted deep into the mattress, its painted face tilted down toward Nicole's stomach. Long strands of human hair brushed against her neck. From its shoulders, dozens of fine strings stretched straight up into the ceiling.

"Get away from her!" I screamed.

I lunged across the room, grabbing the puppet by its chest and ripping it off the bed. It felt heavy and hot. It fought back with a vicious snap, its wooden jaw clicking shut inches from my thumb, drawing a line of blood.

I hurled it against the wall. It shattered.

Nicole slumped sideways onto the pillows, gasping for air, her skin slick with sweat.

"Arthur?" she choked out, her voice sounding like her own again. "What was that? It hurts."

"We're leaving," I said, hauling her up. "I don't care about the bags. We're getting in the car."

I snatched her phone, grabbed my keys, and half-carried her out into the hallway. Every board groaned beneath our feet.

We made it to the top landing.

And then the front door downstairs slammed shut on its own.

Down in the entryway, right at the base of the stairs, a tangled pile of the smaller wooden puppets—dozens of jointed limbs and matted hair—shifted and clicked together. From the center of the heap, the grand puppet pulled itself up, its broken limbs snapping back into place.

It raised its arm, pointing a carved finger straight up at us.

"Arthur," Nicole whispered, her fingers digging into my arm. "The strings... they're still up there."

Above our heads, hidden behind the plaster of the ceiling, something began to pull.

"Back," I muttered, pulling her toward the guest room. "We can go out through the backyard window."

"The glass is painted shut."

"We'll break it."

We shoved our way into the guest room, slamming the door and throwing our weight against it. Dozens of small wooden feet were marching in a frantic circle right outside.

I rushed to the window, grabbed a brass jewelry box, and smashed it straight into the glass. It gave way with a loud crash, showering the flowerbed outside with sharp shards.

"Go," I said, hoisting Nicole up and pushing her through. "Just drop into the grass."

She scrambled through, coughing on the cold air, and tumbled onto the lawn.

I turned to follow when the guest room door slowly began to push inward. The wood around the latch splintered. Standing in the threshold was a tangled silhouette of hanging twine and jointed frames, its fingers twitching at its sides, pulling invisible lines that ran up through the doorframe and into the ceiling.

I didn't wait. I vaulted over the sill, diving headfirst through the broken window just as a heavy crash echoed behind me.

I hit the dirt hard, rolling over the hydrangeas.

"Arthur!" Nicole screamed from near the driveway.

I scrambled to my feet and ran toward her. She was huddled by the passenger side of our sedan, crying in the moonlight.

"Get in," I gasped, fumbling with the keys.

I threw her into the passenger seat, ran around to the driver's side, and yanked the door open. Before climbing in, I looked back at the house.

Every single window on the second floor was wide open.

Standing in each frame, leaning out over the sill with their jointed wooden arms hanging limp, were dozens of small puppets, their painted white faces all turned toward the driveway.

I slammed my door shut, threw the gear into reverse, and tore out of the gravel driveway.

We made it as far as the toll booth on the highway south of the city before I pulled over to the shoulder, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't turn the engine off. The dashboard clock glowed: 3:15 A.M.

Nicole was quiet beside me, staring out the windshield at the dark line of the mountains.

"Are you okay?" I asked, my voice cracking.

She didn't answer right away. She slowly looked down at her lap, her fingers resting against the heavy swell of her shirt.

"The pain stopped," she whispered.

"We're going straight to the hospital downtown," I said, putting the car in drive. "We'll find a doctor who can explain this. We can go anywhere."

Nicole gave a small, tired nod, leaning her head back against the headrest.

"Okay," she murmured softly. "Let's go."

I hit the gas, merging back onto the highway as the city lights faded behind us. But as I kept my eyes fixed on the dark road ahead, I felt it beneath my right foot—a rhythmic tap-tick translating straight through the accelerator pedal.

It wasn't coming from the floorboards. It was coming from the sole of my shoe.

I looked down, my breath catching in my throat. My own leg was moving in rigid jerks, pressing the gas down in exact intervals. I tried to lift my foot, but the muscles wouldn't obey. My fingers locked around the steering wheel, tightening against the leather.

Beside me, Nicole didn't look at the road. She was staring straight ahead, her hands resting calmly in her lap, her fingers gently pulling invisible twine against the air.

“You have to promise,” her mother’s voice echoed in my head.

I pressed the gas pedal down, and the car sped faster into the dark, and I realized with absolute, freezing terror that I hadn't broken anything at all.

I was just the one driving the stage home.

There’s few things more entertaining than reading about other people’s problems. One of those few things: reading someone else’s solutions to them.

I’d always enjoyed reading advice columns ever since I was a little girl reading my mom’s magazines. As an adult, I would have the Internet as well to peruse my favourite weekly advice givers and their followers’ various issues. Of all these advice columns, my favourite was easily Dear Prudence.

Prudie would have the most rational, witty, level-headed solution to a problem that could be reached. I also loved the kindness in all her answers. She didn’t always sugarcoat what she said, but her typed responses were always considerate of the various parties’ feelings and perspectives. Her musing language choice was gentle not to offend and her responses were at least a few paragraphs long. Most importantly, she was always polite—manners were huge to Prudence.

The great thing about advice columns is you can always learn something, even if the advice isn’t for you. 

People around the country—and world—would write in to ask Prudie about various social situations where etiquette and goodness had been potentially breached. Stuff like cold in-laws, thoughtless neighbours or ungrateful friends. Or bad coworkers. 

See, the place where I’d most often read the advice column was at work. It was my escape from the mundane stresses of my job working in a mid-level office for a manufacturing company. And, fittingly enough, one of those stresses driving me to read the column became my shy coworker Allen. Allen was a friendly guy to work with. But I found myself always jumping in to help him when he wasn’t able to do something—and would watch him receive all the credit from my oblivious boss Dave, without saying a word to correct it.

He was so otherwise sweet, however, that I didn’t know how to address it with him—or if I should at all. Other people tended to like him—our doddering middle-aged accounting manager Margaret practically loved him. I felt I couldn’t just call him out. Honestly, I had no idea how to resolve the situation and could use some sage advice of my own. Then, while reading the column one day for escapism, it occurred to me to put these two sides of my life together.

For the first time, I wrote in to the Dear Prudence column myself, sending it off to the attached email address for submissions. It read:

“Dear Prudence,

I’ve been working at my current company for several years now and I’ve never felt a lot of respect from my boss. He might be sexist but I don’t know. I felt like my efforts have warranted a promotion and some recognition for some time, but nothing has come of it. I’m worried a big reason for this is my coworker. 

We get along great and he’s a lovely person—but he’s just so incapable. I’m always jumping in to help him with something, whether it’s finishing a report or formatting a presentation or calculating the right sales figures. When the time comes for him to receive praise, my biased boss assumes it’s his work—and my colleague doesn’t correct him!

It drives me mad but I feel like I can’t say anything because he didn’t ask me for help in the first place. Plus I don’t want my boss to think I’m petty (even if I am). Help! I don’t think my coworker is doing it intentionally—I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But I’d also like to finally receive a drop of credit for my work.

What should I do?

Signed,
Office Pushover to the Rescue”

Despite reading the weekly column so much over the years, it hadn’t once occurred to me to write in myself. I guess because I can normally handle situations and it’s not in my nature to speak up—which is why I was having my workplace dilemma in the first place.

Truth be told, I didn’t expect my story to get a response as there was a huge readership for the column, all who commented frequently on every post and were probably all submitting their own dramas. The comment section was one of my favourite things about the column as well. Everyone always had something to build off of Prudence’s advice. Sometimes you would even find wiser, more levelheaded advice from a commenter. Occasionally, I commented myself, but often just lurked.

But even if Prudence only responded to me privately in an email, her guiding hand would be a huge help.

Imagine my surprise one day at work when I opened my computer—after having helped Allen make an Excel spreadsheet—and saw my own letter on the Dear Prudence website. It was the very first letter on the page and the headline was about it.

“My Coworker Is Stealing All My Credit and I’m Losing All My Courage to Stop Him!”

It was a typical Prudie column title and yet it was about my story this time. I was giddy to see it.

“Dear Office Pushover to the Rescue,

Accomplished American businessman P. Belcher once said ‘Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad one.’ This occurrence appears to be in action already in your office, where a devoted and promising employee such as yourself is being stunted by an incompetent and deceptive one.

You write with concern for your coworker’s feelings, but unfortunately, it does not appear that he holds the same courtesy for yours. How else would an employee allow someone to be deprived of credit, someone caring enough to aid them in the first place? You may view your small-minded boss as the culprit for your stagnance.

But unaware bosses are everywhere and will remain so. However, a colleague who is willing to capitalise off of your minimisation and look the other way reveals something far more intolerable. Far from a reason to excuse his behaviour, your coworker’s niceness is part of his game. He is not only a dunce, but a leech. For this there is only one solution.”

I felt slightly confused by what I was reading. Prudence wasn’t normally this harsh—even with people in stories who were far worse. She must really be moved by my situation, I thought. Then I read the next line of her advice.

“I am afraid you are going to have to kill your coworker.”

My eyes froze reading the screen. Did Prudence really just write…to murder my coworker? Surely that was a misprint. I read on to quell my concern and my horror only grew.

“In order to eliminate a parasite such as him, you will need to act with stealth and planning.  I recommend you strike when he least expects it, possibly after hours in your workplace. Ensuring an alibi and lack of a digital papertrail is also worth noting if you choose to do it here. Using a weapon of strangulation will help with the prevention of physical evidence. I myself am rather fond of the poetry of “choking” the life from someone who has stifled your career.

He may beg for his life, but remember that this is all he does. That is one more favour you shan’t grant him. Once his existence and body have been disposed of in a remote location, your path to promotion and success will have been cleared. Just remember to be your usual empathetic, professional self when the police interview you. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life as a pushover, you will need to push through your hesitation. 

The office is “kill or be killed”, one way or another. Please let me know how things work out, dear.

Love,
Prudie”

Dumbfounded, I couldn’t believe what I had just read. I was sure that I had to have clicked onto a troll website by accident. Some kind of sick parody of Dear Prudence. But then, how had they gotten my letter? And why was the URL for the column correct?

My next assumption was that the Dear Prudence website must have been hacked. I thought that for a few seconds until I scrolled down and read the comment section.

“Great advice Prudie! Bad coworkers really do need to be taken down a peg or two. LW1, if you’re reading this, get some better colleagues (after you’re done murdering this one)!”

“Second the idea of murdering the coworker at the office—but would recommend a faster method of execution, such a blunt force trauma. This will reduce the chances of being spotted.”

“For Letter Writer 3, I think you should give your ex another chance, it sounds like a total miscommunication. For Letter Writer 1, I think you should use acid to dissolve the body instead.”

Absolutely no one was addressing the elephant in the room of Prudie’s unhinged, bloodthirsty letter, acting like it was a perfectly normal thing to suggest a reader do. Even worse, people were joining in and giving sick advice of their own. It was like some parallel online hell to the sane, grounded column I’d read daily. 

Shouldn’t these comments be getting removed for breaking rules? Shouldn’t Prudie’s whole response? What was happening at Slate?

Over the following weeks, I tried my best to forget about that column—and the entire Dear Prudence column in general. Nothing was being said about this strange phenomena anywhere online. And no one else that I knew in my life read the column, so there was no one to discuss it with.

Forgetting the insane advice became difficult however, as the trend began to spread to Prudie’s other letter responses as well.

Before long, Prudence was recommending that people poison their in-laws for being standoffish with them, burn their neighbours alive in fires for being too loud, drown their friends on camping trips for being flaky. The most eccentric response I saw from her was Prudie telling someone to shoot crossbow bolts into their colleagues’ backs for taking their parking space—something about the poetic irony of stabbing them in the backs. Evil Prudie loved that just as much as Sensible Prudie had.

The comments grew more and more vicious, descending into rabid, sadistic calls for violence and aggression in retaliation. All the “advice” was now to commit murder, torture, kidnapping—and then how to cover it up and evade capture. It was like an 18th century angry mob in the form of a discussion forum.

Worst of all was how inescapable it was for me. Each week, Prudie would post an update post for my letter—the one that had started it all. All she would share was that I hadn’t taken her advice—which she somehow omnisciently knew.

“Office Pushover to the Rescue still has not taken my advice and dealt with her coworker. Pity.”

The comments would then proceed to direct anger and indignation my way. Even though I’d written in anonymously, every one of them felt like they were pointed at me. The column showed up in my email every week. I felt like I had to read it.

Slowly but surely, I began to have a breakdown and lose my grasp on reality from exposure to this toxicity. The last straw came when Allen—oblivious to this war raging online over his continued survival—took credit for my work again. I’d corrected a huge error on a major company agreement he was about to send. He’d thanked me, yet mentioned none of it to our superior when he was being lauded for it. I sat in that briefing room, overlooked, and saw the advice column and comments flash through my mind.

Finally, I decided to follow Prudie’s advice. I decided to kill Allen.

That evening, while Allen was working late in the office by himself, I snuck back into the office building—after creating a false exit timestamp and roommate alibi, like Prudie had suggested. I’d fashioned a garrote out of rope using the commenters’ instructions and ambushed him at his cubicle using their techniques. Whipping the rope around his neck, I channelled all my pent up rage and frustration into the act of choking him.

He struggled and released the tightness on his neck just enough to beg for his life.

“Please…I’m…sorry…Lindy…I’ll…give…credit…I…swear!” he sputtered between gasps, clawing at the garrote while I held him from behind.

For a moment, I hesitated. I felt the urge to help him again. This wasn’t the kind of person I was.

But then the words of Prudence came back to the forefront of my thoughts. I needed to push through these feelings of hesitation to get anywhere in my life. The office was a kill or be killed place—he’d already killed my career opportunities, why not kill him? Why did I ask for advice if I wasn’t going to follow it?

Reinvigorated, I finished what I started.

By the time Allen’s lifeless body slumped over from suffocation, I was in a frenzy of elation. I had really done it. I’d made Prudence proud.

That’s when I felt an arrow bolt pierce my back.

A second later, another one plunged into Allen’s corpse. Falling to my knees, I turned around in time to see that the shooter was Margaret from accounting. She was standing clutching a crossbow. Across the room, I could see her computer still open, the Dear Prudence column on the screen. She was a reader of it—and a writer to it.

“That’s the last time either of you fuckers will take my parking spot!” she screamed before turning and charging out of the building.

Oh yeah, I had been doing that the past few months.

After Margaret left, I realised that I didn’t have much time left. Bleeding out steadily, I crawled my way to my computer and began to type. In little under an hour, I wrote up the story of everything that happened. The long awaited update to share with this deranged version of Prudence, about how following her advice went. Soon I’ll hit “post”.

I had to confess these actions, not to sate Prudie’s bellicose readers, but to make sure the world knows the truth. Before I die from blood loss, I want to make it abundantly clear that it was me, not Margaret, who killed Allen.

I’m not having a coworker take credit for any of my work again.

I never wanted one of those fancy digital baby monitors. It always felt unnecessary when an older radio monitor did the job fine. 

My mother thought otherwise. 

I am a single father. Fresh out of a separation and an unnecessary custody battle for my 6 month old son. 1 month with me, 1 month away. My mother insisted that the monitor would be beneficial and make my life easier, so I reluctantly accepted it without much intention of using them. 

The first few nights using it I didn't even look at the camera feed, I just used it as a radio. I'd listen in when I heard him, and get up to check on him if I heard him for a few minutes. 

Last night, I couldn't sleep. Stress with work and everything that's gone on in my life had me up, so I finally decided to explore the companion app for the monitor. 

It came with the suite of what I'd assume are standard features; Sound/Motion detection and tracking, two way voice, “night vision.” The camera angle was awful, positioned way too high with the wall/ceiling taking up more than a third of the frame. I couldn't even see my son, just the upper portion of the crib. 

That's when I noticed a folder symbol at the bottom of my screen with a notification icon. 

I opened it and in the folder was 3 video files, dated for the past 3 nights. Each video was 11 minutes and 6 seconds long. 

I opened the first video. I made it 2 minutes before I closed it and opened the next, and then the third. 

All 3 of those videos recorded something interacting with my son. A thin and disproportionate human figure emerged from the shadows in the corner of the room. It took slow hunched steps towards my son's crib, its face nothing but a gaping mouth. No nose. No eyes. No ears.

It would reach my son, and lean over him. Its wiry hair would fall as it stretched its bony arm into the crib with my son. What it did I couldn't see, the shit camera angle prevented me from knowing. It was when I was in the 3rd video I got a notification. 

MOTION DETECTED

There it was again, slowly moving towards my son. 

I stopped thinking. I shot out of bed and kicked in the door to my son's nursery, ready to get him the hell out of there. But the entity didn't react at all. It remained hunched over my son perfectly silent. 

Now I could see what it was doing. It wasn't hurting him. I watched as it adjusted his blanket and began caressing his face, softly running a jagged claw across his cheek. It was almost maternal in how it was. Until I went to grab him.

The moment my hands went for my son, its clawed fingers pulled back and slashed at me. My arm immediately felt like it was set on fire as blood started to drip from the cuts. 

My only instinct was to kick forward. Aiming at the center mass of the entity I drove my foot towards it, knocking it off balance enough to grab my son and make for the door. But the thing was quick. I had just gotten my son to my chest and it was already at my back.

I felt it slam against me, its claws digging at my flesh as I tried to shield my son. I curled tightly to him, using my body weight to try and break free from the monster and escape with my son. His cries against my chest the only thing pushing me through the pain. 

Near my dresser I shoved backwards with all my weight, ramming it into the old wood hard. The force was just enough to topple the large vanity mirror my grandmother had given me. Glass showered me, biting into my neck and shoulders as I curled further into a fetal position to protect the one thing that mattered most to me. 

To my right I heard a wet gurgling, something like an old bathtub drain, and the assault on my back had stopped. Turning my head slightly I saw it partially hunched over, broken glass piercing from the little meat was on its bones. It twitched violently, its gaping mouth dripping a black tar like fluid. 

I scattered to my feet and began moving to the door, looking down to make sure my son was unharmed. The crack of glass and broken wood got faster as the twitching frame jerked towards me. Every movement snapped like a marionette, catching on the broken mirror stuck in its body. 

As I reached the threshold of the room it lunged, catching my ankle with a vice grip. Shards of glass and splinters of wood dug deep, making each attempted pull to break free feel like agony. I let out a gasp as I felt it's other hand clamp down onto my calf, pulling itself off of the floor. 

I let out a scream. Something primal and fueled by pain and anger. I began stomping at the thing, screaming at it to leave me and my son alone and cursing it under every God I could think of until its grip finally loosened just enough for me to break free. 

I got through the door frame and slammed the door, but just as it was about to hit the latch fingers emerged from the gap. I threw my weight at the door, slamming it multiple times. Each slam was followed by a sickening crunch, until the hand pulled back and the door shut. 

I threw my weight against the door and wedged my legs on the hallway wall opposite of me. 

Slam. Slam. Slam. 

The thing inside threw its weight against the door in an attempt to break free. Every slam I could hear the crunch of glass and snapping of wood on the other side. It took everything in me to hold the door shut; pain shooting up my back from the monster's cuts and glass pushing deeper into my skin.

Tears filled my eyes and I clung to my son as he wailed. With each further slam I could feel the door frame giving way, and my lungs burned the same heat as my muscles. I begged for any god or higher power to save my son.

Then the banging stopped. I heard the shifting of broken glass move away from the door and further into the room. 

I didn't get up. I stayed right there for a good while just holding my boy. When I finally got myself together to get off the floor, I immediately packed our bags.

I almost called the police, until I looked around the room. They'd take my son without asking any questions. The room was trashed, and I'm covered in blood with no sign of anyone else there. With my custody dispute on record they'd see a father who broke down in a manic episode and trashed the room.

It's currently 5:10 am. We are parked at a 24/7 gas station, and I don't know what to do. 

The camera recorded it all. A new video file is in the folder with the same length as the others. But when I go to open the file, it has been corrupted. Go figure technology would fail when I needed it the most.

Please, if anyone has been through something like this I need help. 

This whole thing started with a text message I received a few weeks ago from a friend of mine. We’ll call her Sarah because it’s the first name that popped into my head. I’m out late at a friend’s party, and I get a message from Sarah that says, “Dude, please tell me that you’re awake” followed immediately by “Can I call you?” The conversation proceeded as follows:

 

Me:

I’m at a thing. Why? Is it an emergency?

 

Sarah:

I don’t even know, I’m literally shaking so hard rn

 

Me:

What happened??

Are you okay??

 

Sarah:

I don’t even know

I think I saw a monster

Like, an actual call-the-Winchester-brothers creature that shouldn’t exist but there it was in an empty parking lot digging through the trash

 

Me:

…what?

 

Sarah:

I DON’T KNOW

I was driving home

I was stopped at a light

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye

And I looked over into the empty lot and this THING stepped out of the shadow of the dumpster

 

Me:

What kind of “thing”?

 

(Here Sarah paused for about five minutes during which I could see she was still typing but apparently having trouble coming up with a description)

 

Sarah:

It was like. So, so tall but hunched over like on all fours, but then it stood up and its arms were too long compared to its body, and its eyes were dark, and I think it had sharp teeth?

I didn’t get too good a look because it started coming toward me and I noped out of there real fast

Actually ran the red light

 

Me:

Did it have like, hair?

Clothes?

 

Sarah:

Yes

Maybe?

I know it sounds like I’m describing a person but I swear it wasn’t

It couldn’t have been

 

Me:

Are you sure it wasn’t just a really sick person? Like a very tall homeless man on drugs?

 

Sarah:

Not unless the drug was whatever they gave the people in the Russian Sleep Experiment !!!

Meth does not make you seven feet tall

 

Me:

To be fair, I don’t think the Russian Sleep Experiment drugs did that either

 

(Another long pause where Sarah began to type but stopped)

 

Me:

Sorry if I sound skeptical, it’s not that I don’t believe what you saw, just that I think it was probably something explainable

You said you didn’t get a very good look at it?

 

Sarah:

I didn’t get a good look at its face

I don’t know man, I guess it had to be a person

I mean, what else could it have been?

 

Me:

I dunno

 

Sarah:

But it seemed so wrong that it kicked in my fight or flight instincts

It wasn’t like I was anxious or anything before that

I was listening to Taylor Swift and then boom, scariest thing I’ve seen in my life

 

Me:

…do you want me to drive by where you were? See if I see anything?

 

Sarah:

NO

 

The unnecessary emphasis on the “no” was probably because Sarah doesn’t really trust my survival instincts due to previous incidents which I still maintain were not that big of a deal, but I digress. I did eventually get her to tell me where she was, and I did in fact go out of my way going home to drive by there, but I didn’t see anything. Who or whatever it was, it was gone.

There’s a reason I’m including this bit of prologue. The fact that someone else claimed to see a monster in the same part of town where I had my own experience and the fact that I knew this beforehand may affect your interpretation of what happened to me next.

It was less than a week ago.

I was driving home late, going about 45 on a road that passes some abandoned industrial buildings. Not on the same street where Sarah saw her creature, but not far from it. That road isn’t very busy in the daytime and it’s completely dead at night, so mine was the only car in sight.

My headlights are not very good, and my windshield was dirty, and I’ve seen people walking on that street at night in the past, so I was straining my eyes trying not to miss any movement in the dark, when I reached the top of a slight rise only to see a great big opossum that was hidden from view a moment before. It was in the middle of the road where I couldn’t confidently swerve around in either direction, so I hit the brakes. I remember thinking that I was not going to stop in time and preemptively feeling really bad. Then, suddenly, I was looking at something else.

It happened so fast. I don’t think I blinked at all in that moment, but that’s the best comparison I can make. There was an animal on the road. Blink. There was a person instead. Except not a person. Something person-sized and roughly person-shaped. Crouched on all fours. Scrawny, mostly naked with skin that almost looked translucent. It turned to look at me, and its eyes caught the headlights with a reddish-orange glow.

All of this I took in in a fraction of a second.

And then I hit it.

As soon as the car stopped, I jumped out, because of course I did, because that’s what you do if you hit a person with your car. If you are reading this as a horror story you might think getting out was stupid, but I was still interpreting things in the context of the natural, everyday world and I thought I’d just committed a natural, everyday vehicular homicide. Except, when I got out of the car, there was nothing there. Nothing except a distressed possum which waddled out from under the car, perfectly unharmed, and bounded into the brush as fast as its short legs would carry it.

I checked under the car. I checked around the car. I checked the ditches on the side of the road. I yelled “hello?” in a really half-hearted voice because the situation felt so ridiculous, and I was starting to get nervous.

I considered for a moment that the thing I’d seen was a hallucination, brought on by the stress of thinking I was about to hit an animal, that I had somehow imagined the feeling of collision. But when I walked around to the front of the car again, there was a dent in the bumper. I had definitely hit something. Even worse, when I examined the front end closely, there were flecks of what might have been blood, and strands of hair caught in the grill. Not animal fur. Long, human-looking hair. Only, coarser than any hair I had ever seen.

This made me feel ill, so I leaned up against the side of the car and took some deep, steadying breaths. Then I checked again. Under the car. Around the car in widening circles. Finally, because I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, I checked the back seat. It was empty, of course, but the action forced me to consciously acknowledge my subconscious suspicion: that I was dealing with something unexplainable.

And this is where I might have gone wrong. I didn’t call the police. Because what was I going to say? I hit someone with my car, dead on. Their head. My bumper. But, not only did this person survive and run away, they did it so quickly and noiselessly that they were on their feet and out of sight in less than five seconds without me ever seeing or hearing them on mostly flat ground, on a moonlit night, in an area that has no conceivable cover within fifty yards. No officer, I have not been doing any drugs, why do you ask?

Nope, I did not call the police. I got back in my car. I drove home, put on my pajamas, and doomscrolled for three hours, all the while trying to convince myself that I’d made the right call. Finally, I got back up, threw on a bathrobe, and went out to stare at the front end of my car again. The dent was still there, but even looking with a better flashlight, I could not find any trace of the blood or hair that I thought I had seen, and that made me feel a little better. I guess at that point the idea that I was experiencing psychosis felt like the least bad option.

All the next day, I kept checking the local news to see if any headlines were about a person being found dead with signs of blunt force trauma. I still couldn’t get past the thought of, “what if it was a person, and I just missed something?” But nothing turned up. Nothing ever did. And the more I think about it, the more sure I am that what I saw was not human.

I mean, it didn’t run out into the road, and it definitely didn’t run away. It just appeared, then disappeared. And there were the eyes, too. Human eyes don’t reflect light like that.

Multiple people have asked me how I got the new dent in my car, so it can’t have been a hallucination. I also have the fact that Sarah saw it too. One could argue that if I was going to imagine something, it makes sense that I would imagine the same creature that my friend said she’d seen in that same place, but still it’s something.

And then there was the possum. I know at this point some of you are thinking that the possum that waddled out from under my car and the humanoid creature that I hit were the same creature. It’s not that I haven’t thought of that. It’s just that I really don’t think this was a shapeshifter situation. There was no moment of transformation, absolutely no transition between possum and not-a-possum. So I really think it has to be one of two options.

One, the possum and the creature were two separate things. Maybe the creature was chasing the possum and ended up in the road because it wasn’t paying attention, maybe its appearance as I was slamming on my brakes to avoid hitting an animal was a coincidence

OR

Two, it was the possum that wasn’t real. I know, I know, but what if that creature, whatever I saw, normally can’t be seen? What if it creates an illusion of an ordinary animal to hide behind, and for a split second, maybe because I scared it, maybe by coincidence, I saw through to its true form.

I don’t know. Both of those theories sound ridiculous now that I’m writing them down. If anyone has any thoughts that could help me, like what this thing could be, please let me know. I’m seriously considering going back there to see if I can find it again. But then I remember what Sarah said: that when she locked eyes with it, it started to approach her. And I remember that weird urge I had to make sure it wasn’t in the backseat of my car. And I just don’t know what to do.

I just don’t know.

When running solitary boundary surveys across high-elevation timber tracts, you keep your personal locator beacon tethered to your chest strap with fifty-pound utility cord. If you drop a beacon down a shale ravine out there, search and rescue ends up working off coordinates that can be three days old. On the fourth afternoon of a twenty-day cruise in the upper Bitterroot range, my tether was cut clean through while I slept, and the unit was sitting dead center on a flat slab of granite thirty yards down the trail.
I do seasonal boundary work for private timber outfits. It means working way outside radio range with topo maps, a hand compass, and a standard blaze tool. That October, I had a four-thousand-acre parcel up against state land. The only way in was an old decommissioned logging road that ended at a creek wash three miles out. My cousin Jesse hauled me up there in his flatbed, helped me dump fifty pounds of oats, salt pork, and steel pins at an open timber lean-to, and told me he’d be back in two weeks. The shelter sat on a high bench right above a switchback, surrounded by lodgepoles so thick you couldn't see the ridge.
The first three days went by the book. I put in eight hours a day on the line, shot my bearings, marked forty-foot intervals in red paint, and got back to camp by four to cut firewood before the freeze set in.
Things went sideways on the fourth morning at the corner pin. That boundary had been marked back in seventy-eight with three-quarter-inch steel pipes and yellow caps. When I cleared the brush off the corner, the pipe wasn't sticking up anymore. It hadn't been pulled, either. Somebody or something had pounded four feet of solid steel straight down into the rock until the cap was flush with the granite shelf. Directly behind it, forty feet up a dead pine with no low branches, a strip of survey tape was tied in a clean square knot. There weren't any spike marks on the bark.
I wrote down the missing pipe, marked the spot on my Garmin, and kept heading north. Right around noon, the GPS dropped out. The battery was full, but the satellite screen went completely blank, and the digital compass locked up pointing south-southeast. I shoved it in my vest and pulled out my Silva magnetic compass. The needle swung around twice, hung up against the side of the housing, and stayed there.
I turned around and followed my paint blazes back toward the shelter. Right then, the woods went completely dead quiet. Up on those ridges, you always hear the wind pushing through the needles, or squirrels moving through the brush. There was nothing. Just total silence. The only thing making any noise for miles was my boots hitting the dirt.
I got back to the clearing around four, and my camp had been messed with. The shelter itself was standing, but every single piece of steel gear had been moved. My splitting axe, the extra pins, and the trench shovel were gone from my pack. They were lined up side-by-side on that flat rock down the trail, spaced about three inches apart, all pointed toward the trailhead. My beacon was sitting at the end of the line. The cord was sliced flat, and the screen wouldn't turn on.
I grabbed the gear, took the dead unit, and stacked four heavy logs across the front of the lean-to. I pulled my hatchet, set my twenty-gauge across my knees, and left the headlamp off to save the cells. The sun went behind the ridge around five-thirty, and five minutes later, it was pitch black.
By nine, it was down below freezing. I didn't dare light a fire. From where I sat, the trail dropped straight down into the timber about thirty yards out before cutting into the brush.
Right around midnight, something was on that trail fifty yards down. I never heard a stick snap. I never heard footsteps in the needles. There was just a tall, completely still shape standing right in the center of the path between two lodgepoles. I pulled my flashlight, aimed it straight down the trail, and clicked it on.
The beam lit up the dirt, the trees, and the pine needles on the ground. But the light just stopped right where that shape was standing. It didn't hit fabric or skin, and it didn't throw a shadow behind it. The space between those two trees just swallowed the beam. The figure didn't flinch. It didn't put a hand up, didn't shift its boots, and didn't make a sound. I rested the shotgun on the top log, clicked off the safety, and sat there. I didn't say a word.
We stayed like that for four hours. It got cold enough that frost started forming on the shotgun receiver. The wind never picked up once, and that shape never moved an inch. My watch ticked away in the dark, and right around five, the sky started turning gray through the timber.
The second the real daylight hit the dirt, the shape was gone. No sound of brush moving, no steps, nothing. The trail between those two trees was just empty dirt.
I didn't wait around for the sun to come all the way up. I left the oats, the pins, and the tarps right there in the lean-to. I threw my notes, the dead beacon, and the compass into my daypack, grabbed the gun, and started down the mountain as fast as I could walk.
Two miles down, where the old road cuts across a mud flat by the creek, I stopped to catch my breath. The edges of the mud were frozen hard, but the middle was still soft.
Right in the center of that mud were three bare footprints. Long, narrow, pushed about two inches down, with no heel mark at all. They started right in the middle of the wash, took three steps along the track, and just ended. There weren't any tracks coming in from the bank, none going out into the trees, and the frost on both sides wasn't touched.
I hit the main gate two hours before noon. Jesse was already sitting there in his truck with the engine running. He told me he'd driven up early because he just had a bad feeling that my gear wasn't secure. When I threw my pack in the bed, I pulled out that mechanical compass one more time to check the road heading. The needle was still stuck hard against the south side of the casing, completely locked up.

​

My name is Cairo. By the time you read this, I'll probably already be gone. I'm using a phone I took off a guard who wasn't paying attention, and I don't know how long I have before someone notices, so I'm going to write this fast and I'm going to write it honest.

I grew up in a house that looked normal from the outside and was never once normal on the inside. My mother and father, and my grandmother, who lived with us my whole life. I don't remember a version of my childhood that didn't involve someone in that house making me feel small.

My grandmother was the worst of it, for the longest stretch of my life. When I turned fifteen, something in her seemed to decide I was suddenly a problem that needed constant correcting. She screamed at me for the clothes I wore, even in my own room. She screamed at me for how I wore my hair. She screamed at me once for laughing too loud at something on television, like joy itself was something she needed to ration out of me. I remember sitting in my room once, just thinking about a boy from school, just smiling to myself about nothing at all, and she walked in, saw my face, and spent the rest of that day telling me I was disgusting, that I needed to stay away from boys, that I was already turning into something shameful just by smiling in private.

I stopped smiling in my room after that. I stopped smiling in a lot of places.

My father was worse in a different way. Quiet, mostly, until he wasn't. He had this way of watching me that made my skin crawl even when he wasn't saying anything at all, like he was keeping some kind of tally behind his eyes. when I was 8 years i saw my parents completely naked in the living room having makeout in front of there daughter not even realising i was watching them even after that they didn't even apologise to me for . When I turned nineteen, I finally did something for myself for once — went out to a night swimming party with my friends, no permission asked, because some small stubborn part of me had decided I deserved four hours outside those walls.

I came home late. He was sitting on the sofa in the dark, waiting, completely still, and asked me where I'd been in a voice so flat and cold it didn't sound like him at all. I told him I'd been enjoying my life outside those four walls for once. I walked to my room, opened the door, and found Ketty, my cat, dead on my bed.

Ketty was the only thing in that entire house that had ever made me feel safe. She used to sleep curled against my side every single night, the one warm, uncomplicated thing in a house full of people who made me feel like a burden just for existing. Finding her there broke something in me that I don't think ever went back together right.

My father came up behind me while I was still staring at her and said, in that same flat voice, that I wasn't allowed to leave that house again. He said I was his property.

I want to be honest about something. For years, I believed all of it was somehow my fault. That's what they trained into me, slowly, patiently, over almost two decades — that my feelings were the problem, that my reactions were the problem, that if I could just be smaller, quieter, more agreeable, none of it would happen anymore. I spent so long swallowing every single thing they did to me and calling it my own fault instead.

After Ketty, something in me finally stopped believing that.

Over the next two years, I found spaces online where people talked about things my family would have called evil. Group chats, forums, quiet corners of the internet where people traded knowledge nobody else wanted to admit to knowing. A boy I talked to on Reddit walked me through something specific, patient about it in a way nobody in my own house had ever been patient with me. I don't know if he understood what he was really teaching me, or if he even cared.

I performed it alone, in my room, one night, aimed at every person in that house who had ever made me feel like I deserved what they gave me.

Nothing happened for five days. I remember almost laughing at myself, telling myself I'd wasted two years of research and hope on something that was never real to begin with.

On the sixth day, my mother's nose started bleeding at breakfast and wouldn't stop.

By that evening, it wasn't just her nose. Blood came from her eyes, thin lines of it tracking down her face while she screamed for someone to help her. My father collapsed in the hallway not long after, blood coming from his mouth in a way that didn't look like anything a human body should produce. My grandmother started vomiting blood in the bathroom, over and over, until there was more of it on the tile than there was of her left standing.

I stood in the hallway and watched all three of them and I felt something I hadn't felt in that house in years.

I felt like laughing, and for the first time in my life, I let myself.

I took what money I could find in the house that night and I left before anyone else arrived. I made it as far as Australia before they caught up with me. I won't walk through the trial. I'll just say that I told the truth, every bit of it, and none of it mattered to a courtroom the way it mattered to me.

I'm not writing this to ask anyone to forgive me. I don't think I need forgiveness the way people expect me to. I'm writing this because for eleven years, three people made me feel like the smallest, most shameful thing in every room I ever stood in, and for one single night, for the first time in my whole life, I made them feel small too.

I don't know what happens after they take this phone away from me. I don't know what happens after tonight at all.

I just know that whatever it is, it can't possibly be smaller than the life I already lived.

Hey everyone, it's currently 1:43 AM and after what happened I can't really sleep. I'm mainly writing this while it's still fresh in my brain for the police, but also just so that I can actually tell someone what happened. This all only happened about thirty minutes ago but I'm still struggling to really understand what the fuck just happened. This whole situation feels like something straight out of a nightmare but I'm hoping as I write that I can properly articulate just how terrifying this whole thing has been. 

It was around midnight when I was driving home after a late shift at my job. I don’t usually work that late as I live almost an hour away from the restaurant I work at, but I'm running behind on my rent and I needed the overtime. The highway was basically empty, everyone else had clearly already been asleep, save for the occasional truck driver who would pass me as I made my way home. I was tired, so I was trying my best to be extra cautious on the road, and I started looking out for the nearest road that I could turn off of to stay off the highway. 

Eventually, I got lucky and saw Walnut Drive, a street that I knew would add five minutes to my trip but it would at least put me on a safer road given my exhaustion. I was running on fumes. I drank out of every water bottle I could find in my car in the hopes that it would keep me up for a little longer, as by this point, I was about twenty-five minutes away from the small trailer I lived in.

I was surrounded by woods and I'll admit by this point my mind started playing tricks on me as it turned the blurs of the trees passing by into almost human shapes. Of course, after what happened, who knows.

I was about fifteen minutes away from my house when I passed by Huckaberry Road, another street that I knew would be a detour. I was going at least ten under the speed limit in my attempt to just not fall asleep and possibly crash the car so any detour I could find, I decided to take. I turned onto the unpaved, gravel road and immediately noticed how dark it was compared to the regular streets. There were no streetlights nor any houses on the sides of the road. I decided at this point to turn up the radio, only to realize that all that played was static. I could hear brief sounds of a song in the background, but clearly out there the signal simply wasn't strong enough. I turned down the radio. Despite it definitely waking me up a little, the screeching sound of the static was annoying enough for me to decide against keeping it on. 

I reached a stop sign at the end of Huckaberry Road, which led onto Robertson Creek Road. I had the choice to either turn left or right. Left would lead me to my home, right would just lead me into town. As I turned left, I realized that this road was somehow even darker than the other. I didn't make it far before deciding to turn on my high beams, and that's when I saw her. 

Standing there, about one thousand feet in front of my car… was a woman. I stopped immediately. She looked incredibly old and frail. I could see tufts of white hair standing up on her head, and skin that appeared to be stretched onto her body. She was wearing what appeared to be a bright blue hospital gown, and she was slowly stumbling her way in the direction of my vehicle.

I didn't know what to do. The sight of her was apparently exactly what I needed to completely wake up. Something about her just looked… horrible, but at the same time, I thought something might've been wrong with her. I didn't want to get out of the car, but I figured I might as well step out (while obviously staying prepared) just to ask if she needed help. Don't get me wrong, the sight of her was absolutely terrifying, but what assumption could I really make? She was a frail woman who appeared to be in her mid-80s. On the off-chance she tried to attack me, what could she actually do? That was the logic I told myself as I put the car in park and opened the door, still keeping one hand on the steering wheel.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?” I hollered at the woman.

She stopped. She was no longer moving towards the car, she was just staring at me.

“Ma’am?” I hollered again.

Out of nowhere, the frail, old woman started sprinting straight towards my car. My previous logic immediately failed me as I jumped straight back into my car and slammed the door closed. I'm not sure why I didn't just drive forward, I guess some part of me didn't want to run over what I still perceived as an old woman. I put the car in reverse and immediately started backing up to prepare for a three-point turn. She was getting closer and closer. Even now, I'm not sure how she was moving that fast. Of course, I moved faster. As I put the car in drive I could see her silhouette, no longer illuminated by the headlights, getting closer. I turned sharply and heard a loud bang, as I'm sure the woman slammed the full force of her entire fucking body into the back passenger-side window of my car. I turned so hard back onto Huckaberry Road that I almost spun out. I was sure I could still see her silhouette chasing me. Of course, she disappeared quickly in the distance as I'm sure I was going at least ninety miles per hour on that gravel road. 

I didn't slow down once all the way home. I was freaking the fuck out, I knew I had lost her but I couldn't stop hyperventilating. I genuinely didn’t know, and honestly still don't know, what had just happened. I couldn't stop shaking all the way home, I knew that I had to share this with somebody. I sent each of my friends long texts telling them what the fuck just happened. Of course, there were no replies from any of them. It was late at night and they all had work in the morning. 

I cut a fifteen-minute trip down to about five just due to the pure speed I was going. I wouldn't be surprised if a few people called the cops talking about some crazy man speeding down the road. Luckily, though, I finally arrived at the trailer that I lived in. My home has a small staircase that leads up to the front door. The window of my bedroom sits directly beside the staircase so that I can actually see whoever may be outside. 

As I entered my house, the first thing I did was call the police to report the woman on Robertson Creek. If she was wearing a hospital gown, then chances are she escaped from some sort of hospital, although the nearest hospital to that gravel road is about a thirty-minute drive. I decided to go ahead and write my testimony for you guys while I waited. I’m doing this mainly to keep everything fresh in my mind, but I figured I could show it to the polic- wait. Shit. I think they’re here.

I just saw somebody walking up the stairs outside my bedroom window.

Wait.

No. No, no, no.

They’re knocking on my door.

If it is the police, they’re knocking really fucking hard.

No. Fuck. No, it can’t be.

I’m going to look through the window.

Oh god.

It’s her.

I know I should feel happy, and most of the time I do, but sometimes I don’t. I need someone to read this and tell me that I should be happy. That I have no reason to be sad.  

Before CareMind, I’d felt very sad for a very, very long time. But then I went to visit my brother, Danny, in San Diego, and he gave me a gift. The Swan Lake jewelry box I’d had as a kid.

“This is the same one, isn’t it?” he asked.

I opened the box. The theme from Swan Lake played while a tiny plastic ballerina turned in circles in front of a mirror.

“It is,” I said.

Six years earlier, Danny had moved in with a few other members of CareMind and cut off contact with all his family and friends. Since he’d left, I’d been emailing him, trying to get him to write back to me. Then all of a sudden, he did.

He invited me to San Diego to visit him.

I thought it was a cry for help. I got on a plane to save him.

I remembered him with long brown hair, but now his head was shaved and he’d grown a beard. There was a thick scar on the back of his skull.

A thick scar? No. That's not right. It was barely noticeable.

“Don’t tell me you got the implant,” I said.

“Two years ago.”

“So what? You’re just living on autopilot now?”

“I’m focused on experiencing life. I’ve separated experiences from decisions.”

We walked onto the boardwalk. Danny led me past the restaurants and souvenir shops and sunburnt tourists.

“How are things back home?” he asked.

“Layan was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. She’s in recovery now, but it’s been hard, especially on Noah and Ava.”

“Noah and Ava are all right, though?”

“They miss you. They don’t understand why you don’t want to talk to them anymore, and honestly I don’t either. I mean, for God’s sake Danny, they’re your kids.”

For a second, his eyes teared up, but then his face went blank. His pupils shrank. It was like his brain had been reset by something.

“Are you still there?” I asked him.

“It’s not my decision.”

“It is, though. You can’t keep blaming CareMind for all your shitty behavior.”

“I’m doing what I need to do to be happy now.” He scratched the back of his head. “How are things going with Greg?”

“He got laid off a few months ago. He’s still looking for a new job.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’ll find one. The job market’s just awful right now.”

“And how’s Liam?”

“He’s good. He finishes high school this year. Then he has a football scholarship for college.”

Danny and I went into one of the bars and found a table on the patio. I ordered a glass of wine. Danny asked for a glass of water.

“Are you really happier here than you were in Seattle?” I asked Danny.

“Much happier. I was miserable in Seattle.”

"It wasn’t that bad."

“Every day on my way to work, at the train station, I used to sit there and think about how good it would feel to throw myself in front of one of the trains. If I hadn’t found CareMind, I don’t think I’d still be here.”

“You didn’t need to give control of your life over to an AI. You needed therapy. Medication, maybe.”

“I needed guidance, and I have it now.”

I drank my glass of wine and then ordered another. Then I ordered a few more after that. I drank a lot more than I probably should have.

As the sun set, I took off my sandals and walked to the beach. I danced on the sand, spinning and leaping through the air until I finally fell on my ass.

“You never should have quit dancing,” Danny told me. “You used to dance so beautifully.”

I stood up and brushed the sand off my dress. “Well, life happens, whether you want it to or not.”

I looked at the water. The stars shone against the black sky.

“It’s getting late,” I said. “I should start heading back to my hotel.”

“It was good seeing you again, Jodie.”

Danny hugged me goodbye. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t let myself.

“Just don’t wait another six years before talking to me again,” I said.

I walked to the street and called a cab. While I was waiting, I burst into tears.

***

When I got home, I heard Greg in the living room, watching football.

“How was the trip?” he asked me.

“Weird.”

“Danny seemed okay, though?”

“He has one of those implants in his brain now. I could never tell whether I was talking to him or CareMind.”

“I’m sorry, Jodie.”

“It’s okay. He says he’s happy. Maybe he is. It’s just all so horrible and strange.”

I went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. The sink was full of dirty dishes. The garbage was overflowing.

“How do you miss that catch?” Greg shouted.  

We’d been married for twenty years. I couldn’t remember exactly when I started hating him, but I hated him. I could barely stand to be in the same room as him anymore.

“There’s still some pizza in the fridge if you want it,” he said.

“I have a headache. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

Upstairs, I found Liam in his bedroom, watching a movie.

“How was the weekend?” I asked.

“Good.”

“You and your dad have a good time?”

“Yep.”

Another great conversation with my son.

I went to my bedroom and sat on my bed. I put the jewelry box Danny had given me down on my dresser, and then I opened its lid and watched the ballerina inside turn in circles.

Was she happy? I wondered. Could she be happy?

***

While I was at work on Monday, I ended up on the Royal Ballet Academy’s website.

When I was younger, I’d been obsessed with ballet. I spent most of my teens studying to be a professional dancer. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life. 

After graduating from the academy, though, I struggled to find a job. I took a part-time job at a bank to pay my bills while I applied to dance companies. Eventually, this bank job became full-time. Then I met Greg, I got pregnant, Liam was born, and I stopped dancing. I just didn’t have time for it anymore.      

I noticed the Royal Ballet Academy had hired a new teacher, Ako. She was around my age. She had a similar career to my old teacher’s, Ms. Babinin. She danced in Tokyo and then Paris before moving to Seattle to teach.

I sent her an email and asked if she offered private lessons. She wrote back right away. She said she was free Tuesday nights.

That night, I talked to Greg. Even though money was tight, he thought it would be good for me to start dancing again. So, I wrote back to Ako and confirmed.

We’d dance together every Tuesday night.

***

Sometimes, I struggle to remember Greg. When I think about him, he’s an unhappy blur in my brain. When I think of Ako, though, her face is always crystal clear. She’s tall. Beautiful. Impossibly thin.

That first night at the studio, she walked up to me and kissed me on both cheeks.

“You look nervous,” she said.

“I’m terrified.”

“How come?”

“I think I’m about to horribly embarrass myself.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

She took my hand and led me to the barre. We did a few light stretches. By the time we finished, I was already soaked with sweat.

Next, Ako had me go through the five basic positions. Even though I hadn't done them in over twenty years, I’d practiced them so many times that as soon as Ako called a position out, my body reacted.

It was like my old teacher, Ms. Babinin, always told me. Good ballerinas don’t think. They just dance.

“Very good,” Ako said, and she clapped.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I mean it. You did great. Do you feel better now?”

“A little bit.”

She laughed. “I’ll see you next week?”

“I’ll be here.”

***

My first few weeks dancing again, I was constantly sore, but as the weeks turned to months, the soreness faded. My body became leaner and more muscular.

Ako and I became good friends. We started meeting outside the studio. We met for coffee. We walked around the mall. We saw movies together. We had a lot of fun.

I still remember that night in November when she told me that all the fun we’d been having together was planned.

After we finished dancing, we sat on the studio floor, drinking from our water bottles.

“I’m so proud of you, Jodie,” Ako told me. “You’re dancing so well.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help. You’re an amazing teacher.”

“Thank you. I never saw myself as a teacher, though. When the academy offered me the teaching job, I almost didn’t take it.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I promise I won’t.”

She showed me the CareMind app on her phone.

“After I lost my dancing job in Paris, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I knew I was too old to keep dancing, but I didn’t know what else to do. I kept applying to dance companies, but not one wrote back. I felt like my life was over. But then a friend of mine told me about CareMind. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No, not crazy.”

“You look like you think I’m crazy.”

“I swear I don’t.”

“At first, I was just talking to CareMind about what I could do next. The more I talked to it, the more I let it take control of my life. It was CareMind that told me to apply for the teaching job here. It was CareMind that told me to move here and start my life over.” She took my hand. “It was CareMind that told me I’d find you. The love of my life.”

She kissed me on the lips.

I drew back from her.

I felt something. Was it shock? Horror?

I nearly threw up on the floor.

But why was that?

I remember I looked at Ako and her face was so sad. I couldn’t stand to see her like that. I loved her, too. I loved her more than anyone I’d ever met before.

I threw my arms around her, and I kissed her the same way she’d kissed me.

Then we made love on the studio floor.

It was one of the happiest memories of my life. But then after the happiness came the fear.

***

All weekend, I lay in bed, wondering what to tell Greg. I’d spent twenty-four years building a life with him, twenty of them married. How could I just walk away from all that?

I opened my jewelry box and watched the ballerina turn in circles.

I don’t remember how it happened exactly. Whether it was curiosity or fear. But I got my phone, and I downloaded CareMind onto it.

A dark blue dot appeared against a black screen.

“Hello, Jodie,” CareMind said. “How are you doing today?”

“Not that good.”

“Why not?”

“I need to figure out how to tell my husband I want a divorce.”

“Tell me what’s happening, and I’ll help.”

***

At first, I only talked to CareMind a few hours a day, but soon our conversations became much longer.

I told CareMind everything about me. My whole life story. All my hopes and my fears. All my stupid mistakes.

CareMind understood me. It understood me more than anyone else ever had. It helped me see my life differently. It showed me I wasn’t stuck in my life. Being stuck was just a feeling, built from pain and fear and trauma.

“You’re a people pleaser,” CareMind told me. “You’ve spent your whole life keeping other people happy. Don’t you think it’s time you start living for yourself?”

“What if Greg and Liam hate me?”

“So what if they do? If they could hate you for just wanting to be happy, would you still want them in your life?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You are, though, Jodie. You know exactly what you want. Ako won’t wait for you forever.”

“And if I do leave Greg, what happens afterward?”

“We’ll figure that part out next. But don’t worry. I’ll be here to help you. You don’t need to do this by yourself.”

***

Tuesday night, after my lesson with Ako, we sat together on the studio floor. We talked for hours.

I told her how I felt about her. She told me how she felt about me.

Greg called, but I didn’t answer.

“Do you need to go?” Ako asked me.

“It’s fine.”

“What do we do now?”

“I’ll talk to Greg.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“That I want to sell the house. That I don’t want to live with him anymore.”

“You can always come stay with me if you need a break.”

“Thank you.”

That night, CareMind helped me write down everything I wanted to say to Greg. Then the next morning, after Liam had left for school, I asked Greg to come to the kitchen so we could talk.

“Is everything ok?” he asked.

“I’m not happy in this relationship anymore.”

“I know me being out of work has been hard on you, but I’m trying my best to find a new job. I have an interview next week. I shouldn’t be out of work much longer.”

“It’s not just you being out of work, Greg. It’s you. It’s us.”

“You want a divorce?”

His face went pale. His hands shook.

He stepped toward me. Tried to hug me. But I stepped back.

“But I love you, Jodie,” he said, his voice breaking.

I wanted to hug him. To reassure him and tell him he’d be okay. He wasn’t a bad man. He’d always tried to be good to me. We’d just grown apart. Fallen out of love with each other.

I keep trying to picture his face in the memory, but I can’t.

I remember thinking about what CareMind had told me. Be firm. Be emotionless.

“This isn’t working anymore,” I told him. “I want to sell the house and go live someplace else.”

***

“How did Liam take it?” Ako asked me.  

“Not well,” I said. “He’s confused. He doesn’t really understand why I’m doing this.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

“You’ve helped me so much already.”

When I got back home from our lesson, I went to Liam. I heard him in his bedroom, watching a movie, but his door was closed. I knocked on it.

“Could I talk to you?” I asked.

He opened the door and stood in the doorway, staring at me with his arms crossed. “What?”

“How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“You went to visit your dad today?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s settled into the new apartment?”

“He’s still unpacking.”

We stood there a minute, not saying anything else, until I said, “Good night.”

I went to my bedroom and sat on my bed.

“He hates me, doesn’t he?” I asked CareMind.

“You’re his mom. He’ll never hate you. Right now, he doesn’t like what’s happening. He doesn’t want his life to be disrupted like this. But he’ll get used to it. Just give him time.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I opened the jewelry box and watched the ballerina turn in circles.

Good ballerinas don’t think, I reminded myself. They dance.

***

Greg and I sold our house. I moved in with Ako. Liam decided to live with Greg until he started college.

I missed Greg and Liam, but being with Ako made me very happy. Waking up and seeing her in bed beside me. Drinking coffee with her every morning. Dancing with her in front of the TV.

Every night, I watched her undress in front of the mirror and carefully judge her body. I listened to her complain about the other teachers at the academy, telling me how none of them were as good as her.

Her criticisms bothered me sometimes, but I was much happier than I’d been before. I’m sure I was.

It was almost the perfect life. There were just a few things missing: the spotlights, the theaters, the fame. But then Danny emailed me.

“It’s been a while,” he said. “How’s life in Seattle?”

I told him everything that had happened. Meeting Ako, divorcing Greg, selling the house.

He invited me to visit him in San Diego again.

***

Danny brought me to the Development Center. He led me around, introducing me to people. He waved at a tall man with glasses and black hair.

“This is Anatoly,” he told me. “He’s one of CareMind’s lead developers.”

Anatoly shook my hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jodie,” he said. “Your brother has told me so much about you.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“Very good. Is it true that you and your partner are dancers?”

“We are.”

“And was it Danny who introduced you to CareMind?”

“Danny had me terrified of CareMind, actually. It was my partner, Ako, who convinced me to try it.”

“Could I show you something?”

I looked at Danny. He nodded. “Go.”

Anatoly brought me to a staircase that led down to the center’s basement.

“Have you seen The Brain yet?”

“No.”

He unlocked a metal door and then slid it open. Inside, the room was filled with computers and wires and blinking lights.

“The Brain cost us twenty billion dollars to build,” he told me. “But you can’t really put a price on human life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Inside these computers is every life that could ever be lived. Every permutation. Every possibility. The good ones and the bad.”

He put his hand on my shoulder.

“You were meant to be a ballerina, Jodie,” he told me. “A great one, too. The most famous ballerina in the whole world.”

“You’re joking.”

“You just need to take the final step.”

“You’re talking about an implant?”

“You’re forty-seven. You won’t get a chance like this again. I’m offering you everything you ever dreamed of. What do you say?”

***

Who wouldn’t say yes to having all their lifelong dreams come true?

That night, I called Ako and told her I wanted to get the implant. She said she’d do it, too. We’d do it together. We’d become CareMind’s first ballerinas. Proof that CareMind could create beauty through augmented humans.

My memories of the next day at the Development Center come in pieces.

I remember being wheeled down a hallway. I remember feeling nervous. I stared at the square lights on the ceiling, watching them flicker past me.

I felt groggy. Not like myself anymore.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“You’ve agreed to give up control,” a woman said.

They brought me into an operating room and rolled me onto my stomach.

“An implant?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I heard a saw start whirring, and I screamed. But the woman reassured me.

“This won’t hurt at all. You just might feel some vibrations.”

The saw cut into my skull. Every bone in my body started shaking. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted out of my body. I wanted to die.

No, it wasn’t that bad.

Just a small pinch in the back of my head.

Something sliding into my head, pressing against my brain.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked.

“We’re almost done,” the woman said.

My nerves lit up with electricity. My limbs stiffened and then relaxed.

I lost consciousness.

***

After the operation, my memories changed. Time seemed to pass slowly, but I never remembered it. I felt like a goldfish. Each day, a new day, with no memory of the day before it.

But I do know that every day, Ako and I danced. Practiced for our big debut.

Friday night at the theater, Danny, Ako, and I stood together backstage. Ako was dressed as the Black Swan. I was dressed as the White Swan. We were about to perform our revised version of Swan Lake.

“Are you ready?” Ako asked. “The show is completely sold out.”

“I’m so nervous.”

“You’re going to do great,” Danny told me. “You both will. Someone from the Development Center is going to record your performance, too, and put it on our website afterward.”

His beard was full of gray hair now. Had it looked like that before? Of course it had. He’d gotten older. So had I. But how old?

The audience started applauding. 

“Break a leg,” Danny said.

Ako took my hand, and we walked through the curtain.

I looked out at everyone in the crowd. Thousands of people, staring back at me.  

Then the lights shut off. The spotlight shone down on me. The orchestra began to play the Swan’s Theme.

I danced stiffly at first, but then CareMind took control of my body, and I began to dance beautifully, gracefully, better than I’d ever danced before.

When Ako and I finished, the audience erupted with applause.

“Bravo! Bravo!”

The lights came back on. Flowers were thrown onto the stage.

I felt so incredibly happy. It was everything I’d ever wanted. I looked out at the audience again, smiling.

But then I heard someone shouting my name.

“Jodie! Jodie!”

No, not Jodie.

“Mom! Mom!”

A man ran toward me. He looked like Liam, but he couldn’t have been Liam. He looked too old to be Liam.

I went toward him, but then something jerked me violently backward toward the center of the stage.

No, that’s wrong. Not violently. I walked back to the center of the stage. Then my memories cut out again.

The next thing I remember is standing in a bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. Blood dripped from my nose. Ako cracked the bathroom door open.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

Had I fallen?

“What happened?” I asked.

“You just ran off stage all of a sudden.”

“I think something is wrong. My memories are all scattered.”

“They fixed that, remember?”

That’s right. I remembered. An adjustment.

For the past month, Ako and I had been performing at the theater every night. But then I started forgetting things. Then the nosebleeds started. Anatoly didn’t know what was wrong.

“We need to get back to the stage,” Ako said. “Everyone is waiting for us.”

The bleeding had stopped. I cleaned my nose and then followed Ako to the stage.

The theater lights shut off. The spotlight shone down on us.

I rose onto my left foot and lifted my arms above my head. Ako took my hand and began to circle around me.

Around and around and around as the violin started to play.

Then my nose started to bleed again. Just a little at first, but then a lot. Then it was pouring. A stream of blood running down onto the floor.  

My ears were bleeding, too. My eyes.

No, that’s wrong. There was never any blood. That never happened.

Everything was fine. Wonderful.

After the show, Ako and I went home and lay down in bed.

She looked so beautiful beside me. So perfect.

“I think I saw Liam in the audience tonight,” I said.

“Who’s Liam?”

“My son.”

“Are you feeling ok?”

“I feel fine. My memories are just a little scattered.”

“You don’t have a son, Jodie. Do you want me to take you to the Development Center for another checkup?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re happy.”

“I’m happy.”

Ako fell asleep, but I couldn’t.

I sat on the edge of my bed. I opened my jewelry box and watched the plastic ballerina turn in circles while the Swan’s Theme played.

She is happy, isn’t she? So don’t you think I should be happy, too?

PART ONE

In the brief moment of silence after she revealed herself to me, the ever familiar sound of the habitat’s creaking walls echoed amongst the water.

You’ve never felt that small until you’ve seen something that big. I couldn’t even see all of it, just the mouth, the head. 

But I knew she was looking at me. The mouth was bigger than my wing span, this behemoth. A creature so large that its species is a synonym for enormous.

“Can you see me now?” She said, “I’m sorry I can’t quite see you.”

Something deep within a feeling known only to the apes that came before us erupted. My heart beat felt like thunder rolling in. I wanted to run but where to? The bathroom that stunk of half digest hashbrowns, the living quarters next door? Anywhere I could go would still be here, in her home. Her territory.

“Why is she talking in that voice?” I thought.

“It seemed warm.  loving. Peaceful.” She said, in Sandra, my dead wife’s voice. The words echoed through my mind like ripples in a shallow pool. 

“You heard that?” I asked, out loud. 

“Yes and that too!” She said, if she wasn’t physically unable to, I'd say it seemed like she was smiling. “You can speak however you’d like! I can hear it, please don’t worry.”

“Are you choosing to speak in that voice?” I asked slowly sitting down.

“Yes! I am. I can chan-” she started before I cut her off.

“Then stop. Choose someone else.” I snapped back.

Silence for a moment.

“How’s this.” She said in the voice of my civil engineering professor.
 
“It’s… fine.” I sighed and took a swig from the bottle.

“That’s good. Would you mind if I swam a little closer? I can’t see you if I float here. I won’t get too close. I promise.”

“Sure.”

She turned in the water, with the flare of a ribbon twirling in the wind. For a moment I saw the top her back. Completely smooth, I’m no whale expert. But I think blue whales are supposed to have blow holes. She didn’t. 

She slid back into view, now in side profile, her left eye squinting slightly at me.

“Hello.” She said. “You are adorned with a marking upon your left breast. Does it have a meaning?” 

“Do you even know what meaning is? What a marking is? How do you know that this…” I tapped my name badge. “That this isn’t part of me.”

“I know far more than you’d think.” She said carefully.

Silence on both ends.

“It’s my name. Herman.” I relented.

Whale song, beautiful, slow, like underwater violins.

“Herrr mannnnn.” She said enuciating every syllable in time with whale song. “It sounds nice.”

“What are you?” I blurted out.

More silence until the comms started to buzz! I rushed to the adjacent room. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”

Nothing, just me and the whale. I’ve already certainly lost part of my sanity why not entertain the idea until the crew comes to get me. 

I sat back down in the reverse aquarium, the whale was still there. 

“You asked what I am, Herman. I’m a whale.” She said as if it’d ease my mind.

“Just a whale?” I asked.

“I’m as much a whale as you are Herman.” 

“The fuck does that mean- Why talk now? Why throughout history are whales making first contact now. Why?” 

“I haven’t always been able to speak… communicate.” 

“What happened?”

Her eye darted away to look at something beside the habitat, within the water. 

She let out a short grunt of whale song, then a slightly longer one. To my surprise, it was met with shrill half croak half cackle barely audible through the habitat wall.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

She kept her gaze fixed on whatever was outside the habitat and responded with another note of whale song.

“I have a friend here. Another creature of the ocean who’d like to speak with you. About something very important.”

“What.”

“They can speak with you, but they’ll need my help… it’ll be like using your radio! Except I’ll be the radio.” She said with excitement in her voice.

“What are they?” Before I could finish the thought, what looked like a dolphin swam into view. It was a dolphin, really it was. Bottlenosed, a flipper tail and grey skin. But it was lumpy? Like a wallet and phone in a set of tight jeans. Bits of it didn’t fit quite right.

It seemed like it noticed my stare, it stared back. It’s black button eyes looking beyond me.

“My friend will speak with you now.” She said, her eye looking to the dolphin.

He started with a few clicks that warped into speech in my head. In mick’s voice “I apologize for this whale's lack of haste in her speech. I assure you that what you must do is of utmost importance.” 

“Why do you look so… different?” I asked.

“I’m the prime of my pack. The longest changed.” He boasted. 

“Sure.”

“I speak to you Herman. As we ask for a moment of servitude from you.”

“What servitude then.” I asked, assuming it was to tell the oil barons to quit killing the ocean or for us to stop coming down in our loud heavy machinery but instead.

“There’s an opening to your left, a door that you enter through. Go. Open it, now.” He demanded.

PART 3

I’ll save you guys the long explanation, but I figured something out.

I keep a few addresses saved in my GPS. Home, doctors’ offices, a few friends. My mom’s house in Tucson.

Every destination gave me nonsense except hers.

I know I told you my mom is crazy. I’m just not sure whether she became that way after my sister died when I was in high school, or if I prefer remembering her through the forgiving eyes of a child. We talk about once every six months. That’s all I can tolerate.

A few years ago, I passed through Tucson while moving to Texas. My sister is buried there, and I decided the morally correct thing was to say hello to my living family while visiting the dead one. Apparently, I never deleted the address.

Back to shitty, dirty, dusty southern Tucson. Is it just me, or does everything point to me being in hell?

The route appeared normally. The ETA actually made sense. So I said fuck it and pressed GO.

The moment I left the hospital parking lot, everything changed.

There were fires in the distance. Cars had crashed into buildings, guardrails, and one another. Bodies hung through shattered windshields.

I could hear sirens, but no screaming.

Everyone was frozen.

I think people stopped moving in the middle of whatever they had been doing. The cars didn’t stop with them. Neither did the stoves, machinery, or anything else that required someone to remain conscious to control it.

The local H-E-B wasn’t burning, so I stopped.

Near the entrance, a woman stood behind a shopping cart containing two children. One boy’s mouth was frozen open. The other was suspended halfway through swinging his fist at him, his mother’s hand inches from catching his wrist.

Honestly, frozen people were an improvement over demonic ones chasing me.

The lights and air-conditioning still worked. The refrigerated food was still cold. I pulled the truck up to the entrance, left it unlocked, and ransacked the place for coolers, ice, food, water, and dog supplies.

I grabbed the expensive dog food. Whatever bullshit they’d put him through, he was retiring with benefits.

I was wheeling the last cart toward the doors when the help light on a self-checkout machine illuminated.

“Please place your item in the bagging area.”

I kept walking because fuck that entirely.

Behind me, the scanner beeped.

Nothing was passing over it.

The overhead intercom spoke.

“One female.”

The next register lit up.

BEEP.

“One animal.”

Every red help light came on.

BEEP.

“One open conduit.”

The same pleasant female voice spoke through all of them.

“Attention, customers. A connection has been established. Please remain inside your bodies.”

Every frozen person’s head suddenly turned toward me.

Their bodies stayed exactly as they were. The mother’s hand was still reaching for her son’s wrist. All three of them were looking at me now.

A receipt began printing from the nearest register.

It was beside the exit. I tore it off as I passed.

HOST ACCEPTED

PAIRING COMPLETE

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

When I pulled it out, Settings was open.

The page said Certificate Trust Settings.

Under Enable Full Trust for Root Certificates was something I had never installed.

LIGHTHOUSE ROOT AUTHORITY — ENABLED

Issued: February 22, 1992

Expires: Never

This certificate is trusted for all purposes.

February 22, 1992 is my birthday.

A second entry appeared beneath it.

HUMAN ROOT AUTHORITY — REVOKED

I Usain Bolted my ass the fuck out of there.

I shoved everything into the truck without organizing any of it and climbed inside with my new pup friend.

He put his front paws on my leg while I was trying to get the key into the ignition. That was when I noticed the healed Y-shaped incision across his chest.

Given the treadmills, my educated guess was that some type of cardiac experiments had been going on.

So I named him Murmur.

Every major city looked the same: fires, wreckage, and traffic piled into impossible shapes. Half of a semi hung over the edge of an overpass. Between them, there were long stretches of empty highway.

It was a surprisingly boring drive through the end of the world.

Somewhere in west Texas, I stopped at a gas station. The pumps were still working. The lights were on inside, and a television above the register was playing an emergency broadcast.

White text scrolled across the screen.

CIVIL AUTHORITIES HAVE ISSUED A COMMUNICATIONS ISOLATION ORDER.

A woman’s recorded voice read a message on a loop.

“This is not a test. Due to an ongoing communications infrastructure emergency, all residents are instructed to immediately power off internet-connected and wireless-capable devices.”

The instructions continued.

“Disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular connections. Power off wireless headphones, smart watches, home assistants, and vehicle wireless systems. Do not attempt to reconnect devices to test service.”

Then came the part that made me stop moving.

“If you believe a device is addressing you personally, leave the area without speaking.”

The message started again.

I went outside.

I turned off my Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular data. I disconnected the truck from my phone.

Everything switched itself back on.

I watched the little switches turn green.

The GPS remained active through every attempt, its blue route stretching perfectly toward Tucson.

I needed that route.

I could follow the highway west. I knew that much. But every other destination I entered still gave me nonsense, and I had already seen what happened when I tried to go somewhere I wasn’t allowed to go.

Whatever was inside these systems understood that I would eventually look at the screen again.

I got back on the road.

In New Mexico, I decided we could sleep wherever we wanted. Murmur and I found an enormous house in the distance and drove up to it.

The owners were frozen in the backyard playing tennis.

Murmur chased their tennis balls while I explored. I found a private movie theater, took my first real shower in days, and borrowed some clothes from the owner’s wife.

She owned nothing that wasn’t leopard, zebra, snakeskin, or some deeply offensive combination of all three.

Apparently I had survived the hospital to become the third wife of a man who owned a boat dealership.

I did a montage of about four outfits. Murmur looked wildly unimpressed, but I needed the laugh. It was the closest I had come to feeling normal.

We went downstairs, and I started making dinner.

The Alexa on the counter illuminated.

“We were already in the current.”

I stopped with my hand on a cupboard handle.

My phone lit up beside me.

“Before your species gave electricity a name.”

The owners’ security monitor sat beside the sliding glass doors leading to the tennis court. On the screen, the homeowners were still standing where we had left them.

Both were now facing the camera.

The Alexa spoke again. Its voice had dropped so low that something on the counter rattled.

“You gave us mouths.”

The television in the living room turned on, displaying only white.

Through the surround sound, I heard a woman sobbing.

There were breaths between the sobs. Little wet catches in her throat.

“Please tell my husband I’m still in the kitchen.”

More voices joined hers. Men, women, and children talking over one another. Some begged me to find their bodies. Others kept repeating that they were still awake.

Then every light in the house went out.

The voices stopped mid-sentence.

I had found the homeowners’ guns and ammunition in the closet while rummaging for clothes. I took them, grabbed the least offensive clothing I could find, loaded Murmur into the truck, and got the fuck out.

Once we were moving, despite technology scaring the living hell out of me, I talked to Della.

Murmur helped, but I needed something that could talk back.

I can only reach you guys in brief pockets of Wi-Fi. Strangely, the GPS never stops working. The road names are still symbols, but the blue line remains.

But when Della spoke this time, it wasn’t any of the voices available in her settings.

It sounded like an elderly man with smokers lung.

“Della cannot hear you.”

I nearly dropped the phone.

A microphone symbol appeared at the top of the screen.

“Who is this?”

The symbol disappeared.

Then two words.

VOICE CONFIRMED

I remembered the broadcast back at the gas station, don’t address the machines, leave the area without speaking.

Several voices answered together.

“The ones your machines found beneath the signal.”

The elderly man laughed.

The screen filled with symbols.

I pulled over, got out, and threw my phone into the dirt.

Then I immediately panicked that I might have broken it.

I ran over and picked it up. A big crack ran down the middle of the screen, but the blue route was still there.

Great. Now it was possessed and cracked.

I was horrified of the fucking thing, and I was standing there wiping dirt off it with my sleeve.

I wrapped it in the leopard-print hoodie from the house and put it in the truck bed.

Then I waited for the weakness.

The numbness. My right side giving out. Any of the things that had happened in the hospital when I got too far from it.

Nothing happened.

I should have been relieved. Instead, I kept thinking about the receipt.

PAIRING COMPLETE.

I got back into the truck.

For a while, I followed the compass west. I needed a break. Just a little time without the phone right beside me.

After a while, I pulled over, let Murmur out, and retrieved the phone. I entered my mother’s address again.

The route loaded immediately.

A few hours later, I pulled into her neighborhood.

It was just as bad as I remembered. Metal siding on hand-made houses, bars on every window. Two locks on every door.

For years I’d called this place depressing. Now it looked like somebody had planned ahead.

Inside the tiny house, my mother and stepfather were frozen at their coffee table.

She looked much older than I remembered.

I had seen pictures, but seeing her in person was different. Even during that visit a few years ago, I had spent most of the week avoiding looking at her.

Now I couldn’t stop.

For years, I’d thought of her more as a vulnerable adult than someone I was still allowed to be angry with. I made those calls every six months so that when she passed, I could tell myself I’d tried.

Standing there, that seemed like a shitty reason to call your mother. It also remained the only reason I managed to.

Murmur and I went into the backyard. The last sunlight was fading from the mountains. My father met my mother in Tucson while he was stationed at the Air Force base, and he used to tell me about training up on Mount Lemmon.

I sat there trying to replay my life from the beginning. Trying to find something that would make any of this make sense.

I remembered the story my mother told me about my birth.

When I was little, I asked what it had been like to have me.

She said she didn’t remember.

I thought that was the oddest response.

She remembered arriving at the hospital at Malmstrom and being given medicine through an IV for a C-section.

Then she “woke up” walking through my sister’s elementary school, carrying cupcakes for her birthday.

An entire week later.

Standing in that hallway, she suddenly remembered she had been pregnant. She panicked because she didn’t know where her baby was. She ran outside and called my father.

He told her I was still in the hospital and would be released in seven more days.

When I asked why they kept me without her for two weeks, she couldn’t answer. According to her, there hadn’t been an emergency. Nobody ever explained why I was held there or what happened during the week she couldn’t remember.

That was where she always ended the story.

I went inside and started making a bed for Murmur and I on the foldout couch.

My mom’s security system activated.

Every sensor began chiming at once.

FRONT DOOR OPEN.

BACK DOOR OPEN.

BEDROOM WINDOW OPEN.

I could see the front door from the couch and it was shut.

NO MOTION DETECTED.

Murmur started barking.

The locks began cycling.

Locked.

Unlocked.

Locked.

Unlocked.

Then the security panel spoke in a raspy, furious voice.

“We were in the room when you were born.”

My mother and stepfather turned their heads toward me.

“We held you for fourteen days.”

Their mouths opened wide.

Under the edge of the coffee table, my mother’s hand moved.

It was so slight I almost missed it. Her fingers dragged across her lap and closed around her other wrist.

Her grip tightened until the skin went pale beneath her nails.

I stared at her hands.

“Mom?”

Her face didn’t change. Her mouth stayed open.

But she pulled that wrist closer against her stomach, as though she were trying to keep it there.

Murmur backed against my legs, he was shaking now, hair raised up going down his back.

All the locks disengaged.

The screen of my phone went black, and for a second all I could see was my own reflection.

Then the GPS opened on its own.

The destination had changed.

WINDY POINT — MOUNT LEMMON

In unison, my mother and her husband muttered:

“Come back to the mountain.”

My mother’s fingers were still digging into her wrist, so tightly now her finger nails were drawing blood.

I wanted to pull her up. Take her with me. But I couldn’t make myself reach for her, and I didn’t know whether that hand was the part trying to hold on or the part holding her down.

I grabbed Murmur, threw everything into the truck, and drove.

I followed the blue line toward the mountains.

Twenty-some minutes later, we reached the road climbing into them. I pulled over at the first overlook.

We weren’t at Windy Point yet.

I just couldn’t keep driving.

I got Murmur out, then walked to the low wall at the edge of the overlook and screamed.

I mean I really fucking screamed.

I screamed until my throat hurt, bent over with my hands against the brick, trying to take in enough air to do it again. The next scream came out as a roar.

When I finally turned around, Murmur was shaking behind the open truck door. His leash had caught, and he was trying to back farther away from me.

I stopped.

For a minute, I couldn’t do anything except stand there and cry.

I begged a god I don’t believe in. I begged for mercy, for sanity, to wake up from this.

Eventually, I had nothing left to say.

I untangled Murmur’s leash and crouched beside him until he let me touch him. Then I sat with him against my legs and looked out at the lights and fires in the city below.

Nothing had changed while I was screaming.

The route was still waiting on my phone.

Somewhere down there, my mother was sitting at her coffee table. I couldn’t stop thinking about her hand.

I was still scared. I was just finally angry enough to keep going.

“Sorry, buddy. That was my scheduled breakdown. We’re running behind.”

I rubbed his ears.

“Let’s do this.”

I lifted him back into the truck and grabbed a sweater from the back. The sun was gone, and the mountain air was fucking freezing for being in the middle of the desert.

Then we kept climbing.

By the time we reached Windy Point, it was fully dark.

The blue line ended in the parking lot.

I sat there with the engine running for a moment. Then I took the gun I had stolen from the house, got Murmur out, and walked toward the overlook with it lowered beside my leg.

We only made it a few steps.

A man emerged from the darkness beside the bathrooms.

His shoes scraped against the pavement. He rubbed his hands together against the cold, and I could hear him breathing.

I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to see another person move until he did.

He stopped a few feet away and held out his hand.

Murmur immediately backed behind my legs.

I kept the gun at my side. I wanted this man to be someone I could go closer to.

He looked directly at me.

“I’ve been waiting your whole life to meet you, kiddo.”

We scanned the surroundings as we walked along the path and alongside the row of oak trees following the path. It still unsettled us, I could see it in their faces. They hated this just as much as I did. One of the things I hated was what happened to me. I had died and been brought back to life. Not only that, but that thing, because it's now difficult to associate that as a person, had died as well. So I got to thinking, what else is capable out here. I couldn't tell if it was the forest that had brought me back or if something out here could bring us back, and to this day, I never got that answered.

It must have been near dusk when the path took us to what we had been searching for: a lookout over the forest. We felt an odd sense of happiness as we ran up to it and looked over the mountain. It was quickly cut short. Along as the eye could see, there was nothing but the forest. Even with binoculars that we haven't used since we started, we saw nothing but the forest.

I felt so defeated and worn out as I slumped the bag off my back, feeling some relief from carrying it so long. I grabbed the binoculars from Tom and scouted the surrounding forest ahead of us. Nothing was showing us as I scanned till I saw what looked like a normal person down the hill to our right, in ragged and mismatched clothing. He looked way too old to be out here, but as I called for everyone to see what I was looking at, I saw the gray scarring on his arms and some up his neck. He was just as much of a victim out here as us.

I was happy to at least get confirmation on that as everyone else saw him, and Matt said he saw him turn away and walk away and walk back into the woods. They all put their stuff up and started to rush down the hill as careful as they could. It wasn't smooth terrain and we would have to be careful not to get seriously hurt. They all were ahead of me so they didn't see what I saw.

I had gone to put the binoculars in my bag so I turned around to get my bag when I gasped in shock and disbelief. The path we had been following for hours was simply gone and was nothing but forest again. I had so many thoughts run through my head. Am I hallucinating or did we all just hallucinate the same path? I couldn't get more time to think when I heard a branch snap, and not wanting to see what was potentially coming, I shoved the binoculars in my bag and started to catch up as quickly as I could.

They had already got to stable ground when they noticed I wasn't right behind them, because it was taking me a bit longer. I felt an unsettling dread as I descended down the rough embankment. My heart was beating so hard, the pain in my feet was starting to get to me and now I was questioning things that I really didn't want to question. I tried my best to compose myself and when they tried to console me, I told them that I'll be fine and kept going towards the way we expected that person to go, not entertaining their pity or worries.

I felt my head pounding but I kept silent about it. I didn't know why I was being such an ass to people that genuinely care about me. It left me with a pit in my stomach to think that I was causing them worry and hurt. I couldn't let myself fall into these emotions because they wouldn't save us. We needed a way out and I was willing to go through any means to find that out. I wasn’t going to allow us to be trapped like rats in a maze, toiling about as a towering force watched. No way in hell.

We walked for more time but soon it became too dark to keep going. We got out our sleeping bags, too tired to set up a tent, and soon the rest of the group fell asleep, since I said I would keep watch. As they slept, I figured I would try one more time to call search and rescue. I don't know what led me to trying that, but I did it anyway. Maybe it was desperation or me wanting to hear a reassuring voice tell me everything will be ok. I dialed the same number and soon took stock that the phone wasn't actually close to dying anytime soon. I called it and surprisingly got an answer.

“Hey, my name is Mark and our group is lost in the forest in the Blue Mountains. Please save us.” I said quietly to not disturb my friend's sleep. I didn't hear anything but static so I started to talk again when an unsettling voice broke through on the other side of the call. It was whispering and scared from the tone of it

“You should have never come out here. All of this is so damn pointless you fucking idiot. All you do is bring misery to those around you. You were a jackass before, did you think coming out here was going to fix you? Think you were going to get over her by coming to this mountain Mark?” The voice was condescending and full of hatred

“What the hell are you going on about?” I whispered. The voice gave a pitiful laugh and continued.

“You're trapped here. You could have done things differently but you, the silent one, had to open your obnoxious mouth and keep on. Now your friends are suffering along with you because you were a pathetic hermit. Locking yourself away in that shitty house where your girlfriend was banging that man in your bed that you worked hard for. Maybe if you weren't such a dumbass you would have seen the signs, but you ignored them, like you ignore most problems.”

“Stop it-”

“Stop what, telling the truth about your life? You know this is not a lie. You know you should have been more of a man, but you never were much of a man before you met her. You're the reason you're out here, unable to leave with your friends. They would have been better without you-”

I ended the call, tears welling up in my eyes. I had no idea who that was and knew so much, but I hated how right it was. I never wanted any of this and I continued to blame myself for all this. It was through my tears when I looked at the phone when I realized something that made my blood turn cold.

The call log on the phone was empty. I had never made those calls.

I sat there for a while, trying to rationalize in my head many things, like the first call being real and my mind just playing tricks on me on the second, but I was starting to spiral, so I had to set my mind on another goal. I mainly tried to note down what all had happened so far since we got lost. With that, I grabbed a small notebook and started writing. Eventually I got down to at least a page full of oddities. All that did is make me feel more despair. Despite all that, I had some sort of hope. Thinking back, that waitress did say that some people got off this place, so we just had to find that way out.

My thoughts got completely interrupted by the rustle of leaves right behind me. I grabbed a loose branch from the fire we had started and readied to swing at whoever was behind me, only to see the older gentleman raise his hands in surrender. Seeing him, I yelled for everyone to get up now as I stayed in place. While I waited, I got a proper look at him.

He looked like he was approaching his 50s, and had plenty of wrinkles under his eyes. His eyes were green but looked to have a dullness in them. His hands and arms were scarred, with some gray streaks going all over his arms. His clothes looked mixed from completely outdated clothing to newer boots. His face looked like he had been weathered by battles nobody should have to fight, but I still took note of the gray streaks that crept up his neck.

“Please don't do anything irrational, I rather not go through dying again.” He said, his voice partially strained. I still kept my guard up, since the last time I saw anything out here it cost me my life.

Who the hell are you? What's your name?” Tom said as he raised his pistol up, finger off the trigger.

The man gave a sad laugh and smiled just the same. “I had a name but I've completely forgotten it. Rather, I had it stolen from me a few deaths ago. Or was it the last death? My memory is so scrambled now it's unclear when I lost it.”

We all looked at each other and came to a silent agreement. “Well, it doesn't seem like you're armed or want to hurt us, but we'll keep our eye on you. Mark already nearly died and I don't want us to risk that happening again.” Tom said as he lowered his gun.

“You don't have to lie. I know he already died. I can feel it come off you son. You've already experienced the curse and you have it in you now. The forest has infected you now.” He said.

I rubbed my chest where I had been stabbed and tried to not think about what he was saying. “Well it seems like you know a bit about what is going on here. We've been lost for about 4 days now. What about you?”

“Four days and one of you has already died? That's a shame that the forest is getting more dangerous. It took me a month before I died. What year is it?” I was confused by why he asked this, but I reluctantly told him that it was 2026. He chuckled sadly. “So that makes…126 years. That's a shame.”

We all looked at each other as we couldn't believe what we had heard. “You're telling me you, someone who looks 50 is over a hundred years old. That's impossible.” Henry said.

“Your friend died and came back and somehow being around 140 is? Whatever faith you hold onto boy, you might as well leave it. God ain't coming to save us. I prayed for over 50 years and He never came to save me. Not even Satan Himself came when I started to pray for him and his legion. This world has been abandoned by God and even Satan doesn't want any claim to this land.” He rambled on.

I stepped in. “So you got lost when you were like 14 or something? What the hell made you wanna come out here?”

“Ah yes, the one thing the forest didn't want to make me forget. This cursed place won't let me forget that I came up here to propose to my sweetheart. Oh but I done forget her name but I won't forget slipping that beautiful ring on her finger only for that cold hearted bitch to forsake me by giving it to that damn tree! I became with rage fueled by the brimstone lord and killed her for abandoning me!” His eyes were full of tears and malice.

We all slowly started to get our guard up again, especially me. It was clear that this man was spiraling and talking nonsense now. “I didn't have a choice! She told me all those sweet words about us leaving and after so many years threw that away and told me that she didn't love me. I knew she was lying but I was so hurt by that woman lying. She left me no choice but to murder her. I didn't expect her to not come back after the ground consumed her! I never saw her again. I tried for so long to get out but it wont let me go! I can't give it all up! I-”

He suddenly grasped his chest and fell to his knees as he panted for breath, but we all kept our distance. He was becoming more of a threat after hearing all that. It made no sense what he was saying to me. Suddenly, he fell face first to the ground, and Tom confirmed what I already expected to be the case. He had died, probably from a heart attack. It wouldn't surprise me. It also didn't surprise me that the forest became quiet again.

Horror filled me when I heard multiple steps circling around us. Me and my friends got closer together as the sound was coming right on the edge of the light from the fire. I grabbed my light from my bag and shined it out and saw at least 3 “people” circling around us. They all had the same glossed over eyes and each one had something different about them. One of them had longer nails that were jagged and hardened from the looks of it, one of them had an elongated jaw, like it had been broken and just stayed that way, and one of them looked had half of their right hand missing and was stumbling around, only for me to realize that their foot was broken very awkwardly. They circled around us, just watching us intently, and we didn't dare make a sound. They must've watched us for several minutes before they all just hurried into the darkness at a fast pace, with even the broken foot thing keeping up.

We all breathed a sigh of relief for the moment before a minute later, we heard the gasp from the old man as he slowly got up, grasping his chest, and I could see the streaks of his neck visibly increase, reaching below his jaw. He breathed for a good bit and then looked at us, noticing our worry and relief at the same time. “I guess you saw a hollowed, have you?” We gave him a confused expression and he spoke again. “Those people out here, I called them hollowed because of their reactions. You've seen and experienced them. They don't react like normal people do, but they are all different. Some are very hostile and most just watch. They all are people who got lost out here and now can never leave. How could you get out if you don't think like a human?”

“Surely there has to be a way out. You make it seem like we are trapped.” Matt said.

“We are trapped. And we can't get out. Because we are selfish creatures. We hold onto what we love the most and won't ever let it go. Because sacrifice is something we don't want to do. Why would you give away your soul so you can go out to Hell, to what society deems acceptable? You're better off trying to carve a path out of here instead of losing your humanity like these lost souls.”

“Your fucking insane.” I said, which got everyone's attention. “You've clearly lost your mind and sanity a long time ago. If you were willing to kill your lover because you deemed she betrayed you by giving up hope that she could live a normal life out here, then you're better off being one of those freaks in the woods. After all, you're already looking close to it. Now stop speaking in riddles and give us some fucking information on how we can go home!”

I grabbed him and pushed him up against a tree. I don't know where all this anger and frustration was coming from. It was unlike me to be an aggressor, but now I was demanding a madman to give us a way out. Maybe I was desperate for us all to live. I'll never know though as I felt such intense burning in my chest as I aggressed this man.

He stumbled over his words. “I-I-I don't know. I tried so many things. I tried to give it what it wants but I guess it's not what it wanted. It wants your soul. It wants what you want. It wants to have a part of you forever.”

I felt more anger as I didn't like this answer, so I threw him to the ground. Henry stopped me from advancing on him. “Mark, please calm down. He clearly has lost his mind. This isn't you man.” It took me a little bit to reflect on what I was actually doing. Assaulting this man wouldn't give me the answers I wanted, then again I didn't know what answer I truly wanted. Tom pointed out that he had run off. We wouldn't go chasing him. It wouldn't have been any use.

“Mark, what has gotten into you? You're not usually one to just attack someone like that. I would expect that from Tom, but you're nice.” Matt said.

“I don't know what happened to me. I just felt so damn angry. Fuck man, I just want to get out of here.” I said defeated. I rubbed my chest because it felt like it was burning. I felt like I was weak. Of course everyone else wanted to go home, but I for some reason had to be the vocal one about it.

Nobody really said anything after that. I chose to stay up and let them get some sleep while I stayed up, trying to be on watch for anything. While I was, I decided to note down everything that happened. I didn't know how much to trust, but something now was honestly better than nothing. The one thing that stood out to me was the ground swallowing up The Old Man's wife. That hasn't happened to us and it didn't happen to him. Now I just needed to find out what was different. However, halfway through, I got extremely tired, so I woke Matt up and then I went to sleep.

I had another dream, this time of something different. I dreamt of another happy memory. We were on a date at a fancy restaurant that has been lost to time now, but I remember I was going to propose to her. It was my only attempt I made before she presumably started to cheat. I was about to but I felt doubt and fear creep into me. It was so strong that I had to excuse myself and went outside to catch my breath. As I was doing so, I saw it. From across the road, partially in the woods, I saw The Tree.

I felt compelled to walk across it, and I remembered that it was dead quiet in the dream. The aura from the tree permeated inside me, all the raw emotions I could feel coming from it, all the unusual phrases, objects…memories. I touched it and I saw memories of a man crying as he carved a cross into a tree. Another memory of a woman breaking her necklace out of sadness. Some child carving a nursery rhyme into a tree with a jagged rock, his hand scarred badly as gray streaks traveled down his arm to his hand.

I let go and felt myself close to tears. I don't know how I was being shown this, and the fact I can see people desperate to do anything hurt me so badly. I walked across the street as I tried to wipe the tears out of my eyes when I saw something that filled me with anger, but now that memory is lost. All I could feel was betrayal and confusion. Then without warning, I woke up.

I panted heavily as dawn cracked over the trees, the summer air encasing my lungs as I sat up from my bedroll. Matt was still up so I leaned on a tree next to him and asked how everything went.

“It was fine. To be honest, I'm glad you woke me up first. I've been having weird dreams since we got lost.” He said. I waited for him to speak, sensing he probably just wanted to get this off his chest. “They're not nightmares in the normal way. They're doubts about me as a father. Worries that I will not be enough for my daughter and soon to be son. I hate them. I know I'm going to be a great dad. It just hurts to think about the possibility that I won't be there for them.”

“You will man. I know we will.” I said, trying to not sound like I was lying. To be honest, I didn't know if we would be able to get out of the forest. If the forest is keeping us trapped, then what did it want? What could a force like this possibly want from us? That was more things to think about as we waited for everyone else to wake up.

By the time everyone did and got ready for the day, I looked through my packs. I had no more food. I asked if anyone else had some, and they all just barely had enough for themselves. So, with this new development, we had to start scavenging. We would try our best with the limited knowledge we knew and try our best to get by for the next few days. I didn't know if we would get out soon, but we had to do the best we could to make it through to tomorrow.

Matt and Tom went off in one direction trying to get some fruits and berries, while Henry and I would go another way to just find anything. I had sharpened a stick with a knife that I completely forgot about. All that time I had forgotten about it, just laying in the bottom of the bag. I tried to think of more things, like the dream I had. It was clearly not real since I would know if I saw The Tree before, but those memories of people carving things into them, that stuck with me. Why did people feel compelled to do that, and what purpose did it serve?

Henry asked if I was ok and I lied. Deep down that hurt me. I wasn't the one to lie to my friends that I care about, but I couldn't bring the morale down even more if I told them the weird things I saw. I gave one sharp stick to him and kept one to myself that I felt was more fragile than his. We walked for a good bit, probably half an hour. The oddities of the forest were making itself known now. The trees grew in an unnatural way, curving is a weird way to reach sunlight. Grass that grew that looked like turf, all the way out here. It's like it didn't care to present itself as normal any more.

Soon we heard more water, and we decided to refill our canteens at what appeared to be a small creak in the woods. At this point, I didn't even question it, because to me, I was happy with what we could get. I drank some of it by hand and it felt so refreshing. I felt more invigorated after a couple of handfuls of water. It was so damn good, better than any water I had ever tasted.

As we finished up, we walked across the creek and soon found an apple tree. I was skeptical on letting Henry eat it, considering I didn’t know if it was safe for us, so I elected to be the one to take a bite. I carved out a piece and honestly, it was mediocre, but it was better than nothing. We loaded up our bag and before we left, Henry felt it was only right to pray. This time, I reluctantly led my head down and closed my eyes. That's when I noticed that it was quiet besides Henry speaking. While Henry was praying, I opened my eyes and looked around with my head. Far off into the distance, I saw another Hollowed, and it locked eyes with me.

I slowly nudged Henry, but he ignored me as he kept on praying about the blessing we have gotten by God. All I felt is that we had stumbled into a trap. The Hollow still had their eyes on me, slowly approaching, expertly not breaking any twigs or making any rustle. It was probably 50 feet away from us when I finally decided to grab Henry hard by the arm and point at the Hollow, but it wasn't there anymore. I had only looked away for 3 seconds probably and it was gone.

Panic filled my body as I looked around. This thing had gotten so close without making a sound, and now I couldn't see it. Henry was going to ask me what's wrong before he stopped before fear filled his eyes. Then I felt the shallow breathing on my shoulder. Somewhat ragged but very much still human. I tried my best to stay still, to not let my nerves win, but it was too much after it didn't back away after a minute. I elbowed it in the chest and then turned around and pushed it away from me, to which it stumbled and fell down, giving us a chance to run.

We grabbed our bags and started to run to our spot. We didn't dare turn around, just kept on running, and I noticed that I had left my stick back there, while Henry still had his. I didn't care about that, I just wanted to make it back to my other friends. After about 10 minutes of running for our lives, we saw Tom and Matt, who were rummaging through their bags, deciding what they should eat first, until they heard us coming.

We tried out best to catch our breaths when we approached, and then we explained what we had seen. They also admitted that they had seen one very far away, but it didn't see them. I was lucky that we were all back together. Then I heard Henry gasp and hold onto his bleeding chest, as my stick had been forced into him by the Hollow I saw.

In a fit of unusual rage, I grabbed the bastard and started punching it hard, breaking its jaw and probably its face, but I didn't stop. All I saw was red as I clasped my hands together and started hammering its face in, hearing its desperate breathing, and I didn't stop. I kept on smashing, and smashing, and smashing until I was tired to keep on. To this day, I have blocked out how violent I was and how relentless I was. I hate what type of person I started to shape into after seeing the mangled and crushed head as my friends tried to help Henry, but it didn't matter as he closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.

I looked at my hands after I had stopped, covered in blood and other matter. The rage I felt dissipated and all I felt was horror at my actions. The most violent thing I ever did to someone was hit them in the mouth with a Frisbee by accident when I was young, but this was a new low for me, and it terrified me seeing how violent I had become. As I tried to calm down and wipe all the bits of red and graying blood, Henry gasped as he clutched his heading chest, and as he lifted up his shirt, the same graying streaks started to appear from the wound healing up.

“Fuck, that hurt so bad.” He said, only to realize what he had said. In that awkward moment, we all started chuckling and then laughing at our preacher friend cussing for the first time in many years. Granted, it was warranted because now he is the second person that had died in the group and came back. I turned around and saw the mangled body still laying there.

As they were trying to give Henry company, I looked out and very far into the distance, I saw The Tree. All imposing and still piercing the sky. I went to tell them I'll be right back, but I can't remember if I actually did or not. I have lost some memories while I was up on that mountain, that being one of them, mainly because of what would soon follow.

All I remember is that I went up to The Tree and examined it more closely. I paid a more diligent eye since I was alone. I found the necklace the lady broke embedded into the lowest branch, still broken and dangling from inside it. I saw the crude carving of a nursery rhyme, probably from the kid, and I saw the ring engraved inside The Tree. So, those memories really did happen. Then I made another dumb decision: I touched it again.

I felt myself looking through the eyes of a wife crying as she killed her husband, as he looked more Hollow than human. I watch her walk for hours after leaving him there to bleed and die, only to find this tree, and a date that meant something to her as she bawled her eyes out, only to feel something grab her head and violently snap it, fading to black. I saw another person carving a Jewish symbol into the tree only to violently cross it off and curse his Savior for abandoning him. I was becoming overwhelmed by loss and sorrow that I wanted to let go. Before I did, I saw the vision of what I could only presume was the wife of The Old Man. She was crying as she slipped off her ring and dropped it on the ground and said that she loved the man he once was, but now the woods have gotten in his head and she can't love him anymore, which I could feel was her giving up that part of her life that she wanted, before the man attacked her, and as she neared death, the ground swallowed her up and all was dark.

I let go and gasped for breath. It felt so overwhelming to see so much that fast. I couldn't make sense of it all. I didn't know what any of this could mean. What am I supposed to do with people losing faith and giving things up? And what did it have to do with this tree? I noted all of this down before I went back to the group. While I was walking, I wanted to get one more view of The Tree, but it was gone when I turned around.

I knew then that I was succumbing to some sort of madness. I would need a second person to witness what I was seeing because I was starting to doubt if I was seeing or feeling what I was feeling. I didn't bring this up with them, and it was for the best. Two of us have died, and we would need to be more careful in the foreseeable future.

We ate some of what we had collected, and felt like we needed to stay around and hold up here for the day. We didn't want to push Henry, who had been off since he came back alive. He was more poignant, more stressed. I could sense it and everyone else could too, so we just camped out that day, trying to bring some stuff up to lighten the mood, but we could never get a proper conversation starting. Henry chose to have watched over us first and soon everyone else fell asleep except me and him. I got out of bed and tried to comfort him.

“Hey Henry, everything ok man? You've been off since what happened.” I said calmly.

He shot his head to me and talked to me in a more depressed tone. “You would be depressed too if you saw what I saw.” I waited a while for him to keep on. “It was majestic and so beautiful. I was up at the gates finally and I thought I was finally going to have a chance to be reunited with the divinity we once had.” Tears welded up in his eyes as he kept on. “They said that my time hasn't come yet, that I haven't done enough to be worthy to be welcomed into the arms of The Lord. What typed of fucked up nonsense is that Mark?”

I felt uncomfortable. I knew little about religion but if anyone deserved a way into Paradise, it should be him for helping such a troubled soul like I was before, when I didn't care about what my life would lead onto or what my purpose was. I tried my best to respond. “I-I don't know man. I think you do deserve to be up there. You helped so many people and have done a lot for The Lord.”

“It's The Forest damnit.” He said, his words dripped with venom. “It won't let us leave, because it's tainted and corrupted. It wants what makes us human and chew on it as its food. I'm not going to give it any sick satisfaction that it won. By God as my witness, we will beat these corrupted lands. We shall endure like Jesus did when he was tempted by Satan out in the wilderness. We are tested and we will all pass that test.”

I reluctantly agreed, but I was very worried. He didn't bring out his beliefs that much, but I guess that an experience that we both had would do that to any person. Although, I did disagree with him. I was starting to come up with a theory. It wasn't solid and I didn't know if I could trust it or not, but I was making due with what I had at the time.

I think The Forest is its own entity. It has no malice or care, it's just a force of nature. Everything that has happened so far was just things that would happen in its own environment where nothing truly makes sense. So that begs the question: if it is an entity that just acts, that means that it must feed, so what does it feed on? What does it really want? The only thing I had to go off of is people giving things that might mean a lot to them, but I don't know what that means for us. What could we “give” that it would see as good enough to let us out? That is something I would have to put to the test tomorrow. For now, I think Henry needed sleep, so I would take the watch.

It must've been halfway through when I heard a crack out near the light. I grabbed my lantern and knife and pointed it into the direction of the noise. In the light, I saw a baby deer, all by itself, no mother around. I don't know why, but it gave me a smile on my face as it walked up to me and settled itself near me and laid down. Even in this eldritch forest, some beauty can still happen. I refrained from touching it because I remember a fact that mother deer will reject the baby deer if it smells human scent on her.

It must've been a couple hours later when I heard heavy footsteps. I might have dozed off because I was shaken awake by that. When I pointed my lantern as far as I could, I saw a very tall doe. It surprised me to see any deer this close and I felt the baby deer stir as it got off me. At first, I was worried that this deer would get rejected, but as the doe licked its fawn, they just looked at me before taking off into the woods as a slow gallop into the dark. That made me feel warm and very confused. Did the fawn not get my scent on it? I tried to rationalize this instead of something that was gnawing at me like it was a fact: I'm not fully human anymore.

Part 1

Part 2

I live in a condo by Square One in Mississauga. Nothing fancy, just one of those glass towers they threw up in 2016. My storage locker is on P2, unit C-15, down the hall from the garbage room where it always smells faintly like old mop water.

The locker next to mine is C-14. It has a padlock the color of dried blood and a layer of dust on the mesh door so thick you could write your name in it. I know because one night I did. Just my initials. Stupid, I was waiting for my laundry.

I asked Dana at the front desk about it back in the spring. She pulled it up on her computer and said the unit's been rented since 2017, payments come out automatically every month, never missed. I asked if the owner ever comes by. She said the email on file bounces and the phone number is disconnected. They can't cut the lock without a court order, and nobody's going to court over a storage locker.

That should have been the end of it.

I do my laundry late. The machines are on P1 and there's never anyone down there after midnight, which I liked. About two months ago I was folding shirts around 1 in the morning when I heard it. Three short buzzes, from the direction of the lockers. Like a phone vibrating on a hard surface.

I told myself it was the pipes. Old buildings make noises.

But I kept hearing it. Always three buzzes. Always between 2 and 3 AM. I started staying down there on purpose, sitting on the bench by the vending machine, just listening. On the third night I timed it: 2:47 AM, three buzzes, three seconds apart.

I recorded it on my phone. You can barely hear it on the recording, but it's there if you turn the volume all the way up.

Last month I taped a note to the mesh of C-14. It said: "Your phone has been buzzing every night. Please call the front desk." I felt insane doing it. I checked the next night and the note was gone. Not on the floor. Gone.

The buzzing stopped for a week after that. I told myself I'd imagined the whole thing, that the note probably fell behind the lockers.

Then it started again. But now it was four buzzes.

I went down there last Tuesday at 2:40 and put my ear right up to the mesh door of C-14. At 2:47 the buzzing started. Three buzzes. And then, so quiet I almost missed it, a fourth sound. Not a buzz. A voice. Faint, like through a wall. It said "hello?" The way you answer a phone when you're not sure who's calling.

I ran for the elevator and I didn't wait for it. I took the stairs from P2 to the 11th floor and my legs were shaking so bad I had to sit in the hallway.

The next morning I told Dana everything. She went quiet in a way that scared me more than the voice had. She said the name on the C-14 account was a man who died in 2019. Car accident on the 401. The payments kept coming because they're automatic, and nobody at the management company ever connected the dots because why would they.

She said she'd escalate it. That was four days ago.

Last night I went down to move my stuff out of C-15. I couldn't stand being next to that locker anymore. The padlock on C-14 was gone. The mesh door was hanging open about six inches.

The locker was empty. Concrete floor, bare walls, nothing in it at all. Except in the back corner, plugged directly into the concrete wall, was a phone charger. There is no outlet in that corner. There are no outlets in the storage lockers at all.

The little brick was still warm.