I worked overnight reception at one of the less popular hotels in REDACTED,Alaska. I’ve been at this job for a year now, and until yesterday I thought everything I experienced was just your typical run of the mill small town weirdo hotel stuff. Most of the population is older folks, people who had lived here for years. Same with the ones who visited. I’d always had an affinity for older people, I was raised by my grandparents.

At first the incidents didn’t freak me out that much. One night about a month after I started, it was about 2:00am; and I had 6 more hours left to go. It has been an uneventful shift so far, a couple phone calls asking for more ice, people needing to replace a room key. Typical. The lobby had been empty for hours at this point.

I remember the phone ringing, it showed room number 44. After I finished giving the typical intro speech, I was met with the sound of heavy breathing. When they finally did answer they spoke in a dry hushed voice.

“Don’t let him in.” And then the line disconnected.

Before I had a chance to press redial I heard a loud banging coming from the fire exit door. With every second it got more intense, until I heard a voice call out “let me in please, it’s cold out here.”

We were a cheap hotel, we didn’t employ a security guard, let alone have any security cameras, and I was not about to go out there and check who it was. As far as I knew every guest was accounted for.

The voice eventually petered out just like the banging had. It wasn’t until the next day I realized, we didn’t have a room 44.

You may be thinking why I would stay on after that. To tell you the truth I didn’t have much of an option. Jobs here are extremely limited, and unless I wanted to commute 2-3 hours to the next big city, I was out of luck.

There were a couple other unsettling things that happened after that, phone calls from guests that weren’t actually staying here, wet footprints in the lobby when I hadn’t seen anybody walk by, and every now and then I would experience something I could only describe as time loss.

At first I thought that I had dozed off. But then it kept happening when I was obviously awake. I’d go to the bathroom and come back and a whole hour had passed, and I had no memory of that hour.

When I would talk to my boss about these things he chalked it up to sleep deprivation, or kids playing pranks. Which I had accepted, until yesterday.

The shift started off somewhat normal, working at a hotel things are rarely ever truly “normal.”I got in at 10:00pm, caught up with the dayshift receptionist, Amy, and downed whichever cheap energy drink I had picked up at the gas station on my way here.

“Just so you know, there is a woman that keeps coming down asking for ice. I’ve given her like 4 buckets already. So don’t be surprised if she asks you for more.”

“What room is she in?”

“I have no idea, she won’t tell me. I tried telling her that there is an ice machine on every floor, but she insists on coming down each time”.

Like I said, the guests here can be a little weird. But nothing to immediately set off any alarm bells.

Amy had been long gone, and I had totally forgot about ice women, when I heard someone clear their throat. I had been sitting at reception that whole time, doing some admin stuff on the computer.

I didn’t hear her footsteps come down the hall, or even the elevator open. It’s as if she just appeared.

“Is-is Amy still here?”

I told her Amy had left and asked if I could help her with anything. She seemed off put for a minute, before a look that I could only describe as a mixture of fear and desperation came over her.

“I’d like a bucket of ice please.”

Looking back I should’ve just given her the bucket of ice, it was way above my pay grade to investigate. But I couldn’t help myself, I kept pushing.

“Ma’am, we have already given you four buckets of ice, and there is an ice machine on every floor. Is there a reason you need all this ice? What are you using it for?”

She looked like she was about to argue, when she visibly withered in front of me, and said in a voice that had long given up,

“He needs it. He prefers the cold”.

People can be weird. I couldn’t imagine what they were doing with that ice. So I asked her what room she was staying it. She opened her mouth to respond and then froze. She was staring straight ahead, looking at me, but it really felt like she was looking through me.

For a second I thought she had had a stroke, I walked over to put my hand on her shoulder. It was icy to the touch and leather hard. She jolted at my touch.

“Ma’am, what room are you staying in? I think you may need medical help.”

“Room 44.”

My mouth went dry and I couldn’t swallow as I was processing this information. When I finally spoke again it took a tremendous effort.

“There is no room 44.”

She merely looked at me, and said “He would like to see you now.”

She gestured to the bucket we used for ice sitting in the corner, and for me to follow. Complying felt easier than arguing at this point, I suddenly felt exhausted. Everything took effort.

The bucket of ice banged against my shins as I followed her into the elevator. She pressed the button for the 4th floor and we started moving slowly. I was looking at my feet, I could feel her eyes burning into me. I didn’t want to meet them.

The ding of the doors opening brought me back to reality, and we stepped into the hallway. I immediately sensed something wasn’t right. The fluorescent lights were flickering, some completely disconnected. As we started walking down the hallway the floor was damp, sticky, and smelled like mildew.

Everything seemed yellowed, whereas before it was a bright clean white. As we slowly passed by each room I started taking account. The hallway didn’t seem any longer than usual.

37,38,39,40.

And then we somehow turned a corner, when it should’ve stopped, and there in front of us was room 44. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. As long as I had worked here there had been 4 floors, with 10 rooms on each floor.

The door itself looked exactly like all the other doors on the floor. Dark green, brass handle, pretty standard.

As we approached the door I could feel the temperature drop. It felt like I was standing outside. The carpet here was drenched.

“Come in, take the ice to the bathroom, and whatever you do, don’t let him touch you.”

I don’t know why, but I walked into the room. It’s almost liked I was pulled in there. The mildew smell increased tenfold. All the blankets were stuffed into a corner and the bed has been pushed directly under the open window. The door to the bathroom was ajar, and water was seeping out. My footsteps crunched under me as I walked up to the bathroom. Frost.

“Oh hello, I’ve been expecting you. Thank you for bringing me ice.”

An ancient looking old man covered in a towel lay in the bathtub, covered almost to his chin in water that had visible chunks of ice in it.

“Before you add any more ice would you be so kind as to hand me another towel, I’d like to use it as a pillow for my neck.”

His request seemed so simple and innocent that my body reacted before my brain could. As soon as I leaned over the tub to hand him a towel his arm shot out and grabbed my ankle yanking me to the floor. An icy pain shot through my leg as I fell.

I tried to pull away but his grip was too strong and I kept slipping on the slick floor. The old man seemed to grow and started to loom over me, his skin spitting in half like a cocoon as he stood up. He kept pulling me closer, trying to drag me into the tub with him. I frantically reached around for anything I could use to defend myself.

My hands met with a hair dryer that had fallen in the scuffle. The hotel provides one in each bathroom. I remembered what the woman told me in the lobby, he likes it cold.

With a last ditch effort I plug it in and turned it on full blast directing it towards what was an old man, but now was a black mass stretched tightly over a skeletal figure. Where his eyes were, now stood hollow voids. No mouth visible, yet it was making a sound like it was laughing.

As soon as the heat touched its “skin.” It recoiled letting go just long enough for me to jump up and start running.

I slammed the bathroom door behind me and sprinted across the room. Screeches following me, the lady didn’t even try to stop me, her eyes just followed me with a pitying look.

The elevator doors closed just in time for me to hear footsteps coming after me. I didn’t breathe until I was on the road driving home, and even then I kept checking my rearview mirror to make sure nothing was following me. As soon as I got home I took the hottest bath I could, texted my boss “I quit”, and passed out in bed.

It’s the next day now, I’m writing this wrapped under a bazillion blankets, drinking tea at the hottest temperature I can stand. I just can’t seem to get warm. Maybe I’m getting sick? Any advice on how to get as warm as possible without hurting yourself? Thanks in advance.

Once I worked as a taxi driver in a small town. It wasn't a particularly exciting job, but I actually liked it. I knew most of the other drivers, and we had this little unofficial meeting spot at a gas station just outside the town center. Whenever things got slow, we'd park our cars there, grab some coffee, smoke a cigarette, and talk about whatever was going on in our lives. Work, family, annoying passengers, the usual stuff.

I usually worked during the day, but sometimes I'd take night shifts because they paid better. Anyone who's worked nights knows how exhausting they can get, especially when there's barely any traffic and you're just driving around waiting for another booking. This happened one night in August. It was around 3 AM, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. My fuel was running low too, so I decided to stop at our usual gas station, fill up the tank, get some coffee, and take a break before heading back out.

When I pulled in, I noticed another car parked a little farther away from the pumps. It was a gray Chevrolet. I didn't recognize it, but that wasn't unusual. There were plenty of drivers in town I didn't know personally, and the guy had parked in pretty much the same spot where my friends and I usually hung out. I went inside, bought a coffee and a pack of cigarettes, and came back out. The driver was standing next to his car, so I figured I'd say hello.

"Hey, man. How's your night going?" He smiled and said it was going alright. We started chatting, just making small talk about work and how quiet the roads were. He seemed like a completely normal guy, maybe in his thirties or forties. Nothing about him struck me as strange. At some point, he asked if he could have a cigarette. I gave him one, and we stood there smoking together.

Then he said something that I didn't really think much about at the time. "Pretty cold out here, isn't it?" I remember looking at him, a little confused. It was August, and the weather had been warm all evening. I was standing there in a T-shirt and felt perfectly comfortable. "Not really," I said. "Feels pretty warm to me." He looked at me for a second and replied, "Well, for you, I guess."

I laughed a little because I thought he was just joking. Maybe he was sick or something. I didn't ask. We talked for another couple of minutes before I finished my cigarette, said I'd see him around, and got back into my car. He nodded and wished me a good night. That was it. Just a completely ordinary conversation at a gas station.

A few days later, I was scrolling through local news on my phone when I came across an article about a fatal car accident. A driver had lost control of his vehicle and crashed. He'd died at the scene. There was a photo of the wrecked car. A gray Chevrolet. I stared at the picture for what felt like forever. I couldn't remember the license plate from that night, but I recognized the car. The same model, the same color. Even the wheels looked familiar.

Then I checked when the accident had happened. It was in the evening, several hours before I'd stopped at the gas station.I never told the other drivers what happened. I knew how ridiculous it sounded, and I wasn't even sure what I believed myself. Sometimes I still think about that conversation.

I live alone in a block of flats and there's an older woman who lives directly opposite me. She's probably in her 70s, really nice lady and we've known each other for about three years.

Last Saturday morning I bumped into her downstairs and she asked if I'd managed to get some sleep. I said yeah, why? She said I'd seemed quite worried when we'd spoken the night before. Apparently I'd knocked on her door at around 2:30am because I thought someone was hanging around outside my flat.

I told her she must have confused me with someone else because I'd been asleep, but she was absolutely certain it was me. She even said we'd been having these conversations several times over the past two weeks and described what I'd been wearing.

Anyway, there's CCTV covering the communal corridor, so on Monday I contacted the management company and asked if they could check the footage. I was actually starting to wonder if I could be sleepwalking or something, although I've never done that before.

They called me back the following day and confirmed my front door hadn't opened once that night. Which was exactly what I expected. But they also mentioned something strange.

At around 2:30am my neighbour had come out of her flat and stood in the corridor for about five minutes, apparently having a conversation with someone. She was nodding, gesturing and even laughing at certain points, except there was nobody else there. I asked if she could have been on the phone but they said it didn't look like it.

I assumed she must be getting confused and actually felt quite sorry for her. So yesterday I went round to see her. I didn't mention the CCTV because I didn't want to upset her, but I asked if she remembered what we'd supposedly been talking about.

She mentioned a few ordinary things, then casually said I'd told her about finding an old photograph of my dad standing next to his red car.

Now this is the part I really can't explain. On Friday evening I'd been sorting through some boxes in my bedroom and found that exact photograph tucked inside an old birthday card. I'd been looking for it for years and hadn't told anyone I'd found it.

I asked if she remembered anything else about the photo and she said, "Only that you'd found it inside a birthday card."

I honestly didn't know what to say. She couldn't possibly have known that. I'd only found it a few hours before and hadn't mentioned it to anyone.

I still haven't told her about the CCTV and I'm not sure if I should. I've been going over the whole thing in my head trying to find a reasonable explanation, but nothing really makes sense.

According to the CCTV, I never left my flat that night and she was standing in the corridor talking to nobody. Yet somehow she knew exactly what I'd been doing inside my flat just a few hours earlier.

I've read this sub for years and never written anything. But it's 7:10 in the morning and I've been awake since around 3:30 am. I don't have anyone I can say this to out loud without them looking at me like I've lost my mind...

I should say first that I'm fine. Nothing has happened to me. No harm physically, or psychologically except extreme stress and anxiety.

All of this started with a lamp.

Three weeks ago somebody stole a package off my front step. A desk lamp, brass, green shade, the antique kind you see in old movies. I'd wanted one for years. The delivery app said "left in safe place" aka my door step, but when I got home from work I was met with a dry rectangle on the concrete where the box had been placed during the rain.

I know a lamp isn't a big deal. But I'm not a person who gets things taken.

I'm a person who checks. I do the back door three times before bed, deadbolt, knob lock, chain, and then I put my hand flat on it to feel it hold. I sleep with the kitchen light on. I've lived in this apartment six years and nobody has ever taken anything from me because I don't give them the chance. So the a stolen lamp isn't just something I can get past.

This whole incident led me to then buy a doorbell camera. A full forty-nine dollars without any discount. My friend came over on Saturday and read the instructions out loud in a dumb voice while I sat on the chair and fiddled with a screwdriver. It's a little white camera that records when it sees movement and sends you a buzz notification to your phone. It perfectly captures the door step, the walkway, gate, a piece of the street, and the corner of the railroad bridge at the end of the block.

The first week was honestly lovely. I'm not proud of it but I watched everything. There are two foxes that come up the walkway around 1:30 most nights and sniff where the lamp was. There's a gray cat that sits on the wall and stares into the lens. The mail carrier comes at 11:40 and never shuts the gate. And a man living across the street goes out with his dog at 6:15 sharp every morning. On Tuesday he looked up into the camera and mouthed "morning" and I nearly gasped.

It made the outside of my door a known thing. Everyone who'd stood on my step, I'd seen. I slept better that week than I have in years. I remember thinking that.

The only thing the camera didn't like was the train. There's a freight line at the end of the block. I stopped hearing the trains years ago, the way you stop hearing a buzzing fridge, but the camera picked up the vibration, so two or three times a night it'd buzz me for a clip of the empty step with the whole picture trembling. I turned the sensitivity down but it kept pinging me.

Last night I was in bed doing my scroll through the day's clips. Fox at 1:28. Fox at 1:31. Then one at 03:12:40 and I nearly swiped past because 3:12 is always the freight.

Thats when my heart dropped. The thumbnail was a person.

I jumped out of bed and turned the bedroom light on. I know that's a strange thing to do when you're looking at a phone but I wanted the room to be lit. For whatever I was about to see.

The clip is twelve seconds. The picture trembles in pixels as the train goes by underneath. And then my front door opens. From the inside...

A woman comes out. She's wearing my coat, the long black one from the hook in the hallway. Hood down, and it's raining, and she doesn't seem to have a care in the world. She pulls the door shut, takes a key out of her pocket and locks it. Deadbolt then knob, fast, like its a reflex and she's done it a thousand times. She walks down the walkway, goes through the gate, and shuts the gate behind her, which nobody ever does. She turns left, toward the bridge.

Then gone.

She isn't sneaking. She isn't hurrying. She's a woman going somewhere she goes.

I watched it nine times. On the fourth time I paused it as she turned from the door. With trembling hands I zoomed into the video and realized it's me.

I don't mean it looks like me. I mean if you showed me that clip and said "this is you leaving your apartment" I'd say yes, that's right.

Except I was in bed. I'd locked the doors and put my hand flat on the back door. I still remember only getting in bed after I felt it hold, then I slept and woke up at seven with the alarm.

So I scrolled back.

Tuesday, 03:11:52. Door opens. Coat. Key. Gate. Left.

Monday, 03:12:15.

Sunday, 03:13:03. My friend's wine glass is still on the step in that one, where she'd left it, and the woman in my coat steps over it without looking down.

Saturday. Friday. Thursday, the day the camera went up.

Every night. Every single night since it's had eyes. Same minute, give or take, with the train going by underneath.

And every morning around five, a clip of her coming back. Up the walkway from the left. Key. Deadbolt, knob. Door shuts. Picture goes still.

Except Sunday.

Sunday, 05:02:17, she comes up the walkway and stops on the step. Right where the man upstairs stood. And she looks up. Straight into the lens, the way he did, the way the cat does. Her face is wet and her hair's stuck to it and she's completely calm. She holds it for maybe three seconds.

Then her mouth moves. Two syllables, maybe three. No sound, the camera doesn't do sound at that distance, just the shape of it.

I've played it twenty times. I've slowed it down. I've held the phone an inch from my face. I cannot tell what she's saying. I don't know if she's saying it to the camera or to whoever's watching the camera, and I'm the only one who watches the camera.

Then she looks down, gets the key out, and goes in.

I didn't sleep. I sat against the headboard with the phone face down on the comforter and the light on and listened to the apartment, and there was nothing to hear, because it's my apartment and I'm the only one in it. I kept saying that to myself. I'm the only one in it.

When it got light I went into the hallway.

My coat was on its hook. Where it always is. I stood in front of it for a while before I touched it, and when I did, I put my hand flat on it, the way I do the door.

The hem is wet. Not damp. Wet. The bottom few inches heavy and cold, and the lining stuck to the outside in one spot, and when I peeled it away there was pale stuff on my fingers that under the kitchen light turned out to be the white caliche mud you get up by the railroad bridge. Where nobody goes.

I've got a scar on the inside of my left arm. Long, white now. From an accident before I moved here that I don't really remember. I never think about it. But standing in the hallway this morning I noticed my right hand had gone to it and was holding it, the way you'd hold someone's wrist to stop them from going somewhere.

I've typed "sleepwalking?" into my notes and taken the question mark off and put it back on. My doctor's office opens at eight. I'll call them. I know that's the sensible answer and I know some of you are going to say it in the comments and you're probably right.

But here's the thing I can't get past, and it's why I'm writing this instead of sleeping.

I've told everyone who'll listen that I don't hear the trains anymore. Six years by that line, you stop hearing them.

But I knew what time the 3:12 came through. Before I ever saw that clip. I've always known.

I'm going to stay awake tonight. I'll update.

I don’t really know how to start this, and I’m honestly not sure why I’m posting it here. I guess I need to tell someone who isn’t going to look me in the face and tell me I’m tired or imagining things. I’ve spent most of my life trying to forget something that happened when I was a kid, and until recently, I thought I’d finally managed to convince myself it never happened.

I’m 28 now. I’m married, I have two kids, a job, bills, and all the other boring adult stuff. I don’t believe in ghosts, and I don’t normally scare easily. I’m not the type of person who thinks every strange noise in the house means there’s something lurking in the hallway. But when I was six years old, I saw something in my bedroom that I still can’t explain, and I think whatever it was has found me again.

When I was little, I had a ridiculous number of stuffed animals. My mom was always threatening to throw some of them away because they took up half my bed, but I refused to get rid of any of them. My favorite was a teddy bear named Sunny. He was small, with faded brown fur, black button eyes, a little blue bow around his neck, and one ear that had always been bent forward. One of his feet was crooked because the stitching had come loose, so he never sat quite straight.

The thing I remember most about him was the patch on his stomach. It was pale yellow, with a little embroidered sun in the middle. If you pressed the sun, a tiny light inside the bear would turn on and make his belly glow this warm amber color. It wasn’t particularly bright, but when you’re six, a teddy bear with a glowing stomach is pretty much the coolest thing in the world.

I’d press it when I was scared of the dark and fall asleep with my hand resting on it. If I had a nightmare, I’d wake up, press the little sun, and watch the light fade while I calmed down. I took that bear everywhere. He went on car rides, slept beside me, and came with me whenever I stayed at my grandparents’ house.

I can’t remember the last normal night I spent with him. What I remember is waking up sometime after midnight and seeing him standing beside my dresser. I was six, so I don’t know the exact time, but I remember the red numbers on my alarm clock. I remember the pale yellow curtains by my window and the glow-in-the-dark stars my dad had stuck to my ceiling. I also remember being completely awake, although now I know that’s the first thing people are going to question.

I’d been lying there for a while, drifting in and out of sleep, when I heard something scraping across the carpet. It was a soft, uneven sound. Almost like someone dragging a piece of clothing across the floor.

I opened my eyes and listened. Nothing.
A few seconds later, I heard it again. Shhk.
I figured one of my stuffed animals had fallen off the bed. This happened all the time, and my mom was always telling me to stop piling them so close to the edge. I turned my head toward the middle of the room, barely opening my eyes because I was tired and didn’t really feel like sitting up to look.
That’s when I saw Sunny.

He was standing near my dresser, hunched forward with his head hanging down and his arms dangling at his sides. For a second, I didn’t even recognize what I was looking at. It was dark, and his brown fur blended into the shadows. Then his right leg moved.
It lifted off the carpet, dragged forward, and dropped.

His body tipped with it. His left leg followed,scraping against the floor. He took another step. Then another. I remember staring at him, waiting for him to fall over. I was a little kid, and my brain was trying to make sense of what I was seeing. I didn’t immediately think something evil was happening. I honestly thought my teddy bear had somehow come to life.

Which sounds ridiculous now, obviously, but at six years old, I didn’t have the same understanding of things that I do now. Part of me thought it was strange, and another part of me thought it was kind of funny. He was terrible at walking.

His legs were too short and stiff, and his body kept pitching forward like he couldn’t figure out how to balance. Every few steps, he’d stop completely, standing with his head hanging toward the floor before dragging one foot forward again.
Step. Drag. Step. Drag.

I watched him make his way across the room toward the foot of my bed. I didn’t call for my parents because I was still trying to figure out whether I was dreaming. I kept waiting for something to happen that would make everything make sense.
Then he stopped in the middle of the room.
His little feet were planted unevenly on the carpet, and he stood completely still for several seconds. His head tilted slightly to one side, as though he were listening to something.

I heard a little click.

The sun on his stomach lit up.
At first, it was just a faint yellow glow beneath the fabric. I assumed I’d accidentally pressed it earlier, or maybe the batteries were dying and the light was malfunctioning. But the glow kept getting brighter. It illuminated the patch on his belly and cast a little circle of amber light on the carpet beneath him.
I’d never seen the light do that before.

It had always been a quick little glow when I pressed the sun, then it would fade. This time, it looked almost as if someone were slowly turning up a dimmer switch. Sunny took another step.
He was getting closer to my bed, and that’s when I started feeling uneasy. Not because I thought he was going to hurt me, but because watching a stuffed animal move like that was deeply wrong in a way I couldn’t explain. His body wasn’t moving naturally. His head bobbed at strange angles, his arms swung when they shouldn’t have, and his legs seemed to bend and twist without any understanding of how walking was supposed to work.

It looked like something had watched a person walk and was trying to imitate it. And it wasn’t very good at it. I pulled my blanket up to my chin and kept watching. That’s when I noticed the shadow behind him.

It stretched across the carpet and climbed up the wall. At first, I thought it was coming from the dresser, but when Sunny moved, the shadow moved too.

The problem was that it was much taller than him.
I remember squinting, trying to figure out what in my room could be making a shadow that big. Maybe it was my rocking horse. Maybe it was a coat hanging on the closet door. I kept looking away and back again, trying to make the shape fit something I recognized, but every time I looked directly at it, I couldn’t quite make it out.

Then I heard a wet clicking sound.
It reminded me of water dripping from the kitchen faucet, except it sounded thicker somehow, almost like someone clicking their tongue with a mouth full of liquid. It was coming from behind Sunny.
I was just about to call for my mom when his head turned toward me. Not his whole body. Just his head.

His little black button eyes caught the faint light coming through the window, and suddenly I knew he was looking at me.Until then, he’d been moving around the room as though he were alone. Now he was standing there, his body hunched forward, his head tilted up toward my bed.I stopped breathing.

I remember thinking that if I closed my eyes, maybe everything would go back to normal. Maybe I’d open them again and find him lying on the floor, exactly where a teddy bear was supposed to be.
But I couldn’t look away.
The little sun on his belly glowed steadily while he stood there staring at me.
Then he started walking again.
Only this time, he was coming straight toward my bed.

I was terrified by then. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out. I clutched the blanket so tightly that my fingers hurt, watching him drag his little legs across the carpet. I suddenly remembered the flashlight my dad had let me keep under my pillow. It was a heavy metal one he’d used during a power outage the previous winter. Sometimes he’d come into my room and make shadow puppets on the ceiling with it, and he’d finally agreed to let me keep it nearby because I was scared of the dark.
I slowly reached beneath the pillow, trying not to make a sound. I kept my eyes on Sunny the entire time, terrified that if I looked away, he’d suddenly be right beside me.

My fingers found the metal handle. I grabbed it and pressed the button beneath the blanket. The light came on, its beam muffled by the fabric.
Then I pulled it out and pointed it toward the foot of my bed. For a second, the flashlight illuminated the shape standing behind my teddy bear.

I still don’t know how to describe what I saw without sounding like I’m making it up. I’ve tried to find an explanation for it for most of my life, and I still can’t put the image into words properly.

It was crouched almost double, with a spine that curved sharply beneath pale, glistening skin. Its arms were much too long for its body, and its fingers nearly touched the floor. Its joints bent in places that didn’t look possible, giving it the appearance of something assembled incorrectly.

Its skin was the worst part. It wasn’t just pale. It looked spoiled, like meat left out too long in the heat. In some places, it hung in loose, almost transparent folds. In others, it was stretched so tightly over its bones that I could see the outlines of its ribs shifting underneath.

Dark purple and gray patches covered its shoulders and neck, and thin black lines ran beneath the skin like veins filled with ink. There was hair hanging from its head, too. Long, thin strands that fell across its face and shoulders. Some were nearly white, while others were dark and stringy, stuck against its skin as though they were wet. They moved slightly even though nothing else in the room was moving.
Its head was tilted at an angle that made me wonder how its neck could possibly support it.

One side of its jaw hung lower than the other, and its mouth was open just enough to show rows of small, uneven teeth. Some were pointed and jagged. Others were flat and yellow, almost like human teeth that had been left to rot. Its lips were barely there. The skin simply split around its teeth.

Its eyes were tiny and black, deeply recessed into bruised-looking flesh. There was no white in them, no visible reflection, nothing that made them look human. And it was looking directly at me.
It had one long hand wrapped around Sunny’s middle and another gripping his leg. Its fingers sank into his fur, pressing hard enough to deform the stuffing inside him.

That’s when I understood what I’d been watching.
Sunny wasn’t alive.

Something was holding him and making him walk.
It was lifting one leg, pulling it forward, and dropping it onto the carpet. When his body tipped too far, it would straighten him again. It moved him with the awkward concentration of someone trying to operate a puppet without understanding how the strings worked.

The creature’s long fingers were pressed against the back of the yellow patch on his belly. The amber light shone through the fabric, outlining its crooked knuckles. I could see the patch stretching around something hard beneath it. Something that seemed to pulse with the same light.

Then my flashlight went out.
The room went completely dark. I heard a soft thud, followed by that awful scraping sound. I couldn’t see where Sunny was anymore, and I couldn’t tell where the creature had gone.

I lay there, breathing in short, panicked gasps, too scared to move. I was waiting for the flashlight to come back on, waiting for my parents to hear me, waiting for anything that would make me feel less alone in that room.

Then my mattress dipped. Right at the foot of my bed. The springs shifted beneath the weight.
I looked down, but I couldn’t see anything. The mattress dipped again, closer this time, as though something were climbing up. I pulled the blanket over my mouth and tried not to make a sound.
Then I saw the amber glow.

Sunny was suspended in the air above the foot of my bed, his legs dangling beneath him and his little arms hanging limp at his sides. His belly was glowing brightly enough to illuminate his face.
There was nothing holding him up.
No strings. No visible hands. Nothing.
He just hung there, swaying slightly in the darkness.
His head tilted toward me.

Then I heard something behind him begin to unfold.
There were several sharp, wet pops, one after another, like joints cracking after being held in the wrong position for too long. A low groaning sound followed, as though something was slowly forcing itself upright.

A long, pale hand appeared beside Sunny’s head. Its fingers curled around his shoulder.
Then the creature’s face lowered into the light.
I saw the wet skin around its eyes. The crowded teeth behind its split lips. The way its mouth stretched farther than the shape of its face should have allowed.

It looked at me.

And I understood, with the kind of certainty you feel when you’re too frightened to think, that it hadn’t been trying to leave my room.It had been coming to my bed.

I screamed.

I screamed so loudly my throat hurt, and Sunny dropped onto the carpet with a soft, stuffed thump. Something much heavier hit the floor behind him, making the boards creak.

My bedroom door flew open, and my dad rushed in, switching on the light. My mom came right behind him. There was nothing in the room.
No creature. No long arms. No strange shadow.
Just Sunny lying on his side beside my bed.
My dad checked under the bed, inside the closet, behind the dresser, and everywhere else he could think of.

My mom sat beside me, rubbing my back and asking what had happened. I told them everything. I told them Sunny had been walking, that something had been holding him, and that it had been standing right behind him. I told them about the skin, the teeth, and the way it had looked at me.
My dad picked up the bear and turned it over in his hands.

“See? He’s just a teddy bear,” he told me gently.
I started crying harder.

My mom held me and told me I’d had a nightmare. I kept insisting I’d been awake, but she said dreams could feel very real, especially when you were half asleep.I remember the look she gave my dad before she said it. It was quick, barely a second long, but I remember it more clearly than almost anything else from that night.

It wasn’t the look of someone who thought their child was being silly. It was the look of someone checking whether the other person was going to say something. My dad put Sunny on the dresser, away from my bed. I begged them to throw him away, and my mom eventually agreed. They let me sleep between them that night, but I barely slept at all.

Every time the house creaked, I squeezed my eyes shut. I kept thinking about the creature’s fingers wrapped around the bear and wondering where it had gone when the light came on. The next morning, Sunny was still sitting on my dresser.

I stood in the doorway staring at him until my mom came in to make my bed. I told her again that I didn’t want him anymore. This time, she didn’t argue.
She put him in the kitchen trash, tied the bag shut, and carried it outside. I watched from the window as she lifted the bag into the garbage bin.

Later that day, I watched the garbage truck come down our street. I saw the mechanical arm lift the bin, tip everything into the dark metal container, and lower it again. I watched the truck rattle away until it disappeared around the corner.

I remember thinking that it was finally over.

For a while, I refused to sleep with stuffed animals. I wanted the hallway light on, and I wouldn’t let my bedroom door close all the way. Eventually, I got older and stopped thinking about it so much. School, friends, and normal childhood things took over, and the memory became something I occasionally thought about and then immediately dismissed.

I told myself it had been a nightmare. Maybe I had been dreaming and woke up at the wrong moment. Maybe I’d seen shadows in the dark and my imagination had filled in the rest.

I grew up, moved out, got married, and had two children. I stopped being afraid of the dark.
Then last Thursday, my five-year-old daughter, Lily, called for me from her bedroom.
I was brushing my teeth when I heard her ask if I could come look under her bed. She thought something had fallen beneath it, and she didn’t want to reach for it herself.

I was tired, and I had work in the morning. My husband, Ethan, was already asleep, so I went into her room expecting to find a missing toy or a book.
Lily was sitting on her bed with her blankets pulled up to her chin, staring at the space beneath it.
I turned on her bedside lamp and knelt on the carpet. There were toys everywhere, along with a basket of stuffed animals, a few books, and a cardboard box she’d shoved under the bed earlier that day.

I moved the books, pushed the basket aside, and reached toward the wall.
That’s when I noticed a faint yellow glow.
At first, I thought it was her night-light reflecting off something, but the glow was coming from farther beneath the bed. It was a little circle of amber light with rays spreading out from the center.
A tiny sun.

I stopped moving. I knew that sun. I reached farther under the bed, my fingers brushing something soft. When I pulled it out, a small brown teddy bear slid onto the carpet with a faint scraping sound.

Faded brown fur.
Black button eyes.
A little blue bow.
One bent ear.
And a pale yellow patch on its belly, with a tiny embroidered sun in the middle.

I couldn’t breathe. It was Sunny. The bear my mother had thrown away when I was six. The bear I’d watched disappear into the garbage truck. The bear I’d spent twenty-two years convincing myself had only been part of a nightmare. My daughter leaned over my shoulder. “What’s that, Mommy?”

I couldn’t answer her. I was staring at the little sun on Sunny’s belly, waiting for it to do something.
Then the light slowly faded. I dropped him.
He landed face down on the carpet, and I grabbed Lily so quickly that she started crying. I carried her out of the room and into mine, trying to explain that everything was okay while my hands shook so badly I could barely hold her.

I woke Ethan and told him to come with me.
He was annoyed at first, understandably confused about why I’d dragged him out of bed, but he followed me into Lily’s room. Sunny was still lying on the floor.

Ethan picked him up and examined him.
“Where did this come from?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it one of Lily’s?”

“No.”

He turned the bear over.
“Then whose is it?”

I had to swallow before I could answer.

“I had that bear when I was little.”

He looked at me, then back at the toy. He pressed the sun on its belly, and the light flickered on for a second before fading again. I started crying.

Ethan immediately dropped his hand, and Sunny fell against the carpet. He looked at me like he was trying to decide whether I was having some kind of breakdown.I told him the bear had been thrown away when I was a kid. I told him I’d watched the garbage truck take it. Then I told him about the night I’d seen it walking around my room.

He picked it up again, examining the stitching on its back.

“Maybe it was packed away somewhere,” he said. “Maybe you brought it with you and forgot.”

“I didn’t. I wanted it gone. I begged my mom to throw it away.”

“Okay, but how do you know it was the same one?”

I stared at him.

“Because I know my own teddy bear.”
He went quiet. I explained what I’d seen when I was six. I didn’t tell him every detail, but I told him enough. The way Sunny had moved, the shadow behind him, the creature holding him, and the way it had looked at me.

Ethan didn’t laugh, but he clearly didn’t believe me. He kept looking at the bear as though he was trying to find some ordinary explanation for it.
Eventually, he wrapped Sunny in a towel and took him downstairs.

“I’ll throw it away,” he said.

I stayed with Lily until she fell asleep, then went into the kitchen to see if he’d gotten rid of it. He told me he’d put it in the trash. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe there was some explanation for how the bear had ended up under my daughter’s bed. I wanted to believe the light was just a faulty mechanism and that the memory I’d carried since childhood was nothing more than a nightmare.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the creature.
The wet skin. The long fingers. The black eyes.
I asked Ethan if he’d noticed anything strange when he picked up the bear. He said no. I asked whether it felt heavier than a normal teddy bear. He said no.
Finally, he told me I was frightening myself over a toy.

“You had a nightmare when you were little,” he said. “That’s all.”

It was almost exactly what my father had said to me twenty-two years earlier. I tried to explain that I wasn’t saying the bear was alive. I was saying something had been using it, and I was terrified that whatever I’d seen as a child was connected to what had happened that night.

Ethan rubbed his face and told me the bear was gone, Lily was safe, and I needed to get some sleep.
I didn’t argue anymore. Lily has slept in our room ever since. Ethan thinks I’m overreacting, and maybe I am. I know how this sounds. I know there’s no logical reason for a teddy bear I watched get thrown away decades ago to turn up beneath my daughter’s bed.

But I haven’t been able to sleep properly since it happened. That night, after Ethan fell asleep, I heard something in the hallway.

A soft scraping sound. Shhk. I sat up in bed and listened. Nothing. Then it happened again. Shhk.
My bedroom door was closed, and the hallway light was off. I could see a thin line of darkness beneath the door, and for a moment, I thought I saw something move past it.

Then a faint amber glow appeared in the gap.
It was small and round, like a light shining from a toy on the floor. I didn’t open the door. I didn’t call Ethan.

I pulled the blankets over my head and lay there until morning, listening to the house settle around me.
When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed about my childhood bedroom. I saw the yellow curtains, the stars on the ceiling, and Sunny standing beside my dresser with his little legs dragging against the carpet.

The creature was behind him.

Its pale hair hung over its face, and its mouth was stretched into that awful smile. It was holding Sunny by the back of his neck, looking directly at me.
I woke up when the morning light came through the curtains. Ethan was still asleep beside me, and for a few seconds, I almost convinced myself that the whole thing had been a dream. I got up from the bed leaning over and tucking in my daughter who cuddled up to my husband as he slept.

Then I opened the bedroom door.

There was a little blue bow lying on the carpet outside. I stood there staring at it for a long time. The fabric was damp, almost black in places, with a brown stain along one edge. I crouched down without touching it and noticed something caught in the knot.

A single strand of hair.

It was long, thin, and almost colorless.
I immediately thought about the creature’s hair, the pale strands hanging over its shoulders and brushing against Sunny’s fur as it moved him around my childhood bedroom. I backed away from the bow and shut the door.

I didn’t tell Ethan. I couldn’t bring myself to hear him explain it away again, so I waited until he had woken up and left the bedroom and maybe when he opened the door he would see the same thing.

The bow was gone.

I searched the hallway, the stairs, and the space beneath the console table. I checked the trash outside, even though Ethan had already taken the garbage out.

There was nothing.

I started wondering whether I’d imagined seeing the bow in the first place. I was exhausted, and I hadn’t been sleeping properly. Maybe I was letting my childhood fears get the better of me. But I knew what I’d seen.

I called my mother that afternoon and asked her if she remembered Sunny. She said she did.
I asked if she remembered the night I’d screamed and insisted something had been in my room.
She said she remembered me having a nightmare, but not much else.

I asked if she was absolutely sure she’d thrown the bear away.

She sounded irritated and asked why I was bringing all this up again. She said I’d been a child, I’d had a nightmare, and they’d gotten rid of the bear because it frightened me.

I wanted to ask her about the look she’d given my father that night. I wanted to ask why she’d looked at him before telling me nothing had happened. I wanted to know if she’d ever found anything strange in my room, or if she’d heard anything after the garbage truck left.

But I couldn’t make myself ask.For the first time in twenty-two years, I wondered whether my parents had been trying to convince me of something they didn’t actually believe.

Maybe they’d just wanted to protect me from being afraid.

Or maybe they’d been afraid themselves. I still haven’t asked them. I tried talking to Ethan about it one more time, but he gave me the same explanation as before. He said I was exhausted, that I needed to stop thinking about it, and that whatever I remembered from childhood couldn’t hurt me now.
So I stopped talking about it.

I’ve kept Lily out of her bedroom, and I haven’t slept with my own bedroom door open since. I check the locks before bed, even though I know that wouldn’t matter if something were already inside the house.
Sometimes, late at night, I hear that scraping sound in the hallway. Shhk.

I never get up to investigate. I don’t look beneath the beds anymore, either. If something falls under there, I leave it until morning.

I wish I could say that I’m writing this because I want answers, but I don’t even know what answers would make me feel better. I can’t prove what happened when I was six, and I can’t prove what happened last Thursday. I know that. I’ve gone over every possibility I can think of, and none of them explains how Sunny ended up under Lily’s bed.

There’s one thing I keep coming back to, though.
When I was six,when I shone the flashlight at it, it didn’t run away or even seem surprised that I’d seen it. It just looked at me.

I remember those black eyes more clearly than anything else. There was no anger in them. No fear. It looked almost pleased, like it had been waiting for me to notice it. I used to think that night was the first time I’d seen it.

Now I’m not so sure.

Maybe it had been in my room long before that night. Maybe it had been standing behind the dresser while I slept, watching me press the sun on Sunny’s belly. Maybe it had been there every time I woke from a nightmare and held my teddy bear close, never realizing that something else was holding him, too.

I don’t know why it left. I don’t know how Sunny ended up in my daughter’s room, or why the light still works after all these years.

I don’t know why it waited until now. But I needed to tell someone.

Last night, just before dawn, I heard that scraping sound again. This time, it came from inside my bedroom. It has been getting closer and closer to me I was lying perfectly still when I heard it stop beside my bed. I could feel the mattress shift slightly, just enough to make me aware of the weight near my feet.

Then I smelled something damp and rotten, like wet clothes left in a closed washing machine for too long. I kept my eyes shut. I could hear something breathing. Slowly. Wetly. Right beside me.
Then, from somewhere near the foot of the bed, I heard a tiny click. I didn’t open my eyes.
I couldn’t.

Because even with my eyes closed, I could see the amber light shining through my eyelids. All I could do was hope whatever it was just left. I closed my eyes so tight I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually I heard Ethan shift beside me. He made a tired noise and mumbled, “Babe, why is the light on?”

The second he said that, everything stopped.
The breathing was gone. The pressure beside the bed disappeared. When I finally opened my eyes, the room was completely dark except for the light coming in from the hallway. Ethan was sitting up, looking around like he’d just woken from a weird dream.

I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him what had happened. I just grabbed his arm and held on until he fell back asleep. I didn’t sleep at all.

I know how this sounds, and I know there’s probably some reasonable explanation for it, but I can’t stop thinking about what I saw. I haven’t told Ethan the whole story because I’m scared of how ridiculous it’s going to sound coming out of my mouth. I keep checking Lily’s room, and I haven’t looked under her bed again.

This happened last night, and I genuinely don’t know what to do. I haven’t seen that bear since I was a kid, and I have no idea how it ended up in my daughter’s room. I don’t even know if I want to find out.

I just need to know if anyone has ever experienced anything like this, because I’m starting to feel like I’m losing my mind.

This happened a few years ago when I was studying in college, and some strange situation happened to me.

I was home alone, working on a paper that was due the next morning. It was pretty late, probably around midnight, and I'd been sitting at my desk for hours. I had my headphones on for most of the evening, so I wasn't really paying attention to anything going on around me. Our house had a long hallway connecting all the bedrooms. My room was at one end, and my brother's was farther down. There were no windows in the hallway, so at night it was completely dark unless someone turned on the lights.

At some point, I needed something from my brother's room. I don't even remember what it was anymore. I just remember getting up from my desk, opening my bedroom door, and looking down the hallway. And there he was. My brother was standing in the doorway of his room. I couldn't see his face clearly because the only light was coming from my bedroom behind me. But I could make out his silhouette. His height, his shoulders, the way he was standing. It looked exactly like him. He wasn't moving. He was just standing there, facing in my direction.

I remember thinking, "Why the hell is he just standing there in the dark?" I turned around, went back into my room, and closed the door. Then I sat down at my desk, and suddenly I remembered something that made my stomach drop. I was at home alone. I can't really describe the feeling that hit me when I realized that. My whole body went cold, and I got goosebumps all over my arms. I sat there staring at my bedroom door, trying to convince myself I'd imagined it. Maybe it was a shadow. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me because I'd been staring at a computer screen for hours. I didn't open my door again. I didn't even get up to turn on another light. I just sat at my desk with my laptop open, pretending to work while listening to every little noise coming from the hallway.

Every creak of the floorboards made my stomach drop. At one point, I thought I heard something moving outside my room. It was so quiet that I couldn't tell if it was footsteps or just the house settling. I held my breath and waited, but nothing happened. I wanted to call my brother, but I was terrified that if I made any noise, I'd be screwed. So instead, I texted him asking when he'd be home. He replied that he was already on his way and would be there soon.

I stayed in my room until my brother finally came home about an hour later. I told him everything that had happened, and he was scared shitless. We ended up sleeping in the same room that night because neither of us wanted to be alone. And for the next month, I refused to turn off the hallway light at night.

My previous post.

But in case you don’t want to read that, I’ll give you a brief summary of what happened:

My roommate, Ismail, started acting really strange one day. Shortly afterwards, he went missing. And by missing, I mean he left the apartment in a rush one night and never came back, leaving all of his stuff behind. I started digging through his emails, discovering that he’d been in contact with a company named “Alvermont Global Solutions”. He had reached out to them wanting to participate in the “consumer behavioural study” they were running. But before I could finish the rest of the email thread, I heard somebody opening the door to the apartment.

I'd assumed it was Ismail, of course. But when I went out into the living room, it wasn't him that I saw. Instead, it was these two huge dudes dressed in black jackets and black pants, wearing what I can only assume were some kind of prosthetic silicone masks. The kind of thing somebody might wear while robbing a bank. Really freaky and uncanny. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw them both standing there, looking at me.

One of them locked the door while the other cocked a pistol at my head.

I didn’t know what to say so I just raised my hands, trying to stand as still as I could. I briefly thought about screaming to try and alert the neighbours but couldn’t work up the nerve for it. I figured they might shoot me the second I tried. I didn’t want to take the risk.

So I just kept my mouth shut as one of them began ransacking the apartment while the other continued to hold me at gunpoint. I tried telling him that I didn’t have any money or anything even worth selling. He told me to turn around and stare the wall and be quiet. Which is what I did.

I’m not sure how long I stood there for. Could’ve been an hour. Maybe more, maybe less. They left abruptly, neither of them saying a word to me or each other as they disappeared into the hallway. Afterwards, I spent some time debating in my head about whether it had really happened or if I had yet to wake up from a dream.

I pinched myself a few times, splashed my face with cold water. Nope. Definitely awake.

The strangest part was that they didn’t actually steal anything. I mean, literally nothing. Not even my wallet, which had been sitting right on the table in plain view.

I didn’t feel safe in the apartment anymore, so I grabbed my keys and my phone and stuffed Ismail’s laptop into my backpack before heading for the nearest police station.

When I got there, I began explaining everything that had happened to the cop sitting behind the front desk. Some guys had broken into my apartment, pointed a gun at me and… and what? What had they actually done? It was a question I couldn’t answer and I began stumbling over my words while the cop just stared at me.

The cop asked if they’d stolen anything. I told him I wasn’t sure. Then he asked if I’d been assaulted. I told him no, I hadn’t, but they had threatened me with a fucking gun. He just sighed, shook his head and then repeated my story back to me.

“So you’re telling me some men wearing masks broke into your place, pointed a gun at you and then they just left? Without taking anything? Without doing anything? That’s what happened?”

We continued to go back and forth, my frustration mounting as he refused to budge on his skepticism. At one point, he implied that I might’ve been under the influence of something, that the entire experience had simply been the product of an extremely vivid trip.

I couldn’t believe the audacity of this fucking guy. I mean, what?

So I shifted tactics and brought up Ismail’s disappearance, suggesting a connection between the two things. A connection that seemed pretty damn evident to me. But apparently not to the cop. He told me that since I’d seen Ismail leaving the apartment on his own volition, it was likely that he’d simply skipped town.

I asked him why he’d leave his laptop and the rest of his belongings behind if that were the case.

The cop told me if I was really so worried, he’d take down Ismail’s information and my account of what had happened and they’d begin “looking into it.” I then circled back to the break-in, asking if there was anything they could do about that. He told me that they’d send an officer up to my apartment whenever one was available. But that he wasn’t sure when that would be.

I left the station feeling a lot of different emotions, the biggest two being frustration and confusion. I mean, I’ve had experiences with asshole cops before but this was something else entirely. Something I felt ill-equipped to understand.

In my car, I took the laptop out and opened up Ismail’s emails again, hoping that reading through the rest of the thread might give me some kind of ammunition, something to present to the cops with in order for them to start taking this seriously.

But the thread was gone, every single message deleted. I poked around some more, finding no evidence that he had ever been in communication with AGS at all. No downloaded files, no other threads, nothing.

I never thought the break-in had been a coincidence. But now I had solid evidence.

Feeling vindicated, I stormed back into the station, watching the cop roll his eyes as I approached him again. I told him I’d figured out why those guys had broken in and explained the email thread, AGS, the consumer behavioural study, all of it.

I really thought I had a smoking gun here. But then the cop started laughing in my face.

“So they broke into your apartment so that they could delete some emails? That’s what you’re telling me?”

I told him yeah, that’s what it seemed like to me. He laughed again and told me they’d look into it when they had a chance.

I walked back to my car and just sat there for a while. I was so tired at this point. I just wanted to get some sleep so I tried to convince myself that I didn’t need to be worried about it. That Ismail was probably fine and even if he wasn’t, it wasn’t my responsibility. And that whoever had broken in had gotten what they’d come for and had no reason to come back, so I really didn’t need to be worried.

As I was getting ready to drive back home, somebody began knocking on my window.

It was a woman, maybe mid-thirties, making this gesture like she wanted me to talk to me. I rolled the window down about a quarter way and asked her what she wanted. She asked me why I’d gone into the station, what I was talking to the cop about. Using this really direct tone as well, almost like an interrogation. I asked her why she wanted to know.

“Somebody went missing, didn’t they?” she’d said. “What was it? Girlfriend? Brother? Coworker?”

I paused for a moment, feeling a bit stunned before telling her that it was my roommate. She told me that her husband had gone missing as well. Almost two weeks ago. She then claimed that a lot of people in the area had gone missing recently and she thinks it’s all connected. She told me that she wants to figure out what’s really going on and I could help her do so. That maybe I’d be able to find Ismail and she could find her husband.

Before I could answer, an officer came out of the station and began yelling for her to leave. She slipped me a business card with a phone number written on the back and urged me to give her a call. The last thing she said to me before she left was that I shouldn’t trust anything the cops tell me.

I went back to my apartment and tried to get some sleep but wasn’t able to. By the time I finally started to doze off, I realized I had work in about two hours. But there was obviously no way I was making it. So I called in sick. My manager sounded completely pissed, but whatever.

I’m sitting on the balcony now, smoking as many cigarettes as I can. I found out that my lock hadn’t been busted. I just assumed it had, so I didn’t bother checking when I’d left. But it’s completely fine. Which can mean a few things. One of which being that they used a copy of my key to get into the front door. Meaning that they could come back whenever the hell they wanted.

It’s really like a fucked-up game, some form of psychological torture. But clearly I wasn’t the only one that had been pulled into it. The lady at the station seemed pretty strung out as well.

I pulled out the card she’d given me. Below her number, she’d written her name: Sophie.

I decided to give her a call. Just because I couldn’t live with this sort of anxiety. I needed answers. I needed to know that I wasn’t in any real danger. And if I was, well, I needed to know what I was supposed to do about it.

She picked up almost immediately and I asked her to tell me everything she knew. She told me that several months ago, her husband had been hired to be part of a construction team meant to renovate a dead mall. Things were okay at first. But one day, he suddenly started acting really strange, really paranoid, blaming it on witnessing a gruesome accident on the job site. An accident he wouldn’t go into detail about.

Then one night, he never came home at all. She tried calling him but he wouldn’t pick up. She went to the police but they were completely unhelpful, making up a bunch of excuses about why he hadn’t returned and just not seeming to take her concerns seriously.

So she did some digging into her husband’s emails and figured out exactly which mall he’d been working at. Then she dug deeper and learned about others who had experienced something similar. People who had friends or loved ones suddenly go missing under mysterious circumstances. But there was one common denominator linking each case. Which was that at one point, for whatever reason, they had all gone into the mall before they went missing.

She told me that they’d formed a small group together. That they were all united by a single goal, being to figure out exactly what had happened to the people they’d lost. To either rescue or get justice for them.

She asked me if I wanted to join. I told her I’d think about it and call her back.

It was all starting to become too much, this sense of dread lingering over me like a dark, heavy cloud.

I started thinking about what she’d told me and was able to make some connections of my own. I mean, where would a “consumer behavioural study” take place if not inside a mall?

I spent some time doing some research about Alvermont Global Solutions but couldn’t find anything online. The company has no digital footprint whatsoever. Then I went back through Ismail’s laptop, trying to see if I could find any files or emails or anything that he’d saved that could prove they even existed. But there was nothing. They’d done a hell of a job getting rid of any evidence.

After a while, I started thinking about what would happen if I just ignored it all and moved on with my life. What the consequences might be.

But then somebody named Yasmine sent a message to Ismail’s WhatsApp. When I translated it from Arabic, this is what it returned:

Hey, what’s going on? Is everything okay? Can you give us a call? Mother’s really worried.

I closed the laptop afterwards. 

I don’t know what to do. Don’t know what to think. There’s still a part of me that wants to just run away from this, remove myself from the situation as much as possible. I could even leave the city, tell my landlord that I’m moving out of here and then go sleep on my brother’s couch in another state.

But I don’t know how I’d feel about myself after that. I’ve spent a lot of my life sort of just going through the motions, festering in the resentment that came with feeling like you were never making any real impact on the world.

Is this a chance for me to change that? Maybe. I’m not sure yet. I stare at Sophie’s number. I’m starting to warm up to the idea. Starting to realize that this might be the only path that gets me an answer to this.

I’m dialing the number again. I’m going to call this time.

“Hey man!”

That’s how my first encounter with him started. A simple, quaint, and not-at-all annoying greeting, coupled with this offer for a handshake.

For context, I usually hold more than one job, and he caught me while I was working at a burger place. I wasn’t expecting anyone to really interact with me, since anyone who comes in at 9, almost 10 P.M., just before closing- Are typically the type who want to be on their way. I’m actually a cook, so the fact I was even out and handling trash to be interacted with was simply a turn of fate, since it happened while I was doing my closing tasks. As I lifted a bag out of its bin, I slowly turned towards him, doing this double-take that he’d surely take as an obvious ‘Please keep this short’. 

The guy just tilted his head in response.

He was one of those beach types or surfer dudes. You could smell it on him. As in, the caked sunscreen. The fresh scent of salt water. Considering we were in Utah, he could have only come from one place. But so late? And… The Great Salt Lake isn’t for swimming, nor surfing… Far as I knew. 

He had flip-flops on, this two-toned, navy and light blue tank-top. The lighter blue was used for floral detailing. His shorts were of a similar two-toned shade in stripes. Though the brighter blue was quite a bit lighter, this minty white. Other than his indoor shades, and… All of that, he seemed like a relatively normal person. After seeing my stink eye, he just pouted. Dropping his smile only for that reaction, before picking it up as he lifted his shades. Dropping an extended hand as he revealed a fresh tan around where the glasses laid. “Sorry, I get it, it’s sudden, you’re busy.”

I cleared my throat as I tied off the garbage bag, slowly setting it down to replace it, “It’s not just sudden, and I’m not just busy, pal… But go on.” 

He nodded slowly, lowering the shades with a small release of his finger. “Alright, alright, you’re one of those always-on-the-move-types! That’s good, that’s good.” As he spoke, he brought his hand to his side.

Raising an eyebrow, I puffed up the new bag, then compressed it from the bottom to the top, slowly lowering it into the bin in that scrunch as he continued: “I’ll just keep it simple, then. I heard you work as a... Party clown.”

My shoulders shot up when I heard that. I kept that on the down-low around there! As in, I don’t even let myself get recognized by parents! If I see even one person I know from a kid's party, I’m out of sight behind the only visible window to the back. If someone else knows, it’s because they connected the dots with my legal name on the website. 'What kind of asshole in his early 20s would chase me down, then?'

That thought was enough to get me reeled in to whatever scheme he had planned.

“Wh-” I let out, before biting back, forcing the fresh bag’s top around the lip of the bin, “How’d you learn I do that?”

He shrugged, speaking a bit quieter in response to my raised voice, “Just asked around. I needed a guy, and… It looks like I found him…" He had this sly look on his face as he returned to a normal level, "How’d you like to earn 5k in one night?”

I almost didn’t hear him right. As in, I heard him, but I wanted to be sure. Leaning my head towards him as I forced the bin back into its more seemly enclosure, “As in, five-thousand dollars?” he hummed, nodding his head once more.

That kind of money is over 2 month’s work at that job, and 25, 50, 100 kid’s birthdays! I’m a good clown, and I have plenty of extra amenities to bring to entertain kids beyond myself. Bouncy castles, games, it's why I can charge upwards of $200 dollars for a 4 hour day! Though most parents only want to charge half that, if not just a plain $50 for just me to show up. So, I had no idea what kind of person who reeled me in, but they could see from the look on my face that my thought was: 

If I asked for any more, even out of curiosity, I might just lose the deal.

With a snicker, he brought back his laid back hands, letting them rest behind his back, “Then… I assume that amount is just right?”

I fought back a nervous smile with a real one, “No, no!” I exclaimed, forcing the door to the trash receptacle shut. “It’s… Perfect. What’s the job?”

He shrugged lightly, his dude-bro voice following the motion, “Good, well, it’s a simple thing, really. Me and… The guys are hosting this horror-themed thing, and we need a good person to just… Walk around, carry a weapon, and look menacing.” I went to ask about that, but he kept going…“I’d say don’t really react to anything, you won’t need to talk, just be silent and brooding! In fact, it’s incentivized you don’t even break character by doing that. It will sell the mood a lot more the better you fit a classic horror-archetype! It should be wayyy easier than making those rubber balloons.”

Hearing that, I almost fed the thought that this was indeed too good to be true. I mean, I’m seriously a kid’s clown. I may not be the best, but I’ve never let a young'un go unhappy. It’s the whole gig. And, it’s the middle of July! Is that month particularly scary enough for a horror-themed party? Maybe I just didn’t get his generation. Eventually, after a bit more back-and-forth, he told me his name. I don’t feel comfortable mentioning any part of this name, real or not. So I’ll just call him Lake. Then, he simply took my number and said he’d text more details from there. His body seemed to be getting more stiff as we spoke, but he left without much fanfare.

I got right back to work once he left, noting that he didn’t even order any food. He just came there to ask if I was available and willing, then left once he got the affirmative. 

Not the first time I was put off by his behavior, as just a week later, he finally got back to me. And in the nick of time, too, I had gotten fired the very same day he reached out again. No clue how or why, but I called, and they said I was off the schedule. Now, I needed the cash for next month’s bills, in case I couldn’t find a replacement. 

When he called, it was from an unknown number. Since I was expecting him to somehow reach out, there was an inkling that it wasn't just some scammer. Picking it up, sure enough, it was Landon. His tone was no less chipper than last time. He explained that he'd provide a costume, and his shed to set up. “Set up what?” I asked. 

And he said, “Anything you wanna bring.” I didn't have anything I would have brought. It just helped the chill work its way down my spine. I was going to inquire even more, but he cut me off, “Whatever it is… Just know that I have you covered! I've got tons of props already! Some of it is real horror memorabilia!”

I was almost impressed, but it's not like I've seen anything beyond the classics from the 80s. And, I’ve thrown get-togethers for things I’ve enjoyed less when I was younger. So hearing that, I eventually gave Lake just a bit of slack, “Alright. I’ll be there, then.”

He just responded with a simple “Good.” It sounded like his chipperness got replaced with gruff, but he chimed out an additional, “Now, don’t be late!!” And hung up before I could answer. I wasn’t exactly done, I wanted to work out advanced payment for prop money. He left me with little options for the night. 

I wound up leaving around 6 P.M., when he sent a location pin.

Wherever the gig was, it was far away from the city, and actually required me to leave as soon as I got the location. I was taken across a highway, and across the desert. Landing in some small out-cropping of a town that seemed to be asleep at the crisp hour of a quarter to 8 P.M., when the sun hadn't even kissed the horizon. 

It was a part of Utah I had never been to before, or seen, but I recognized the name on maps. The house that the party was located in wasn’t that hard to miss, either, as no other ambient sounds than the music hit my ears as I approached.

In the distance, it was like those kinds of small manors you’d read in old American stories and novels. I think I've even seen a painting of one like it.

The outside had these ridges up and down the lengths of the walls. Segmented glass panes were placed in the gaps between, most of which had either small hung windowsill planters, shutters, often both. The front had these deep blue curtains draped over the large sun-facing window, with a front door as black as the outdoor shutters. Though, it wasn’t the most prominent, as there was this rather large octagonal pane at the very top, for some kind of attic. As I pulled up, my eyes flicked from the dirt path driveway, to the recently redone porch, lit by now visible spheres of orange that originated from lanterns.

I grumbled to myself, shaking off any feelings of discomfort as my car slowed to a crawl and I put it in park on the same side of the house as the shed. I told myself that any emotions I was overcome with, came from a place of irrationality. There would only be awkward interactions, and maybe a few weird looks. 

If anything, I’d have been considered part of the gimmick. 

Once more hopeful thoughts had entered my mind, I had turned off my vehicle, and slowly got out. The sounds of bumping pop, or EDM or whatever they call it, had been rushing through the wall to my side. I could hear the windows vibrating from the force. Hell, my own head was starting to quake from the tremors of it all.

Pulling out my phone, I messaged Lake. “Just showed up.”

Despite being the host, and presumably busy, I got a speech bubble as soon as I sent it. “Key to the shed’s under the mat!” What a weird guy, is all I could think. Stopping just in front of the welcome mat at the shed’s side door, I pulled it over in a flap, revealing a small metallic key. I lifted it up from the grass, taking a look at the rust built up from its placement. Raising an eyebrow, I brought the key to the hole, inserted it, and with a twist, the door popped open towards me, like a release of suction. I placed my hand on it to stop it from doming me, and let it slowly peel away. Revealing…

“AH!! JESUS!”

I exclaimed, nearly hopping out of my shoes, but after a few seconds of silence, I was still gazing through what didn't look like empty eyeholes of a mask. The whole thing was made with this disfigured face, twisted and tied into a wide smile, features stitched into place. It had white paint for the bulk of the face. The red around the lips and eyes had faded, leaving the skin-tone rubber underneath it exposed. The scalp was covered in this ruffled, curled, and matted mix of rainbow follicles, all in a balding pattern that left an island of fluff on the top. Inside of empty sockets, this glint of light, like eyes, had shone rather clearly. I blinked rapidly, slowly rounding into the frame of the door. Looking at the sleeves of the plaid shirt, the hands at the ends were a pale, plastic white. And underneath the overalls, where boots should be… were equally fake feet.

It was just a mannequin!

I remember exclaiming one more “God..!” to myself. Its placement was incredibly intentional. Knowing Lake, or rather, so little, I could still guess that much. This guy loved his horror flicks. Turning my gaze from the costume to the wall, there were lines of different tools, shelves, weapons, and, all of it seemed familiar. I saw bladed gloves, a bloody machete, and a few notable masks. Then, next to all of them was countless other stuff I knew nothing about. Different monster face coverings aside, we’re talking ornate looking cubes, a wrinkly old book with a face on it, and this dark cloak, like the reaper, just to name the first three I caught.

The table underneath it all just held more, and before I could even make those out, I saw these hefty pairs of boots, sat out next to a few laid out items, as well as a piece of paper, ‘Sorry for the scare! Enjoy the party!’ taking it up, ‘P.S. tried to guess your shoe size, hope one of them fits!’ 

This guy was… weird.

And the shed was… Exactly as he said it’d be. My hand slowly shut the door behind me, taking my eyes up to the sound of clinking chains that lingered in response. Above me, was a ride-on mower. The front was about… At face height and head position, if it fell off the right chains. I grimaced, side-stepping around the strike zone of it as my eyes pulled down to the obvious centerpiece below, at the end of its front wheels. What I walked in to first see..

On a mannequin that was around my height, my build,

all put together, just for me,

was the costume.

I looked at the outfit over and over again….

As much as I used ‘there’s a first time for everything’ as an excuse, what I was really banking on was that $5,000. That’s all I needed at that moment. Yes, I quelled all my worries over that much money, but I wasn't expecting to die there.

Making sure to keep my personal belongings, my phone, keys, and wallet on me once I finished… I worked on the prepared costume, sacrificing all but my underwear and socks. I again found it eerie that it fit just right, but Lake could just be good with eyeballing clothing sizes. Lake was not a normal person. From the beginning, I knew that much. And if I knew any better, I'd say he was insane. Taking up the blades he left out… I ran my finger along the 'sharp edge' and found it incredibly flat, dull, and harmless. As weird as he is… he certainly isn't crazy. Before I could let that thought simmer even more, the door to the shed opened. I turned in time to see a couple with their lips locked.

I cocked an eyebrow as I lowered the blade I picked up, nearly setting it down. The clink of its tip on the wood stopped me, though. The woman’s visible eye immediately shot open, and she forced her partner back, “Wh-what the fuck!? Wh-who-” I wanted to take the instructions I got from Lake to heart, suddenly getting put on the spot.

So, all I could do to communicate was lift that blade up. The motion was enough to get her to push him again, now getting the man to turn towards me. As soon as he did, he let out a, “Woah-!” I fought back a shrug as the girl behind him ran out. Her hand was latched onto the handle of the door as she did, producing a hefty slam. The response was a high-pitched clank as the sound of metal unhitching from its place filled the room. 

I shut my eyes to blink, and opened them in time to see the mower collide with him, sending his bleeding, and battered head right back into the door behind him. Blood smeared down as he slumped. I blinked again, almost unable to take in the sight as it was.

The next moment, my body lurched forwards in a dry heave, but I fought it back as the woman on the other side screamed out, “J-Jason? Are you okay? W-what was that sound?” 

I grit my teeth, averting my eyes from the body as I hustled over. I was going to raise my voice, and then noticed a blinking light in the corner. I didn’t even need to squint hard to see the rest of the silhouette. It was one of those dome cameras..! I didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared, but at the least, I had to get out of the room, tell that woman to get help, and- My mind was racing on and on, so I forced that train of thought to halt.

Moving ‘Jason’, one of the 18 guests out of the way, I forced the door open, feeling a sudden hitch as I did. The woman on the other side let out a short yell, her weight was freed, and once more, another crunch hit my ears. Like pelting a watermelon with a rock. 

I snapped my jaw shut, the heat of being trapped in that outfit so soon became instantly unbearable.

“Lady-” I peeled the door open just enough to hit her foot. I couldn’t squeeze out of there without pushing harder. 

“Lady!”

No response. I clenched my hand into a fist, my stomach dropped, and with more force, I felt a deadweight shift at the bottom of the wood. “God…” I muttered, looking back, and seeing her straight gaze towards the sky above. “Fuck!” I blinked twice, about to turn tail right back to my car. From her nametag, that was ‘Tiffany’ 2 of 18 were now gone.

What Lake said kept weighing on my mind. “Don’t break character. No matter what you see.” I blinked twice, looking back at the other person. His head wasn't dented unrealistically or anything. Practical effects could have gotten good enough that blood packets can be applied under a wig to shoot blood out. My thought process was: 'There’s no way this wasn’t real… But… Could Lake… He has props, real memorabilia..? Does that mean he's esteemed… Like, some big, skilled set, prop, or costume designer? If he was just good at practical effects… Would what just happened really be less than believable? After all… I didn’t actually witness them dying.' 

Looking down, she had hit her head just right on a rather large stone, and a stream of blood was now pooling on the grass. I took in more paced breaths, turning my head up to the sky, and locking eyes with another camera. Sat right at the top of the house, and facing down towards the scene I just made.

I was just told to not react and not speak… Is that why? His words, and whatever importance they held to me…

I only had that to go off, I didn’t waste any time. I had to know what it was.

Why I was brought there.

I remember what I felt as I stepped over that woman’s body, and made it to the door. I was working up a sweat just walking 15 feet. I was hotter than all hell, and my eyes couldn’t remain still on the handle. I just tightened my grip around the metal, and went to turn it… But found it was locked.

Frustration, confusion, and fear had all mounted. I gnashed my teeth together, then let out an upset yell.

My mind was brimming with realities, so I didn’t know what else to do, and running right now was out of the question. ‘If I was forced into some twisted film project…’ I thought, tightening my grip in my right hand, I brought it up to the door’s window, before hesitating… 

I was going to hit it with my bare skin.

I slowly turned, keeping my eyes shut as I crossed back into the shed. My phone’s presence was apparent in my pocket with its bounce, my keys with a notable jangle that muffled against my wallet. I quickly grabbed the work gloves off the table, and forced them on. With a quickening breath, stepping over the two still bodies in my way. I stopped right in front of the door and just forced my now protected hand through the glass. Immediately, my fist was lit up in this frying burn. I let in a sharp breath of air as I pulled it back, feeling it thrum just as hard again, and again. With a grumble, I chose to fight through it, and worked the door open from the other side. Once the lock was turned, I muttered through the pain, and forced it open. 

Moving in, I shut the door behind me, and shuffled down the small corridor into a kitchen. A woman with brown-hair was working at the sink. Her mouth moved as if to speak, but the music covered up whatever she said. And, as I was mid-step and she was mid-sentence, she turned and locked eyes with me. I had no other response in my mind other than to keep moving forwards.

This got her to lock up, and when I crossed into the room, the person she was talking to had lifted their head up from their phone. With widened eyes, he stood up, revealing his name at the same time the woman did with her shout, “Wh- Well do something, Mark!!” I tilted my head, watching as the woman, ‘Amy’, had backed over to the sink, her head now hovering over the same basin she was just working over.

Despite my slow pace, and lack of a knife, the other person had decided to respond by throwing what was a black blur across my vision.

It revealed itself to be a phone as it crashed against the wall, striking the switch perfectly enough to turn the disposal on. I barely caught Amy as her hair latched onto the spinning blade, but in doing so, I had forced her body to remain still right as her neck had been forced back. The result was a crunch that I could only feel.

Nothing could convince me that it was fake.

It felt like I was going to force my teeth into my gums. I slammed my jaw hard as I twisted, locking eyes with Mark as he yelled out, “A-AMY- I- I DIDN’T MEAN…” In an attempt to further avenge her, his eyebrows tightened down, and his right hand latched onto a knife on the counter between us. This time, he chose to get closer, but misjudged his abilities by trying to slide over the kitchen island. This just resulted as him twisting mid-way through, and landing with a harsh thud right onto the knife.

I could only stare down, completely appalled and frozen.

I couldn’t have done a single thing to stop what had just happened, but with the amount of people that are now surely dead in my mind, I had to call the police. So, my hand snapped down to the pocket with my phone in it. Patting it down, it was gone. The other pocket with my wallet, and keys? Also empty. I swore they were full when I left the shed. I felt their weight as I moved back and forth, but now they were gone?

My next motion was just rushing forwards. Across the kitchen, and into the living room. In some hope that I could get help from these people.

My feet stomping against the ground, I got to a room full of guests. Just the sight of me got someone drinking their punch to choke, their hand reaching to their throat. Before I could see the results, I turned to the other party-goers, who at this point, noticed the blood on me. A man named ‘Will’ had reached for his phone, pulling it out. A couple had backed into a hefty, wall-size T.V. stand. One after another, Will placed the device to his ear, and it exploded. The stand had crushed the couple, and the remaining person had fallen, hacking, and coughing, then wheezing. Unable to catch a breath. I watched as their throat seemed to be pressed shut, their eyes slowly rolling back.

“What the fuck.”

Was all I could let out. It was like my mere presence was enough to kill these people. I knew, no matter what, from then on out, I had to get away from this house. But as I turned around, before my feet began to hit the wood of the kitchen… 

I can just explain it the best I can. It’s like the house itself turned on an axis on my second step, and it was forced to land right back on the carpet of the living room. I spun around, repeating this process of trying to go where I entered the house from. To return where I came from. To leave that wretched place. But I couldn’t. I simply could not. Something stopped me from doing it, and it was something that I could not mentally comprehend enough to stop. Because when I tried to turn around the 15th time, my body simply refused. 

And my legs kept going deeper into the house.

‘Phil’, ‘Lance’, ‘Turner’, and ‘Oslo’. 8 of 18 were dead, and I was not allowed to stop the rest from joining them.

My legs, moving with unrefined might, and anger, had eventually righted themselves enough to make it to a side door. My hand moved like a snake, snapping onto the handle, and ripping it open. My eyes widened on two people moving up the wooden steps. Like clockwork, the front one stopped, forcing the woman behind him to stumble back, falling down the stairs. She hit her head once on the way down, and again at the bottom. I could only tighten my fists as my feet moved. My body took its time on the steps after him. The man did a double-take then rushed down, “Ah- Hell!!” Getting to the harsh end of a small corridor as I got on the same floor as him, I watched as he shakily stopped at a wine rack. Then turned around, trying to force a bottle off of it…He did so successfully, though the force of him rushing it had forced the wooden panel back. As it rebound, one placed near the top slid forwards and right off. Landing squarely on the side of his dome, he couldn’t even turn to face me. To catch his bearings… 

As he hit the rack with his back. 

Making the one right above the last slide off, smashing cleanly across the top of his head, pooling red across his now motionless body.

As it all happened, I just stared off in sheer horror.

10 were dead now! With these two, ‘Mary’ and ‘James’ I had swallowed a lump thicker than honey! And though I was shaking, I continued to move. Turning around, back up the stairs, the music had turned off, and the one responsible, ‘Tom’ had locked up as soon as he saw me, tripping back, his foot was caught on a cord, pulling a speaker down on top of him. The table next to it had shifted, causing the punch bowl to splatter over, hitting the socket, and causing a surge of electricity to blow the device up right in front of him. I turned to avoid seeing the splatter hit anything. 

Make that 11. I stopped keeping track after that.

Because: I let out a whimper. Out of the sheer fear of what would happen next, I froze, and started whimpering like a dog. I didn’t want to move, and at this point, I felt like that was the only thing I had left going for me. I forced my muscles to stiffen, keeping myself in place, I shut my eyes. Hoping that at some point, I had fallen asleep, getting caught in a sickening nightmare, or maybe Lake- No! He couldn’t have even drugged me back then- Is it the suit? Did that ‘Lake’ drug me somehow?? I wanted to throw up. I knew I couldn’t with the mask on, so I fought to take it off. I ran my fingers around the edge of the bottom of the flap, and then the top. Prying at the rubber, my eyes burst open wide at each failed attempt. I remember pulling as tight as I could at a lip I remember lifting so easily before, but I found absolutely no give. My heart, which was already starting to force its way out of my chest, had stopped, then started, then stopped as I went. I ran my hands down to pull at the neck of the shirt, then turned my gaze to the gloves as I tried to force them off as well. I got two good tugs in before I saw the stitches. New, layered, dense. You couldn’t pry these gloves off if you tried. You’d need to cut them off. Checking again, the mask had to have had the same seam, but it was somehow done from the other side, and only looped through the interior of the rubber, because I couldn't feel it through the layers.

My hands, my entire body froze, and my quickening heart seemed to join in. Not even my ears thrummed with its drum.

Bloodcurdling. That’s what it was.
I screamed hard.

Viscerally. I screamed as loud as I could.

I forced out a breath so long, and so ferocious, that I thought I was going to die from the lack of oxygen. My vision nearly went complete black as I keeled over, and still wanted to wail. So, I did.

I was wheezing, crying, and fighting for my next breath. It lasted so long that I spent all I had left inside of me. I had not one more ounce of energy. I felt like a husk. Like every part of me was stripped clean.

After that, my legs began to move. 

My muscles had loosened like a well-oiled machine, taking me up the stairs, where I had entered a hallway.

There was a couple in front of another man. His hands were at his sides, but as soon as he reached them up, I saw he was pointing a gun at me. I only half-heartedly raised my hands. “Get down!!” he yelled, I simply remained still as two deafening bangs rang out with two immediate pangs afterwards. With that, the couple between us had dropped down. “What…” The last one had let out, his eyes narrowing as he slowly lowered the gun. “I… I was aiming straight ahead!! Guns don’t just-” With another tilt of my head, this one involuntary, my body just marched forwards. With a twitch of his left eye, he pointed the gun right back forwards, “I-I’M WARNING YOU, I-” And with a ghastly moan as I kept walking, he cocked his head right back, “Fine, you asked for i-” as he spoke, he fired another shot.

Or, I should say the gun misfired its shot. A large piece of the slide had flown out with this sharp ping right after the usual blast. It struck through the right side of his nose, and clearly deep into his skull. All that he could force out before dropping, was a gurgle. I couldn’t even let my eyes linger anymore. It was sitting in the worst kind of dark ride. I was strapped in, forced to see whatever remaining tragedy was placed in front of me. And I had already wanted to take off minutes ago.

Without any preconceived notions, my body lurched back into motion, as I was carried down the hall, it took one turn for my eyes to forcefully shift, locking with a hatch up to the attic. I don’t know how I knew, I just did. And, following that prerogative, I had gone over, pulling down the string on the seal, and opening it up just enough. That way, as I backed up, the bottom step went to the right spot at my feet. Taking one more moment of peace as I shut my eyes and took a calm breath, the last… 4? Had made themselves clear…

‘He very clearly said there’d only be 18 people here… Who’s the extra girl?’ I thought at the time. She looked younger, and definitely looked like she didn’t want to be there. I kept my fist tightened, and was able to loosen it, so maybe I had some control, still… My eyes narrowed as I watched the other two carefully. One of them had lifted up a prepared bottle of vodka, a rag stuffed down its neck. His other hand readied a lighter. The other pulled out a knife, and slowly stepped towards me. With a groan, my body didn’t even twitch, simply resuming its relentless pursuit. On a mission to bring these people to an untimely end. The one with the knife didn’t get another 5 steps closer before hitting a weak plank, and when he fell through, the other one had jumped back, hitting their elbow on an old CRT. His hand then snapped forwards, flinging the bottle onto the ground. While the other one was recovering, he got hit with the splash, and was only able to force himself out with enough strength that he stumbled back into the other one. His alcohol drenched back then lit up, and the flickering flames were enough to hit the ground, and his friend.

My body, unimpeded by this, pushed through the flames as the last one had finally turned all his attention to me. And all mine, to him. He had pulled the girl to his side, holding a knife to her throat.

“GAH! Goddamn it!! What is this!? Why are you here?!” I didn’t have the luxury of answering this. He yelled over the other’s dying screams. Stumbling back, he stopped at the large octagonal window behind him. After glancing towards it, he then looked right at me, nodding, “It’s for her, isn’t it? I- I won’t let you… I’d- I’d rather we-” My body snapped forwards the last 6 feet. A harsh leap that ended with my hand latched around his throat. After a harsh kick off the ground, I was sent right through the glass.

I felt my body slowly lean forwards, angling the last one’s back at the ground. We had landed with a harsh thud, though he took most of it. I remember suddenly becoming groggy with the impact, rolling over with Lily staring down at us from the front-facing octagonal window.

When I came to, I was in an ambulance, getting carried to the hospital with my hand obliterated, ulna and radius broken in multiple places, and my humorous bruised to all hell. All of my clothes were returned to me. I was now wearing what I did before I changed into that killer clown outfit, and my effects, the ones that vanished, were in a bag right in the corner of my vision.

I tried to question the EMTs, but they didn’t know anything, and I didn't want to sound like I lost my mind. So I only heard that a girl was hurt, and that they’re worried about what was done to her. I unfortunately only had suspicions, but I didn’t air those out. Not even when the police later showed up in my room, once my arm was basically all cast. I mean, they asked me all the simple stuff,

‘Do you know who owned the house?’, ‘Do you know who hosted the party?’ I answered the best I could. And as I did, their questions seemed to get more off-track, ‘Did you notice the cameras?’, ‘What were you dressed like?’, ‘What was in the shed?’. Once more, I gave them what I knew, I didn’t cut out any facts, or anything. Then they asked, ‘Did you see who did it?’ 

I almost didn’t want to say yes, or no, I was technically not the one who did it, in fact, if anyone did it, it’d be Lake, but… “Did what?” I let out.

The officer nodded, “Who fired the gun?” He said it quite matter-of-factly.

I narrowed my eyes, not realizing I misunderstood the question, which made me ask for clarification, “Was… Wasn’t most of it just an accident?” 

His partner smirked, then smacked her lips, “Well, that’s for sure, I mean, there’s no two-ways about most of it. We just need to know if you saw them. Their accidents I mean. That's all.” 

I raised an eyebrow, “Yeah I… I was just hired to be… A performer… But I think the one that fired a gun… Was someone named Jack.”  I was still trying to piece things together myself, and they were just adding to the fog in my mind.

She nodded while the other one continued, “Alright, well… All I can really tell you is… Maybe don’t pick up random gigs as… Whatever kind of performer you are. You were in a pretty risky spot last night, but you seem to be all good now that you’re patched up. We won’t press charges, and there’s no record of anyone owning the home on that street… So just worry about getting better.” He glanced towards his partner, simply telling me to let them know if I remember anything else, and the two had left.

It’s been a week since then.

The news on the event went by quickly. It was just treated as a highlight for that one day, and then nobody else even mentioned it. Even less, it was just a single 5 minute segment on the local news.

‘This just in: Series of Remarkable Accidental Deaths Meets a Real Murder at Renard Rd. House.’

I really can’t ignore the details. The way they described everything, it’s like there’s this veil of secrecy… They didn’t mention the ‘break-in’ I had to do just to get in the back door. I wasn’t charged, but… 18 people absolutely died. Sure, 15 of which were an 'accident', 2 were part of a 'murder', and 1 died by misfire. But one extra person was saved… She had a name tag! If 'Lily' wasn’t intended to be at the party, why’d she have one? And what about afterwards? Why not mention that? They even kept any talk of me to the barest of minimums, simply saying I was ‘hired to perform, but broke my right arm by the end of things’. Not knowing what details were different from what I experienced wasn’t hard. Trying to figure out why it was changed was, and I’m still stumped on that front. So, I looked Lake’s real name up online. It took quite a bit of searching, and I could only find a few old newspapers on the site of a public library. They describe him as a ‘small-time set director’ who was ‘working his first big job’. It was this upcoming film that used the house at 'xxxx Renard Rd.', when a brutal accident had left his body split in two. There wasn't much of an investigation into it, and he wasn't all that well-known in the first place. The whole incident still left the neighborhood abandoned by the mid 90s, leaving just that last building standing...

By the way, I wasn’t even fired. That was simply a computer error. I am back on the clock this Monday. It will be tough flipping burgers with my non-dominant hand, but I'll get used to it. Hell, I might even need to. As for why I started writing this… I heard someone was collecting stories and mine had fit their odd requirements to a T...  And, well, that $5,000 did also come in as one last surprise.

Just yesterday, an envelope holding a written check with Lake's name on it slid underneath my door

So, I'm also sharing this here. What’s your advice? I’m planning on just sitting on it. I can only wonder if it’s blood money, or if it came from some other source entirely. Either-way, I need to lay low for a while…

And rest my left hand, this has been a pain to write.

- Signed, Mr. Laughs, the ex-party clown.

I don’t know why we even went into that damn antique shop. Neither of us were particularly into antiques, or even furniture for that matter. It was just something to do as we wandered through town, something to pass the time on that beautiful autumn day.

“Miles,” Louise said. “Check out this chair!” 

I peered through the dust as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the store. Victorian Folding Chair–75% Off  “I didn’t know they had folding chairs around back then,” I said. 

The chair was certainly unusual looking. It was made of some type of red polished wood. It had carved claw feet, a high back that was slightly crooked as though it had been broken at some point, and long spindly legs.

Louise’s face lit up. “We have to get it!”

I was skeptical. The chair looked uncomfortable, and it didn’t match any of our other furniture.

As if reading my mind, Louise plopped into it. The chair accepted her weight with a satisfied little sigh. “It has character!” she insisted. “It’s perfect. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.”

Louise shoved the chair unceremoniously in the corner of our living room and I didn’t think about it again for the rest of the day. We had a nice little evening. We met up with friends to play games, and got dessert at the new Vietnamese bakery around the corner. Louise finished the Tuesday crossword and I went to bed early.

I woke up the next morning in an awful mood. I had slept restlessly, tossing and turning all night. I fixed myself a bowl of cereal, but when I grabbed the carton of milk from the fridge, it was empty. “Lou!” I said, exasperated, but she had her headphones on. She just smiled and gave me a thumbs up.

On my way out the door to work, I tripped over the new chair, banging my shin pretty badly. Louise must have dragged it into the hallway for some reason. And she’d scratched up the floor in the process! Shaking my head, I carried the chair back to the living room and dumped my dry corn flakes in the trash.

That evening was probably the first time I started actually paying attention. Louise and I were on the couch, half-watching an old movie, when I heard an odd noise. It sounded just like someone clearing their throat. But it wasn’t coming from Louise. It was coming from across the room. I paused the TV, and it happened again, more quietly this time.

“I think it’s coming from that chair,” I said. We both crept over and put our ears against the warm wood. We waited and waited, but all was silent. 

“Maybe it’s termites,” Louise said, grinning up at me. “Or bed bugs!”

“Lou, no!” I stared at her in horror. “You better not have brought bed bugs into this house!” She was laughing now, but I was serious. “They get into everything! If this chair has bed bugs, they’ll be in all our furniture before we know it! They are impossible to get rid of!”

I had trouble sleeping again that night. I felt on edge for some reason, each creak and thump of the house settling jolting me awake. At one point, I thought I heard the sound of a door closing somewhere upstairs. I sat up in bed and tried to shake Louise awake. She hadn’t heard it, of course. She always slept like the dead. 

“A gust of wind,” she mumbled without opening her eyes. 

I waited several minutes, before I eventually drifted back into a fitful sleep.

The next time something happened was two days later. I was taking a shower, and Louise came into the bathroom to brush her teeth. “Lou,” I said. “You used up my shower gel.” I was pissed, already soaking wet, and with nothing to clean myself. The lack of sleep, I’m sure, was not helping my mood. “If you finish something, please remember to replace it! The same with the milk–”

“What milk?” Louise retorted, eyes flashing. “I didn’t use up your stupid shower gel, Miles. Why would I want to smell like Fresh Sandalwood?" 

I scowled, but I didn’t want to fight this early in the morning, so I toweled off in silence. We headed downstairs. 

I stopped short when I saw it. The chair. It was inexplicably damp, a small puddle of water pooling beneath. From it wafted the unmistakable scent of Fresh Sandalwood.

Louise and I just stood there for a moment, looking at it.

“Are you fucking with me?” I asked. It was hard to tell sometimes. Louise did have an odd sense of humor.

“Are you fucking with me?” she said. 

We exchanged an uneasy glance. Then…

”Beddd bugggggs!” Louise said in a spooky voice. That broke the tension and we both laughed. But I didn’t feel better.

Nighttime and yet again, I couldn’t fucking sleep. Distant sounds, like someone setting a plate down, a sticky drawer closing, footsteps. Footsteps? 

I opened my eyes. Yes, there were definitely footsteps walking down the hallway. Uneven footsteps, bare feet. A slight limp. Footsteps, coming closer and closer. 

I held my breath.

The bedroom door opened and I saw a man enter the room. He was a strange, crooked man with long toenails and a nicely trimmed mustache. He looked me right in the eyes and nodded once, appraisingly. He folded himself into the corner of the room and crouched there, almost disappearing into the darkness. And then he didn’t move.

I stared back at him in disbelief. Then, with a yell of complete terror, I leapt out of bed and flung on the light. 

“What! What! What!” said Louise, finally waking all at once and spitting out her nightguard in a panic. I stared into the corner. 

There was no man. 

Just that damn chair lurking up at me.

Louise tried to convince me that it was a dream, a night terror, a trick of the light. “It happens to everyone,” she insisted. “You see a pile of laundry in the dark and you think it’s a serial killer. Yesterday I screamed because I saw the coat rack out of the corner of my eye!” 

But she hadn’t been there. This was different.

“Tomorrow I am getting rid of that chair,” I declared. I folded it up and put it in the very top of our closet. I wedged the closet door closed with a clothes hanger. We did not discuss how the chair had gotten into our bedroom. That mystery hung between us, unspoken.

The morning I gave away the chair, I woke up feeling at peace for the first time all week. I wasn’t surprised that it fell on me when I opened the closet to get it down, and I wasn’t surprised that it pinched my finger, drawing blood, when I picked it back up, either.  Not much surprised me any more.

“I’ll return it to the antique shop on my way to work,” I said, rubbing my sore head. “Lou?”

Louise had left her tea steeping on the kitchen table. Cinnamon, with two teabags, extra strong, just as she liked it. I heard a toilet flush from the upstairs bathroom. “Bye,” I called out to her.

The antique shop, it turned out, did not accept returns. So I put the chair outside on the street instead for the garbage collectors. Within minutes, a family drove up, inspected it, and loaded it into their car. I almost felt like I should stop them, but what would I even say? As they drove away with the chair, I could finally breathe again. 

I went for a long bike ride after work, and when I returned home, it was already getting dark.

The first thing I noticed was Louise’s tea on the table, cold and undrunk. The water had turned an odd crimson color. It must have been steeping all day. 

The second thing was the unmistakable sensation that I was being watched.

“Lou?” I called. I wandered through the house, swallowing hard. “Louise?”

The third thing I noticed was the sound, like people whispering just out of earshot. Was it my imagination? I hesitated outside the little side room we had converted into an office. Right as I flung open the door, I swear I heard someone say “Shh!”  But the room was empty, just the desk and our cracked white bookshelf.

Louise was not in the kitchen, or the upstairs bathroom, or the downstairs bathroom, or the bedroom, either.

Our house was not that big.

So I took out my phone and called her. After a moment, I heard her ringtone, strangely muffled, and after another several minutes of searching, I found her phone in the couch. It was not wedged in the crack between pillows, where it presumably might have fallen out of her pocket and been forgotten. No. It was placed neatly beneath the seat cushions, nestled against the couch’s bony frame.

As I was standing back up, turning the phone over in my hands, it happened: 

Someone behind me said “Eh eh eh eh.” 

It was a toneless, creaking voice, devoid of all meaning. It made my blood run cold. 

“Eh eh eh eh,” the person said again, rhythmically. 

I froze, my heart in my throat. I did not dare turn around. Instead, I very carefully raised my eyes to the landing mirror and checked the reflection.

Squatting behind me, swaying from one foot to the other, was a large woman I’d never seen before, wearing a pale floral dress. She met my gaze and nodded once, with an unsettling certainty. 

“Eh eh eh eh,” she said.

I whirled around. There was no woman behind me. Just my creaky old recliner, the one I’ve had for years, gently rocking back and forth.

In a total panic, I ran into my bedroom and locked it. I pushed my dresser against the door for good measure. 

That’s where I am now, where I’ve been for the past two hours. I don’t know what to do. There’s no way in hell I’m going back out there. Should I call the police? They’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. All I know is, I’m hiding under my covers, trembling from head to toe, trying my best to stay calm.

But beneath me, I swear to God, I can feel my bed breathing.

We took out a thirty-year mortgage on Unit 13B. It was on the thirteenth floor of a newly finished high-rise on the outskirts of Chicago, all pale drywall, cheap oak laminate, and wide double-hung windows that looked out over a gray grid of strip malls and drainage ponds. We moved in together as an extended family—my older brother Mark, his wife Clara, their two kids, my mother, my teenage sister, and my wife Sarah. It took everything we had saved up to secure the down payment, but standing in that empty living room on move-in day, watching the late-afternoon sun hit the walls, it felt like we’d finally pulled our lives together.

The odd things started small enough that you’d feel stupid mentioning them out loud. The elevator never worked when I stepped inside. If anyone else in my family got in with me, the doors would slide shut, shudder, and refuse to budge until I stepped back out into the lobby. I’d take the concrete stairwell thirteen flights up while they rode up smooth and quiet. My phone camera glitched, too, but only on my face; whenever someone took a picture of me inside the apartment, my features smeared into a streak of digital noise, while Mark and the kids showed up pin-sharp. Milk curdled on the stove three days in a row before it even reached a simmer. We laughed it off as bad wiring and spoiled dairy. You have to rationalize things like that when you’ve already signed the deed.

Then the television routine started. Around one in the afternoon, my mother, Clara, and Sarah would gather on the sectional to watch a daytime soap called All Is Well. None of us had ever heard of the network or the show before, but the women got hooked immediately. It was shot on standard digital video, flat lighting, cheap sets, about an extended family living in a suburban home.

I didn't pay attention until a Tuesday afternoon when I stayed home from work with a migraine. I came out of the bedroom to get water while the show was running. On screen, the mother was arguing with the daughter-in-law over a chipped ceramic bowl, and the daughter-in-law dropped it on the linoleum. Not ten seconds later, Clara fumbled a soup bowl in our kitchen, and it shattered in the exact same pattern.

At first, I told myself it was a coincidence. But the next day, the television family sat around a dining table celebrating the younger brother’s sudden promotion at an engineering firm. Two hours later, my boss called me on my cell and offered me a senior project manager position with a thirty percent raise.

I started watching the screen with a sick, cold feeling behind my ribs. The television family mirrored ours person for person. The actors didn't look like us, but their roles, their clothes, their private arguments, and their schedules matched down to the minute. Whatever happened on their screen at one in the afternoon happened in Unit 13B by five.

I checked with the building super and the cable provider. Nobody else in the building could find the channel. When I brought a small portable TV into the apartment and plugged it into the bedroom wall, the show played there too, but the moment I carried that same set outside our front door into the hallway, the screen dissolved into dead static.

The turning point was the hammer. On a Thursday broadcast, the television husband bought a heavy, rust-spotted framing hammer with a notched wooden handle and set it on the workbench in his garage. The next afternoon, Mark came home from a neighborhood flea market, dumped his tool bag on the counter, and pulled out that identical hammer. When I asked him why he bought it, he just shrugged and said it looked sturdy.

I reached out to my friend David, a sergeant in the county police department. I didn't tell him everything—I couldn't without sounding like I belonged in a psych ward—but I asked him to run a property records search on the land our building sat on. He pushed back, told me I was obsessing over stress, but he agreed to look into the county archives.

What he found made my blood go cold. In 1977, an old single-family brick house stood on the exact plot where our building was constructed. A family of eight lived there. On a rainy night in November of that year, all of them were systematically beaten to death in their beds with a framing hammer. The only survivor was a distant relative, a man named Robert who was arrested covered in blood, but the prosecution botched the chain of custody and the case eventually fell apart due to lack of hard evidence. Robert had vanished decades ago.

David called me back two days later after digging through microfiche of old newspapers. He sent a scanned black-and-white photograph of the murdered family to my phone.

They were the cast of All Is Well. Every single actor on the screen was a dead ringer for the people murdered in that house in 1977.

I sat in my car in the parking lot, staring at the screen of my phone until the battery ran low. The show wasn't predicting our future out of nowhere; it was reenacting their slaughter, and our family had been cast in their places.

The broadcasts escalated rapidly. On Monday, the television wife announced she was pregnant, and that evening Sarah came into our bedroom holding a positive test strip, crying happy tears that made my stomach turn to water. On Wednesday, the show’s younger sister secretly met a man in an alley behind a diner; that night, my teenage sister told me she’d started seeing a guy she met online and begged me not to tell Mark. On Friday, the television plot turned dark: the family members began turning on one another, screaming accusations, the father locking the deadbolts from the inside.

The finale was scheduled to air the following Monday.

I couldn't wait. I spent the weekend scouring regional property databases, tax registries, and voter rolls, looking for any trace of Robert. By Sunday night, cross-referencing old aliases against county utility connections, I traced an address out in an unincorporated rural pocket sixty miles south—a solitary trailer on a gravel lot.

I drove out there in the pouring rain. The man who answered the door was frail, stooped, with clouded cataracts and shaking hands. When I mentioned the 1977 killings, he didn't run or get angry; he started weeping. He told me he hadn't killed his family. He had loved them. He said there was another man back then, an obsessed family friend who had spent months inserting himself into their lives, a man who worked as a television repairman and lived in their basement until they tried to kick him out. The police had pinned it on Robert because he was found holding the hammer, trying to pull it out of his brother's skull. The real killer, the repairman, had slipped away in the rain and never been named in the press.

Robert pulled an old manila folder from under his mattress. Inside was a faded, water-damaged photograph from the summer of 1976. The family was standing in their front yard, smiling. Standing slightly off to the side, wearing a mechanic’s jacket and a stiff, hollow grin, was David.

Not the David who was my friend, but the man he was decades ago. The resemblance was undeniable. The same flat eyes, the same crooked collarbone, the same set of the jaw. He hadn't aged naturally, or he had returned under a new identity, or something worse—he had stayed close to the ground, watching the land, waiting for the cycle to reset.

I left Robert's trailer and drove back toward the city at ninety miles an hour through the rain. My phone buzzed in the cup holder. It was David. His voice was completely steady over the speaker, asking where I was, telling me he had dropped by Unit 13B to check on Sarah and the kids because Mark had called him saying I hadn't come home.

I reached the high-rise just after one in the afternoon. The storm had knocked out the streetlights along the block. I sprinted into the lobby, threw open the heavy fire door, and took the concrete stairs three steps at a time. My lungs were burning, my boots skidding on the cold steps.
When I burst through the thirteenth-floor fire door and ran down the hall to 13B, the apartment door was unlocked.

The living room was dim. The television was on, the blue light washing over the furniture, volume turned all the way up. On the screen, the killer had already entered the house. He was holding the hammer. He had Mark pinned against the kitchen counter. Clara and the children were screaming from the back hallway.

I dropped my keys and ran into the kitchen.
David was standing over Mark, the wooden handle raised in his grip. Mark was on the floor, bleeding from the temple, struggling to hold David's wrists. In the hallway, Sarah had the kids pulled behind her, backing against the bathroom door.

I tackled David into the dining table. We went down hard against the laminate floor, knocking the chairs over, tearing through drywall. He was sixty or seventy years old on paper, but when his hands grabbed my throat, his grip was like an iron clamp. He didn't say a single word. He didn't yell or taunt me. His face was completely blank, his breathing slow and rhythmic, like he was performing routine maintenance on a piece of machinery.

My hand swept across the floorboards until my fingers closed around the hammer that had dropped during the fall. I brought it up with everything I had left.

It hit his shoulder first, then I struck again, catching him along the side of the jaw. He collapsed sideways onto the rug. I didn't stop until he stopped moving.

The police arrived twenty minutes later, called by the neighbors who heard the screaming through the vents. They took David's body away in a black vinyl bag. Mark was taken to the hospital in an ambulance; he had a severe concussion and three broken ribs, but the doctors said the skull hadn't fractured.

After hours of interrogations at the precinct while technicians sealed off the blood-soaked unit behind yellow tape, we knew we could never step foot in that place again. We never went back for our furniture, our clothes, or our kitchenware. We surrendered the deed to the lender, took the hit, and walked away from every dollar we had put into the down payment. We rented a split-level house two hours away, out in the suburbs, with a dirt yard and trees that actually grow in the ground.

Mark recovered. Sarah gave birth to a healthy girl seven months later. On the surface, the family went back to normal. We don't talk about the apartment, and we don't keep a television in the living room.
The only thing that didn't go away was my phone.
A month after the move, I sat on the porch while the sun was going down and opened the camera app to take a picture of Sarah holding the baby on the lawn. The screen resolved their faces clearly, soft and bright against the grass. Then I flipped the camera around to my own face.

My eyes and mouth were gone, smeared across the glass in the exact same streak of digital noise, completely static, completely unchanged.

I live alone in an old farmhouse twenty minutes outside a town that barely qualifies as one. The nearest neighbor is over a mile down a gravel road that turns to mud every time it rains. Cell service dies at the end of the driveway. The landlord lives in another county and only comes out if something is actively on fire.

At first the quiet felt like the whole reason I moved here.

Then the house began settling in ways it never had before.

It started with the pipes. A soft, rhythmic knocking that traveled through the kitchen wall, into the narrow hallway, and stopped directly behind wherever I stood. If I moved, it waited. If I stayed still long enough, it answered with three slow taps, as if confirming I was still there.

I blamed the age of the place. Expanding wood. Temperature swings. The usual explanations people invent when they live this far from anyone who could tell them they’re wrong.

Then it learned my habits.

I talk to myself when I cook. Small, useless comments that used to disappear into the empty rooms. One night I muttered “Where did I put the salt” and, from inside the wall beside the stove, something tapped twice; Exactly where the salt canister sat on the shelf!!

Two days later I was searching the linen closet and said, without thinking, “I know I have more in here somewhere.”
Three light, evenly spaced knocks answered from the precise shelf where the extra towels were folded.

I stopped speaking out loud.

It made no difference.

The house began answering the things I only thought.

I would reach for a glass and hear a single tap behind the cabinet a second before my fingers closed around it. I would hesitate in the hallway and the floorboard three feet ahead would creak once, as if the decision had already been made.

Last week I woke at 2:14 a.m. to the sound of something large shifting its weight inside the wall that runs along my bed. Not scratching. Not animals. Something patient, testing the plaster from the other side. When I held my breath, it held still. When I exhaled, it moved again, matching the rhythm of my breathing exactly.

I pressed my palm flat against the wall.

Something on the other side pressed back.

The pressure was warm.

In the morning a perfect handprint remained in the dust on the outside of the wall, level with where my hand had been. The fingers were longer than mine. The palm was wider. It looked as though the plaster itself had softened just long enough to take the impression and then hardened again.

I called the landlord. He told me he would send someone “when he could.” No one came. The nearest hardware store is forty minutes away. The nearest person who might actually listen is farther than that.

I started sleeping in the living room with every light on.

It does not like the lights.

When the bulbs are burning it retreats deeper into the walls, but I can still hear it relocating—soft, deliberate rearrangements, the sound of something heavy being dragged through spaces too narrow to hold it. Sometimes it simply waits just behind whatever surface I am closest to. The plaster there feels slightly warmer than the rest of the room.

Two nights ago I did something irreversible..

I stood in the center of the living room and whispered, “What do you want?”

Silence stretched until it hurt.

Then a single, clear knock answered from the wall in front of me.

I asked again!

This time the answer came from the wall, the floor, and the ceiling at once—three knocks in perfect unison, so tightly layered they almost sounded like one sound.

Since then the house has grown busier.

I hear it measuring the last rooms I have avoided. Soft presses against the plaster. Careful shifts of weight. The low sound of something slowly unfolding itself into cavities that were never meant to contain it.

Last night I noticed the first real change.

The original handprint on the bedroom wall is gone.

In its place is a second print, smaller, the exact size and shape of my own left hand. It is pressed deeper into the plaster than the first one ever was, as if whatever is inside has begun practicing the fit.

This morning I found a third print..

It was on the inside of my bedroom door, at the exact height where my hand rests when I close it. The fingers matched mine perfectly. The only difference was that the print was made from the other side of the wood—from inside the door itself.

I have stopped sleeping!

Every time I close my eyes I feel the walls breathing in time with me. The rhythm is no longer matching mine. Mine is matching it.

An hour ago I tried to leave!!

I unlocked the front door, stepped onto the porch, and immediately heard three slow taps from the hallway behind me; Exactly the same pattern it has always used to confirm my presence!

I turned around.

The hallway was empty..

But the front door was already closed..

I do not remember closing it.

Outside, the gravel road disappears into fog so thick the trees look like unfinished sketches. There is no sound of cars. No porch lights in the distance. Only the dark and the house waiting behind me.

I am writing this at the kitchen table with my back against the only wall that has not yet answered.

The rest of the house is no longer quiet.

It is listening.

And I finally understand what it has been measuring all this time.

It was never learning the shape of the rooms.

It was learning the shape of me.

The final handprint appeared five minutes ago, directly in front of where I am sitting. It is the exact size of my right hand. It is still warm. And when I place my own hand over it, the plaster softens just enough to let my fingers sink in to the exact depth of the print already waiting there..

as if the wall has been holding the space open for me the entire time,and has only now decided I am ready to fit...

What should I do..?

I need to know if the same thing happened to you. And if you live anywhere in Pruitt County, I would like to hear from you too.

My sister Dana got married today. She’d been firm about it being adults only, no kids, for months, mostly because of her cousin’s toddler. It’s the one decision of hers I will never complain about again.

I almost didn’t go. Last night, my boyfriend, of 1 year and eleven months, told me, over Chinese takeout, that he “just didn’t see us growing old together.” He ate the rest of our noodles before he left. I also want that on record.

So I spent Saturday morning in front of a mirror in a green bridesmaid-adjacent dress I’d bought for this exact day, looking like a boiled vegetable. But it was for my sister so I did my face, drove out, and I made the best plan I could think of. I would sit through the ceremony, say something nice, then fake a migraine before the reception and go home to my couch.

The chapel was small and white, with a steeple that looks like it was added as an afterthought. Inside, it’s one long room, cheap drywall painted cream, narrow windows, two iron candelabras by the altar. About a hundred and twenty people. And couples everywhere. Holding hands, heads tilted together, a woman fixing her husband’s tie without looking at it. I hated every one of them.

The Reverend was forty minutes late. Dana’s maid of honor whispered that he’d been marrying people all over the county since sunrise. It’s a small county but I guess this is his busy season. When he finally showed up, Reverend Ambrose was a tall man with a crewcut and a smile that went a little too far across his face. He shook hands like he was closing on a house.

Then he took Tyler into the side room for a “final prayer.” Another twenty minutes. I sat there with my jaw tight, checking my phone, rehearsing my migraine. When they came out, Tyler had a red thread tied around his left wrist. His lips looked stained, like he’d had wine.

Then the ceremony started. I was annoyed seeing the groomsmen and bridesmaids enter arm in arm. They all were fake laughing as if they were real couples. Looking into each other’s faces as if they really cared at all.

But then Dana came out and I remembered why I was here in the first place. She was really beautiful. I noticed that she also had a red string tied around her left wrist. She held it up in front of me and mouthed that it was, “Good luck.” I remember thinking it was sweet. I remember thinking a lot of things that day.

Then the Reverend did the usual wedding speech. My attention drifted in and out as he rattled off bible verses and talked about marriage like he was trying to sell it to me. “The best decision you’ll ever make.” “Zero regrets, folks.” “A lifetime warranty.” People laughed but I didn’t find anything funny.

Then he looked out at the pews and said, “And to those still sitting alone out there, don’t be shy. The Lord has a plan for all of you.” I remember being offended when his eyes stayed on me a little too long.

Then Dana and Tyler said their vows into the same microphone, sharing it, giggling, being sickeningly cute. Then Ambrose asked each of them, slowly, almost tenderly, if they would. Dana said, “I do.” Tyler said, “I do.”

“Wonderful,” said Reverend Ambrose. "Just wonderful."

Then, in the third row, a man named Phil Gaines went pop.

It was not a loud sound. It was a wet little pop, like a water balloon bursting. Phil Gaines was a heavy man in a gray suit, sitting at the end of the pew, and then he wasn’t. In his place was a cloud of pink mist, fine as flour, that spread out across the pews and settled on people’s shoulders and hair. No bits or pieces, just pink everywhere.

Nobody moved. Someone might have laughed, I heard their one short ugly bark. Then someone else screamed and then it sounded like everyone was screaming. I might have been too.

Some people stood up and rushed over. The people who were near Phil stood up and rushed away. There was nothing anyone could do. I wanted to call someone but we had all put our phones in a lockbox outside the chapel.

I got up and made my way to that exit. I wasn’t the only one with this plan because a woman was already trying to open that door when she went pop too.

It was exactly like Phil. Someone yelled for everyone to get down. It made sense to me at the time, so I followed everyone else and we laid prone while trying to crane our necks and see if any of the windows had been shot out.

Then a man in the middle of our group also went pop. There had been no glass breaking. No one from the outside was doing this to us. So, we all collectively got up and ran panicked to different exits. I went straight to the double doors at the back.

They wouldn’t open. The handles turned all the way, smooth, no resistance, and yet absolutely nothing happened. No latch, no lock, nothing to pick. A groomsman put his shoulder into it, then his whole body, then several men helped him carry a pew like it was a battering ram. The wood rang like it was hitting a bell.

Someone threw a chair at a window and it bounced off while breaking the chair’s leg. The windows stayed whole. Through them you could see the Church’s backyard, set up with an Ivy wall, fountain, and other photo op locations. 

People started to get crushed into the doors. I saw my uncle split another man’s scalp with a fire extinguisher he’d ripped off the wall, while trying to smash the glass, and hit the wrong head. The pops kept coming at regular intervals and every time there was more screaming.

Someone got the microphone from the altar. It was Dana, in her white dress, shaking, Tyler beside her. “Reverend,” she said, her voice hitting every speaker in the room. “What is happening?”

Ambrose had not moved from the altar. He was standing with his hands folded, looking pale but easily the calmest man there. “It appears,” he said, “to be God’s will.”

Nobody said anything to that. I’ve thought about it a lot since then. I think nobody said anything because everybody else believed he said the Truth.

With nothing else to do, I started counting. I could at least learn more about what was happening. A woman who’d been Dana’s coworker popped. One, two, three… Sixty-one, sixty-two, then Dana’s college friend Corbin popped. I kept counting.

Next was Tyler’s cousin, a man whom I had never met but had been warned about repeatedly. He also popped about 60 seconds from Corbin. At the time, I felt like this wasn't very useful information. It just told me when to expect my own inevitable pop.

I thought harder, did any of them have something in common? As more people popped, I struggled to remember who they were or even what they looked like. I didn’t know most of the people here. I couldn’t recall them doing anything that attracted my attention earlier.

I looked at the other survivors and saw a lot of faces I recognized, even if I didn’t know their names. I slowly realized all the couples, the ones I’d hated an hour ago, all of them, were still there. Most were still holding each other with their now white-knuckled hands.

I yelled it out loud, “It’s the single people! They are all single!”

It took a second to spread but then it was like fire to dry grass. It was just a guess but all the couples did the math too and realized I might be right, then they instinctively flattened to the walls and away from the single people. I found myself standing in a rough circle full of people who kept popping every minute.

The next few minutes are the part I think about most, because that was when people showed who they were. They grabbed each other. Hands on arms, faces, collars. A man seized a woman he’d never met and shouted in her face, ““You and me. We’re together right? You’re my girlfriend! Right? Say it. SAY IT.” while she cried yes yes yes.

Some of them were gentle. A lot of them were not. Two best friends from the back, Mike and John, who’d come together as friends, grabbed each other by the shoulders and said they were together too, laughing and sobbing at once, and held on.

A man in a rented suit that didn’t fit him was standing next to me, eyes huge, looking at me like he was waiting for a verdict. I didn’t know his name. I don’t think I ever will. “Boyfriend?” I said. “For now,” he said. “For now,” I said. We held hands. His palm was soaking wet.

There was a woman in a red dress who was grabbed by a short guy with glasses. “Ew, no,” she told him, loud enough for the room to hear. She shoved him off and ran down the aisle toward a tall handsome guy in a navy suit, arm out, mouth open to say it. She was three steps from him. She was smiling.

She went Pop.

The handsome man looked at his shoes, which were speckled pink, and then at the short guy in glasses, who had not been touched at all. The short guy in glasses had already found another woman to be his temporary girlfriend. She was holding him around the neck like a life preserver.

Others did nothing. I can’t blame them. It was a long shot but at least we could hope. One by one, the ones who did nothing popped. Then there was nobody “single” left. Everyone in that room had a hand in somebody else’s hand. We stood there, almost a hundred people in a chapel, staring at the ceiling.

I told them all it was about a minute between the explosions. Everyone counted silently. A minute passed and there was no popping. Then another minute. And another with nothing happening.

Someone started crying with relief and then everyone was crying. I didn’t even know most of the people who were gone and I was crying hard. The people who actually loved them, who actually had been excited to see them there were inconsolable.

I looked at the man in the rented suit, whose name I still didn’t know, and he gave me a thumbs-up like we had just finished a group project. I’ll admit it. A little of me was thrilled. I was alive. I was alive in a green dress I hated and it was now soiled with pink that I couldn’t wait to throw it away but at least I was alive.

People went back to working the doors. A few switched partners, quietly, unhappy with the first person they’d grabbed. A divorced uncle of Tyler’s swapped a younger woman for an older one who’d turned out to be, he said, “less scared.” I watched Dana and Tyler walk up to Ambrose at the altar, still in their wedding clothes, and speak to him low and hard. Dana had her finger in his chest. Tyler wasn’t smiling. Ambrose just kept nodding, hands out, soothing. I remember wondering how he’d remained so calm. Whether he’d known beforehand that this would happen.

Then somebody found out they could damage the drywall.

It wasn’t much, a few scratches from the fire extinguisher, a chunk that came away in a man’s hands. But if the walls could be damaged, they weren’t part of whatever sealed and protected the doors and windows.

Within a minute, seven men were tearing at the wall by the east window with keys and candlesticks and their bare hands. Dust everywhere. A hole the size of a dinner plate revealed a strip of studs.

That’s when Mike and John went pop.

The best friends. They’d been pressed into the corner, watching the wall, still holding hands. Mike’s mouth was open to say something. Then they were both gone. Just pink remained.

Nobody screamed this time. We all just went quiet, feeling sick to our stomaches. It wasn’t over.

Another couple went next, one of the ones I had hated on earlier in the day. Then the short man and his new girlfriend popped too. My “boyfriend” quickly cornered me, “What’s going on, what do all of these ones have in common?”

I blurted out the first thing I thought of, “They weren’t married couples!” 

It was Dana’s Blonde of Honor who moved first. She grabbed Dana’s elbow and tore her aside, almost knocking the bouquet out of her hand. Then she turned to Ambrose. “Marry us,” she said. “Marry me and Daniel. Right now.”

Ambrose’s smile broke open like a seam. It was the first time I’d seen it look real. “Of course,” he said. “Of course.”

He married them even as another couple popped in the back. Everyone started pushing to form a line in front of the Reverend.

He went through them like a man at a drive-through. “Do you? You do? I do, I do, you’re married.” He didn’t even finish the words. There was a pop in the line and the next couple didn’t hesitate, they just stepped forward and stood in the pink aftermath.

I tried to pull the man in the rented suit with me but he was busy scanning the room. I asked what he was looking for and, in response, he let go of my hand.

“Look,” he said, kind of embarrassed, but not very,  “I think I can do better.”

I didn’t get a chance to answer. He had already turned to a tall redhead in a silver dress, maybe twenty-two, standing next to a guy with a nice watch. He took her by the wrist and said something, pulled her away from the man with the watch, and marched her to the line. She didn’t fight it. She looked scared.

The man with the watch looked angry for a moment but he didn’t chase after them. Instead, he cut further up the line, butting in to take another woman. This time, she pushed him back and her partner lined up a punch but only hit pink as the man popped.

I was alone again. I could feel it in my chest, like standing on the edge of a roof. I was going to pop soon.

Someone touched my sleeve. A guy my age, brown hair, dust on his nose from the wall. I’d seen him earlier with his date, who’d left him fast to stand with her cousin. He looked at me, and then he said, slow and clear like he’d practiced it, “I would feel lucky on any day to marry you.”

I didn’t stop to think. I just said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

We got in line but here is where it got bad.

People had stopped being people. Some were using whatever was close: fists, heels, a hymnal, a shard of the chair. They weren’t trying to kill each other, I don’t think. They were trying to move each other. A woman clawed a man out of a spot near the front. A man threw a pew cushion over another man’s face and hung on.

One of the groomsmen grabbed an iron candelabra. His date had been walking toward the front with a different man, and he swung and hit that man in the head, once. A single sound I will hear for the rest of my life. The man dropped.

The groomsman stood over him, breathing hard, candelabra dripping. His date, the girl he’d been protecting, was staring at him. She was horrified. Then she backed away, found the nearest unmarried man, and said, “You. Come with me.”

The groomsman wasn’t done. He started running down the aisle, candelabra still in his hands, pleading with everyone and no one. “I’m not a bad guy! I’m not! You saw, he was taking her, I just, I’m not a bad guy!”

Pop.

The candelabra rang as it fell on the floor.

All the already married couples were still lining the walls, not wanting any part of it. I saw Dana and Tyler there. Somehow they had found a bottle of sacramental wine and were passing it between them. I thought at least they’ll be safe.

But as more people went pop and the others fought, I saw them crying. I wished so hard that I could just make everything better for them. Instead, Dana revealed the microphone in her other hand and turned it on. I noticed they had ripped off the red string from their wrists when she brought the microphone to her lips.

“He told us,” she said, to the room drunkenly. Her mascara had run down her cheeks. “He said there was a ritual to bless our marriage, it was supposed to be good luck. You do it before. We did it before.” She waved her wrist. “He said it would protect us. We thought it was cute. We’re so sorry. We’re so sorry.”

The room went very quiet. In the line, in the aisle, on the floor, almost seventy pairs of eyes turned to Reverend Ambrose.

Ambrose didn’t deny anything. He stood at the altar, and just beckoned the next couple.

The married couples, including the ones he’d just joined, the ones who’d made it, flew at him with their hands and their shoes and the candlesticks. The couples still waiting in line tried to hold them back, shouting, “We need him! We need him! He has to marry us!”

It turned into a pile. I couldn’t see the Reverend in it. I could hear him, though. I could hear him  laughing until he didn’t.

Then it was over. He was dead on the altar steps, and the people who’d done it stepped back with blood to their elbows, staring at each other. They’d killed a man. They’d done it together, and I’m sure they felt like they had won.

Pop.

A couple at the edge of the crowd. They’d been the next ones in line, to be married by Ambrose. Pink mist while his body was still warm. Nothing had been stopped.

I looked around at the people who were left and at the man beside me. There were maybe fifty of us. Half of them were in the line, and the line had just lost the man who ran it.

Someone shouted, “Is anyone else ordained? Anywhere? Any religion?” Nobody spoke up.

I had been watching Ambrose all day. I remembered how he’d said it. “I do.” Every time, he put a little weight on those words. He said them like a salesman says sign here. He’d said it to Dana, and he’d said it to Tyler, and he’d said it to every couple in the line before he skipped the rest of his spiel, and I realized he’d never stopped saying it.

I turned to the man next to me. “Trust me,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

“Do you?” I said.

He looked at me. He had very dark eyes, and I could see him deciding. “I do,” he said.

“I do,” I said.

Nothing. No flash, no chime, no change in the room.

I shouted it to the others. “It’s the words! You don’t need him! Just say it! Say I do!” Some of them heard. A few couples near me grabbed hands and said it, scattered, trembling. The rest were too far away, too frightened, still shoving toward a dead man’s altar.

The ones who didn’t say it went pop until everyone had said it to everyone else. The pink was so thick in the air that I could taste it. It was sweet. I don’t know why that’s the part that still gets me.

And then it was quiet again. And again we thought it was over.

We waited. A hand squeezed mine until my fingers went numb. One minute. Two.

Pop. A couple by the wall. Married, the both of them.

The thing I hated most about this whole ordeal is that as much as I tried to figure out, I could never tell when I was right. I could only tell when I was wrong.

Everyone started guessing. Maybe it’s a quota. Maybe it’s a number. Maybe it only wants so many left. My grandparents, Ruth and Walt, who had been married fifty-eight years and who were sitting in the front pew because nobody could convince them to leave, listened to all of it with their hands knotted together.

“Maybe there's a quota,” Grandpa Walt said and Grandma Ruth nodded. They looked at each other. I watched them figure it out. I started to run toward them and Dana started to scream.

“We divorce,” Grandpa said, loud and clear. “I divorce you, Ruth.”

“And I divorce you, Walter,” said Grandma. She gave a little shrug, that’s that. “Go on, then.”

They didn’t let go of each other’s hands. They didn’t have to. Maybe six seconds later, they were gone. And somehow, I knew while they’d done exactly what they meant to do, that it hadn’t helped anybody.

Dana and I grabbed each other and made sounds I could only describe as a heart breaking.

We slumped to the floor but I never stopped trying to think as more pops sounded. I didn’t bother counting the seconds anymore, but I was sure it was speeding up. Instead, I focused again on who was going.

Uncle Rick, who’d slept with half the county. Gone. A man who’d been rumored to have two families. Gone. A woman from the groom’s side who had been seen kissing someone else’s husband in the parking lot. Gone. Couples who had been married by Ambrose, Gone, Gone, Gone.

The man in the rented suit, who I had held hands with an hour ago, was across the aisle with his silver-dress wife. I heard him say, to her, flat and cold, “I told you to stand there.” She said something back, and he said, “Don’t talk to me like that. I picked you. You should be grateful.” She was crying.

Pop. Both of them.

I saw his partner’s expression, just before. I think she was actually relieved to feel like it was about to happen.

They’d said the right words, the ones popping now. They’d either gotten the ring, or the “I do” but now they were going and I couldn’t believe it was at random.

I said it to the man next to me, while shaking, “It’s not the words. Not only. It’s whether you mean them.”

He didn’t answer for a while. Then he said, very quietly, “I don’t know anything about you.”

“I know,” I said. I laughed, once, in a way that hurt. “I don’t know you either. I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t love you. I’ve known you for forty minutes.”

“Jamie,” he said. “It’s Jamie. In case that matters.”

“Okay. Jamie. I’m Dawn.” I had to say something true, and it came out stupid and slow. “I think what it, whatever it is, what it wants is, a good marriage.”

“How can two strangers show that to each other? Especially under these conditions.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But I want to try. I’ve never been married but even so, I think a good marriage just means that both people are trying.”

“I hear you,” said Jamie. His voice cracked a little. “I can try. I can promise to try and be the best husband for you.”

“I’ll try to be the best wife too,” I said.

We held hands, and I won’t pretend it wasn’t terrifying. Then he kissed me, or I kissed him, I honestly don’t know. It was a real kiss. It was awkward and salty and it went on a while, and beside us the couple who’d been kneeling there, an older man and his wife, burst into pink.

The mist hit us in the face. We didn’t let go.

After that there was nothing. We counted. We counted to five minutes, then ten. A groomsman said, “Is it…” and a woman said “Shh.” Nobody breathed.

But yeah, that was the end of it. The only people left in that church were the ones who actually meant it.

The doors could open again.

I mean they were just doors. Jamie put his hand on the handle, and it clicked, and it swung out into plain evening and the smell of cut grass. Someone behind us started to sob. There were twenty of us left. We all stood in the doorway not wanting to go first.

Between the drinking and crying, Dana couldn’t walk. Tyler could also barely stand. So Jamie took one of Tyler’s arms and I took Dana’s, and we walked the two of them down the church steps like people leaving a funeral. Dana’s head lay on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” I said it wasn’t her fault and I think I still believe it.

The street in front of us was full. Too full. Many of the cars were open. The ones that weren’t had pink film on their windshields. A man’s bicycle lying on the sidewalk, covered with pink. A little farther, the light at Main and Fifth was green, but nothing moved through it.

It hadn’t been just the chapel. Whatever Ambrose had been doing, he’d been doing it all over the county, all day. Marrying people. “Blessing” them. Tying red thread over who knows how many wrists. I don’t know how many weddings that was so I don’t know how much of the county is left.

We drove into town in Jamie’s truck, with Dana and Tyler asleep in the back. We’ve found messages that survivors are to meet up at the local grocery store so we’re headed there now. I’m in the passenger seat typing this on my phone with the heat on and the radio off. I don’t have an explanation for the radio. It just doesn’t play.

There is pink mist everywhere.

I like Jamie. I like him more than I’ve ever allowed myself to like anyone before. He’s looking half dead in the driver’s seat, he’s got drywall in his hair, and every few minutes I find myself looking at him and bracing. I can’t help it. I keep waiting for the pop. I keep asking myself, do I mean it. Do I mean it now. And now. And what about now.

I’m scared that someday the answer will be no, and I’ll find out the way everyone else did.

One more thing. Dana showed me her wrist an hour ago. The red thread is gone. But there’s a line where it was, thin and red, like a scratch, like it’s tied under the skin. It feels warm to the touch. I don't think it's truly over yet.

So, if you live in Pruitt County, say something. If you live anywhere else please tell me this didn’t travel any further than here. I don’t know how many people would be left if something like this went global.

And if you’re married or going to be, and you’re reading this, and you feel something tighten when you think about the vows you took or are writing, I don’t know what to tell you. Just be honest. Please, be honest.

And please, reach out. I’ll be checking my messages

“Is this some sort of fucking joke?” He said before grabbing my collar and pinning me to the edge of the house.

“What the fuck is your problem, dude? Let me go!” I shoved him just hard enough for his grip to give out. 

“You waste my fucking time? Two hours of work for some prank or something? JOHNATHON, PUSH THE DIRT BACK IN!” he yelled, calling to his colleague who was operating a front loader.

“What are you talking about? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I already paid you guys! Don't push that dirt back in!” I yelled back. Too little, too late. It took two hours to dig about a fifth of what I needed. I estimated about 10 cubic yards was pushed back into the hole within 5 minutes. All that work, gone.

“We are leaving, and if you call my company again, I will cave your fucking head in. Do you understand me?” He said, sticking his rigid, callused finger on my sternum. I backed off; he had 3 inches of height and about 80 pounds of weight on me. Honestly, I was surprised I was able to push off his initial collar grab. 

They backed their equipment out, leaving only the remnants of disturbed topsoil and tire tracks. 

“HEY, WHAT DID YOU SEE? DON’T LEAVE! WHAT ABOUT MY MONEY?” I yelled back, only to be met with a middle finger and a wad of cash being thrown out of his truck.

I’ve been trying to dig a hole to install an in-ground swimming pool for some time now. I foolishly thought I could start the digging process by hand; the shovel I purchased barely even scratched the ground before it simply stopped wanting to move. I really wanted this pool to be done by winter; I had plans to install a pretty beefy heater and a nice glass enclosure for it. Unfortunately, fall in Montana this year was far colder than usual. 

The first contractor I hired took all the precautions before digging. He got the plans for the house, made calls to the city, and called the local internet providers. No sewers, no foundations, no expensive fiber optic cables; it was a perfect place to put a pool. I negotiated a fairly reasonable price, though there was an upcharge for the time constraint and worse-than-usual dirt conditions. He worked solo, using a small front loader that was similar to the one the second contractor used. He made good progress on his first day and told me he’d be able to finish within the next two days. Unfortunately, I was visiting family in Vermont, so I was out of town after his first day. I paid him upfront and told him to call me if he needed anything. 

When I got back from the trip, I expected to see a pool-sized hole in my backyard- how foolish. I walked through my back gate and saw only disturbed topsoil and a small envelope filled with the cash I paid him on the table. The envelope had pencil writing on the back, letting me know: do not call me again, do not contact my work, stay away from me. 

As you know, the second time did not go any smoother. At least the first guy gave me part of the payment back. After the second attempt, I was less worried about getting the pool set up and more curious about what kept driving them away. I went through the permits and housing plans more than three times; there should be absolutely nothing there. Maybe a sewer line setup that wasn’t properly documented? I feel like they would have just told me I had a pipeline there. 

I was going to give it one more shot; I really didn’t have the extra funds or experience to rent my own toploader, so I ended up going back to Craigslist. Please come dig a pool in my yard. Contact me for details. 

To anyone who contacted me, I decided it would be best to send them a quick paragraph. Hi! Thank you for your interest in helping me. I am looking for someone who either owns or knows how to use a front loader. My address is [----------], and the price is up for negotiation. Before you accept, I would like you to know that 2 contractors have started digging but randomly quit the job midway. I do not know why this is happening, but at this point I am desperate to know. If you accept this job, I will be hovering over you while you work to see what is going on. I know this is strange, but that's why the price is negotiable. 

What started as 4 initial messages resulted in 3 ghosts and one acceptance. Two days later, Michael showed up at my house. He had brought his skid steer, which was smaller than the last two machines but able to be towed via a trailer.  Michael seemed nice and was surprisingly understanding of my situation. He requested half upfront and half after, which I was happy to do. 

Work began that day, with Michael setting up outlines and stakes around the would-be hole. He managed to dig the first 2 feet of the pool before we decided to call it a day. Only worked about 6 hours, but it was already 6 hours out of my weekend I wouldn’t get back. The novelty of seeing a big machine tear the ground up only lasts for the first two hours; the rest of it is just the agitating sound of the hydraulics.

Day 2, we decided to start much earlier in the day and try to knock the rest of it out. We both had other jobs during the week and wanted to be done with this side project. The rest of the digging was much faster after getting past the initial permafrost. What was done in an hour before was cut to about 30-40 minutes. I patiently sat in my lawn chair, careful not to get too close to the edge, while Michael continued to carve into the ground. I was confident he had made more progress than the second contractor had. 

At 6 hours in, I was getting ready to start preparing us a late lunch when I heard the sound of the top loader's bucket hit something metallic. Being 40 feet away, I was immediately able to tell that whatever he had hit was solid metal.  

“YEAH, SOMETHING'S HERE. GRAB A SHOVEL,” He said over the engine.

I grabbed my recently bought shovel and hopped into the pit, now about 6 feet deep at the end. 

“I would keep using the skid steer, but the first contact already dented part of the bucket.” He said, turning the machine off. 

I walked around him, studying where the end of the bucket met the dirt. A rusty pipe? I looked closer; definitely rusty, but the shape resembled more of a small arch. I dug around it, occasionally hitting the shovel end against the metal. It wasn’t long before I could make out the shape. A human hand. Definitely strange, but perhaps an old, hopefully valuable, statue lies in my backyard. 

Michael joined the dig, using his hands to more delicately remove dirt from the surrounding area.

“Here, found the face.” he pointed to the obvious shape of a nose and lips. He proceeded to use his hands to brush off the remaining dirt. 

“What the fuck… what, how did you do this?” He said, voice trembling. 

I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip this time. I ran over to look at what he had uncovered. Right below Michael, sitting just in front of his knees, was a perfect replica statue of himself. Even with the caked rust, it was undeniably his face. Michael stood up. “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, but this is twisted. Look, I am going to take my shit and leave. I am going to call someone right now so I am not left alone with you. Stay in the pit while I leave.”

I wrote this today because I need help. I swear to god I did not make that statue, nor did I bury it. Please, if you have the equipment, come to my backyard and help me dig. 

There is a heavy weight that has followed me all my life, born from a single inescapable moment, an event that occurred deep within the forest reservation behind my childhood home. It was there that I experienced something that no one will ever understand.

The police investigation into my sister's disappearance ended after the coroner's findings. They declared it inconceivable that she'd survive such prolonged exposure to the elements so she was presumed deceased. Yet, despite months of search parties surveying every square inch of those blackened hills, they never found her remains. I’m confident they never will. Only I saw what really happened. The truth is so unbelievable that it’s practically not worth telling. But I assure you, what follows is the exact order of events that led to her death.

To my dearest Samantha, I am sorry.

It was the summer of 83. The unbearable heat led my thirteen-year-old self to go exploring through the mountain forests where fresh springs were plentiful. One afternoon I discovered a particularly lovely pond where large rocks encompassed the edges of the water, perfect for diving off. What I remembered most fondly about that place, though, was the bountiful supply of yabbies that swam through there. My father was quite fond of crayfish, and so it was the afternoon before Father’s Day that I had decided to return to that pond with a net and a bait trap. I intended to go alone but my mother insisted I take my eight-year-old sister. With great reluctance, I did as I was told, and as the sun reached its hottest point above our heads, we hopped the fence and headed out into the forest.

A noticeable element of those hills was the way in which the yearly back-burning of the reservation left the trees scorched and black. After some time the leaves would grow back a bright orange before turning green again a few months later. The orange leaves always reminded me of spitting embers, as if the flames of the back-burning had left a traumatic imprint on the forest’s growth. We were surrounded then by blackened wood and amber treetops, the winding trail towards the pond still a long way yet. And so it was, like all sibling rivalries, that we bickered amongst ourselves in the blazing heat of the summer sun.

That day was so long ago now, it’s hard to remember the exact details of our conversations. What I do remember is how my sister was, always complaining.

‘How much longer? My feet hurt!’

‘We literally just left the house. Are you dumb or are you just fat?’

I wish I hadn’t been so mean to her then, but for her age she was pretty quick-witted with her comebacks. ‘You’re the fat one! I saw all the sandwiches you made. It was a whole tower!’

‘You’ll be hungry later. Then you’ll be begging me for one.’

She was exaggerating, I had only made four. It was a good thing I packed extra that day, though, because there was certainly a lot more walking to do than expected. You see, the deeper we ventured into the woods, the less familiar it began to feel. Begrudgingly, I made the decision to turn back and retrace our footsteps. I must have missed the turn off somewhere.

‘I thought you knew where we were going!’ Samatha whined.

‘I know where we’re going. We’re supposed to turn left at this large rock. It’s shaped like a flying saucer… We should have passed it by now. Do you remember seeing it?’

She shook her head.

And so we turned around and headed back in the direction we came from. It was about a minute after trudging through that same path, however, that I began to notice it wasn’t exactly as I recalled. I could have sworn the trees standing right in front of me were the ones we had just passed but along the ground there were these strange starfish-shaped mushrooms, very similar to the anemone stinkhorn but covered from top to bottom in a blackish goo. They looked like they had burst open, the slimy edges protruding out like wet tentacles. The floor of the forest was filled with them, but we hadn’t noticed them at all on our initial walk through there. Upon seeing them, I began to develop an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. I feared that we might be lost. Perhaps we got spun around.

‘Let’s just take a break for a second, I’m hungry.’ Truthfully, I needed a moment to calm myself. I just didn’t want Sam to worry, so I pulled out our lunch, one sandwich each.

Sam grabbed a stick with the intention of poking the mushrooms.

‘Don’t touch those things. You’ll probably get a disease.’

‘I’m not touching them,’ she countered, and then stabbed one of them deep enough that a dark cloud spat out from its centre.

This made her recoil away from it. ‘Ew! What is that?’

‘Spores. I told you not to touch them. Come and eat.’

She ran back and sat beside me. ‘What are spores?’

‘It’s how mushrooms spread, I think. They’re like tiny seeds which get carried by the wind so they can grow in other areas.’

‘That’s gross! What happens if you breathe in the spores? Does that mean the mushrooms grow inside you?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Just don’t get too close to them.’

I thought deeply for a moment. After following the main road leading up the mountain you turn left into the house which means the house is facing towards the ocean, which is East. We walked in a straight line out the backyard, so we headed west. So all we have to do is head back the other way, towards the coast. Relieved, I pulled out my compass.

The strangest thing, though, is that after straightening it out, the needle spun in a circle. I banged it a few times, being the oblivious child that I was, and of course nothing changed. To this day I only have vague assumptions regarding the sort of electro-magnetic interference that would have caused it to do that. There was something supernatural about that place, something that I will never fully understand.

Admitting defeat, I shoved the compass back into my bag. This was when the initial anxiety began to truly set in. The hinterlands are over 100,000 hectares of dense rainforest. If we continued heading in the wrong direction, we might never make it out, I feared. I tried my best to hide the truth from Samantha. I didn’t want her to worry, so I came up with a plan. For those of you who don’t live in the southern hemisphere, there is a constellation visible in our skies that points true south called the Southern Cross. We had to wait till dark.

‘Hey, Sam.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I haven’t been fully honest with you about this trip.’

She looked up at me with naive eyes. ‘Okay.’

‘We’re not actually here for yabbies.’

She groaned. ‘You dragged me out here for nothing!’

‘No, we’re here for something even better.’

Her face lit up at this. ‘Really?! What?’

‘I heard something about this area of the forest. Apparently, you can see fireflies at night.’ Fireflies are extremely uncommon where we’re from. We had never seen them before, only in American movies.

She stood up. ‘What?! I want to see them!’

‘Yeah, me too. Do you want to camp out here with me? It might not be true, but if they’re out here, we can catch some in a jar for Dad.’

She really loved that idea. And so we set up under a shaded spot, and tried our best to build a shelter, waiting for night to come.

Finally the sun began to set, and tangerine rays of drifting sunlight squeezed through the branches as the lingering hours of the day came to an end. I only prayed that the stars would be visible enough. Sam on the other hand was already peeking through the shrubs around us, hoping to catch an early glimpse of a firefly’s light.

‘It’s too early, Sam.’

‘It should be dark enough to see them by now.’

Well, where are the stars then? I thought, finishing off the last few droplets of our water bottle.

A few minutes later, anxiously waiting, the black of the night had crept in at last. I looked up towards the sky and what I saw caused my heart to sink. The tree tops were nowhere near as thick and far-stretching just moments ago, I know that for certain. They had somehow grown, and had twisted amongst themselves, leaving tight gaps where only endless darkness could be seen. I jumped to my feet, torch in hand.

‘Stay by the camp.’

‘Where are you going?!’ She shouted.

‘I’m just going for a walk. Don’t leave this spot.’

The thought of there being an opening somewhere played in my mind on a loop as I sped through the winding forest. It was the last saving grace. There had to be a way to see the stars. There just had to be. But no matter how far I ran, the tree tops wouldn’t budge. We were stuck, lost in the dense woods, with barely a day’s worth of food.

I headed back towards the camp, the flickering light of the campfire being my guide. At least there was that.

I slumped back under the shelter, the feeling of dread washing over me.

‘Did you see any fireflies?’

‘I don’t think they’re coming, Sam. I’m sorry but I think this was a waste of time.’

She came and joined me under the shelter. ‘Okay…’

We spent the rest of our time disappointed, and prepared ourselves to sleep through the night. I prayed that Mum and Dad would send out a search party to save us. They must be worried sick, I thought. Meanwhile, Sam wanted dinner so I gave her another sandwich.

‘Told you so,’ I said, trying to keep the tone light.

Only she ate then, I told her that I wasn’t hungry. In truth, I knew then that we had to conserve our rations as much as possible.

The following morning is when everything changed. I peeked out of the shelter, bleary-eyed, and set my sights upon the hellish landscape before me. Black. Everything. The entirety of the forest floor had been replaced by that same wet goo emanating from the mushrooms. They were all around us now, spewing puffs of spores. You could see a dense fog in the air, and with the treetops still encompassing the skies, it was as if the forest had trapped us inside a vacuum. An enclosure where the only air supply was what laid beneath the canopy.

‘We have to get out of here!’ I shouted.

‘What’s going on?’ Sam replied, rubbing her eyes as she awoke.

I pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on!’

Swinging the backpack over my shoulder, I wasted no time. Clasping her hand tight, we jumped out of the shelter and headed deep into the forest. The direction didn’t matter. Anywhere at this point. Anywhere but here. But it all looked the same. Everywhere I looked, the same black mushrooms, stretching far beyond. Just blackness, and the fog that accompanied it.

‘Please, Jordie,’ she pleaded. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know, Sam. Something isn’t right!’

‘What do you mean?’

I could no longer hold the fear in. I was physically shaking. ‘What I said about the fireflies last night was a lie. We’re lost. And we need to get out of here. Now!’

‘Are we going to die?!’

‘I don’t- No! No, we’re not going to die. There’s a way out. There has to be. We just need to stay calm.’

So calmed down is what we did. I held Sam close, wiping away the tears from her face. I just needed to think. After all, the fog hadn’t killed us. And breathing felt just fine, perhaps a bit cold in the early forest mist, but otherwise, just fine. That’s when I realised. Find water! If we can find a stream, which the hinterlands were covered with, we could follow it down the mountain which should lead us back out to civilisation.

The only question was, which way to go? I guess it didn’t matter. So further into the forest we went.

‘Why did you lie to me about the fireflies?’ She asked, her tearful eyes shining up at me.

‘Because I was scared. And I didn’t want you to know.’

She was silent.

‘But it’s okay now. We’ll find our way out. I know what I’m doing now.’ I hoped that was true.

‘What is all this? It’s icky! I don’t like it.’

‘Just try not to step in it too much.’

We tried our best to walk along the path, around the wet bulbous things protruding from the ground. I remember having the strangest feeling like we were being watched. But I couldn’t quite place it. We’re alone, I thought. But there’s something otherworldly here. The faster we get out of this place, the better.

We walked along the same sinister black muck for hours. We were getting tired. But I didn’t want to rest. Not until I knew we were safe.

‘Jordie, can we sit down for a bit?’

‘Just a little bit farther.’

‘But I’m tired, Jordie-‘ Which is when I felt her hand slip from mine. She had passed out.

‘Sam!’ I caught her falling body, her weight causing me to tumble to the ground. My hands and elbows were covered black by the tar now. ‘Sam! Can you hear me?’ I shook her body, trying to bring her back to consciousness, which is when I noticed that her skin looked odd. There were red spots all along it, similar to a rash but more organised, like there were patterns across it. Just neatly strategised pieces of dead skin.

She violently awoke. Coughing and heaving. Thank God!

‘Sam, are you alright? Can you breathe?’

She nodded as her coughing finally ceased. Wiping away the drool from her mouth, I helped her back onto her feet.

‘I’m sorry. Let’s just sit for a while.’

It was silent in the forest now. Any bird chirps caused by the commotion had settled. Frankly, it was nice to catch my breath. And I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, I realised. So we rationed out the final sandwich between ourselves, and after another minute, headed onwards through that same old mountain.

I started to feel almost bored after a few more hours, seeing the same black goo stretching on for kilometres ahead. A feeling I’d immediately regret upon seeing the morbid horror splayed out in front of us. It was a flock of birds, lying dead on the ground, as if a healthy nest had somehow collapsed and had fallen from the tree above.

‘Don’t look, Sam. Just keep moving ahead.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘I don’t know.’

It didn’t make any sense. The absurdity of it left me feeling quite sick. I just wanted to get away from it. But I always remember the way it looked. The way it seemed like the remains were being swiftly devoured by the earth around it. And the webbing. That strange mycelium webbing, jutting out from their decaying corpses.

As the day grew on, I noticed that Sam’s pace behind me was getting slower. She was really beginning to struggle under the pressure.

’Jordie, I’m thirsty.’

I was as well. ‘Sorry, Sam. We drank all the water already.’

The dehydration caused by the intense heat of the afternoon had given me a raging headache. We had to be getting close to a stream by now, I thought. Surely. But at this point, the sun was beginning to set again. The most logical course would be to use the final lingering rays of light to build a shelter. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending another night in that god-forsaken place. But we had no choice. Our shelter did well enough for us, but the dampness of all the wood caused by the black muck meant there wasn’t a chance of starting a fire. We spent the first hours of the night cold, hungry, and huddled together under our pathetic camp, praying for sunlight to return.

Sam was coughing, she had been doing a lot of it for most of the day.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘Are you sick?’

Her voice was weak. ‘It’s not a cold. But it doesn’t feel good.’

‘Just lie down for a bit.’ I felt her forehead. She had the most intense fever.

The forest was mostly quiet, save for Sam’s wheezing. Until suddenly, I heard a nearby rustle in the bushes, and hushed her. She did her best to stifle her breath, and the stillness left behind was enough to hear the sounds of something sniffing. We immediately turned to each other. Looking deep into her petrified eyes, I became certain that she had heard the same thing. Something predatory, and big. It circled the outskirts of our camp, persisting as if it was searching for something. It just wouldn’t leave. And then as it got closer to our tent, I could hear the most bizarre sound. A mechanical clicking. Click. Click. Click. It was so unnatural, and yet I was certain that it was something predacious. And it wanted us. I thought there and then that I was about to die. We both did. Then suddenly, for reasons still unknown to me, it sped off like a flash into the woods. I have never been as scared again as I was that night. Sam began crying, and in the dreamy fog of my own mind, I could only think one thing. Please, God, get us home safely.

I didn’t sleep a wink then. Only Sam did, eventually tiring herself out from all the weeping. I just sat there all night long, peeking out of the tent, keeping guard. Without the fire I could barely see what was in front of me, only the abstract foliage illuminated by the dim moonlight. Though, sometimes, my tired eyes would start to hallucinate images moving in the dark, tall monstrous creatures moving about. I was apprehensive. Deep down I knew that if that same animal returned, or heaven forbid something worse, I wouldn’t stand a chance against it. But I couldn’t rest. No matter how sluggish my body and mind became, I couldn’t let the forest take us. And worse still, I began to develop a cough. Just like the one that had been troubling Sam throughout most of the day. I didn’t know then what gloomy afflictions the forest was producing within us, nor how little time we had left before its ghastly symptoms took hold.

Eventually, hours passed and the dawn of the new day had finally crept in, that same shimmering black goo across the forest floor making itself known once again. I peered over at Sam lying next to me, the gentle sunlight revealing her now, and became struck with the gruesome sight of her. She looked like she had the plague. She was covered in pustular overgrowths, and her skin had indents in them, like the skin irritations she had before had somehow festered and were now decaying into blackish wounds. Most terrifying of all, though, were the small strands of mycelium growing inside her, close to the surface of her skin. Tiny roots running alongside her veins. They were popping out of her pores like strands of hair. Every second spent breathing in that toxic air had been slowly eating away at her from the inside out.

We couldn’t wait another moment. I picked her up and hoisted her onto my back. We’re getting out today, I asserted. No exceptions. The alternative was too tragic a thought to bear. I carried her as best as I could, but the lack of water, food, and sleep over the previous days had left me feeble. My legs wobbled beneath me, each step feeling insurmountable, but I had to persevere. I just had to.

‘Everything hurts, Jordie.’

Hearing her painful cries only broke my spirit. ‘I know, Sam. Just hold on.’

I carried on for kilometres ahead, Sam whimpering in my ear the whole time, pleading for the pain to stop. I felt so helpless. I knew that she was dying. I didn’t want to accept the truth but the mutations of the forest were too far along now.

I made it perhaps a quarter of the way up a further incline when my legs finally gave out and we crashed onto the wet ground. It felt so cold. Sam gazed up at me with half-shut eyelids, murmuring quietly. She was saying my name.

‘Sam, I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m trying… I’m really trying.’

‘…Jordie.’

I knew what was coming. ‘Hey, remember that time… when I was really sick. And Mum let you stay home with me? …Remember that?’

She muttered something under her breath.

‘I acted so mad because it was so unfair that Mum let you have the day off school. But really… I was secretly happy about it. I didn’t want to spend the day alone. And you were there for me, but I was so mean to you.’

'…It’s okay.’ She smiled as she said it.

‘I’m here, Sam. I’m here. Please… don’t leave me.’

Her head drifted to the side. I could tell that every word she said was painful for her. ‘I want to see the fireflies, Jordie…’

I could barely get the next words out. For her sake, though, I tried my best to hold back the tears. ‘You have to stay awake to see them. They’re here but you have to stay awake.’

‘…Jordie.’

‘Please, Sam.’

'Jordie…’ Her quiet murmurs faded out like a light. She died in my arms then. The pain she felt had stopped.

Over the many years spent recounting this story, this is the one part I always gloss over. Out of all the supernatural horrors that I experienced, seeing her in that state, the way her soul drifted from her eyes is the one thing that truly haunts me. I collapsed into her, just holding her. It felt like an eternity, just sitting in that desolate place, curled up. I didn’t want to move. But I couldn’t leave her there. I lifted her up, practically dragging myself up the rest of the incline. 

I tried to bring her home, but that’s when the forest found me. The ground shook violently beneath my feet as a heavy gust of wind came flooding across the hills, whistling through the air, sounding almost like a voice. I tried my best to run, adrenaline pumping through my body. Something was coming, but it wasn’t a beast. It was the forest itself. All around me, I could see it. The forest had finally shown its true form. It was alive, and it was staring into me. Eyes everywhere, along the trunks of the trees, and the mushrooms themselves. Just piercing eyes observing my every move. I felt so vulnerable. The canopy above tightened, and the poisonous gas thickened. From the bushes came this wave of rhythmic sound, a skittering across the forest floor. It surrounded me. I couldn’t stop to look but in my peripherals I could make out the source of it. Swarms of large insects, crawling and wriggling towards me. They wanted her. All I could do was keep moving but I wasn’t fast enough. They started climbing up my legs, gnawing into me, acid spewing from their mouthparts, burning my skin. I tripped and fell, and Sam hit the ground. They jumped on top of her. I tried desperately to pull them off, these thick centipede-like creatures with mandibles the size of thread snips. But they were cutting into me. The pain was agonising, and I left her. I wish I hadn’t, but I did. I ran as far as I could, barely able to see what was in front due to the fog.

But then it happened. A burst of blinding light, the ground falling out from under me, and a splash. It was water! And as my eyes adjusted I could make out the familiar shapes. Large rocks encompassing the edges, perfect for diving off. It was the yabbie pond. That stupid yabbie pond that sent us on this treacherous journey in the first place. I couldn’t believe it. All this time we had been wandering in a circle. I swam upstream, hesitating to look back towards the woods, but I couldn’t help myself. And there, just across the pond, peeking out from behind a tree, the beast from the night before. I could hear its mechanical call, the same way it did around our camp. Click. Click. Click. It was a deer. It had antlers like branches towering above its head, twitching in place. And the strangest of all were its eyes. It had four of them, all perfectly symmetrical. The forest had possessed it, mutated its form. Like a predator standing dormant behind a glass window, I knew it couldn’t cross the barrier. It just stood there, watching me. Then it turned and wandered back behind the fog. I was alive, but I didn’t want to be. Not without Sam. I didn’t deserve it, I failed to save her. All I could do was lower my head in shame and cry.

After a while, I swam to the edge of the water, and stumbled back the way that we came, back along the trail towards the house. Strangely enough, I noticed that my fears about the reservation had vanished. The forest had somehow shifted. The entity that controlled the woods, the mushrooms, the creatures, all of it. It was gone. I was just so relieved to see green grass again. I could even feel my throat beginning to clear up.

Then, as the afternoon rolled around and the sun began to set, I was greeted by the most bittersweet sight. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were fireflies. Actual fireflies. They glimmered in the trees around me, levitating like lanterns towards the night sky. They were lighting the way back. I think Sam was trying to guide me, back towards the fence. Finally upon reaching it, I gripped it tight, feeling the smoothness of the wood beneath my tattered fingers. I had made it home.

The events that came after were a mess. I won’t bore you too much with the details of the case. I was hospitalised, psychologically evaluated, and interviewed multiple times by police. They took my clothes as evidence and found small traces of Sam’s blood. Rumours spread of me murdering her but they never found her remains, even after months of search parties. I knew they never would. The entity had left. All the black goo would have dried out, flaking into ash amongst the rest of the charred remains in the forest. Everything else returned to the soil. So it went that the extreme lack of evidence caused her to be ruled as a missing person, presumed dead. Those years were the hardest for me, and my relationship with my parents was never the same after the event. They said they believed me as a child but I know they never did. They were of course grateful I was alive but deep down they always blamed me for my sister’s disappearance. My mother went to her deathbed asking me what really happened. So I thought in her final moments I’d offer her mercy. I told her that Sam drowned in a river trying to save me. She smiled, seeming content with that, and then departed.

To those reading this, heed my warning. Never go wandering deep into the woods. There are things that humans are not meant to see. Things that cannot be reasoned with. They only devour, it is their nature. And they will not hesitate to take everything from you.

I still find it impossible to sleep most nights. The guilt I feel consumes me, and I know that I will always feel this way. If I had been just a little bit stronger, I could have brought her home with me. I had the chance to save her, but I didn’t.

I’m so sorry. I wish you could have seen the pond, and the fireflies, you would have loved them. I wish you could’ve had the chance to grow up alongside me. 

Sam, I wish you were here.

It all started when I moved out due to some money problem, and ever since, I can’t help but wonder about a rule that was imposed on me when at my new place.

Basically, the neighborhood is pretty remote; there are quite a few coyotes in the area, so to ensure public safety, there are some fences and patrols around town, including an old checkpoint that we have to drive through.

The day we arrived, the old police officer stopped us and asked,

“Everything okay? Newcomers? Where did you live before?”

My father, a little embarrassed, simply replied,

“Haha… We’re leaving town because of some money problems.”

“Oh, I see, I see…”

The police officer looked a bit skeptical, but he didn’t hold us up any longer and let us in.

And that’s when I noticed the first strange thing—I’d like to know, have you ever seen a town where every window has a way to close? They all have these automatic blinds, as if they were built right into the house—European-style, the exact same automatic blinds everywhere!

When we arrived at our new house, it was equipped with the same automatic blinds.

...

Later, on the first night, just as I’d finished putting my things away upstairs, I heard my mom complaining downstairs. I went down to see her and ask what was going on.

“What the hell is this crappy remote control?!”

She seemed genuinely angry.

“Are you okay?”

“No, the remote for the curtains is stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Yeah, the curtains close automatically at five to midnight and open again automatically at 6 a.m., and there’s no way for us to control them ourselves.”

“Wow, that’s a really stupid mechanism.”

I thought it was really dumb—was that the case for every single set of curtains in the neighborhood? But what’s the point? Honestly, it doesn’t matter; it wasn’t until later that things got even worse.

...

Two weeks later, I met Timothé and Clarice—two classmates who had been my first friends at my new school—and yes, they had the same problem with those weird curtains. They’d been living here for two years, and they’d never been able to control their own automatic curtains.

So I asked them what they were for.

“Why are all the houses equipped with these things?”

We were coming back from school; Timothé was still finishing his snack, but spoke with his mouth full:

“Apparently it’s for protection—the mayor says the city’s full of thieves.”

Looking surprised, the words just slipped out of my mouth:

“So the solution was automatic curtains? That’s completely stupid, isn’t it?”

“You’re not wrong.”

Clarice had remained silent.

Of course she’d remained silent.

...

And so, two more weeks had passed, and my father received a letter from the city addressed to him. I caught a glimpse of it as I was heading to the restroom just as I saw his face grab the letter with his name and the neighborhood insignia on it.

Curious, I decided to stay and try to find out what it said.

“We are pleased to inform you.... At this time... And that is why....”

I couldn’t make out the exact words, but it was what my father blurted out that gave me the most information.

“Don’t look… the sound of the flute?”

“What does this gibberish mean again?”

My father looked frustrated, but he kept reading aloud despite himself.

“Our homes are specially equipped to prevent this kind of scenario… Don’t force the curtains open when they close, don’t leave your house, don’t respond to whatever’s out there… What is this list of bullshit rules? Is this some prank by city hall? At their age, are they having fun sending this kind of letter to parents?”

And no sooner had he finished reading the letter than he grabbed the doorknob to rush out, slamming the door behind him.

I imagine he’s going to see the city council.

But that evening, a strange urge to investigate arose within me.

...

As night fell, I waited patiently in my upstairs bedroom, and at exactly five minutes to midnight, the sound of the automatic curtains closing echoed through the house.

I had carefully gotten out of bed before leaving my room to check that my mom was asleep; Dad still hadn’t come home from city hall. It wasn’t unusual for him to come home late, but it was still strange since he wasn’t working.

I slowly made my way down the stairs, and in the pitch-black living room, I looked at the closed curtains covering the window that was supposed to offer a view of the street.

My heart started racing at that moment, but I was close to my goal!

So I moved forward into the dim light, getting closer and closer, until I was right up against it. The closed window was right in front of me; it was impossible to see outside.

But my body was urging me, pushing me to see what was on the other side, so slowly, I pressed my ear against the curtain, in the pitch-black darkness of the room.

I hoped to hear something—the letter Dad received did mention a sound, so surely—

A sound

A soft sound echoed

It was far away, very far away, but it undeniably came from the other side of that curtain.

It must have been coming from the farthest end of the street in my neighborhood… Straining my ears, I recognized what was making the sound…

A... flute?

Someone is playing the flute; the sound is getting closer—is it moving?

Why would anyone be playing the flute so late at night?

I’d been standing there for an hour with my ear pressed against the window, and the sound was getting closer; after two hours, it seemed to be right in front of my house.

The melody was so sweet, so soothing—my whole soul felt purified by that divine sound.

But…

That’s strange.

The sound isn’t moving anymore; I can still hear it, but it’s as if it’s stuck right in front of my house.

My curiosity got the better of me—I wanted to see who it was. So I tried to raise the automatic curtain, but the metal was too heavy; I couldn’t budge it at all...

An idea struck me—maybe I could look through the peephole!

I immediately rushed to the door and pressed my right eye against it, but… it was blocked there too, as if a piece of cardboard had been placed right in front of the peephole to prevent me from seeing outside.

Suddenly, the sound started moving again, and slowly drifted away.

The sound faded away until it reached the other side of the street, and a few hours later, at 6 a.m., it had completely disappeared.

...

Today is a new day. I went straight to class with Ehtomit and Eciralc, the friends I made when I first arrived here. It was my way of thanking my mom for letting us move here—after all, life in the city is tough for a mother and son living on their own.

But I wonder, why does Eciralc have such a gloomy look on her face?

“Are you okay? It looks like you saw a ghost.”

My words made her tremble, and she took a few steps back.

“Not again…”

Come to think of it, I have a question: why are all the houses equipped with those weird curtains?

Ehtomit was eating his snack on his way back from school, so I took advantage of the moment to ask him.

“Apparently it’s for protection—the mayor says there are a lot of thieves in this neighborhood.”

“And the solution was automatic curtains? That’s totally stupid, isn’t it?”

“You’re right.”

And of course, Eciralc didn’t say a word.

Of course she didn’t say anything.

She never says anything.

And she never will.

I’ve been working on an oil rig for a couple of years now, and I can safely say that it’s far more dangerous than any other rig out there. We have more casualties and a much higher turnover rate than any other crew I’ve heard of.

When I first arrived, I figured it was just bad luck. Now I know better.

When I was younger, I never thought I’d end up here. I always thought I’d be a successful businessman or the CEO of a powerful company. Not stranded in the middle of the ocean, drilling for oil.

Funny how things work out. I used to think the worst thing about working out here was the possibility of falling overboard.

The only reason I haven’t left already is that I’d have nowhere to go. In all honesty, I only joined because I was in trouble with the police. I almost killed a man. I didn’t mean to—I mean, I did, but I didn’t want to. The man forced himself on my girlfriend, and I freaked out. He even got her pregnant. I’m not a very emotional man, and I’m definitely not violent, but I beat him until he could barely move.

I would’ve killed him. I wish I had. The only reason that man is still walking the streets is that my girlfriend, Adriana, stopped me. She knew it would be over for me if I did.

When the police came for me, I ran. I’ve been on the rig ever since. It’s not glamorous, but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s not half bad. I’ve met some good guys, and I still get to help Adriana and the baby.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the baby. Adriana gave birth to a boy she called Jackson. I know he’s done nothing wrong, but I can’t help seeing the man I beat half to death staring back at me. She loves Jackson more than anything, though. I guess something good can come out of something bad.

I’m sure I would’ve gone crazy if they weren’t there. I wouldn’t be the first to jump into the ocean below in a desperate attempt to end it all.

There have been far too many accounts of men jumping overboard. Good men who jumped without any reason or explanation. They just jumped, all by themselves. I hope their deaths were quick and painless.

I was told they’d lost their minds to the things down below. They said that, at some point, whatever was down there would try to get me, too. It would be like a nagging voice, begging me to jump. Every man had a different experience with it. One said he heard his deceased mother, while another said he heard God. They told me that if it ever happened, I should go to one of the senior crew members, and they would help keep my head above water.

I didn’t believe them. It sounded stupid at the time, just a way to scare the new recruits.

When it did happen, I wasn’t as scared as I thought I would be. The voice was oddly calming and inviting. I couldn’t even tell you what it said to me, but they were the most beautiful things anyone had ever told me.

It told me I couldn’t tell anyone about this, about our little secret. So I didn’t.

For days, it talked to me, whispering sweet promises of a better place than this, and I believed it. It would tell me to stand near the edge and just look out. I swear I could faintly hear music.

Then, one night, it told me I was ready to join them.

I remember walking out onto the railing in the middle of the night, with the voice begging me to jump. If I did, I would be free. I could see Adriana and my baby again. At least, that’s what I thought.

I almost did.

I climbed onto the railing. I was about to vault over when a heavy, gruff voice screamed my name. It was ear-splitting. I felt like a child being scolded. I knew I was doing something bad.

The voice in my head told me to hurry, to jump before the man could stop me from joining them. Panic rose in my throat, and I leaned forward.

Below me, the water was black and cold. If I jumped, no one would find me. That thought scared me more than the thought of staying alive.

I hesitated.

Then thick forearms wrapped around me and slammed me onto the hard deck. My teeth rattled. Something warm trickled down my forehead.

“I told ya to tell us when you hear ’em, ya damn fool!”

The man was livid. My ears rang. I was lost and confused, unable to remember what I’d been doing out there.

I don’t remember much after that. It’s like someone took bits and pieces of my memory. I was told that I’d been in and out of consciousness and hadn’t moved much. They said I’d hit my head pretty hard. I know they were lying.

I think I might have been sleepwalking. I remember lying in bed, then suddenly finding myself in a hallway. I think I was trying to head back outside, but I kept tripping over my feet.

I almost reached the door when a blurry figure, whom I assumed was one of my coworkers, gently guided me back to my room.

Then I remember trying to get out again, only to find the man who’d tackled me standing outside the door. He put me back in bed.

That’s all I really remember.

I haven’t heard the voice since. I’m glad, because I’m not sure I’ll be so lucky if it happens again.

One of my buddies wasn’t.

I’ll call him Bryce. He wasn’t a new recruit or anything, and this wasn’t his first time hearing the voice, either. He’d heard it about four years before I joined the rig. Back then, he’d told one of the older guys, and they’d kept a close eye on him until it passed.

Not too long after I joined, he disappeared.

We thought the voice only preyed on the recruits, so the older guys didn’t need to worry. We were wrong. I guess we assumed that, having heard the voice before, they wouldn’t be so easily tricked again. None of them had heard it more than once, either.

In the days leading up to his disappearance, Bryce acted normally. Nobody suspected he was planning on jumping. Sometimes, though, I’d catch him resting on the railing. I wasn’t too worried about it because I did the same thing.

It wasn’t until one morning that we realized he was missing.

We searched the decks high and low, checked all the places he usually went, and asked around to see when anyone had last seen him. Nobody had an answer. Eventually, we came to the only conclusion we could think of: he must have gone overboard.

One of the first places I searched was his bunk. Lying on his desk were a half-smoked cigarette, a quarter-full beer, and a half-eaten sandwich. It was like he’d just up and left.

The only other option was to search the ocean, so one of the men sounded the man-overboard alarm.

The sound was jarring and almost made me jump. It was the first time I’d ever heard it, and I hoped it would be the last.

Men used searchlights to scan the water below, but we found nothing.

Five minutes went by, and still nothing. People were shouting at each other and pushing past one another. It was hard to think.

Then another five minutes went by. Still nothing.

Then someone shouted, “I found him! I found him!”

We pushed past each other. I only managed to get a quick look at him before being shoved aside.

Bryce was alive.

He was clinging to the crossbeam like a newborn baby clings to its mother. The waves slammed him against the hard surface again and again.

There was no way a search boat could safely reach him. The boat might have crushed him or anyone caught between it and the structure. So we had to use a rescue basket suspended from a crane.

One of the men, whom I’ll call Max, went down to help him, but Bryce didn’t move. Max had to grab him under the arms just to get a reaction out of him.

When they both returned, we were shocked beyond belief. We’d somehow managed to find him alive, shaking but alive nonetheless.

He was a sickly pale color and drenched. The tips of his fingers were dark charcoal, and his eyes were glassy. The medical staff said he was suffering from severe cold exposure.

We brought him into the infirmary, and he didn’t say a word.

The weird thing was that he had no visible injuries apart from the effects of the cold. He had no gashes or wounds, and there was no sign of internal bleeding. Hell, not even a bruise.

Throughout all of this, he just looked shocked. It was like he’d realized he’d done something bad and was afraid someone would find out—or like he’d realized he’d missed something important.

He went home for a while. I’m sure they took him to a hospital, but they never told us much. Honestly, we were surprised when he came back at all.

When he returned, he started speaking again. He said he had no idea what he’d been doing out there. All he remembered was swimming in the ocean and trying to reach for something.

We thought it was one of the pillars, but he swore up and down that it wasn’t.

That was two years ago. I recently asked him about the incident, and he said he had no idea what I was talking about.

I don’t know how he could forget something like that. It was pretty traumatic for everyone.

I haven’t said anything about it since.

That’s all I plan on writing for now. I have more stories to tell, and I’m sure I could get some of the other guys to share their stories, too. Maybe I’ll start with the senior crew members. They’ve been here the longest.

They’ve also been here long enough to know what happens when someone doesn’t listen.

Until then.

[part one]

The penny trick worked for three days.

Every evening before the fog rolled off the bayou, I placed thirteen pennies on every window ledge, the top of the porch stairs, and right outside the front door.

And every night at 2:15 AM, the heavy, wet splashing would start beneath the stilts. The creature would haul its gaunt, eight foot frame up onto the planks, stop dead at the threshold, and begin its agonizing ritual.

One. Two. Three...

I would sit on the other side of the deadbolt with my shotgun resting across my knees, listening to the rhythmic clicking of metal against wood. The beast would count to thirteen, confuse itself, sweep the pile back together, and start over. It was trapped in that loop until the first pale grey of dawn forced it back into the black swamp water.

By night four, I got arrogant. I thought I had solved the monster.

Yesterday evening, exhaustion finally caught up with me. I’d been surviving on two hours of broken sleep a night, jumpy at every creak of the floorboards. As the sun began to dip behind the moss draped trees, I rushed through my routine, laying out the copper coins along the porch by flashlight.

My hands were shaking. My eyes were burning. In my haste, I made a fatal mistake.

On the pile right in front of the front door, I miscounted. I didn't lay down thirteen pennies.

I laid down twelve.

I went inside, locked the heavy steel deadbolts, pulled the window shutters tight, and collapsed onto my cot.

I woke up at 2:14 AM to the sound of heavy iron chains rattling against the porch stilts.

Then came the footsteps. Thud. Thud. Thud. The floorboards groaned under the immense weight as the creature approached the threshold.

I sat up, gripping the stock of my shotgun, waiting for the familiar, agonizing whimpering to begin. Waiting for the slow, mechanical counting to keep it frozen until morning.

Outside, the clicking started.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four...

My breathing slowed. Even in my groggy state, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Silence.

The counting stopped. There was no sound of coins being swept back into a pile. No confused, animalistic whine.

Just a long, suffocating silence that stretched on for ten agonizing seconds.

Then came a sound that made my blood run colder than the bayou water. A wet, ragged exhalation right against the wood of my front door.

It reached the end of the pile. Without the thirteenth coin to break its logic and force a restart, the spell was broken.

The heavy brass door handle slowly turned.

The deadbolt held, but the wooden frame screamed under sudden, crushing pressure. Then came the sound of yellowed claws scraping against the exterior wood slow, deliberate, like a man testing the strength of a crate before tearing it open.

Panicking, I raised the shotgun and fired straight through the heavy oak door.

The deafening blast filled the tiny cabin with gunsmoke and ringing ears. Outside, the creature let out an ear splitting screech half hound howl, half screaming man and crashed off the edge of the porch into the black water below.

I spent the rest of the night pressed into the corner of the room, gun aimed at the shattered hole in my door, praying for the sun.

When dawn finally broke, I crept out onto the porch. The twelve pennies were gone, crushed into flat disks of metal or embedded deep into the wood. But right beside the splintered doorframe, smeared in dark, foul smelling grease, was something else.

A small, jagged slash mark in the door jamb. And sticking out of the wood was a single, long grey hair... and a scrap of torn fabric.

I didn't stay to clean up. I grabbed my keys, ran to my truck, and drove straight into town to the parish chapel. I found Father Thomas sitting in the quiet nave, wiping down the altar.

When I told him about the twelve coins, he didn't call me crazy. He just closed his eyes, crossed himself, and sighed with a heavy, ancient sorrow.

"You don't understand what the Rougarou is, son," he whispered, his voice trembling. "It isn't just a beast from the swamp. It's a soul trapped in a curse of blood and broken vows. It doesn't want to kill you. It wants to be freed. And if it draws your blood before its seven years are up, the curse passes to you."

He looked me dead in the eye.

"If it bypassed the coins, it knows you're vulnerable now. It knows you're tired."

I drove back to the cabin before sunset. I spent three hours re-checking every single pile of pennies with a magnifying glass. Thirteen on the porch stairs. Thirteen on the window sills. Thirteen at the door. I counted them three times over to be sure.

I locked the doors. I turned off the lights. I sat in the center of the dark living room with my back against the brick chimney, shotgun ready.

It’s 2:30 AM now.

The porch is completely silent. There is no splashing in the swamp below. No footsteps on the cypress planks. No counting outside.

Instead, I heard a faint, wet click from the back of the house.

The lock on the floor hatch, the old root cellar beneath the kitchen that leads directly down into the crawlspace under the stilts just slid open.

Right now, from the darkness of my own kitchen, I can hear the heavy, ragged sound of wet breathing. And beneath it, a muffled, weeping voice, softly counting to itself in Cajun French.

Un... deux... trois...

I'm sitting here in the dark, staring at the kitchen doorway. And I just realized... I forgot to put pennies on the cellar hatch.

Part 1

Part 2

The gun was ripped from Max’s hand.

Lauren had come out of nowhere.

The shock snapped Max out of his trance.  Before he could even focus, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him against my chest.  I don’t know how long I held him.  I only know I didn’t want to let go.

That night, I built my fire in the backyard, stoked it until the flames roared, and dropped the Lefaucheux revolver into the garbage can.

I stood there, peering into the inferno.  I watched the gun’s grip blacken and burn, the barrel glowing in the flames.

Nothing is indestructible.

Everything can be destroyed.

I felt relief more than anything.  I was too drained to feel much else.  Maybe relief was all there was.

I had barely slept since Nina died, and the events of the last three days had taken their toll.  I crashed into bed.

But sleep didn’t come.  I tossed and turned with a fever.  My dreams taunted me.

I finally threw off the sweaty covers and sat up.  I switched on the light, bringing the room into view.

On my nightstand was the Lefaucheux – pristine and unscarred, its barrel pointing in my direction.

Fuck.

I was wide awake now.

I jumped back on the computer and fired up the dark web, quickly finding my way back to the “pornographic” chatroom about the gun and the game.

Does anyone know the origins of the gun? I banged out on my keyboard.

The question set off a barrage of competing theories from the game fanatics, each more outrageous than the next.

Soon, people were turning on each other with the gleeful nastiness of childish adults hiding behind anonymity.

Does anybody know how to destroy the gun? I cut in.

The question grabbed the room’s attention.  Why was this newcomer interested in the destruction of the gun? Was he in possession of it?

I thought about lying.  It was nobody’s business.  But I wanted answers, and I was willing to reveal anything to get them.

Yes.

The chatroom exploded.  This was what they had all dreamed about.  Finding the gun and playing the game.  What they wouldn’t give or sacrifice to play.

The offers of money came quickly.  The shameless promises of sex.  Nothing was off limits.

I was sickened by the desperation.  There were no answers here, just depravity.

I was about to log off when a DM popped up on my screen with a gentle chime.

Hi.

Angelo345 wanted to know if I had found the gun or if the gun had found me.  He apologized for prying.

He asked about my emotional state.  He was concerned.

What was I scared of?  What was I angry about?

He was worried about my family.

Angelo345 confessed that the game had killed his brother twenty years ago and that he’d been looking for it ever since.

He claimed to know who had cursed the gun. 

He believed there was a way to destroy it.

I felt a connection with Angelo345.  We had both lost someone we loved to the game.  Maybe together, we could find a way to destroy the gun and end it all.

Angelo345 thought we should talk.  He thought we should meet.  This could all be over soon.

But he had one small request.  He wanted to be upfront.  He’d tell me everything he’d learned during his years of searching for the gun if I promised him one play of the game.

At least he was being honest.

There was something about Angelo345 that I trusted.  Or maybe it was simply that I had no choice but to trust.

I pulled into the parking lot of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Route 17.  It was empty except for an old station wagon parked right in the middle, as if not to be missed.

The light was on inside.  I could see Angelo345 sitting behind the wheel – a middle-aged man, all soft edges. He gave me a friendly wave as I approached, relief on his face that I’d actually shown up.

We shook hands and sized each other up.

I exhaled.  Angelo seemed to do the same.

He was ready to tell me what he knew about the gun.  But first, he wanted to see it.

I returned to my car and retrieved the Lefaucheux from the glove compartment.

The sight of it overwhelmed him.  He’d been searching for it for so long that finally being in the gun’s presence seemed almost like some sort of peculiar religious experience.

“Can I hold it?” he asked me cautiously.

I offered him the gun.

He cradled it as if he were holding a newborn.

“You said you know who cursed it,” I said, impatient to hear what he was so eager to tell me.

“Yeah.  I do.”

Without warning, Angelo’s body stiffened – hard – like his blood had suddenly thickened in his veins.  His eyes glazed over, his stare empty and glassy.

At first, I thought he was having a seizure, but then realized he had cocked the gun’s hammer.

The man hadn’t told me a damn thing yet, and he was already playing the game.

I was pissed.  But more than that, I was unnerved by the shocking theft of his body.  It was like all life and light had been drained out of him.

Was the game real after all?  Was this gun actually haunted?

I hadn’t wanted to fully believe this, despite all the weird and unexplained shit that had been happening to me and my family.

But now, staring at Angelo in this state of... possession, I was running out of ways to deny it.

And there was something else I had to consider: Was this what Nina had experienced when she played the game?  Had her body been possessed in the same way?

The seconds ticked by and I waited.  For what, I wasn’t sure.  Angelo to come back, I guess.

At one point, I worried he wasn’t breathing.  I put my hand near his mouth and felt the faintest whisper of cold breath.

It seemed like a long time, but it was probably only a minute or so.

Suddenly, the hammer snapped forward – click.

Angelo’s body slackened and life slowly returned to his eyes.  He was trembling, shaken by whatever madness he’d just experienced.

“What the fuck?” I yelled.  I wanted an explanation.  We had a deal.

Angelo apologized, his mouth still dry.  He knew there was no excuse.  He’d just had to play.

He started telling me what he’d experienced, unable to get the words out fast enough.

He thought he’d time-traveled to the Civil War because he was pretty sure he’d been wearing a Confederate uniform.  He was standing in an open field, back-to-back with another man.  It didn’t take him long to realize he was in a duel because he started pacing off.

But Angelo wasn’t in control.  Not of any of it.  The body he inhabited controlled everything.  He was just along for the ride.

He said when they got to ten, the body spun around and fired.  The bullet struck the other man in the stomach and dropped him to the ground.

The story was hard to believe – but even harder to dismiss.

One thing I knew for sure was that Angelo had experienced something overwhelming, and I needed to know everything he knew.  Everything he promised to tell me.

“Give me the gun,” I demanded.

Instead, Angelo pulled the Lefaucheux close and tried to cock the hammer again.  I guess one play wasn’t enough.

I grabbed for it.  Our bodies crashed into each other, fighting and thrashing, neither of us willing to surrender.

Finally, I tore it from his grip.  I shoved the gun in his face, threatening a kind of violence I’d never thought myself capable of.

Angelo caught his breath, defeated, then let out a small, sad laugh.

“It’s jammed,” he quietly said.  “The gun doesn’t work.”

I scoffed at the absurdity.  “It killed my daughter.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.  I’m just telling you what I know... what I promised.  The gun doesn’t work.  It hasn’t since 1973.  The year it was cursed.”

“Nina had a bullet in her head.  The gun works.  I wish to God it didn’t, but it does.”

“It works during the game, yes.  But it’s time travel.  The gun fires in the past when it did work, and that can kill someone in the present.  Like it killed my brother.  Like it killed your daughter.”

I made him repeat what he said, even though I had understood him perfectly.

I hated that it was all starting to make a strange kind of sense.  I didn’t want it to make sense – certainly not like this.

In my distraction, Angelo lunged for the gun again, desperate for another play.

I swung at him in defense.  The gun bashed into his head, sending him tumbling to the ground.

The next thing I knew, I was on top of this man without thinking, hitting him again and again.  All Angelo could do was cover his face with his hands.

I finally pulled myself back.  This wasn’t who I was.  I was sickened.

“I lost my daughter…” was the best I could offer.

Angelo wiped the blood from his nose.  He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath.  I think he knew he should’ve been the one apologizing.

“Quintana Hess,” he finally said.  “She’s the woman who cursed the gun.”

“Why?”

“It killed her 12-year-old son.  The gun was just a game to someone, and that game took the one thing she loved most.  Maybe the gun was already cursed to her.”

I understood that kind of bitterness.  I was haunted by it, too.  But I wasn’t someone who believed in revenge.

Then again, I hadn’t thought I believed in curses, either.

It was time to stop fooling myself.

“Where can I find her?” I asked.

“I don’t think the gun can be destroyed,” Angelo admitted.  “I lied before.”

“If someone cursed it, they can uncurse it,” I said.  “Then it’s just another gun again.”

I got the sense that if Angelo ever shared that hope, he’d given up on it a long time ago.

“She lives a couple of hours west.  A town called Loomis.”

I headed for my car.

“She has dementia,” Angelo called after me.  “She won’t be able to help you.  Trust me.”

Maybe.  But dementia or not, Quintana Hess had cursed the gun.  She was my only chance.

I inherited my grandfather's house in upstate New York last autumn. It is a beautiful, isolated property surrounded by dense pine forests. Along with the house came all of his old furniture, including a massive, ancient grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the living room. It was made of dark oak, and the pendulum swung with a deep, echoing tick that could be heard throughout the entire house.

My grandfather was a quiet, meticulous man, but he was incredibly superstitious about this clock. In his will, he left me the house under one strict condition: "Keep the clock wound, and never, under any circumstances, open the back panel."

For the first few weeks, I respected his wishes. The ticking was soothing, a rhythmic reminder of his presence. But as the winter nights grew longer and colder, the house felt increasingly silent, save for that clock. One evening, around 2 AM, the clock abruptly stopped ticking. The silence in the room was sudden and heavy, almost suffocating.

I grabbed the winding key, opened the glass door, and wound the mechanism. Nothing happened. The pendulum remained still. I gave it a gentle push, but it swung a few times and stopped again. Frustrated, I remembered the back panel. I knew his rule, but I figured it was just an old mechanic's quirk. I shined my phone flashlight behind the clock.

The back panel was secured by a small brass latch, covered in dust. I hesitated, my grandfather's warning echoing in my mind. But curiosity won. I flicked the latch and pulled the wooden panel open.

Inside, there were no gears. No brass wheels, no springs, no clockwork mechanisms.

There was only a hollow space, lined with rotting black velvet. Resting inside the hollow was a human skull, wrapped in silver wire, with two polished pieces of obsidian placed in the eye sockets. Written in dried, dark ink along the jawbone were symbols I couldn't comprehend.

I stumbled back, dropping my phone. As the light hit the floor, the clock suddenly shivered. The pendulum began to swing on its own. *Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.*

But the sound was different now. It wasn't the metallic click of oak and brass. It sounded like a wet, heavy heartbeat.

Terrified, I slammed the back panel shut, locked the latch, and pushed the clock back against the wall. I barely slept that night. Every tick felt like it was echoing inside my chest, matching the rhythm of my own heart.

The next morning, I decided I was going to get rid of the clock. I called a local antique dealer, but when he arrived and inspected it, he looked confused. "Son," he said, "this clock doesn't have a back panel. It's solid oak. Look."

He shined his light behind it. The back of the clock was a single, seamless sheet of wood. There was no latch, no seam, no panel.

Since that day, the clock has not stopped. But the heartbeat is getting louder. And last night, when the clock struck midnight, I didn't hear the usual chime. I heard a raspy, gasping breath come from inside the wood, whispering my name. I am sitting in my living room right now, staring at the solid wood back of the clock. I can hear the heartbeat. And I think whatever was locked inside that panel is clawing its way out from the inside.

I manage facilities for a small accounting firm. Three floors, about forty employees, one of those converted industrial buildings where nothing is quite where you'd expect it to be.

Part of my job is organizing fire drills. It's boring. I send an email, people complain about standing in the parking lot, and we all go back inside fifteen minutes later.

Last month we upgraded the building's access control system. The new one tracks how many people enter and leave through the main doors using overhead sensors. It's supposed to help us account for everyone during an evacuation.

The first drill went fine, except the system reported 42 people in the building when we only had 41.

I counted everyone manually. Nobody was missing.

The system, however, insisted one person was still inside.

The installer blamed the sensors. Apparently people walking too close together can confuse them. He recalibrated everything, ran a few tests, and told me it was fixed.

The next drill, the same thing happened.

41 people outside. 42 registered as having entered. One person still inside.

This time I checked the access logs.

The additional entry had been recorded at 3:17 a.m., when the building was closed.

I figured it was the cleaning crew, except they finish around midnight, and the last cleaner had signed out at 12:08.

I pulled up the security footage.

At 3:17, the lobby was completely empty. The automatic doors were closed. Nobody walked past the sensors.

But the little green occupancy number on the security monitor changed from 0 to 1.

I watched it four times.

No movement. No shadows. Nothing.

Our security contractor came out the following afternoon. He was a fairly quiet guy named Dennis who'd been servicing the building for years.

He looked at the footage, checked the sensor housing, and asked whether we'd been getting any false fire alarms.

We hadn't.

He seemed relieved by that answer, which struck me as a strange reaction.

Then he asked if I could pull up the entry records from the previous Friday.

I did.

3:17 a.m. One person entered.

Thursday was 3:17 too.

Wednesday, 3:17.

Every weekday since the installation, the system had registered an entry at exactly 3:17 in the morning.

There was never a corresponding exit.

But the count always reset to zero by the time staff arrived.

Dennis asked if he could borrow my phone to photograph the logs. I offered to email them instead, but he insisted on taking pictures.

Then he asked me something that seemed completely unrelated.

"Do you ever use the west stairwell?"

I told him hardly anyone did. It was the emergency staircase behind the old records room, mostly used during drills.

He nodded.

"Keep it that way for now."

I asked what he meant.

He said there might be a wiring issue and that he'd arrange another visit.

He didn't.

Two days later, I found out he'd requested to be taken off our account.

I called the contractor. They said Dennis was on leave and someone else would be assigned.

I was annoyed more than frightened at this point. We'd spent a ridiculous amount of money on a system that couldn't count forty people.

Then came Friday.

One of the cleaners, Marta, called me at 7:20 in the morning.

She wanted to know whether anyone had been authorized to stay overnight.

I said no.

She told me she'd found a chair in the west stairwell.

Not an office chair. One of the blue plastic visitor chairs from reception.

Someone had carried it down to the landing between the first floor and the basement.

It was positioned facing the fire door.

Marta said there was a paper coffee cup on the floor beside it. The cup was still warm.

I went downstairs to look.

The chair was exactly where she'd described. Someone had dragged it into the corner so it wouldn't block the stairs.

The cup was from the coffee machine on the second floor.

The machine shuts down automatically at 6 p.m.

There was something else.

A small rectangle of clear tape had been stuck to the wall above the chair. Under it was a handwritten note.

"Please wait here until someone comes to get you."

I assumed somebody was playing a prank.

I photographed everything, took the chair back upstairs, and put in a request for a camera in the stairwell.

The request was approved on Monday.

By Wednesday, we had footage.

At 3:17 a.m. the camera recorded something.

I need to explain the layout.

The west stairwell has a fire door on each floor. The camera is mounted above the first-floor landing, looking down toward the basement.

At 3:16, the staircase was empty.

At 3:17, the fire door on the first floor moved.

It didn't open.

It moved inward slightly, maybe half an inch, as though someone on the other side had leaned against it.

Then it moved again.

A little harder.

The door has a panic bar on the stairwell side, meaning anyone inside the staircase can push it open into the first-floor corridor.

Whoever was pushing was standing in the corridor, on the wrong side.

The door moved a third time.

Then a voice said, very quietly, "Is somebody there?"

The camera has a microphone. I didn't know that until I heard it.

It sounded like an elderly woman.

There was a pause.

"Could you open this for me?"

Nothing happened for nearly a minute.

Then came the sound of someone sitting down.

A small plastic creak.

I looked at the empty landing.

There was no chair.

The voice spoke again.

"I can wait."

I went to my boss, showed him the recording, and asked him to contact the police.

He watched the whole thing.

Then he asked whether I'd checked the other camera.

I didn't know what he meant.

He pointed out that the first-floor corridor had its own security camera facing the same door.

I opened that recording.

At 3:17 a.m., the corridor was empty.

The fire door stood perfectly still.

But every time the woman spoke on the stairwell recording, the corridor camera picked up a faint knocking.

Three gentle knocks.

Coming from inside the stairwell.

The same door. The same time. Two cameras recording somebody on opposite sides of it.

I stopped the video.

My boss didn't say anything for a while.

Then he asked me to lock the west staircase until the security contractor could investigate.

We couldn't legally block an emergency exit, so instead we put up signs asking staff to use the east stairs for non-emergency access and arranged for a technician to inspect the door.

The technician found nothing.

That should have been the end of it.

Yesterday afternoon we had a real fire alarm.

Not a drill.

Someone had burned food in the second-floor break room, setting off a smoke detector.

Everyone evacuated normally.

I was outside with the attendance list when the occupancy system reported 42 people had entered and only 41 had left.

One person remained inside.

I counted again.

Everyone was there.

Then I noticed Marta standing beside me, staring at the building.

She was looking at the west stairwell exit.

The exterior door had a narrow vertical window. Through it, I could see the landing.

Someone had placed the blue plastic chair directly behind the glass.

I hadn't seen anyone carry it there.

There was a woman sitting in it.

She was wearing a beige cardigan and dark trousers. Her hair was gray and tied back.

She sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking straight ahead.

I pointed her out to Marta.

Marta grabbed my arm so hard it hurt.

"Don't open it."

The woman behind the glass turned her head toward us.

I couldn't make out her face very well through the wired glass, but I could see that her mouth was moving.

She was saying something.

Marta started walking backward.

The woman raised one hand.

Not waving.

She held up a single finger.

Then she pointed to the people standing outside.

I turned around.

Our employees were gathered near the parking lot, chatting, checking their phones, waiting for the all-clear.

I started counting.

Forty-one.

I counted again.

Forty-one.

When I looked back at the door, the woman was standing.

Her chair was empty.

She had moved right up against the window.

And I could hear her now, even through the closed fire door.

"Forty-one," she said.

She sounded disappointed.

Then, in a much louder voice, she called out, "You're missing one!"

Every employee outside turned toward the building.

And the occupancy counter changed.

42 inside.

41 outside.

Then 43 inside.

I looked at my phone. The system was registering another person entering the building.

But nobody had gone inside.

The woman was still at the window.

She was smiling.

One of the firefighters arrived a few seconds later and asked me whether anyone was trapped.

Before I could answer, Marta said, "No. Everyone's here."

I agreed.

I don't know why, but I was terrified of telling him about the woman.

He went inside with his crew anyway.

They cleared the building and found nobody.

When the alarm was reset, the occupancy counter dropped to zero.

The chair was gone.

I resigned this morning.

My boss thinks I had some sort of stress reaction. He's offered me a few days off to reconsider, but I'm not going back.

I called Dennis, the original security contractor. His number was still saved in my phone.

He answered on the third ring.

I told him what happened.

He didn't interrupt once.

When I finished, he asked a single question.

"Did she count you?"

I said I didn't understand.

"Outside. When she was counting. Did she look at you?"

I thought about it.

The woman had pointed toward the employees. Not toward me.

Dennis was silent for so long I thought the call had dropped.

Then he told me something.

Apparently, the building used to be a residential care facility. It closed in the late eighties after a small electrical fire caused an evacuation.

Everyone got out.

Except one elderly resident who remained in the west stairwell, waiting for a staff member to come back and help her down.

She was found the next morning.

Sitting on a chair.

Dennis said the strange activity had happened before, years ago, when a different company installed occupancy sensors.

He said they eventually removed them because the system kept registering people who weren't there.

I asked what any of this had to do with whether the woman counted me.

He said he didn't know for certain.

But the last technician who reported seeing her had described almost exactly what I had.

She'd counted the people outside.

Then she'd asked someone to come back for the person who was missing.

That technician had opened the door.

Dennis wouldn't tell me what happened afterward.

He just kept asking whether she'd looked directly at me.

I told him I didn't think so.

He said, "Good."

Then he hung up.

About an hour ago, I received an automated notification from the building's access control system.

I forgot to remove the app from my phone.

It was an occupancy alert.

ONE PERSON REMAINING INSIDE.

Then the number changed to two.

I called my boss.

He said the building was empty. The last employee had left at six.

While we were talking, another notification came through.

THREE PEOPLE REMAINING INSIDE.

My boss said he'd call security in the morning.

I told him to do it tonight.

Then I received a photograph.

It came from Marta.

She'd gone back to retrieve her bag and found the blue chair outside the west stairwell.

Someone had put it beside the building's main entrance.

There was a sheet of paper taped to the back.

It had three names written on it.

The first was Dennis.

The second was Marta.

The third was mine.

There was a check mark beside the first two.

Mine was still blank.

I used to think estrangement was a kind of death.

You stop answering calls. You delete old messages. You throw away photographs until the only evidence that someone existed in your life is a vague memory of their voice.

Eventually, you forget the little things.

The way they cleared their throat before lying. The way they stood in doorways instead of entering a room. The exact expression they wore when they realized you were never going to forgive them.

And if you’re lucky, you forget their faces.

I thought I was lucky.

Three weeks ago, I saw my older brother standing across the street from my apartment.

I hadn’t spoken to Daniel in 11 years.

We’d had a falling-out after our mother’s funeral. I won’t get into the details, but it was bad enough that I changed my number, moved to another city, and made a deliberate effort to erase every mutual friend we had.

Daniel was the sort of person who could make you feel guilty for things he’d done to you.

For years, I had nightmares about him knocking on my door.

So when I saw him across the street that Tuesday evening, I knew immediately that it was him.

Same narrow shoulders. Same dark coat. Same habit of standing perfectly still with his hands buried in his pockets.

He was looking directly at my window.

I ducked behind the curtains.

When I looked again, he was gone.

I spent the rest of the night convincing myself it had been someone else. A stranger with the same haircut. A trick of the light. 11 years is a long time, and memories are unreliable things.

Then, on Thursday, I saw my father.

He was sitting in the back of a bus I passed on my way to work.

My father had been dead for 6 years.

I watched the bus pull away from the curb. Through the rain-streaked windows, I could see the side of his face, the silver hair, the small scar above his left ear.

I remembered that scar from when I was a child. He'd gotten it falling off a ladder in our backyard.

The bus stopped at a red light.

My father turned his head.

Even through the glass, even from the opposite side of the road, I knew he was looking at me.

His expression wasn't angry.

It was disappointed.

The light changed. The bus drove away.

I called in sick that afternoon and spent hours searching through old family photographs. I needed proof that my mind was playing tricks on me.

I found a photograph of my father sitting on that same bus.

Not the actual bus, obviously. It was an old photograph taken years before his death. He was wearing the same dark coat, sitting in the same position, with his hands folded over his stomach.

I deleted the photograph.

That night, I dreamed about my childhood home.

My mother was standing in the kitchen, washing dishes. Daniel was sitting at the table. My father was reading a newspaper in his armchair.

Nobody spoke to me.

I stood in the doorway, waiting for someone to acknowledge me.

Finally, my mother looked up.

She smiled the way she used to when I came home late.

Then she said, “You took your time.”

I woke up before I could ask what she meant.

My mother is still alive.

We haven't spoken in 9 years.

After that dream, I started noticing other people.

An old friend from university, standing at the far end of a supermarket aisle. A former girlfriend reflected in the dark screen of my television. My childhood neighbor sitting on a bench outside the building where I work.

Every one of them was someone I had deliberately removed from my life.

And every one of them behaved the same way.

They never approached me.

They never spoke.

They simply appeared somewhere I would eventually notice them, watched me for a while, and disappeared when I looked away.

I started keeping a list.

There were seven names on it by the end of the second week.

On Friday, I saw the eighth.

It was a woman named Rachel.

Rachel and I had been engaged once. We broke up five years ago after I found out she’d been lying to me about something important. I won't pretend I handled the breakup well. I said things I regretted, and I left without giving her the chance to respond.

I'd blocked her everywhere.

As far as I knew, she had moved overseas.

I saw her standing outside my office building at 6:15 p.m.

She looked exactly as I remembered her, right down to the small silver earrings she always wore.

I stopped walking.

She smiled.

Then she raised one hand and pointed at me.

Not a wave.

A deliberate, accusatory point.

I stepped toward her.

She turned and walked into the building.

I followed.

The lobby was empty. The security guard said nobody had entered behind me. I checked the elevators, the stairwell, even the bathrooms.

Nothing.

When I returned home, I found a message request from an account I didn't recognize.

There was no profile picture, no name, and no previous conversation.

The message contained 6 words.

You need to call your mother.

I stared at the screen until it went dark.

Then I called her.

She answered on the fourth ring.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke. I had rehearsed dozens of conversations with her over the years, but none of them prepared me for hearing her voice again.

Finally, she said, “I wondered when you'd call.”

I asked her what was happening.

She went quiet.

Then she asked me a question that made my stomach tighten.

“Have you been seeing people?”

I couldn't answer.

She started crying.

She told me that, for the past month, she had been seeing my brother outside her house. Sometimes he stood at the end of the driveway. Sometimes he appeared across the street, staring through her windows.

She said she'd called Daniel's old number.

Someone answered.

But it wasn't Daniel.

It was a woman who claimed she had owned that number for years and had never heard of him.

Then my mother told me something I hadn't known.

Daniel had died 11 months ago.

A car accident. Late at night. No other passengers.

I sat on my kitchen floor with the phone pressed against my ear.

I wanted to ask why she hadn't told me.

Instead, I asked her what Daniel had been doing outside her house.

“I don't know,” she whispered. “But last night, he came to the front door.”

I heard something in the background.

Three slow knocks.

My mother stopped speaking.

I heard her breathing change.

Then she whispered, “He's here again.”

I told her to lock the door and call the police.

She didn't respond.

I heard the three knocks again.

Then my mother said something so quietly I almost missed it.

“He looks just like you.”

The call disconnected.

I tried calling back. No answer.

I called the police in her town and asked them to check on her. They said they would send someone.

I didn't sleep that night.

At seven the next morning, an officer called to tell me my mother was safe.

She'd been found sitting in her kitchen.

The front door was locked. There were no signs of forced entry. Nobody had been seen outside the property.

When the officer asked her why she'd called for help, my mother said she hadn't.

She claimed she'd been alone all night.

I haven't spoken to her since.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, the sightings became more frequent.

People I hadn't thought about in years began appearing everywhere. On train platforms. In shopping centers. Outside my apartment.

Some were people I'd hurt.

Others were people who'd hurt me.

A few were people I'd simply stopped speaking to because life had moved on.

I started to understand something.

These weren't ghosts.

At least, I don't think they were.

They were the people I'd left behind.

And something was bringing them back.

Three nights ago, I came home and found my apartment door unlocked.

I live alone. I always lock it.

Nothing was missing, but someone had left a photograph on my kitchen table.

It was a picture of me as a child, standing between my parents in the backyard of our old house.

Daniel stood behind us, his hands resting on my shoulders.

I recognized the photograph immediately. It had disappeared from my mother's house years ago.

Someone had written on the back.

ONE MORE PERSON.

I spent the next day trying to work out what it meant.

Then, last night, I saw Rachel again.

She was standing in the hallway outside my apartment.

I watched her through the peephole for almost 20 minutes.

She didn't move.

Eventually, I unlocked the door and opened it.

The hallway was empty.

But there was a new message on my phone.

It came from my mother.

For the first time in nine years, she'd sent me a photograph.

It showed her sitting in her living room, smiling weakly at the camera.

Behind her, in the dark hallway, stood a man.

Daniel.

His face was pale, his eyes fixed on the camera.

And beside him stood someone else.

Me.

Not the me in the photograph.

The me standing in my apartment, holding my phone.

Same clothes. Same expression. Same slight tilt of the head.

I dropped the phone.

It rang almost immediately.

My mother's number.

I answered.

She was crying so hard I could barely understand her.

“He's asking for you,” she said.

I asked her who.

She didn't answer.

Then I heard Daniel's voice in the background.

It sounded exactly as I remembered it.

“Tell him I'm sorry.”

My mother took a shaky breath.

Then she said, “I think he wants you to forgive him.”

For the first time in 11 years, I wanted to hear my brother speak.

I wanted to know what he'd meant to say before we stopped talking. I wanted to know whether he'd regretted what happened between us.

I wanted to open the door and see him standing there.

I wanted it so badly that I almost forgot what had happened to everyone else.

I almost forgot that none of the people I'd seen had spoken to me.

I almost forgot that every single one of them had appeared after I started thinking about the past.

Then my mother whispered something that made my blood turn cold.

“There's someone else here now.”

I asked her what she meant.

She said she'd been looking through the old family photographs when she noticed something strange.

In every picture, someone had been standing farther away than they should have been.

A figure at the edge of the garden.

A face reflected in a window.

A person standing in the background of a photograph taken in an empty room.

She said she'd gone through every photograph she owned.

And in every single one, that person was getting closer.

“Who is it?” I asked.

My mother began to sob.

“It's your father,” she said. “But he's not looking at us anymore.”

I heard a floorboard creak on her end of the call.

Then she whispered, “He's looking at the door.”

The line went dead.

I haven't left my apartment today.

I haven't answered any calls.

I covered the mirrors, pulled the curtains, and turned off every light.

I keep telling myself that there's a rational explanation for all of this.

Grief. Guilt. Sleep deprivation.

Anything.

But an hour ago, someone knocked on my door.

Three times.

I looked through the peephole.

My brother was standing in the hallway.

He looked exactly as he had 11 years ago, before everything went wrong.

He was smiling.

And for the first time since the sightings began, he spoke.

“It's okay,” he said. “You can let me in.”

I stepped away from the door.

He didn't knock again.

Instead, I heard him walk down the hallway.

Slowly.

One step at a time.

Then I heard another set of footsteps behind him.

And another.

And another.

I counted 12 sets of footsteps before they reached the stairwell.

There are only 11 people on my list.

I haven't opened the door.

I don't know if they're still out there.

But I've just received another message from my mother.

It's a photograph of my front door.

Taken from inside my apartment.

And on the back, in handwriting I recognize as my own, are 5 words.

YOU FORGOT WHO YOU LEFT.

My Great Aunt Mildred wasn't exactly a social butterfly. She lived alone for decades in a sprawling old Victorian house on the outskirts of town. When she passed away last month, I was the only family member left who could inherit it. I'd only visited her a handful of times as a kid and always remembered the house being strangely dark and full of heavy furniture. The biggest oddity though, was the distinct lack of mirrors.

Now, as the new owner, I've had more time to explore. And it's true. In a house with probably twenty different rooms, there is precisely one mirror. A small, oval-shaped thing in the downstairs powder room. It's old, with a tarnished frame, and even then, it's angled slightly downwards, making it hard to see your whole reflection unless you really stoop. I found this peculiar and mentioned it to my friend, Sarah, when she helped me move in a few weeks ago.

"Maybe she was just vain in a very specific way?" Sarah joked. "Only wanted to check her lipstick or something."

I laughed it off, but the thought stuck with me. Why only one mirror? And why such an awkward one at that? It wasn't like the house was devoid of other reflective surfaces. There were plenty of polished wood tables and glass cabinets, but no actual looking glasses.

I started spending more time in the powder room, studying the mirror. It had a strange ripple effect to the glass, making my reflection seem a little distorted, a little stretched. My eyes looked a bit too wide, my smile a bit too thin. It was unsettling, but I figured it was just the age of the thing.

Then things started to happen. Small things at first. I'd be brushing my teeth in the main bathroom upstairs and swear I'd caught a glimpse of something moving in the periphery of my vision, just behind me. When I'd turn, there'd be nothing. Or I'd hear a faint whisper from down the hall, like someone calling my name, only to find the house completely empty.

One evening, I was feeling particularly on edge. I had just finished dinner and was tidying up the kitchen when I heard it again. A distinct, whispered "Hello?" from the living room. My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew for a fact I was alone. I crept towards the living room, a heavy fireplace poker gripped in my hand. Nothing. The room was empty, the shadows dancing in the dim light.

As I turned to leave, my gaze fell upon the small mirror in the powder room, just visible from the living room doorway. And there, reflected in its distorted surface, was a figure standing behind me. Not my own reflection. Someone else. Taller. Gaunt. Their head tilted at an impossible angle, a wide, unsettling grin stretching across their face.

I screamed. Dropped the poker with a clatter that echoed through the silent house. I spun around, expecting to see something there, some ghastly intruder. But there was nothing. Only the empty space behind me.

I fled the house that night, spent it at Sarah's. She tried to convince me it was stress, my imagination playing tricks. But I knew what I saw. And I knew where I saw it.

I went back to the house the next day, in broad daylight, armed with a hammer. I walked straight to the powder room. The mirror seemed to shimmer, almost mockingly. I raised the hammer and brought it down. The glass shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, scattering across the sink and floor. The frame cracked, splintering the old wood.

A sickening, high-pitched wail echoed from somewhere deep within the walls, a sound that made my teeth ache. It lasted only a moment before dying into an unnerving silence.

I haven't put another mirror in that house. I won't. And I won't ever again trust what I see in reflections, especially when I'm alone.

​

I never believed in ghosts.

Even after moving into Apartment 314, even after the strange noises started, I always had a logical explanation.

Old building. Settling pipes. Thin walls.

That's what I told myself.

Then I started hearing someone breathing under my bed.

The first time it happened was around 2:00 a.m.

I woke suddenly and lay still in the darkness. At first I thought the sound was my own breathing echoing strangely in the room.

But when I held my breath...

It continued.

A slow inhale.

A slow exhale.

Directly beneath me.

I froze.

The sound stopped after a few seconds.

I laughed nervously at myself and checked under the bed with my phone flashlight.

Nothing.

The breathing happened again three nights later.

Then every night.

Always between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.

I stopped looking under the bed because it was always empty.

Eventually, I convinced myself the sound came from the apartment below.

Until the night I heard it whisper.

My eyes snapped open.

The room was black.

The breathing was louder than ever.

And from beneath me a woman's voice rasped:

"Don't look at me."

Every muscle in my body locked.

I didn't move.

I didn't breathe.

Hours seemed to pass before exhaustion finally dragged me into unconsciousness.

The next morning I searched the entire apartment.

Nothing.

No hidden spaces.

No speakers.

No explanation.

I didn't tell anyone.

Because how do you explain something like that without sounding insane?

Instead, I bought a security camera.

That night I aimed it at my bed and let it record until morning.

I almost threw up when I watched the footage.

At 2:13 a.m., I sat upright in bed.

But I had no memory of waking.

On the screen, I swung my legs over the side and slowly crouched down.

Then I crawled underneath the bed.

The rest of the footage showed my feet sticking out from beneath it for nearly three hours.

At 5:31 a.m., I crawled back onto the mattress and lay down.

I remembered none of it.

Not a second.

I watched that recording six times.

Then something caught my attention.

There were two sets of eyes under the bed.

One pair belonged to me.

The second pair didn't blink.

I moved out the next day.

I didn't even pack most of my belongings.

I just left.

A week later I received a call from the landlord.

He sounded confused.

"Why did you leave all those photographs?"

"What photographs?"

"The ones under the bed."

I felt cold.

"I didn't leave any photographs."

There was silence.

Then he said, "They're all pictures of you sleeping."

My stomach dropped.

"How many?"

Another pause.

"Hundreds."

The landlord mailed me one of the photos.

I still have it.

The picture shows me asleep in bed.

The timestamp is from three years before I moved into Apartment 314.

Three years.

Before I'd ever seen the building.

Before I even lived in that city.

Most people think that's the scary part.

It's not.

The scary part is what I noticed afterward.

In the darkness beneath the bed, someone is crouching beside me.

Smiling at the camera.

And every few months when I take the photo out to look at it again...

The figure is a little closer.