u/Jumboshrimp5000

CW: Gore

I woke up with a throbbing pain in my head, I had no idea where I was, or what happened before I fell asleep. I opened my eyes and recognized my ceiling fan, I was in my room but when the hell did I get here? I slowly got up and my stomach did not agree with the sudden vertical movement. I rushed as slowly as I could to the bathroom so I could dispel the poison from my body. As I kneeled at the porcelain throne the events leading up to this started to come back to me. My parents were gone for the weekend for some stoner band from their youth when they weren’t shackled with responsibility and knew how to actually have fun. I remembered telling people about it and offered to host a massive party at my house. I told everyone to bring anyone they knew and I remembered the house being packed. Friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, there were people packed in every square inch of my family’s house. I had figured since I live in a more rural part of town and my parents wouldn’t get back until tomorrow there was no way that I’d get caught. As I cleaned myself up and got dressed, I was ready to inspect the damage and see how much work I had laid out for me. As I stepped from the upstairs and I peered over the railing from the second floor of the house to see what my living room now looked like. It looked like a hurricane of alcohol, soda, chips and pizza had swept through our house. Luckily it seemed people followed my rule of not going upstairs so I only needed to worry about the basement and the first floor. I sighed deeply and went downstairs to start the arduous cleaning process. As I went to the closet to grab a mop and bucket I saw my buddy John passed out on the couch. I shook him awake and he bolted up and then promptly deflated, clearly regretting how quickly he moved.

He groaned, “Oh Jesus Christ my fuckin head. Hey Sammy, that was one hell of a party man.” He grimaced as he righted himself on the couch. 

I shrugged, “I couldn’t say, I can barely remember any of it. Did you sleep well?” 

John nodded in solidarity, “Like a rock. I also don’t remember too much, I just know there were a ton of people I didn’t recognize. I think half the school district showed up last night.”

“Well now I get to clean it all up before mom and dad get back. You need to take a second to get your bearings or think you’re good to take off now?”

“I think I’m good to jet, you sure you don’t need any help?”

“I’ll be fine, I just hope no one broke anything.”

“If you say so, in that case I’ll see you on Monday man.” 

I handed John a Gatorade on his way out and got to work on cleaning everything in the house. I started from top to bottom, cleaning off the shelves and reframing the pictures I had taken off the wall in case anyone got too rowdy and broke them. I collected any unfinished bottles or can I had found in the house and started pouring them down the drain. Next collecting any trash and bagging it up and leaving it on the driveway. I couldn’t possibly explain to my parents how so much trash accumulated within two days and so I looked up our nearest dump and once I finished cleaning I’d drop it all off there. I mopped and wiped every surface of the house and made sure that the floors had no stick and the marble countertops sparkled. I thanked God that my parents refused to have carpeted floors. The basement was a similar process and after only 4 hours and a short break the house seemed to be in good shape. I grabbed a glass of water and crashed in the love seat. It was early in the afternoon and I was pretty pleased with myself. I nabbed some leftover pizza from the fridge and just wasted away watching Youtube on my phone.

An hour had passed and I finally resolved to drive down to the dump to unload all the garbage when I noticed something odd. The dining room had a massive dark red stain that seemed to pool from the grandfather clock that lay in the corner of the room. I got the mop out again and wiped up the stain and out of curiosity opened the door of the grandfather clock to see if there was anything inside. The first thing my brain registered was the smell, the sickly sweet smell of cheap mixed drinks merged with the pungent smell of intestines and blood. Housed within the grandfather clock was the mangled corpse of somebody I couldn’t recognize. Apart from his innards spilling out from his gut he was mostly intact. Still, inspecting the face as hard as I could I couldn’t put a name to it. I figured he must have attended Greenville East as his tattered shirt clearly had the bulldogs logo on it. I froze, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t call the police, I didn’t want to risk being found guilty and having a corpse in my house would almost definitely lead to me being the prime suspect. I also couldn’t let my parents find out about the party or the corpse. If they found out I’d had this party without their permission I would surely meet this poor bastard in whatever else comes after this life. I decided that I would need to hide the body wherever I could. The woods behind my house were perfectly secluded but I needed to prepare for the police to investigate the house in case they found out where this guy was last seen. I couldn’t just dig a massive hole and throw his body in carelessly, the woods would be the first place they check and if they find a grave in my backyard then that would instantly get me locked up. I decided that if one hole won’t work, then I would need many. I promptly got to work, I pulled the dead man from his makeshift coffin and prepared him for his last rites. 

Growing up in a secluded rural home with dense woods in our backyards, naturally my dad was a hunter. When I was young he taught me how to clean and butcher deer. This couldn’t be too different, I just needed to render the body into small enough pieces to never be found, that couldn’t be too difficult right? I threw the body into a trashbag and carried it downstairs to my dad’s shop where we had a drain and a workbench for what came next. I grabbed my dad’s meat saw and shakily prepared myself to get to work. I laid the body face down so I wouldn’t have to see the eyes as I butchered him. I pressed the teeth of the blade at the back of the neck and paused. It wasn’t too late, I could still do the right thing and just come clean. Surely that was better, and certainly smarter than desecrating a body just for the small chance that I don’t get caught and nobody knows a thing. But what if they don’t believe me? What if they think I’m the one who killed him? My future would be snatched away, just for something I know I didn’t do. It wouldn’t be right to get in trouble for this guy who I never met. I gripped the handle tightly and started down a path I could never return from. The saw hacked through flesh and muscle like paper but then all progress halted at the bone. The saw grinded with a horrible sound and I needed to force the saw as firmly as I could and with a terrible ripping sound I was able to start cutting through. Stagnant blood that remained in the body before it could seep into the grandfather clock made a squelching sound as the fibers of musculature snapped between the teeth of the saw. I winced and groaned as the head cleanly separated from the body. I felt my dinner start to come back up and I doubled over and breathed sharply as the smell of viscera and marrow caused my nose to recoil and my vision to blur as tears formed in my eyes. I resisted the urge to spill my guts and I stood upright once more. I grabbed the head by the hair and put it into the garbage bag.

I continued with the rest of the body in this fashion, cutting through the joints at the elbow, shoulder, knee, and thigh and disposing of them in the bag. I was left with a torso with a massive hole acting as a window to his intestines. I grabbed another trashbag from upstairs and grabbed the organs and filled the bag with all of the organs. The intestines reeked of grease and alcohol and the smell of digestion stung my nose as I gagged at the smell of half digested pizza. I would bring these to the dump and if anybody asked questions I would just say they’re from a deer. After emptying the torso of its contents I vivisected the torso between the pelvis and ribcage and I had finally finished the morbid task. I grabbed a shovel and went out into the woods. I dug scattered holes and placed the parts inside like a squirrel hides its nuts for the winter. The entire ordeal lasted no more than two hours but I could not rest. I dropped the contents off at the dump where the tired worker seemed surprised to see somebody so late. He seemed concerned as I went through the drop off.   

He asked, “Christ kid are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a long night partying is all.”

“Ah, just getting rid of the evidence before ma and pops come home eh?”

I winced at his choice of words and just quietly nodded.

“No worries kid, I'll take care of it.”

My heart stopped when he grabbed the bag of organs but he loaded the bag into a cart with the others and just waved me away. 

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the blood from the wood of the grandfather clock and making sure the shop downstairs was spotless. I slept like hell, the sounds of steel grinding against bone echoing in my mind as I felt the blood seep into my fingers. My parents arrived shortly before noon the next day and asked me if I did anything fun over the weekend. I told them that my weekend was uneventful and that I just did nothing. They told me about how much fun they had reliving their childhood and drifted to the fridge while they figured lunch out. They asked me if the pizza was fair game and I told them that it was fine, I wasn’t hungry anyway. I sat with them at the kitchen table while they ate and told me about their weekend and as they talked I received a notification on my phone. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and my blood ran cold as I read the text from the unknown number.

It read, “killer party man”

It’s challenging to raise a child as a single father. I’ve got a nine year old boy named Neil who’s the apple of my eye. I’ve spent countless nights lying in bed worrying that I could be raising him better or that I’m not meeting his needs adequately. He never had the chance to meet his mom, April. She passed in the delivery room. I’ve accepted her absence, although I’ll never truly stop mourning her. As a single parent though I had to carry on alone and grieve on my feet, never truly having a moment to rest. I’ve gotten past the most difficult part of raising a child all alone. I’m grateful that I’ll never have to wake up at three in the morning to change a diaper or have to force an ornery toddler to put a shirt on. Now that he’s in school and can behave on his own I can breathe now and even have some precious time to myself whenever he’s off to play with another kid. Neil’s also the best son a dad could hope for. He’s clever, minds his manners, keeps his room tidy, and most importantly to me, he’s got plenty of friends. I’ve never wanted his childhood to be defined by tragedy. Alone in a quiet house with his sad old man, it’s just no way for a kid to grow right. His teachers also love him. He’s never made any trouble at school and he’s always been serious about school, especially science. Ever since he was a young boy he’s been set on becoming a doctor when he grows up. I remember how proud he was when they learned the skeletal system and he was able to name every bone from memory. 

Even though it’s gotten easier, I still have my worries about him though. He’s reached an age where boys his age start to pick on each other. He keeps to himself for the most part but his teachers have called to tell me that the other boys were making fun of him because his mom is dead. Kids are cruel, it’s just a fact of life but it’s vexing to have some snot who doesn’t understand the terrible things he’s saying about your dead wife. Naturally I worry about my kid being bullied, no parent wants to hear that someone was mean to their kid. More so than my kid being bullied though, I’m worried about how he handles it. He’s always been detached about his mom. He never got to experience her love, never saw her smile or heard her laugh; his only memory of her is through photographs. Even as a small child he never seemed interested in hearing about her. To him, her death was the only noteworthy thing about her and anything before then was just noise. I know I should just be glad that the bullying never bothered him and just accept that he simply doesn’t care about his mom, but it’s hard knowing that she gave her life to bring him into the world, and he couldn’t care less about that sacrifice. 

The weekend was a godsend for me. Ever since Neil was born, the weekends were a chance for me to rest and contemplate. When he was a newborn they were an opportunity to process my grief as a recent widower. Now that he’s older I actually get some time to myself on weekends and can start living life the way I used to before Neil, when I still had April. This weekend couldn’t have come any sooner. Tax season was in full swing, Neil just celebrated his ninth birthday on Tuesday and just two days later I’m called into the principal's office because he was being teased again. I don’t even know why they call me in, it’s the same group of boys every time and Neil doesn't care in the first place so I just have to listen to the same empty apology every time. Today was Saturday though and the world stood still for just a little bit. I went on my morning run and was starting to make a late breakfast around eleven o’clock when I noticed a paring knife had gone missing from the block. I looked up and down my kitchen but couldn’t find the thing anywhere. Neil was out playing in the backyard and I wondered if he had taken it with him without me noticing, you know how boys are. I went out to the backyard and saw him bent over on his knees focusing intensely on something on the ground. I went over to see what he was doing.

I started, “Hey Neil, what are you do–”, stopping dead in my tracks. Neil had the missing knife in his hands, blood covering his hands and shirt. At first I was worried he had hurt himself but then I saw the poor mangled lump of fur that he was leaning over. A cat, my son was gutting a cat. I was taken aback.

I demanded, “My God Neil, what the hell are you doing?”

He flatly responded and stood to look at me, “Dissecting a cat.”

I quickly took the knife from his hands, “Why? Why on Earth would you do something like this?”

He answered as easily as if you asked him his favorite color, “I wanted to see how it worked.”

I looked at the sad little mess of blood and fur. I recognized it as one of the neighbors' cats that roamed the neighborhood. “Why did you kill one Mrs. Witherby’s cats?”

He corrected me, “I didn’t kill it dad, I just found it. It’s not like the cat will care.”

“But Mrs. Witherby certainly will.”

Neil just looked up with me and responded plainly, “I don’t think she’ll mind too much either.”

Mrs. Weatherby is our neighbor across from our house who’s the perfect example of a crazy cat lady. She lets them roam around the neighborhood with no control and animal control has had to collect the animals multiple times to neuter them so they wouldn’t multiply across the neighborhood. She dotes on her cats but she never remembers any of them individually. She struggles with dementia and often cats will go missing and she’ll be none the wiser. Neil likely wasn’t wrong that she was going to notice the one missing cat, but what he did was wrong and he needed to apologize to her face. I told Neil to go clean himself off and change into a fresh set of clothes while I cleaned the mess. I got a garbage bag and collected the bloody clothes as well as the body. I was not looking forward to taking out the trash on Monday waiting for the garbage men to clean our dumpster. After Neil was clean and changed I marched him across the street to Mrs. Witherby’s house. Her mailbox was completely packed to the brim with envelopes and coupon sheets. Mrs. Witherby doesn’t go outside often, usually only doing so to feed her horde of cats, and so I decided to collect her mail and hand it to her when Neil had finished apologizing. We stepped up onto her porch, avoiding the rotten cat food scattered across the boards. I knocked on the door and planted Neil in front of me so he could apologize. We waited for some time, knocking and waiting for twenty minutes before I decided to investigate. Mrs. Witherby didn’t have a car and so I had no way to tell if she was home or not and sometimes she is prone to wandering outside and getting lost. I decided I would check the backdoor and see if she was inside or if she had gone out somewhere.

I made my way behind the house and knocked on the backdoor so she wouldn’t be surprised. There was no response. I tried the doorknob and the backdoor creaked open. I called out “Mrs. Witherby! Are you home?” Once again, I was met with silence. I was standing in her kitchen and set the mail aside on the crowded table. I heard the sound of a TV coming from the living room and called again hoping she could hear me over the TV, “Mrs. Witherby, are you in the living room? It’s your neighbor Douglas, I just want to make sure you’re ok.” As I carefully made my way through the messy house I wondered how anyone could live like this. Eventually I stumbled my way into the living room and I found her on the couch, completely still. Her head was leaned far back into the couch cushions and mouth was agape. I gently walked over and placed my hand on her shoulder, with a light shake I tried again, “Mrs. Witherby?”

The police came quickly, they found an empty cup on the floor next to the couch that had left bleach stains on the carpet. They figure she must have grabbed the wrong bottle by mistake and poisoned her cats and herself. I walked Neil back to the house before they wheeled the body out. The police detected no foul play, just an old woman who, in her confused state, had accidentally drunk bleach. Accidents happen.. Neil didn’t seem upset at all, he told me he would never do anything like that again and carried along as if nothing had happened. Eventually the police cars left and for the rest of the weekend I started to worry about something else. With everything else in the house in complete disarray, why were those knives laid by her side so neatly?

On June 2nd, 1935, two men would forsake their natural birthright of solid ground, casting themselves to the treacherous depths where man held no dominion. One of these fools was Captain John Hughes, a submariner who had braved the depths during the Great War and was comfortable in confined craft designed to breach the unknown. The other fool who dared to comb the abyss was myself, Oliver Powell, Dr. Powell if you’re a stickler for formality. I was chosen for this expedition for my knowledge as a naturalist. I was familiar with the fauna of the Pacific and had spent my whole life learning as much as I could about creatures who lurked where man could not reach. It was the perfect opportunity, an expedition to plumb the depths of the Tonga Trench, I would be damned if I were to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. Almost a year prior William Beebe and Otis Barton had been able to reach 3,028 feet below the surface off the coast of Bermuda and had reported seeing many strange creatures that lurked in the deep. Their dive spread across the ecological world like wildfire. People of all sorts began theorizing on what else could possibly live at such depths to varying degrees of plausibility. Most theories that moved through ecological circles speculated on what deep sea life looked like, how large organisms could grow and how their ecosystem interacted with shallower parts of the ocean. There were also unsavory characters who would try and catch a small piece of the limelight by espousing bizarre claims ranging from deep sea plesiosaur, to the Leviathan. These bizarre claims were largely ignored, often only seeing small blurbs in local newspapers. Though few actually believed them earnestly, these stories spilled their way into the imaginations of the public and led to great excitement regarding what lay many leagues beneath the sea. 

I was graciously offered an invitation on the expedition by the Californian Zoological Institute in November, 1934. The Zoological Institute wanted to perform multiple dives at depths that would exceed the original dive of Beebe and Barton. It was then when I had first met Captain Hughes as we started preparing for our dives together. The captain had left a strong impression on me. As a retired naval captain it was easy to read the years on his face. His hair had retreated to the very ends of his head and evidently was no longer trying to meet the physical standards one imagines when they think of a seaman. He had a jovial demeanor that he carried everywhere, that was amplified by his ridiculous Bostonian accent. It was hard to imagine him as a domineering captain of a submarine. This impression was not greatly improved by the captain’s diminutive stature, I would consider myself to be average in height but even still the captain was only barely taller than my shoulders. Due to the nature of our expedition this was quite advantageous for the captain. He explained that while many start to feel trapped after only a few months in a submarine, he felt at home in even the tightest part of the craft and found himself quite comfortable in confined spaces. Though the captain’s best years were behind him it was obvious that he was eager to return once more to feel the embrace of his beloved ocean. 

The Zoological Institute was able to produce a bathysphere that was very similar to the craft used by Beebe and Barton, though could far exceed the capabilities of the original design. Due to the successful expedition the Zoological Institute was able to acquire a considerable amount of funding for the construction and were able to construct the vessel to be capable of withstanding the pressure at the depths of 5,000 feet. We were expected to not only go deeper but to make multiple treks to see if ecosystems would change drastically, even if only separated by a few miles or different terrain. It was an ugly craft, a diminutive sphere built entirely out of steel apart from the two portholes on opposing sides of the craft so that we could observe the ocean around us. The only entrance was the hatch on the top of the vessel which would connect to a long steel cable with 6,000 feet of give in order to account for any movement from strong currents. The walls were so dense that it looked as though nothing on this earth could possibly penetrate its thick walls. The captain had joked that once it was retired from its purpose of exploring the ocean it could be used in demolition as a fine wrecking ball. When we toured the inside of the craft and the hatch closed on top of us there was a heavy silence. I looked outside one of the portholes and though the sun blazed over the shipyard, I could not help but wonder how it would look once we were nestled deep in the abyss. There were multiple instruments that were laid inside the bathysphere. There were barometers and depth gauges so that we were able to see how far we had gone. The most important of these instruments was the telephone line that ran from the connecting cable of the ship down to the craft so that if we needed to communicate with the ship we were able as well as an emergency tether so that if the phone line went down we would be able to immediately pull out of the expedition. 

Having the dauntless captain be my companion would prove to be invaluable as I discovered during our testing of the craft that I grew uneasy in the small craft we would use to descend the depths. Once the craft had passed all of the unmanned tests it was finally time for us to enter the water. Our first trial was merely 60 feet below the surface and even still I could not help but to feel as if I was a trapped animal. The craft was incredibly small and the captain and I were sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder. Even in such a short test the vessel was almost immediately hot and sweaty. It was hard to concentrate on the test as discomfort was constant and I thought about how many hours I would be forced to spend in this punitive craft. The captain naturally kept a level head and helped ease my worries. I was grateful to have him accompany me on this journey, it became clear that once we were put to the test that he was a natural born leader and he was truly comfortable, even in a cramped craft like this. I realized I would need to steel myself for the journey ahead. If I could not even mentally withstand the depths of sixty feet, how could I possibly last the full 5,000 that was expected of us?

Eventually all testing had been completed and we were ready to go where no man had gone before. We departed the shores of California and after a few weeks we had arrived in Tonga. The morning after we had arrived we would be ready to descend on our first of five dives. The date was May 26th, and our first dive of our tour was going to be in an open space of the trench where the walls would be wider than the rest of our other diving locations. Just as we had practiced time and time again, we climbed down into the craft, the hatch shut behind us and we were released from the ship to brave the stygian depths below. The descent was an agonizing crawl, the deepest we had descended in our trials was 300 feet in order to ensure the telephone line would operate correctly and the cable would not twist. After twenty minutes we had crossed the 300 feet mark and the descent into the unknown marched onward. I was occupying myself by looking at the depth gauge so that I would not pay any mind to the ever darkening water around us, only occasionally spotting small schools of fish swimming by. When the gauge said that we had passed 1,200 feet I was snapped back to reality by the words of the captain.

The captain had started pointing,“Hey Doc, what do you reckon that is?”

I peered through the porthole and looked at where he was pointing and in the distance there looked to be a large school of squids lurking near our vessel.

I told him as such, “Seems like a school of squid, perhaps they mistook us for a corpse or saw the light reflecting off the steel.”

After informing the captain I turned around to see if there were any other animals visible from the porthole and saw even more squid surrounding us. It was difficult to make out any details about what we were seeing and so I flipped the switch to start the floodlights mounted outside of the portholes. The squids seemed to react harshly to the light, quickly backing up and grouping more tightly to maintain their cohesion. The light revealed even more squids that were cloaked in darkness only moments prior. It was clear that there were dozens, potentially hundreds of the things surrounding us. The squids which were completely pale started to rapidly pulse in bright red flashes. I was amazed at what I was seeing, I had never seen squids act like this before. Questions cascaded through my mind. Were they scared of us? Were they trying to intimidate us or were they merely excited? Were they scared of being eaten, or were we the prey? I took the phone from the wall and told the crew above to stop our descent so that I could take notes. The captain had seemed to be a little anxious from the sheer amount of them, but I assured him they wouldn’t be a threat as even if they did see us as prey their beaks were likely too weak to do anything to the hull of our vessel. Eventually the squid had adjusted to our presence and ceased any flashing and after a short while started to drift off into the darkness where even our light could not pierce and we were alone once more. 

I was affirmed in my purpose for being here, being able to see such behavior was thrilling and left me wanting for more. We called into the ship above us to continue our descent and once again continued in our slow descent. Soon it became a necessity to keep the lights on to see anything. The light seemed to attract small fish and sharks who were curious to see what was making such a light although anytime I would approach the porthole they would quickly swim away making identification difficult. After hours of drifting in the darkness and only spotting the occasional fish we had eventually reached 3,029 feet, the furthest man had ever reached before. The vessel was also noticeably frigid, a far cry from the feverish conditions in earlier tests. I knew that the next 2,000 feet would be a test in endurance and reminded myself to bring more appropriate gear for the next dive. The next few hours were insufferable. We could only see as far as our floodlight and there were almost no signs of life apart from a few jellyfish who drifted past almost as quickly as when we had first spotted them. My muscles ached from stillness and the captain and I would often bump each other from the occasional current catching our tether and briefly jerking us from one side to another. Once the elation of surpassing Beebe and Barton’s dive had passed it had grown quiet in the vessel, only occasionally broken to inform the phone operator we had not met any difficulties. The stillness was only broken when the tether suddenly halted and jolted the captain and I from our stupor. We had checked the depth gauge and saw that we had achieved our goal, we had officially reached 5,040 feet. We could not see a thing outside and so we decided to turn off our floodlight and to drink in the darkness that surrounded us. We were surprised when we looked out of the porthole into the abyss. We had expected to see nothing but endless darkness but as we peered through the porthole we were treated to the most wondrous sight. Lights of all colors flashed and danced all around the bathysphere as the captain and I looked out. There was no discernable pattern as the lights flashed and pulsed as if we were surrounded by Christmas lights. In a moment any ailment or discomfort left me and I was enchanted at the sight. Yet again we paused to record the encounter, I recalled that Beebe and Barton had seen similar bioluminescent jellyfish in their dive but not in numbers like this. Eventually the magnificent lights dispersed with the currents and we called the ship to bring us back up. After hours we had finally returned from the deep and were gently welcomed back into the light. The captain and I were quickly surrounded by our crew who lauded us for reaching new depths where no man had reached before. We heartily devoured our dinner and celebrated merrily with our crew. The captain had even decided that our mighty vessel was worthy of a name. After a few moments of deliberation it would be decided that we would name our beloved prison The Colossus. Finally we retired to our quarters to recover and ready ourselves for our next dive which was scheduled in only two days time. 

The first dive had taken a little over twelve hours and proved to be exhausting. Never again would I take the ability to stretch my limbs to their full extent for granted. Both the captain and I had slumbered well into the next morning and had a late breakfast just before noon. Our next dive was scheduled for tomorrow and we were both thrilled at the prospect. The soars we had gained from the pressure and fumbling over each other couldn’t possibly keep us away, even if it killed us. We had achieved what previously could only be conceived in science fiction. We were eager to return back into the unknown and had to occupy ourselves wandering the ship and enjoying the tropical Pacific breeze. After the engineers on board confirmed that the Colossus was seaworthy our dive was confirmed for tomorrow. As I drifted to sleep I dreamed of the dancing lights, hoping we could chance upon another wondrous scene on our next descent. 

The anxiety I had felt stepping into the Colossus completely left me, instead replacing itself with a rushing excitement. I was ready to yet again throw myself into the inky depths to witness what lie in wait for us. The captain greeted me as we climbed into the chamber, clearly as eager as I was. As I helped him down into the Colossus he even seemed to appear younger, his hunger for adventure returning him to his naval days. Our location today was particularly exciting as a mail ship had sunk due to mysterious circumstances in the nearby area decades ago. We had believed that the wreck could have hosted a thriving ecosystem and that the greatest biodiversity would be found here. This proved to only be partly true. The start of our dive was incredible, around 400 feet deep we had found a thriving ecosystem with schools of various fish weaving through each other and we called the operator to take a break early to admire the scene. The sheer volume of fish near the surface seemed like an indication that as we went deeper we would see more life near the bottom as well. However after we had crossed the 1,000 foot threshold the amount of fish became more and more sparse. The last organism we encountered was a small bioluminescent shark at nearly 4,000 feet. The final thousand feet was just empty and we started our lonely ascent. Sometime during our ascent as we checked in with the phone operator we were told about whale calls that had been picked up by the hydrophones on board to the south and perhaps we could spot a whale as they migrated north to colder waters. We were not able to spot any whales on the way up and the rest of the ascent proceeded without issue.

 Once more we rested and readied ourselves for the next dive. The captain and I were exhausted and there was little celebration. We had already bested the record, and now we were just exploring aimlessly. Throughout the night and well into the next day there were multiple whale calls that had been detected. The hydrophone operator had started to plot where the whale noises were coming from to fill the time between dives, and had started to recognize a pattern. While the whales were all traveling north just as we were, they would all take a wide berth around the trench as if to avoid travelling through it. I rationalized that they were avoiding the trench as they were travelling to colder waters and diving into deep waters to feed would slow their northbound migration. On the next day we were ready for the third dive and shuffled back into the cabin of the Colossus. This dive was disappointing at the time, however as I contemplate on what lay ahead I think it was a warning. While the second dive was nearly lifeless as we approached the deep we had not seen any signs of life excepting the occasional jellyfish drifting along. It was a silent dive as we waited with bated breath to see something. The captain and I sat back to back looking out of opposing portholes, alone in the dark with only the croaking metal of the colossus and occasional check in to interrupt the silence. Staring into the abyss grew more and more unsettling as the silence grimly reminded me of where we were. The squeezing pressure was felt more intensely and I felt less like a visitor of the deep, but rather an intruder. We had crossed the threshold into a world wholly alien to our own, a world where coldness reigns and darkness covered all. With our floodlights we could see out into the void, but had the void been watching us as well? All I could think of as we descended were the tall tales spread by those vacuous tabloids. Tales of sea monsters flooded my mind. I imagined great sea serpents and mighty kraken, greedily eying us, waiting for us to enter into their powerful embrace. This anxiety was only eased on the ascent when the light of the afternoon sun pierced through the water and into the porthole. Even after retiring for the night I was not fully at ease. I understood that as a naturalist that the ocean will have spots where there is simply no life. Perhaps as the walls of the trench narrowed there was simply no room for life to grow. One of the primary reasons for us being out here was to observe how distance and terrain affected the ecosystem of the trench. Still, rationalizations held little comfort. I could only lay on my small cramped bed as I prepared to climb into the small cramped colossus once more and venture into the unknown that lay in wait below us.

The next day the hydrophone operator picked up more whale calls but noticed something interesting. While most of the calls were typical to what he had heard the previous days, there was one in particular that caught his attention. The call was heard directly north of us within the bounds of the trench. Most of the whales we had heard in days prior seemed to be avoiding the trench but this call was different. It was quicker, and higher in pitch than the other whales, almost as if it was panicked by something. Eventually the call ceased entirely near where our next planned diving spot would be found. This started a debate amongst the crew leading the project. Some had believed that whatever frightened and potentially killed could pose a danger to the captain and me and that we should avoid the waters. Others were inclined to move the diving spot directly to where the whale was last heard in order to see if we could glean any information on the event. The decision ultimately was decided between the captain and myself, we were the ones putting our lives on the line and so it would be our choice. Both of us were recovering from the disappointment of our previous dive and we figured that seeing something would be better than spending twelve hours peering into the dark. Besides, there were plenty of things that could kill a whale, it was most likely either a school of sharks or even local whalers following the whales during their migration. We rationalized as best as we could but I believe there was an unspoken desire to hunt the monsters in the deep, the same ones whose existence we openly scoffed at. We decided to follow the call in the deep, confident that no beast on this Earth could hope to crack the hardy shell of the Colossus. 

The day had arrived for our final dive. We had navigated to the last known location of the frantic whale call and prepared to find answers. Before we had started our descent the crew sent a ping of radar to see how deep the point went and we had received a surprising answer. Most of the pings we had sent had travelled miles down into the depths, much further than we could ever hope to travel in the colossus. However this time, the depth seemed to stall at 6,000 feet along most of the trenches width. It seemed as though a wide shelf had formed in the trench that seemed to cover the rest of the trench. We figured this would mean that if the whale had died, we would be able to see if there were any creatures that had come to feed on it. Once we had learned of this the captain and I hurriedly climbed into the Colossus, praying to bring a mystery into the light. The descent had started much the same as the previous dive. There was seemingly no life the entire time as we descended. We had figured that it was most likely that it was whalers who chased and killed the distressed whale. Soon our excitement had dwindled to boredom, and boredom made me keenly aware of my misery. We had slipped into a routine of calling the operator every five minutes and turning the lights on and off hoping to see any bioluminescent animals in the dark. Once again I was cramped, freezing, and surrounded by the constant dull pain of the pressure from the currents as the metallic shell of the Colossus groaned shuddered. After hours of watching the depth gauge, wishing this could all be over. The depth had finally crossed 4,900 when the captain asked a question that roused me from my stupor.

“Do you hear that, Doctor?”

I strained my ears but could not hear anything besides the rattling of the tether and the moaning of the Colossus.

“What do you mean? I can’t hear a thing,” I responded

The captain urged again, “Listen to the sounds of the tether, can’t you hear the rhythm?”

After listening for another moment I had heard it, normally the tether would randomly snap back and forth as the current pushed and pulled in different directions but now there was a slow tap as if somebody was pulling on the tether. How long had this been going on for? I started to call in to the operator to see if anything was happening shipside as the captain started the lights to see if he could spot something. I could hear my heart beat against my chest when the captain proclaimed he had spotted something. He took the phone from me and tried to describe what he was seeing as I turned back to my porthole. As he feverishly described the shape as it approached the vessel a sound made me almost jump out of my skin. There was a thud on the top of the colossus as if something had hit us. In my surprise all I could do was stare out the porthole and wonder what had decided to approach us. I rationalized as quickly as I could, it must have been a shark or some other large fish that just got curious from the reflection of the colossus. My blood had run cold when a hand pressed against the porthole. 

I screamed in shock, of all things in this world, a hand was the last I had expected to see. I heard the captain shuffle behind me to turn to me to see what was happening when the hand was then accompanied by a face. Sailors tell tales of mermaids, beautiful sirens with the bodies of fish and the torso of a beautiful woman. Swindlers try to craft fake mermaids by sewing the corpses of monkeys and fish together to sell to museums or oddity exhibits. What I witnessed on that dive was neither. The thing’s face was a crude imitation of the human face. Large cavernous sockets that housed bulging, bulbous, pale eyes. Where normally a nose would go, instead lay a concaved plane with tiny nostrils. I wanted to do anything possible to escape. I wished to throw the hatch open and flee the vessel, not caring that the pressure would rip me asunder. Instead all I could do was stare at the gruesome face of this merman stared back, watching the gills on its neck flap in unison with the jutting jaw that held glass-like teeth. It smacked the glass softly and rhythmically just as the tether had been moving earlier. The captain had now started to peer over my shoulder and his gasp of surprise confirmed that my mind was not playing tricks on me. He started to describe what we were looking at to the operator when we heard more taps around the craft. The taps came from all over and it was apparent that we were completely surrounded by these terrible creatures. The captain and I could only watch helplessly as whatever these things were continued to inspect the Colossus. We were prisoners caught in a cage of our own will. We had dared the abyss too many times and now it was here to call our bluff. The gentle knocking then began to quicken, eventually turning frenzied as they knocked harder and harder against the glass. Never had it been more apparent just how small the craft was as the banging echoed against the walls in a rising percussion. The tether overhead had started to slam harder and harder from side to side until we eventually heard a snap. The captain called into the receiver and heard nothing. The phone line within the tether was broken and we were alone with these monsters. We yanked on the emergency line, signalling the ship to pull us up when the knocking stopped in an instant. I turned to the window and the face was gone. The captain and I sat in unnerving silence as the depth gauge started to count up. 4,890, The tether groaned as it strained to pull us up. 4,870, Why would those things suddenly stop trying to break the Colossus? 4,850, The depth gauge completely halted as the tether screamed against the hatch of the Colossus with a noise that reverberated in my bones. The depth gauge had then started to count back up again, we were descending. 4,900 feet, Did those monsters cut the tether somehow? 5,100 feet, The Colossus started to buckle at the seams, it couldn’t possibly handle the speed at which we were descending. 5,300 feet, death seemed imminent as the Colossus fought to resist the pressure. 5,500 feet, my ears throbbed in agony as barotrauma set in. My eyes felt as if they would burst from the blood threatening to rupture from my capillaries. All I could do was sob as my body was squeezed and was thrown to the floor from the downward force. 5,563 feet, The vessel stopped suddenly. The captain and I rose to our feet with great effort and we dared to look out into the void once again. My window was entirely black and I wondered if the lights had been broken as well. I heard the captain cry out and I quickly turned to face his porthole and saw what brought us so deep. There was a massive limb that extended past the porthole window and was slowly bringing us to our captor. It was a crab, completely unfathomable in scale but was recognizable. Its massive frame was held aloft by sturdy legs that stretched into the abyss deep below us. This must have been the reason the mermen had left, this apex predator that dwarfed any creature known to science had reached out and caught us as we tried to escape. It pulled us in slowly, closer and closer as its eyestalks inspected the Colossus at various angles. Finally we were centered in front of the dense carapace as its mandibles opened and we were brought once more into complete darkness. We heard metal scraping against chitin and figured our lives were at an end. After a few moments the captain dared to utter a word.

“Doctor?”

I took a moment to collect myself, “Captain.”

The Captain murmured in reply, “We’re ascending.”

I looked at the depth gauge and the soft glow of the numbers confirmed what he said. 5,300 feet. Neither of us dared to make a sound for the rest of the ascent. My mind was racing, trying to understand anything that had just happened and praying it would not happen again. The quiet unease was only amplified by the groans of the vessel and with both lights broken we were drifting completely blind. Eventually light broke through our windows and we neared the surface. Once we had docked with the ship the captain and I climbed out like frightened puppies, shivering and unconsciously clinging near the other. 

We could not continue the dives, the Colossus was heavily damaged and it was a miracle we survived at all. Even if the Colossus was ready to operate neither of us would be willing to step foot in the vessel ever again. We told the crew what we had seen as we started the journey back to California and documented everything that we had seen. The only evidence we had was the claw and bite marks left on the Colossus which were consistent with crabs that we knew of. After returning home we were lauded for our efforts by the Zoological Institute for our heroism and strength to have surpassed the previous diving record.

I sold my journals detailing what we had seen to the Institute and was able to retire comfortably. The captain and I parted ways amicably. We have not seen each other since he flew back to the east coast, I believe we both wanted to forget about what we had been through. However, no matter how hard we try I’m sure we’ll always remember. As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to dream less. When the season grows cooler and I hear the waves crash against the shore through my window, however, I close my eyes and let the darkness cover me. And if I look hard enough into the abyss, I swear I can see it stare back. 

I woke up and didn’t see my parents anywhere, their shoes were gone so I assumed they were still over at the Madsen’s place. It was odd for them to sleep over as we were literally right next door, so I decided to knock on the door and see if my parents were still there. Eventually, Serena opened the door and her face lit up.

“Good morning Sarah! How can I help you sweetie?”

I groggily replied, “Hey Serena, I was just wondering if my parents were still over at your place.”

She smiled even wider, “They sure are hun, care to come inside and talk to them? We’re hard at work in there.” 

I’d never actually been invited inside their house before so I was curious to see what their home actually looked like inside.

“Sounds good, lead the way.”

As I crossed the threshold I was hit with a cacophony of smells. How on Earth could my parents stomach the smell of the house? The sickly sweet smell that permeated from all of their perfumes must have stuck to the walls, as anytime you took a breath you could feel the essence of the smell enter your lungs. My head started to spin a bit and I had to take a second to regain my composure.

“Are you alright hun?” Serena cooed sweetly, “Sometimes the smell can be a bit much if it’s your first time.”

I took a deep breath and tried to grit past the nausea, “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.”

When the Madsens first moved in they seemed to pack lightly, only bringing the essentials. However I figured they were just waiting to get decorations once they actually moved in. Now that it has been a few months of them living here, they still didn’t seem to have done any decorating. The walls were completely barren and it felt like they didn’t use any of the space. The hardwood floors revealed a layer of dust in most rooms, with only the rooms that had any of the sparsely laid out furniture being clean. Their kitchen was also odd, they didn’t have an oven, stove, or even a microwave. The only thing I could see was a refrigerator and a large bowl of fruit that sat on their kitchen table. Eventually Serena brought me to the basement and this seemed to be the most lived in part of the house. There were all sorts of equipment used for pressing ingredients for oil and lots of small bottles laid around with haphazard labels with only a name on them. The smell was the most intense down in the basement. Even after adjusting to the smell from the upstairs, a new wave of nausea washed over me as the sheer volume of competing smells all mixed to create a pungent musk that caused my nose to completely overload trying to identify exactly what I was smelling. I finally noticed my parents at a large table, operating equipment while Jason quietly guided them through the process. They seemed to be in high spirits however, a far cry from the depressed shells they were when they entered this house. How on Earth did the Madsens cheer them up

I struggled to choke out, “Mom! Dad!”

They were currently occupied with the bottling equipment but hearing my voice they briefly jumped in surprise and turned to look at me.

“Sarah! Goodness you startled me, are you alright pumpkin?”, my mother asked

“Yes mom, I’m fine. I just came to check on you guys, you’ve been gone all night.”

My father furrowed his brow, confused, “All night? That can’t be right, we just got started down here.”

Serena giggled and placed a hand on my father’s and mother’s shoulder with a gentle caress, “Yep, you two have been down here with us all night. I’m glad we could help you feel better and we really appreciate the help you two are giving us. Since nobody seems to like any of our new scents, I really think that having you two around will really help us find something that everyone will love.”

I narrowed my eyes at Serena for a moment, “So, are you two planning on coming home any time soon?”

After breaking out of their trance and realizing the time that had passed, sleep must have caught up with my parents. They yawned deeply, “Yeah I suppose you’re right Sarah, We’ll be heading back home now. Bye Serena, thank you for everything” my mother said, leaning in for a hug.

Eventually we all returned home and I let my parents go to bed. As they slept I started to think over everything I just saw. When and why did my parents agree to start helping make the scents? Were they even being paid for any of this? My parents are perfectly rational people, but they do have a history of being too trusting of people. They have fallen for similar schemes before, but they’ve usually had someone confront them and explain the scam. Now that they’re completely isolated from everyone they cared about before and the only positive reinforcement is coming from the Madsens themselves, my parents must have gotten caught in their plot. I was infuriated, how could I be so stupid? I just thought my parents were trying hard to make their new friends happy and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. I should have realized that the Madsens just wanted to use my parents for their own means. They had now crossed the line and once my parents woke up I decided I was going to have to be the one to confront them. 

I knew I would need to be gentle however, Aunt Cathy rattled them deeply and if I wasn’t careful they would snap completely. I cursed myself again, I should have stood up for them against Aunt Cathy. While she may have been right, she completely pushed my parents into the hands of these bizarre hippies to use however they like. As morning drifted into the evening and I started to cook dinner I heard my parents door open up. Now that my parents are awake, I’m hoping I can talk some sense into them and they’ll stop pushing themselves so hard. For the first time in a long time we all sat at the dinner table and ate together. It was silent at the table for a long time until I finally decided it was time and I started to try and reason with my parents.

“Mom, dad, are you actually going to try and help the Madsens make perfume? You two don’t have any idea where to even begin with the process, and it feels like they’re just trying to use you two to keep their company going while they don’t do any work.”

My father replied without looking up from his plate, “Sarah it’s not like that. The Madsens are our friends and we just want to help them out.”

I was frustrated at that and tried to push further, “But why do you feel the need to help them out? Dad, they bought their house entirely in cash, they must not be struggling that hard. They’ve clearly done well enough on their own this far.”

My father sighed, still looking down like a scolded child, “I didn’t want to tell you this because this is their business, but Sarah, their business is failing and they’re worried. They haven’t seen the same success here like they did back in California and as the months go by they don’t know if they’ll be able to keep going. We just want to help them to keep their dream alive.”

I was surprised to hear that, it felt like if anyone was actually worried about the Madsen’s and their business, it was my parents. Whenever they failed to convince anyone to buy their product, they would come home crushed. The Madsens, meanwhile, seemed completely unphased and after some gentle encouragement would have my parents ready to get back out there and try again.

I let my temper flare, and started to raise my voice, “But why do you let them use you like this? Why don’t they try and open a storefront or even try and get a spot at the mall? Hell, do they even have a store online? It feels like you two are the ones shouldering all of the responsibility. The Madsens are adults, and if their business is failing, it shouldn’t be your job to help them fix their mistakes.” 

My mother finally turned her head from her plate and looked up into my eyes, “Sarah please, you wouldn’t understand, you’ve never had friends like this. People who understand you in ways that not even you realize. They’re all that we have right now”

I balked at this and no matter how hard I tried there were tears starting to form in my eyes, “But you have me. Don’t you miss spending time with me at all? We used to have dinner every night and we would talk to one another like a family. Now all you can think about are our neighbors. How can you say that they’re all you have when I’ve been waiting for you here everyday.”

The room fell silent, they both stared down at their half finished chicken parmesan. This lasted for a long time as I pleadingly stared at them, desperately hoping that anything I had said would reach them. 

My father finally stood up, turned to me and said, “Excuse me, but I’m going next door.”

With that he strode out the door and my mother wordlessly followed. I sat alone at the table. At first, I sat, surrounded by the silence that descended upon the house. The silence was overbearing. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and started to choke back sobs, hoping that my parents would come back and comfort me. I knew that would never happen though, they were fully under the spell of the Madsens and were more dedicated to a business they didn’t own than they were to their own daughter. 

That night they didn’t come back home, they also didn’t come back the night after that, eventually a week had passed and I hadn’t seen my parents at all. I know what I should have done, I should have gone over and confronted the Madsens for their manipulation. My parents were completely under their charms though and didn’t want to see me so I decided I was never going to go try and get them until they came crawling back. 

I had no idea how my parents were doing, the Madsens could have murdered them in cold blood and left them to rot under the floorboards for all I knew. I was still determined to wait out my parents though, I was hurt from being rejected so completely. I only heard about them when I decided to go out and check the mail while also seeing if I could find any sign of my parents. Their car was still parked in our driveway so I knew that they had to have been over at the Madsens. As I made my way to the mailbox I saw Daniel Watson, my neighbor who lived across the street also checking his mail. He was a bit surprised when he turned to see me.

He turned to face me, “Oh hey Sarah, how have you been?”

I flatly responded, “Been better.”

This faux pas was the midwestern equivalent to a suicide note, no one ever says they haven’t been good.

Daniel picked up on my mood immediately and arched an eyebrow, “things not going to great? Is it about your parents?”

I sighed in response, “How’d you know?”

Daniel put his arms on top of the mailbox and leaned forward, “The whole neighborhood has been concerned, we haven’t seen them go to work at all last week. They’re just over at the Madsen’s place and whenever they leave–”

I quickly cut in, “Wait a minute they’ve left their house? Do you know where they’ve gone?”

Daniel adjusted his weight on the mailbox, “They’ve only gone out once or twice, but whenever they do they’re never out for long. They always come back with grocery bags but they immediately head inside. I tried to call out to them before but they didn’t pay me any mind. They always look disheveled and seem eager to return to the Madsen’s. Now I have no idea what’s going on but you may want to talk some sense into them soon. I heard those vultures at the HOA are starting to consider filing a complaint about the grass.” 

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind”, I uttered before walking away after retrieving our mail. 

It had been a while since I had last left the house as well, it was a beautiful July afternoon and many of the neighbors were out on the lawn enjoying the sun. My heart ached seeing parents play with their kids in their yards, how long had it been since my parents had even thought about me? I noticed that as I walked back to my house, it seemed like all of the neighbors' eyes were on me, I even caught a few of them whispering to one another. Were they talking about us? The irony of it wasn’t lost on me. My father, the nosiest man in the world, was now the talk of the neighborhood as our family and the Madsens were labelled the local freakshow.

Not even an hour had passed by when there was a knock at the door, I was expecting it to be one of the overlords of the HOA formally submitting their complaint. My father said they were like sharks smelling blood, quick to attack whenever they could justify slapping somebody with a fee. I was surprised when I opened the door, I recognized the woman as my mother’s manager who I had seen once or twice before whenever I was dragged to my mother’s company’s Christmas celebrations. She seemed worried and quickly cut to the chase.

“Hey Sarah, are your parents home? We haven’t seen your mom in the office all week and she won’t pick up our calls. Is everything alright?”, She asked.

I had no idea how to explain the situation to her so I decided to fib, “Sorry that you haven’t heard anything, I think there was a family situation. They didn’t tell me much before they left but they said it could be a while before they came back home.”

She nodded trying to appear understanding, but her eyes expressed doubt, “I see, well if you hear back from them or see them, could you please call me at this number so that we know they’re alright? Ever since she’s started pushing that god-awful perfume around the office she’s just seemed a bit off. We’re worried about her at the office and we really hope your parents are alright. If there’s anything I can do for you or your family please just let me know.”

I thanked her and told her I’d call the number if I heard anything from them. I decided that sitting idly by waiting for my parents to come to their senses was never going to happen. I decided that once it was dark I would go over and demand my parents to come home. As the sun went down and there was nobody outside to witness the scene that was about to happen I went over to the Madsen’s house and knocked on the door. After a long time of waiting, knocking, and getting no response I decided to try the doorknob. To my surprise the door was unlocked and I carefully made my way inside, trying my best to not make a sound. As I walked through the hallways leading up to the basement the house looked almost entirely unchanged from my initial visit. The only difference was the heaps of plastic grocery bags that littered the countertops in the kitchen. I was curious to see what my family was buying and after looking through the contents, each of the bags contained bags of sugar and nothing else. Why on Earth had my parents gotten so much sugar? Is sugar an ingredient in perfume? It would explain why their perfume was so sickly sweet smelling, but why did they need so much? I also noticed a large stack of water bottles tucked away haphazardly in the corner of the kitchen. It was a strange scene but I needed to keep moving on and find where my parents were hiding. It was so quiet in the house and I was worried that something happened to my parents. Were they even here? Could the Madsens have taken them somewhere or had something happened to them? 

I only became sure that someone was in the house as I approached the basement. The closer I came to the basement door I heard noises that only got louder and louder as I approached. I sat with my ear close to the door to see if I could tell what was going on. I heard labored groans and gasps behind the doorway. It sounded like somebody was in pain. Cautiously opened the door and felt a shock run down my spine as the door creaked open to the basement. I waited at the top of the stairs, waiting to see if anything would change. I wanted to see if the noises would stop or if someone started walking towards the stairs, but nothing happened. The usual smell from the doorway assailed my nose again but this time it was different. 

The smell was muskier than any of their perfumes had smelled before and the air was damper than the last time. I tried my best to hold my breath and slowly climb down the stairs so that no one would see me and as I crept down the stairs I was eventually greeted with a haunting sight that I will never forget. Serena had my father pinned to a table, and Jason had thrown my mother over a chair so that my parents were making eye contact. All of them were completely naked and were completely entranced in each other. Seeing my parents deep in the throes of passion with other people was a gut punch that I couldn’t stomach. Seeing them hold hands, while making deep eye contact as they were domineered was something I couldn’t register. It wasn’t right, these people couldn’t be my parents. My parents could never do such a thing right? As I stood in stunned silence I had started to notice the monsters who were on top of my parents and what they really were. The Madsen’s usual brown furred clothes weren’t actually gone, but instead were draped over their back like four, massive overlapping, winglike appendages that blended in with their long brown hair. Their earrings were no longer dangling by their ears but were instead pointing upwards and were being used like antennae that were rubbing over my parents. Now that their “clothes” were taken off, it was apparent how inhuman they were. They were extremely lanky and had long fuzz all over their body. Apart from their arms and legs they had a third, more buglike set of limbs that were being used to rub what I can only describe as a thorax, which was dripping with some kind of fluid and then getting rubbed all over my poor parents. The hardest part to watch was their tongues, their tongues unfurled like a proboscis and was being used like a straw to drink up any fluid while exploring my parents bodies. I finally let out a sharp cry when I saw Serena trying to force her strawlike tongue deep in my fathers mouth. The sound startled everybody and the Madsens quickly got off of my parents and tried to retract their wings and hide their real forms. My parents were wide eyed, as if they had just woken from a horrible nightmare. They looked at our neighbors and made the same realization I had, whatever the Madsens were, they weren’t human. They quickly covered their shame and started to panic.

“What the hell are you?!” My mother cried out pointing at Jason.

My father struggled to express his surprise as he was starting to retch from the long proboscis-like tongue that invaded his throat moments before. As he hacked and coughed I saw him cough up small, white pearls onto the floor. I took both of my parents by the wrist and tried to march them upstairs. The Madsens were quick to protest and soon they were tugging at my parents arms to keep them in their horrible basement. They were completely unintelligible while pleading with my parents to stay, choking on their massive tongues and unable to get the words out. I yanked my parents arms sharply and despite the impressive size of the Madsens, they were too frail to keep their hold on my parents arms. We had gotten most of the way up the staircase when the Madsens composed themselves and were able to speak again. We were only a few steps away from reaching the main floor when the Madsens cried out one final time.

Jason called out, “Wait! Don’t go, we need you here. You guys have been such a great help. Please come back down and we can continue where we left off.”

I didn’t understand, even now at a time like this they were still begging for their help. Help with what though? It’s not like ravaging my parents like flies on a corpse would help them at all. 

We took another step forward and Serena called out next, “We’re begging you, you two are perfect for us. We love you!”

My parents hesitated right before they were going to cross the door. I couldn’t turn to face them, afraid that they would willingly fall under their spell once more. I heard my father sigh deeply and then my parents walked past the door. I shut the door behind them, still hearing the desperate pleading of the Madsens. When I turned back to face my parents they were holding hands and together we marched out of the Madsen household for good. The next few hours were a blur. After getting dressed and showering off the smell of the basement, my parents were quick to throw away any of the samples they had leftover. Once they rid the house of any trace of the Madsens they went to the living room and just sat on the couch looking like they had aged about a decade. I sat on the loveseat next to them, just in case they were tempted to go back. We all sat in silence, there was nothing to say after all that we had been through. We all fell asleep in the living room and we were awoken the next morning by the sound of the doorbell. I told my parents I would get it, ready to have to confront whatever the Madsens were headon. All that was left at our doorstep was a box with a note that merely said “Memories”. When I picked it up I heard the clanking of glass bottles and immediately went to throw it in the garbage bin outside. As I threw away the package I noticed that the Madsen’s truck was no longer in their driveway.

After a few days there were still no signs of the Madsens and it was soon evident that they had completely abandoned the house. However, while they may have left our neighborhood they still weren’t finished plaguing our family. After a few days my parents were having trouble sleeping, they complained of painful coughing fits that made it difficult to rest. They were busy trying to readjust to their normal life and didn’t want to leave work again just to go to the doctors. One night after dinner as my parents watched TV in the living room and I was browsing the internet, I heard my father hacking up a lung and my mother started to scream. I ran downstairs to see what was going on and I watched as my father started to cough up brown moths. We rushed my father to the emergency room and after examining his esophagus they found the same small pearls that he coughed up a few nights prior. They were much larger now and some were even translucent with visible larvae growing inside. My mother also requested to be examined and sure enough she had the eggs implanted in her. The doctors had never seen anything like it before and were quick to work and expel the eggs from their throats.

After all of the eggs were removed and we were cleared to return home we struggled to return to normalcy. My parents were deeply ashamed and for a long time they rarely spoke to anybody. They returned to work and started to work longer hours, desperate to feel like nothing had changed and by burying themselves in work they were able to pretend like nothing had ever happened. Eventually they had to go home and they would always have to be met face to face with the site of their greatest shame. They slowly started to grow colder to each other and started to become closer to roommates than a married couple. They both were deeply ashamed of themselves and each other and after being put in such a compromising position I don’t think they’ll ever forgive themselves or each other. 

Eventually the years passed, my parents never fully recovered and were still shells of their former selves. They are comfortable though, and while they will never be as close as they were before the Madsens, they take comfort in each other and what they went through together. Even the property has started to move on, after a year of the Madsens leaving, it was officially labelled as abandoned and after the city repossessed the property it has now gone back up for sale. I’ve heard it’s been difficult to sell however due to reports of odd smells throughout the house. I’ve been doing great, I’m now a sophomore in college in Milwaukee and being out of the house has helped me to move on and to start thinking about my own life. I’ve also found a solid group of friends and have started going out way more. Something odd happened last night when we went to the bars though. My friends were sitting at the bar and a boy with long, black hair and a large coat walked up to us. He started making moves at my friend Jessica who decided to let him down easy and lied saying that she was already seeing somebody. He took it pretty well and walked off and eventually started approaching other girls in the bar. My other friend Rebecca was livid and started to ask questions.

“Jessica, what the hell was that? The first time we’ve been approached in weeks and you immediately turn him down. He wasn’t that bad looking was he?”

Jessica shrugged, “He just wasn’t my type, did you see those weird earrings he had in? He just had a weird vibe about him. If you’re so desperate, you can just go for it, you know.”

Rebecca retorted, “Maybe I will, he was pretty cute.” She paused, “It’s kinda funny though, he looks a lot like you Sarah. Are you sure you don’t have some long-lost sibling?”

I couldn't answer. I was taken aback from the smell of his cologne. It was sweet.

I grew up as an only child in a quiet neighborhood for all of my life. I had never known excitement, nor fear for as long as I could remember. My family was a product of where we lived. My parents were cookie cutter yuppies who thought the concrete jungle of St. Louis would be a welcome reprieve from the dullness of their own tranquil upbringing and bring them the excitement they had wanted as children. After grinding against corporate America and establishing their professional careers the city life had lost all of its luster. After years of focusing on career and gaining a foothold in their industry they had finally decided to look to the future and had decided they wanted children. They felt a festering anxiety from the rampant crime of St. Louis and after examining their options, decided to flee to the comforts of the suburbs they had experienced as children. After securing positions in Appleton, Wisconsin they quickly settled in and I followed soon after. We were the epitome of suburbia, a loving family who rarely bickered; we got on well with our neighbors, though we were also never very close. My parents had always wanted more children, but once they got accustomed to their jobs and had me they were always too busy and eventually time had passed and were too tired to consider raising another kid. For most of my life they were always too busy to spend a lot of time with me. This had never bothered me and I grew accustomed to the life of an insular latchkey kid. Eventually the years had passed and I was now in my junior year of high school. My parents grew weary of all of their responsibilities at work and found less time consuming positions to cruise into their golden years easily. This meant that I got to spend a lot more time with them than I ever had as a kid. My parents were never distant by any means but being able to spend more time with them meant that I got to understand them as people and while many people my age attempt to distance themselves from their families and strike out to find themselves and people who understand them, I looked forward to seeing my family after class and getting to tell them about my day and who I was hanging out with after school.

One day as I returned home from school I had noticed that the For Sale sign that stood in front of the house for quite a few months next to us had gone away suddenly. I grew curious and went to the only person who would definitely have some information. My father was never the most outgoing person, neither of my parents were, but one of his favorite pastimes now that he had more time to himself was snooping. It seems like everyday he catches a piece of gossip from around the neighborhood and will turn it into his local soap opera. As soon as I crossed the door I heard a loud “Heya Sarah!” erupt from the kitchen. My father emerged from the other room with a tuna melt in hand and a sparkle in his eye. 

“Did you notice anything different today?”.

I replied “Yeah, I saw that the sign next door isn’t there anymore, do you know anything about it?”.

I knew my father would be interested seeing as it had been quite a while since anyone had expressed any interest in the home. There weren’t too many people chomping at the bits to move to Appleton if you could believe it. 

“Yeah, I noticed the realtor taking the sign down so I went out to ask, he seemed pretty excited to finally be rid of the property. The couple moving in are named the Madsens. According to the realtor they’re a couple of hippies from California. They’re looking to revitalize their business now that they’ve hit a roadblock. Apparently they paid fully in cash though, so business can’t be too bad. The realtor says that they’re expecting to move in next week.”

I whistled, “Damn, wonder business they’re in”.

My father nodded in agreement, “I’m also curious, the realtor didn’t know too much himself, all he knew is that they’re empty nesters looking to find some place nice and quiet.”

“Maybe they’ve got some mafia ties and they’ll just bring trouble with them”, I grinned.

My father chuckled back, “Well I just hope any drive-bys stay on their side of the property line.”

Eventually evening rolled around and so too did my mother. We briefed her on the new neighbors and we all got caught up in the excitement. Like I said it’s pretty slow in our little slice of ticky-tacky heaven. After a week of waiting with bated breath, our new neighbors were finally here. My father strategically shut the blinds but very covertly peeked through the cracks. They both looked fairly similar, if you didn’t know they were married they could easily pass as siblings. They were very tall and fairly pale, they also both had voluminous brown hair that you could expect to see in a magazine. I had wondered if perhaps they were models or something, looking to settle down from the cutthroat industry and just sink away into something more relaxed. They didn’t have many boxes to move and were fully finished packing in just a matter of hours. I could tell my parents were itching to get to know the new neighbors and were actively preparing an assortment of treats for a housewarming present, the perfect ploy to scout out who these people are. Around 6 o’clock my parents walked over to the neighbor’s house and after a brief conversation were beckoned into the home and disappeared. After a few hours my parents returned and made sure to tell me everything they had learned from our new neighbors, they had even returned with a gift. 

“Their names are Jason and Serena.”, my mother started, “They used to live in Eureka, they said that the closeness to the Redwoods made it one of the greatest places to live. They absolutely loved it, they said it had always helped to inspire them with their business.”

I looked at my mother quizzically “Their business? What business are they in?”

My mother pulled out the gift bag they had been given from Jason and Serena.

“Perfume.” My mother replied, handing me a bottle. “They said that the closeness with nature had always helped them create new fragrances. They would just let the smells of nature move them and follow it.”

My father quickly followed up, “They were pretty damn good at it too, they showed us pictures of where they used to live and their old house was amazing.”

This just left me more confused, “Well if they loved it so much, how come they came out to a place like this? It’s not like Appleton has much natural splendour to compete with the Redwoods.” 

My mother explained, “They said they had recently hit a rut and were having a difficult finding the inspiration that used to come so naturally to them, so they decided a change of scenery may be good to help them rebalance themselves and find their next perfume.” 

Soon afterwards my parents prepared for bed and I brought the bottle with me to my room. There wasn’t any label to describe what I could expect from the smell so there was only one way to find out. I sprayed the bottle into the air and was immediately inundated with one of the sweetest, fruitiest scents I have ever smelled. I recoiled, immediately deciding I was not a fan. The sweetness was sickening, it was like trying to eat cereal from your childhood and realizing just how much sugar was in there. The artificial smell quickly enveloped my room, and just smelling it made my teeth ache. I’ve never been a fan of pure sweetness and so I decided that my mother would prefer it instead. I snuck downstairs so as not to wake my parents and left the bottle on the coffee table. I quickly returned upstairs and turned the fan, drifting to sleep as the smell dissipated through the room. 

Now that my parents had met the neighbors the next week sailed by without much excitement. The Madsens were adjusting to the neighborhood and my father had occupied himself with other going ons in the neighborhood. My father was just in the middle of explaining the heated dispute between the HOA and the Watson family’s new fence color at dinner when the doorbell rang. Eager to escape the riveting world of the HOA’s policy on fencing and the rationale for issuing a complaint about the specific shade of blue they had chosen, I decided to go answer the door on behalf of my parents. When I opened the door I was hit with the same sickly sweet smell that enveloped my room a few nights ago. The Madsens were at our door, and though they had seemed pretty tall from a distance, I got a true sense of scale when I still had to look up at them from our porch, even as they were on the lower step.

Serena gave a cheerful greeting, “Hello, you must be Sarah, your parents told us all about you just the other day! Are your folks at home?”

“Yeah we were just having dinner, would you like me to go get them?”, I offered. 

Serena beamed at me, “If it’s not too much trouble dear, thank you!” 

I returned to the kitchen and told my parents who was at the door and they quickly got up and invited them in for dinner. The Madsens were quick to accept the invitation, my parents were quick to retrieve extra chairs and tried to make our guests feel at home. 

“Can we get you anything? Beer? Wine? And if you would like any chicken piccata, please let us know.”, my mother quickly offered.

“Oh, no thank you, we’ve already eaten–” Jason said as he spotted my lemonade on the table, “But would you happen to have any more lemonade?”

My mother was already off to get a glass, “Of course, how about you Serena?”

“Oh just a lemonade for me as well please.”

Soon enough everyone had settled down at the table and dinner continued with our new guests. For the first time I had gotten a good look at the couple since they first moved in. Their resemblance to each other became even more apparent the longer I looked at them. They didn’t just look similar physically though, they may have had similar features such as their hair but they even seemed to dress like each other. They both wore light, brown fuzzy coats which seemed odd for the weather as it was early in the summer. I chalked that up to them being from California and perhaps being up north so close to Lake Winnebago was just a shift from their regular climate. They even both had matching earrings that hung from their ears. They looked to be made of a dark iron and looked like long rods that were capped off with a large diamond shape. They did seem like the kind of couple to try and coordinate so closely with their style. The realtor’s description was pretty apt, they just seemed like hippies from the west coast with a spaced out disposition were as cool and carefree as they came. 

As they talked with my parents they made the purpose for their visit apparent. They had no idea where to go or what to do in the area and since my parents were the people closest to their age in the neighborhood, I wanted to know where to go and what to do close to their new home. My parents briefed them on the best restaurants nearby and good spots to waste away a weekend they started to schedule times to hang out together. It was nice to see my parents so excited to make plans, they weren’t very outgoing and didn’t have too many friends. Until now they seemed content, if a bit bored just staying at home, but now they were planning on going out for pickleball and to go fishing at the lake on the weekends. Eventually it had gotten late and the Madsen’s excused themselves. They thanked us for the hospitality and as they left, Serena gave me a big hug. I must have gotten used to her perfume because as she leaned in for a hug I didn’t mind the smell nearly as much.

As the weeks passed I started to see less and less of my parents. At first it was nice, being able to have the entire house to myself. My parents had started to stay out late and later so I had more free reign to do whatever I wanted late into the night. There was no one to tell me to keep my music down or to quit sneaking down to the kitchen for pantry raids. Eventually however, once I had started to be alone at the house more, I started to remember how lonely it had felt when I was a little girl. My parents were starting to spend more and more time with the Madsens, which in turn made me realize how little I left the house. I had forgotten just how empty a house can feel when you don’t have anybody else to share it with. There were fewer and fewer family dinners where I got to tell my parents about my day and things I was looking forward to. I had to regularly start cooking for myself and I had nobody to share with, nobody to try new things with, nobody to engage with. I was truly alone and life became a dull, predictable routine. It didn’t help that the little time I did spend with my parents they would come home and talk about their time with their new friends. Not a day would go by without hearing about how well the fish were biting, or how dominant of a team Serena and mother were on the pickleball court, or noteworthy incidents in bars. Pretty soon my parents and the Madsens were inseparable and started to skip going out all together and just stayed home. It seemed like they were constantly moving back and forth between houses and soon it became a regular occurrence to find all four of them together in our house. It always felt awkward when they were there and I would just retreat up to my room in order to avoid the Madsens. The more time they were at our house I also started to realize some of their quirks. They would only ever wear brown clothes, it seemed like they had no other colors in their wardrobe, and even though my parents would always offer they never drank. The only thing they would drink are juices or lemonade and soon enough it felt like our entire fridge was dedicated to their favorite drinks. I have also never seen them eat, whenever my parents had dinner with them they would only take their own drinks from the fridge and refused to eat with my parents. 

It was around this time that I had started to get suspicious. Whenever they got particularly loud and rowdy, I would listen in to what they were talking about and they always seemed to try and draw the conversation to business. At first it was subtle, they’d talk about how the area really inspired them and how the area was so great for inspiration. As time went on they became more forward. First, they would just ask my parents to help them with testing new scents. Then they gradually started giving my parents samples and asking them to tell our family and their coworkers about their perfume and try and help them make sales. At first my parents seemed uncomfortable with the idea, they weren’t sales people and they were hesitant to push products onto people that they know. Eventually the Madsens wore them down and they agreed to start telling people about their brand. Whenever they went to work they would try and see what their coworkers thought of their perfume and they saw absolutely no success. It’s difficult enough to sell a product to people when they are busy with work, it becomes especially daunting when nobody else seems to like the product. They would always come up to me and try to get my thoughts whenever they first got a new product and each one was just as revolting as the last. No matter what scent they brought me, it smelled like pure artificial chemical death in a bottle. They were definitely different smells but no matter what scent they would try, they all had that same acrid sweetness that assaulted the senses. My parents would always come back home feeling sheepish during these times. No matter how hard they tried no one would give them the time of day and I would tell them that it’s ok if they decide they want to stop. They weren’t making any money if they did make a sale and the Madsens seemed to do well enough without our help. My parents always insisted that they just thought it was a good product and that they just wanted to be good friends. Anytime the Madsens asked if anyone had wanted to make a purchase they always had to tell them no. The Madsens were never pushy or mean, they would just gently encourage them to try again and promised that the next product would be a success, constantly goading them to pursue their next failure.

This failure would continue until one day when my parents finally broke down. Most of their coworkers were already fed up with them by this point and would stop having lunch with them. They always seemed so upset by this isolation at work, but they still never gave up. It was the Fourth of July weekend, and my family was driving back down to St. Louis to celebrate with family. I told them that they should keep the samples at home and just enjoy the fireworks. I told them that it would be a relaxing break as they were starting to get extremely demoralized with the constant rejection. In reality I was just embarrassed to know that my parents were trying so hard for something that they would never make a penny off of, they just wanted to try hard to make the neighbors happy. At first the day seemed to be going alright, my parents were genuinely smiling for the first time in ages and could just enjoy a perfect day with the family. They couldn’t make it last however, eventually they started pulling out samples out of my mother’s purse and just kept pestering my aunts and uncles until they would humour them. Just like all the previous attempts, nobody could stand the smell and eventually even they started to avoid my parents. The tension was palpable, I could feel the whole party’s eyes on my back. Whenever my parents would get up to get a drink from the cooler or a brat from the grill everyone would go silent and wait awkwardly until they went to sit back down. It all boiled over when my mother tried to pull aside my aunt Cathy in a final attempt to win somebody over. Cathy was clearly a little tipsy when my mother tried this stunt and even at the best of times she was never the most patient. She was always the first to yell at a kid if they stepped out of line, or to loudly disapprove of whatever other people did. I’ll always remember when she grilled my parents for moving away to Wisconsin, trying to guilt them for leaving Missouri away from family and for taking me away from all my friends, not that I had any. I never really liked Aunt Cathy, she was loud, belligerent and rude, but I understood why she blew up at my parents the way she did.

“For God’s sakes Jessica, can you give it a fucking rest? You and Craig have been pestering us all goddamned day and everybody is getting sick of it. Nobody is going to buy into your little scam. If you can’t keep that shitty perfume to yourself you can just do us all a favour and drive all the way back to Appleton.”

My mother sputtered for a second, “I-I’m sorry Cathy, I didn’t realize I was being a bother, I just–”

Before my mother could finish her sentence Cathy interjected, “Just what? Just came here to pester us with that nauseating gunk? To ruin a perfectly good day? Why’d you even come back, just trying to rope us into your stupid MLM?” Suddenly, the whole family was staring at Cathy’s outburst in total silence, none of them daring to utter a word.

“I’m not trying to con you I swear, I just think you’d like it is all”, my mother said with a quivering voice. 

My father tried to stick up for my mother, "C'mon Cathay relax, there’s no need to get hostile. We’ll stop with the perfume I swear”

The last thing that Cathy ever wanted to be told when she was like this was to relax, she erupted one final time, “I don’t care Craig, you and Jessica have completely ruined today and I can’t stand to look at you, much less smell you anymore than I have to. Could you do us all a favour and just leave us alone.”

At this point my father was completely red in the face and my mother had tears in her eyes. They looked around at the rest of the family, looking for any sympathy, and only received cold, blank stares back.

My father spoke softly to my mother, “Come on Jess, let’s head back to Appleton.”

My mother nodded and I followed them back to the car and we started to drive home. The whole 7 hour ride was completely silent, only stopping to get gas along the way. In the backseat I tried to think of anything to say to make it better, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Even as it got dark and the fireworks started to fill the night sky, we couldn’t help but to just stare ahead in somber silence, just waiting to eventually make it home. I tried to think of something, anything to say that would make my parents feel better. I knew that there was nothing I could say that would make them feel better. After months of constantly being rejected and alienating themselves at the office, it all finally culminated with us being expelled from a family gathering. We forever cemented ourselves as the strange outcasts of the family, constantly bothering the others for a quick buck. Eventually we made it to the house but my parents didn’t go back home, instead they knocked on the Madsen’s door, and almost immediately they were at the entrance, beckoning my parents inside and asking what was wrong. I just opened the front door to our house and went upstairs without saying a word to my parents.

The last thing I saw before going inside was Jason waving to me goodnight as my parents solemnly shuffled inside the house.