u/Leading-Dig9937

(Cw: gore)

“-and thank you again, Gale, for that cute example of an affordable costume!”

I walked downstairs to the sound of the news channel my father always had on discussing cheap costume ideas, the kid on screen wearing what looked like a robot costume hastily made from cardboard boxes and shoddily painted even faster.

It was Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year, and it was the last year I could trick-or-treat, my 18th birthday falling a few days later. Even though I could technically go trick-or-treating after I turned 18, it’s not something that’s really approved of by most people.

I reached the bottom of the stairs wearing my Dracula costume I had bought with money earned from my part-time job bussing tables, the void-black cape flowing dramatically behind me. I walked into the kitchen and saw my mother at the sink, and she turned around in mock horror as she saw me, throwing her hands to her mouth in exaggerated fashion.

“Oh no! A vampire, in my home? How ever did you get inside without an invitation?!” I rolled my eyes as she smiled and she stepped forward to adjust my collar.

“Now, we don’t have blood here, Mr. Dracula, but we do have some pizza on the stove there.” She turned back to finish washing the pizza cutter she had been scrubbing, her hands covered in bubbles tinted orange by the pizza sauce staining the blade.

“Am I taking Janey out this year, or is she going with her friends?” I asked, my stomach growling as I grabbed a paper plate and napkin from the counter, piling it clumsily with more than a few slices. Janey was my little sister by 4 years, and as much as I loved her, she was an iron ball and chain on Halloween.

“No, she’s going with her friends, Becca and Sean, I think their names are?” Mom grabbed a piece herself and followed me out to the living room, the news channel starting to read off candies to avoid this year.

“Ok, I kinda figured, I heard her mention it the other day but I wasn’t sure.” My mouth was full of pizza when I spoke, and I covered my mouth with the napkin I had grabbed as well.

On the television, the pretty blonde news reporter was reading out candy companies to avoid due to recalls. I only half paid attention as I ate, figuring it would all be off-brand candies like the previous year, and I was right. She listed a few I recognized, a couple off-brand Kit-Kats for incorrect labeling, one that sounded similar to a Ring Pop for allergens, and not to hand out anything from some company named Crazy something-or-other due to contamination from some accident. Mom gasped quietly at that last one as the pretty blonde reporter passed off to her colleague who started going over the weather for the night.

“Jesus. That poor guy. I hope that company treats his family well, otherwise they need to get their asses a good lawyer.” She muttered as she stood and started walking back towards the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a bowl full of candy for trick-or-treaters coming to our house.

“Just pay attention to it before you eat anything, and if tastes bad, just spit it out.” She rattled off her warning just as she did every year, and turned on our porch light. I had completely forgot to check the time and I looked at the clock above the stove from the couch. 7:44.

“Oh shit, I’m late!!” I yelled as I ran to the kitchen and threw out my plate, my mother hypocritically calling after me to stop swearing. I shouted an apology as I grabbed the purple cloth bag near the back door and ran back up to the front door, giving my mom a quick hug as I ran out of the front door to see my friends standing on the lawn, talking to my father, a large and burly man, but kind as a teddy bear.

“Hey Dad!” I said as I slowed to a jog, waving to my two friends, Donny and Gerald. They waved and politely walked a short distance away so I could talk to my father before I left.

“Hey, kiddo, if you get any Milk Duds, save ‘em for me? You owe at least a little dad tax.” He smirked as he gave me a hug, much to my protesting. He finally let me go after what felt like far too long, and I ran over to my friends, excited but saddened, a bittersweet feeling as I went out for the last time.

Two hours and countless houses later, we sat on the floor of my living room, examining our haul. We had already taken off our costumes, just lounging around while some old unknown horror movie played on the television behind us. Donny had somehow managed to get a full-sized box of Sour Patch Kids, much to our annoyance, and even he didn’t know when or where he got it.

“I’m telling you, I went to all the same houses as you guys!” He said, trying not to laugh, our frustration at how we managed to miss such a prize obvious.

“Bullshit, you’re just gatekeeping it.” I said, digging around to see what I had earned. All of your standard fun-sized candy bars, a few knock-offs mixed in, and one of my unpopular favorites sitting right at the bottom of the bag; a set of gummy vampire teeth. I smiled as I pulled them out, both of my friends wrinkling their noses in disgust.

“I will never understand how you like those fucking things.” Gerald said as he handed me the ones he had gotten, and Donny followed suit.

“I dunno dude, they taste great to me. Like old-ass grandma teeth.” I joked as I clacked my teeth at him, laughing at his unamused expression.

I took one out as Janey walked downstairs, more than likely disturbed from her rest by me and my friends. My little sister was prepared however, and must have already asked her friends before they left if they had any of my favorite candy, and as she walked past me she dropped four more sets of the gummy teeth into my lap.

“There you go, weirdo.” She made a disgusted face at me before turning and marching back upstairs, presumably to bed.

“Love you too, Janey!” I called after her sarcastically, grateful that she took the time to ask her friends. Honestly I was surprised, that was the nicest thing she had done for me since she started middle school earlier this year, besides acknowledging my existence as her older brother, that is. I ripped open one of the packages and took a bite.

A common thing that you will hear or experience is that gummy teeth taste like dirt. Most people hate it, but I loved it. It tasted like nostalgia, old Halloweens, home, etc., so when I bit into the red and white gelatin I froze as I tasted a hint of metal. I pulled away, confused as I looked at the bite marks. Nothing out of the ordinary was there, so I hesitantly took another bite. That same strange metallic tang sat there, alien but not too unpleasant.

“Huh. These… taste a little weird.” I muttered as I swallowed, looking to Donny. He had a stronger stomach between him and Gerald, and figured he’d be more willing to verify my taste buds. He sighed and stuck out his hand, and I placed an unopened set into his hand. He took a single bite and immediately gagged.

“What the hell, what is this?” Donny said as he spat it out. He stared at the packaging and immediately tossed it towards me. “Dude. You need to go throw up.”

“What?” I looked at the packaging, nothing too interesting. It advertised gummy vampire teeth with a cartoon Dracula, made by a vaguely familiar-sounding company called Crazy Delights.

A memory suddenly slammed into my head so hard, I was stunned into silence. Donny had figured it out before me, and was staring at me with concern. I looked up, wide-eyed with shock and complete disbelief. I quickly grabbed the remote, attempting to find the news broadcast from earlier. After a few minutes of what seemed like futile searching I found it and scrolled to the portion of candy recalls, Gerald repeatedly asking what was happening.

“-and finally, the candy company Crazy Delights is issuing a mass recall and warning involving any and all of their gummy-related candies due to foreign contamination from a workplace accident. The details of the accident are unknown at this time, but there is a confirmed death involved. If you already have bought any of their products to hand out to trick-or-treaters, dispose of it immediately. And now, onto the weather for tonight with-”

I didn’t even hear my friends worried reassurances as I stared down at the half-eaten pair of gummy teeth, my stomach doing cartwheels.

My friends left at my request a few minutes later, partly because I didn’t want to worry them, but mostly because I knew I was about to go through the ringer and wanted to spare them from seeing it themselves. I had had bad candy before, and it was not a fun experience, but so far there was nothing. No bubble gut, no nausea, nothing. I gathered my candy off the ground and stopped at my parents room, and seeing them asleep, I quietly placed the Milk Duds I had saved on my father’s dresser with a small smile.

An hour later, and I was still awake, waiting for the hammer of bad choices and stomach problems to slam into me at full force, but there was nothing. If anything I just felt cold and itchy, like someone had been rubbing a frozen sponge over my body. I didn’t have hives, but it was itching bad enough that I was scratching myself raw and red in places, especially my face. My mouth still tasted like the gummy, that nostalgic dirt flavor overridden by the taste of metal.

My stomach began growling, and I remembered there was still a few slices of cold pizza on the stove. I quietly crept downstairs, and froze as I took a step down, hearing a quiet sound echo through the hall, almost sounding like a quiet rip. I took another step and heard the same sound, and looked down to see that my sock had just snagged on a tiny nail head, ripping the heel. I breathed out a sigh of relief as I finished descending, that same rip accompanying every step as my jaw began to feel sore, my teeth aching slightly from the candy I had eaten earlier in the night.

I managed to make it to the kitchen, nearly doubled over with hunger. I was starving, and I grabbed a piece of pizza and took a bite of the cold slice, before whirling to the sink and immediately retching and throwing it back up, panting, tears in my eyes. I coughed and turned on the faucet to rinse out the sink and my mouth and retched again, this time my throat closing like a vice for a split second as I drew my mouth near, the water itself seeming to tremble away from me. I recoiled and stumbled upstairs, my vision blurred from vomiting, but I then smelled something so wonderful, something so sweet and tangy and savory that I needed to see what it was.

I opened my sister’s door quietly, peeking inside to see what she had in her room. Janey was asleep, lying on her side facing the door, and she held her clear candy bag like a pillow in front of her, hugging it close. The scent that came from it was incredible, like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and I crept close, looking through the bag at so many candies and sweets and stuff I had never seen before, all looking like it belonged in a fairy tale. I looked at her sleeping face, and back to the bag. I was so damn hungry, and even though I knew it was my sister’s Halloween prize, I wanted, no, needed it.

I tore open the top of the bag, and it split down the middle as I stuck my hands inside, candy falling out onto the bed and floor. Janey’s eyes shot open, staring at me with half asleep shock for a moment before they fluttered close as her head rested back on the pillow. I grabbed a handful of sweets and popped a few into my mouth, nearly moaning at the intense heavenly taste, like barbecue sauce drizzled over licorice and a touch of that same metallic tang. I was voracious, and I acted as such.

I ate and ate and ate, my hunger bottomless as I shoveled candy into my mouth, my vision blurring to black before coming back in bursts as I feasted, that ambrosia of the gods filling my stomach. I don’t know how long I ate, my jaw hurting from how much I had been chewing, but it wasn’t enough. Her bag had run out of candy, and I was still hungry as I caught scent of more sweets coming from my parents room.

The Milk Duds on the dresser disgusted me, a foul sugary sentry that seemed to judge me as I ate the candy bags that my parents had hidden under their blankets just as delicious as Janey’s, both in their own right. The candy my mother had collected was more sweet, a little sour with citric acid and a hint of what tasted like ketchup or tomato sauce. My father’s had the taste of black licorice and bourbon and chocolate, with a note of something similar to caramel. My mouth was hurting more and more, razor blades dragged across the back of my mouth and jaw as I chewed. I stood as I finished and nearly gagged as I saw the Milk Duds again, and upon realizing that this was going to be more than a mere gag, ran to the bathroom to throw up into the toilet.

I closed my eyes as I threw up, my stomach heaving and my eyes tinged with tears with the effort, before I opened them and stared into the toilet, my eyes widening at the mess.

I stumbled to my feet, recoiling and backing up into the opposite wall, staring at the dark murk in the toilet, I crept back out into the hallway of my unwaking family as I peeked into my sister’s room and saw her laying there, peacefully lying on her deathbed, her stomach and chest unzipped and empty with a crimson mess spreading across the carpet and bed and I stumbled back across the hall and fell into my parents room, turning and feeling my mind begin to slip as I saw my mother with the blood trickling from her mouth as her torso was hollowed in the same fashion, my father similar as well but with his eyes removed, now sloshing around in my stomach as I finally screamed, struggling to my feet as I ran to the bathroom with the crimson chunky mess filling the toilet and finally saw in the mirror why my face had felt itchy and my jaw painful, my skin peeling away in jagged dark red flaps to make room for my jaw, unhinged and held together by bright red tendons as they grew outward to give my jagged teeth room to fit as I screamed and cried and my face felt freezer-burnt as it expanded, splitting and ripping my skin apart in crimson-black gashes across my body that oozed and dripped with my blood as my body grew disproportionately, my scalp shredding to pieces as I felt something stabbing through and growing out while I howled and cried and lost my grip on reality as I smelled more and more candy all around me from all over town, the heavenly scent filling me with nothing but mindless and empty hunger and hunger and hunger aND HUNGER AND

(Cw; gore, violation of a corpse)

“Everything that comes to be comes to be by something and comes to be from something and comes to be something.” - Aristotle

I hadn’t spoken with my former colleague in over two decades over disagreements within our work of thanatology, or studies of death. I tended to lean towards studying the causes and effects of death towards specific bodily functions, such as possible preventative measures to save a victim of crush syndrome far in advance, while my colleague, Dr. James Ryken, obsessively studied decompositional processes to a slightly concerning degree. It was grim work, but rewarding whenever a new medical fact about death, discovering a new medical solution to prevent a cause of death, or the very occasional breakthrough in studies of preservation occurred.

Ryken, a tall, spindly and good-natured man who wore sweaters and a pair of brown glasses with darkened lenses every day was a good partner through our schooling and an even greater friend, but his studies veered far off from the norm in our field. It reached its peak when, while I autopsied a fresh body that had passed from rabies, Ryken wheeled in a gleaming table with a decrepit and rotten corpse, blue and green and bloated from unknown time seen in an unknown environment, bringing a small cloud of flies with him. I am ashamed now to say that I did not treat him well, and if I had handled it differently, I would have saved us both more than either of us could have ever known.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I recalled yelling at him, attempting to quickly cover the cadaver I had been working with, desperate to prevent any foreign contamination from flies.

“I think I’m on the trail of something, and it might be huge. Maybe the biggest breakthrough in years! Let me show you, I just need to turn it…” He was jumping up and down excitedly, so much like a younger child who learned that they could touch their toes. He started turning the rotted corpse over , grunting with the effort as he jabbered on, releasing more flies, and I finally snapped, years of this behavior finally breaking the dam.

“You goddamn moron!! This is the third cadaver of mine this week you’ve contaminated!” I shouted, watching as he flinched backwards like a kicked dog, his eyes wide.

“Get out of here, and take that corpse back to wherever you dug it out of you fucking freak!” I immediately regretted saying the name he had been called by everyone aside from me as the words left my mouth, falling and slicing through the empty sterile room like a scalpel. I could tell he was hurt, trying not to cry, but he left, wheeling the table out. A few minutes later, I heard his car start, idle, and then pull out, all while I tried not to cry from berating my now former best friend.

Twenty years later and I watched as my cell phone buzzed on the kitchen counter not even a foot from my hand, watched the caller identification display a name I hadn’t seen or heard of for twenty years. I picked up the phone, hesitated, and pressed the green button, holding it to my ear as I heard an older yet familiar voice speak.

“Is this Dr. Harold Caine?” Ryken said, unsure. I hadn’t heard him in decades, but he was still polite and formal just as he had been, even under the tone of a strange buzzing static on his end.

“Hello, James.” I responded, unsure myself. It had been so long since I had heard anything from him, and a call out of the blue such as this did nothing to settle my mind.

Immediately his curt demeanor dropped once he heard my voice, his tone changing from one of formality to near desperation.

“Harold, I need you to get here, now, yesterday, whenever the hell you can.” He was near hyperventilating, the phone microphone catching every breath as he continued, cutting me off before I had a chance to even begin to speak.

“I… I found something. That trail I said I may have found all those years ago? I found where it leads. I don’t know who to trust anymore, I’m convinced I’m being watched, I’m sure they’re all watching me.” My skin crawled. I had heard him sound scared before, when we had first started working on our degrees and he was worried about touching a body, but now he sounded outright terrified, an alien expression from him.

“Calm down, Ryken. What’s going on?” I said, stepping off of the stool at the kitchen island. I held the phone to my ear as I hurried to the foyer and grabbed my coat and shoes. Long as it had been since we had spoken, I still considered him my friend. I would have helped him whenever he would have needed it.

“I don’t know if I can say over the phone, just get here fast, ok? Address is 737 Rotwood. Hurry.” A single click of the phone hanging up and he was gone.

I quickly typed in the oddly familiar address into my GPS as I jogged to my car, a blue, beat up old Toyota Corolla, and slowed to a stop a few feet away from where the GPS said the location was. He was at the mortuary.

My mortuary.

I attempted to call Ryken again as I drove, twice being sent to voicemail immediately before I gave up and tossed my phone onto the passenger seat as I drove through the quickly worsening snow. Thankfully it was a short drive, and as I pulled in I noticed an unfamiliar car, likely my former colleague’s. I grabbed my phone off of the seat as I took the steps two at a time, moving to grab my keys and noticing the door was already unlocked. I pushed open the door to the darkened front offices, abandoned and silent.

“Ryken?” I called out, stepping inside and moving to flick on the overhead lights to find that either a fuse died, or the power did altogether. I sighed and popped on my flashlight, aimed at the floor directly at a trail of melted snow and an unknown black liquid, trailing towards the preparation room. I slowly followed it, sweeping my light to see if I could find Ryken in an office.

I pushed open the door to the cold and sterile prep room, a few loudly buzzing lights focused on an object on one of the tables. I stepped in and was immediately assaulted by a wall of scent consisting of months-old decay, water, and Lord knows what else. I have a strong stomach when it comes to smells due to the requirements and tasks of my career, but even I had to turn my head and focus on trying to hold down my dinner.

I looked back at the object and stepped up to examine it before recoiling, an involuntary cry of horror escaping me as I stumbled back into another table, sending a few instruments clattering to the ground.

The corpse on the table was in the worst condition I had ever personally seen. Both legs were missing, ragged stumps with shattered bone and fragments scattered throughout what was left, and multiple fingers on both of its ballooned hands were either bone and sinew or missing altogether. The torso was quite literally torn open, maggots and other larva crawling throughout organs and bone, some of them traveling through veins, mimicking blood as they moved through torn arteries. The head was severely disfigured and bloated, like a child’s plastic action figure that had been left out in the sun to melt. But the reason I had recoiled was its eyes.

The eyes of the supposedly human corpse were the bulging gridlike red of fly eyes.

“I know. It caught me off guard the first time too.” I jumped at the quiet voice and a scream nearly escaped as I whirled around and saw Ryken. He was much less put together than the last time I had seen him. He had lost easily twenty to thirty pounds on top of his already spindly physique, and his normally neat sweater had been torn, his darkened glasses chipped and broken at the edges.

“Ryken, what the fuck is this?” I nearly yelled, struggling to maintain my composure. I motioned to the thing with a shaking hand, my mind attempting to find a logical reason for this.

“This is what I was on the trail of all those years ago.” He stepped forward and past me, his shaking rot-stained hands picking up a pair of forceps, moving around to the opposite side of the corpse and picking at a few of the maggots, stripping them away.

“You’re aware of the theory of spontaneous generation?” He did not look up, placing the maggots onto a small tray and examine them closely. There was something odd about them but I couldn’t decipher what from the distance I was from them.

“O-of course, we learned about it as part of a history of our field.” I hesitantly stepped back up to the table. The theory, in summary, was that if a piece of meat is left alone, it will eventually generate maggots as if from thin air. It was finally fully disproved by Louis Pasteur in the late 19th century, but it had been taught as an early example of our field in studying the macabre.

Ryken handed me the tray and as I examined the maggots, I noted multiple discrepancies, the biggest being the mouths. Instead of the standard minuscule claw like pincers, it was replaced with what looked like a mosquitoes proboscis lined with feelers. Fascination quickly replacing my fear, I turned it over and saw that when examined under light, it had no internal organs, as if it wasn’t alive even though it wriggled in the tweezers I used.

“What the hell is this?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. Something was nagging at the back of my mind, but I could not decipher what.

“Generations, Harold.” Ryken didn’t look up, instead smiling grimly as he lifted up a small flap of tendon, motioning me to watch. I did so, setting the so-called “generation” aside along with the tray, and peered in with a curiosity I had not felt in a long time.

He pointed with the butt of his own tweezers at a maggot that had slid its strange proboscis into a piece of rotted flesh, and watched as something pulsed out of its supposedly empty body and into the flesh, watched as the small piece inflated, growing, turning white and stretching into a tiny pill shape before beginning to move as the proboscis was withdrawn to make room for the new one growing from the former flesh, now a new generation. I looked up and met Ryken’s covered eyes with shock.

“The theory was correct, they just never put the body in the right place! There are rocks, special rocks, they’re… they’re…” He was practically hopping as he said this. I could see a spark of morbid discovery behind his smile, one that frightened me a little more than I care to admit. Alarm bells rang in my head, but I knew not what they rang for. Not yet.

“You wanna see the place I found? How this all works?” His curt and formal tone was dropping fast, and he seemed nervous, like he needed to get away from there as fast as he could. It hurt to see my old friend uncomfortably rubbing his hands in the frigid air, and I caved in, my own morbid curiosity needing, craving to be sated.

He insisted on taking the body with him, but I did not help as I watched him carry it under its armpits out to the trunk of his car. I got into my own and began to follow as he pulled out, my mind racing. What exactly did he find? How in the hell has he somehow proven a theory from the time of Ancient Greece correct? Who was watching him? And then I heard it. The voice that had been screaming an unknowable and terrible question to be solved.

What did he mean when he said that it caught him off guard “the first time?”

I followed close behind, the snow making it difficult to see as he pulled into what looked to be a narrow stretch of hilly forest. I got out of my car and watched as he quickly gathered his macabre prize from his trunk, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold as he trudged off towards a pair of trees that had toppled against each other at the dirt base of the hill, forming a triangle and protecting that section from snow.

As we moved closer, I realized it was not dark dirt that I had been staring at, but the small mouth of a cave. It felt like an insect crawled down and died inside of my spine when I saw it, ominous and claustrophobic, but I was more worried about my friend’s mental state, and I followed him, turning on my dim cellphone flashlight.

The cave was large and damp, large enough that my simple cellphone flashlight could not light up anything aside from what was right in front of us. I heard a metallic slam and loud buzzing in front of me, squinting as the sudden flood of industrial grade lamps lit up our surroundings, a makeshift cot and kitchen nearby a dirty medical table, the occasional drip of dark water from unseen stalactites. I had to cover my mouth as I looked over and saw a pile of rotted meat in the farthest corner, fuzzy with a carpet of black flies covering every inch, sparing me from the smell. A fly farm.

The buzzing of the halogen lamps was near deafening as I stepped up to the table. I stared across at my former colleague, now whipped up into a frenzy as he began to dissect a section of the cadaver.

“James, are you… ok?” I reached out to attempt to touch Ryken’s shoulder and then swiftly retracted my hand as it was nearly sliced by a rot-covered scalpel.

“Yeah, I think. Sort of. Yeah.” He rambled, setting the tools down to rub his hands together to ward off the cold before picking them back up.

“James, stop, what is happening? Have you been living down here?” I glanced around the cave again, a small gas heater lit next to the generator and cot. Unsafe, to say the least.

He didn’t respond and I reached out and grabbed his wrists, stopping him, feeling his pulse like a machine gun against my fingers, far faster than what it should have been.

His head shot up and he stared at me, jittery, his darkened glasses tinted red from the lamps. I let go of his wrists as he tugged free, finally setting his instruments down as he rubbed his hands together in the cold, before running them down his likely cold face.

“Yeah, I’ve been down here. Too many prying eyes, and I couldn’t pass on this, no matter what, no matter what they try…” Ryken said, his voice raised, the buzzing from the halogens loud in my ears.

“Pass on what? Who is watching you? What did you mean by ‘the first time?’” I started to shout, now becoming more nervous, my questions became ramblings that were more akin to a madman. What had he gotten me into?

“Flies have eyes, and they know what I found! They know that I know they come from the rocks! They know that I know their secret!” Ryken turned and grabbed a degraded and filth-coated scalpel from the table. He suddenly looked crazed again, like a switch had flipped in his poor mind. “You wanna see the secret, Harold?”

“Ryken, NO!!” I yelled, attempting to grab the scalpel from his hand and missing, landing on the rotted corpse, feeling a sting of pain as what I assumed to be a rib stabbed my chest, breaking skin. I quickly recoiled, my front covered in a thin layer of foul-smelling rot and maggots as I gagged, taking a step back as Ryken brandished the scalpel, a crazed smile on his face as he plunged it into his wrist and slicing it to the elbow.

I watched in horror as instead of blood, a torrent of maggots and rot flowed from the wound, knitting it slowly back together with a sound of a wet zipper as the strange maggots flowed back into him through any opening they could find, his mouth and his eyes and ears as they pushed off his glasses, and I screamed, screamed as I saw what my former best friend had become, screamed as I stared into those red bulging gridlike eyes as he rubbed his hands together so much like the fly he had become.

“I found immortality!” He suddenly lashed out with one hand with a speed barely slower than lightning, grabbing a nearby halogen and pointing it up at the ceiling, up at the mass grave of corpses impaled onto odd stalactites, some years old, others as early as today, all being eaten by and generated into those strange maggots, children and elderly and animals, what I thought had been dark water dripping in actuality being fetid and black rot, watching in utter horror as a strange, flesh colored stalactite cracked open in a wet tear as a multitude of maggots hatched from it and began spreading and feasting and generating more. Ryken pointedly aimed the light at a body reduced to not much more than a molding skeleton, empty husks of fly eyes embedded in the skull, a silent answer to my question. The first.

His facade fully dropped, and Ryken turned his jittery head and eyes towards me, his mouth opening and extending a long proboscis lined with feelers as he somehow, impossibly, spoke through it, his head tilting at impossible angles. “My brothers and sisters came to be by rock, came to be immortality for all, and became me!” He screamed the last word with an awful, unnatural buzz as he twitched and lunged across the table at me, sprawling onto all fours.

I turned and ran for the entrance to the cavern, desperate to escape, panic and disgust screeching into my mind like a bullet, glancing to my left and screaming as Ryken crawled along the walls, stopping for a few seconds to jitter and then move at impossible speeds, over and over and over as I burst out of the cavern entrance, sprinting to my Toyota and opening the door as Ryken suddenly slammed into it, ripping it off of the hinges with a buzzing screech, shattering the glass with his distorting head, impaling himself on the splintered glass, that foul proboscis waving wildly as I searched blindly with my hands for something, anything to help me, my fingers closing on cold glass as I plunged a shard the size of my forearm deep into his eye, liquid rot and maggots pouring from the wound as it began to knit itself together, and I grabbed his head, sobbing as I moved it back and forth along the jagged bottom of the window, wet ripping and tearing and buzzing screaming echoing through the small forest as I sawed through my best friends neck, sobbing as he finally fell still and his body collapsed, his head dripping rot and maggots rolling out of my hands and into the thick snow.

After what felt like hours of grief and crying, wrestling with the unknown of whether I had ever truly seen my friend again, I gathered my thoughts. This could not be found. And I knew what I had to do.

I dragged Ryken’s body back into the cave, resting him on his cot, setting his head down next to it. I watched as the maggots began attempting to knit him back together and said a quick prayer, a Viking funeral rite as I grabbed the small gas heater and pressed the heating element against the tinder-dry cot, the cloth and rot covering the floor catching alongside it.

I stood in the snow at the cave entrance for some time, attempting to console myself as flames and buzzing roared from the cave, the sound of hundreds of millions of flies burning to ash where they belonged.

I watched as my best friend’s heinous work burned, and broke down in hysterics, the work he was so proud of lost to the world.

I hobbled to my feet, having lain in the snow for what felt like hours, my chest hurting from where the bony corpse had stabbed me. I slipped my hand under my shirt to inspect the damage and froze in horror as I felt the wound move, painfully shifting and bulging. I lifted the bottom of my shirt, staggering over to the window mirror of my car to see what I had felt, and nearly cried with the utter disgust that flooded through me.

I watched hopelessly as the maggots that had dug into me moved and squirmed just under my skin.

Came by corpse, came from Ryken’s study, and now became me.

(Cw: gore and hints at violation of a corpse)

The apple tree was here long before I purchased the house. Long enough that in research before I had bought the property, I had seen it in ancient, mouldering photos from the 19th century, and mentions in town records from even longer before. It is a twisted, gnarled, and overgrown thing, its branches twisted and trunk knotted in a way that could be comparable to arthritis and scoliosis.

I was debating cutting it down once I moved in, the ugly thing taking up most of my backyard and its roots digging under the stepping stones that surrounded it. The only thing that prevented me from uprooting it was the sole fact that I love apples, and was curious how this ancient trees fruit would taste. It was for that reason I took care of it, watering it, giving it fertilizer, even ignoring my own rose garden I had started and transplanting sweet alyssum to encourage pollination when the tree flowered, but in the back of my mind, I knew if it was sour the tree would have to come down.

That summer around late August, substantially later than what was normal for an apple tree, it finally bloomed. Massive white flowers covering its previously bare branches, one of them large enough it was comparable to the size of my head. “Well, that’s at least something…” I had muttered as I examined the blooms, baffled as to why it flowered so late in the year. It was unusual to say the least. Especially considering how healthy those buds were.

Unfortunately, all of those flowers did not last long, within a day all of them except one had turned black and shriveled, curling in on themselves like a dying spider. There was only one left, a small, pale flower near trunk of the tree. A few days later, and it was already replaced with a near perfectly ripe, red apple. If it wasn’t for how old the tree was, I would have questioned its speed of growth more, but the tree was ancient, and had an unknown amount of harvests before I had even been conceived. And, more importantly, I had to admit that the apple looked amazing.

I grabbed a stepladder from out of my shed, propping it against the tree as I reached up and picked it from the branch, a satisfying crack as the stem released. It was about the size of the palm of my hand, bright red, almost glowing in the fading daylight. I wiped it clean on my shirt, and took a bite, closing my eyes.

It was amazing. The texture was perfect, almost melting in mouth, sugary juice coating every single inch of my mouth. I swallowed the crisp piece, opening my eyes to a bloody, smoke choked war zone.

I stared around me, slack jawed in terrifying awe as I watched an unidentifiable tank explode near me, flames and screams roaring from any gap allowing an escape, my nose filled twitch the smell of charred flesh and gunsmoke as the captain of my platoon ordered us forward, advancing up the war zone towards a hazy, indiscernible horizon, lit up only by repeated muzzle flashes and explosions and fire, oh so much fire, and I saw an enemy soldier rush out from the smoke, holding a potato shaped object, a grenade, I dropped to one knee, aimed my rifle and just as I pulled the trigger I saw who the soldier was, a child, no more than 10 years old, and I pulled the trigger anyway, the kickback from the butt of the rifle slamming into my shoulder and throwing me off the stepladder into the fading September day, a final image of the child’s head disappearing in a crimson, almost bright red flurry, vaguely shaped like an apple.

I lay there panting for some time, before I turned my head to the side and threw up, the apple and what I had for lunch coming right up alongside each other. I was sobbing and vomiting, nothing left in my stomach as I leaned against the tree and cried, tears streaming down my face. I looked up towards the branches, and saw, miraculously, another small apple.

“What in the holy hell…?”

Of course there was no response, how could there be? It was just an apple tree. But now it felt different. As if it was watching me. Studying me. The branch swayed in the breeze, another satisfying snap as the branch gave, the apple falling directly into my lap, shiny and red, the same as the last. I swatted it away, disgust and horror building in my chest, the memory of that vision still fresh, an exposed gash across my mind. I watched it bounce off of the stepping stones and roll to a stop at the end of my foot.

I wanted to be disgusted, to run inside, to grab a chainsaw, an ax, a can of gasoline, destroy the whole damn thing, but the memories of the vision, the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of even the air being different was intoxicating. It was inviting, better than any drug could hope to achieve. I slowly picked up the apple, closed my eyes, and bit.

Opening my eyes, I found myself in a darkened alley, a couple of cheap prostitutes leaning against the brick wall near a dark green dumpster. I was angry, the rage overwhelming my mind as I pulled out the freshly purchased Colt revolver from the pawn shop a few doors down and opened fire, their bodies slumping to the ground without so much as a whimper, the thrill of what I had done one of the most drunken feelings of euphoria I had ever experienced. I walked over towards their bodies, and I think I was unzipping my fly when I slipped on the expanding pool of blood, crashing back against the tree, my head knocking against one of the knots, an arrow of white hot pain needling right behind my left ear and temple.

I cried as I stood up, rubbing my ear as I stepped away from the tree. Was that real? What was happening to me? Why did I like it? I needed to stop, I had to stop.

I turned around, and that perfect, young tree, so full of life and leaves, had an innumerable amount of apples hanging from the branches, the thud that accompanied those smooth, perfect apples that fell, the air filled with the scent of roses and apple pie and wood. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever witnessed. And God help me, I wanted more.

I grabbed one off of the ground, the bite a vision of a mother, drowning her children in the bathtub, the water bubbling around her arms, another the feelings of a young boy, burning his foster home to the ground with everyone trapped inside, the doors barricaded, another we saw an old man, his wife dead at the foot of the bed as we made love mere feet away with our lover, and another, and another, and another, the eyes in the trees watching, accusing, inviting, our belly dragging in the dirt as we feasted, juice running down our chin, acting like no more than a common farm pig, for that is what we are, we are the souls of the damned from the Tree, the eyes of the sinners punished forevermore, for we are

(Based off of something that actually happened to me a few weeks back.)

It was a half decent day, nothing too crazy, just the same old bullshit. I work nights at a machine shop, so it was rather late when I got home, sometime around 3-3:15 in the morning. I had just gotten out of my car, grabbing my backpack and lunchbox, ready to go sleep in my nice comfy bed with my fiancé when I heard a noise. I turned around, expecting to see one of the stray cats that permeate our neighborhood, when I saw a man briskly walking backwards up the center of our street.

I froze, my entire body paralyzed as I watched him walk, never once turning his head. He had a striking resemblance to my father, wearing similar clothes and even having similar facial hair. It obviously wasn’t my father, my parents lived over thirty minutes away, but still, it took me by surprise at first. He never even looked at me as he continued to walk, his shoes barely making any noise aside from the occasional scuff, the sound that made me turn around initially. I stood there next to my car, unable to move, watching as he quickly made his way up the street. I finally moved, quickly striding over to the steps to my porch, taking them two at a time, and unlocking my door with shaky hands.

I practically slammed it shut as I locked it, rushing upstairs to make sure my fiancé was okay. She was, sleeping soundly in our bed, and as I came in, she turned towards me sleepily like normal to see how I was doing. I must have looked a little panicked, as she woke up more when she saw me. “Andrew? You ok?” I ran over to the bedroom window, having a clear view of the street, but the man was gone. “What the fuck?” I muttered, before turning to my fiancé, Kayla.

“Either I need sleep, or the crackheads around here are evolving. I just saw some dude walking backwards up the middle of our street.” “What?” I shook my head, hardly believing it myself, even though it had happened right in front of me. “I don’t know, I’m gonna go take another look around, check the door camera, and make sure the doors are locked. I’ll be back in a sec.” I quickly moved back to the downstairs, stepping back out onto my front lawn and looking both ways down the street, straining my eyes.

He was gone.

5 minutes later I was back upstairs, getting my pajamas on. “I don’t understand it, Bug, not even the doorbell camera picked up anything. It’s like he didn’t even exist.” Kayla cuddled up as I laid down, staring at the ceiling. “Well, we’ll see if anyone else has seen him tomorrow, ok?” “Alright. Goodnight, Bug.” I turned off the light and turned on my white noise, quickly finding sleep.

There were no posts, messages, or even passing mentions or remarks about the man the next day. It was as if I was the only one who had seen him. Kayla assured me that it was probably someone who wasn’t entirely there in the head, or that maybe I was tired from being on the night shift. I would’ve believed her, if I hadn’t come home that night and seen him again. I saw him every single day for the next two weeks. Same outfit, same time, same everything. I tried to call out to him more than a few times, but was met with silence every time. The one time I managed to get close to him solidified the fact that something was very wrong with his eyes, the entirety of both eyeballs replaced with what looked like a carnival mirror. And somehow I still had zero evidence of his existence, my family and friends now believing I was making it all up.

Then, after exactly 2 weeks, he didn’t walk down the street. I had gotten out of my car and turned, expecting to see my nightly visage, and was greeted by an empty street. Confused, I walked inside, staying up a lot later than I should have, watching out our front window, but he never came. I went to bed, a smile on my face, happy that I wouldn’t have to see that freak any longer.

The next day, I walked out to get the mail, opened the mailbox and stopped. Something wasn’t right. It took me a few minutes to realize what was wrong. The way our front walk is set up is a small fence to grow ivy and flowers on, with the mailbox on a post directly next to it. The mailbox was now attached to the fence, the post completely gone. I hurried back inside and asked Kayla if her parents were over last night and moved the mailbox. “No? Why the hell would they do that?” “I don’t know, but the mailbox moved.” “What?” She leaned over the couch, looking out at our mailbox for a minute, before sighing and sitting back down. “If this is a joke, Andrew, I don’t think it’s funny.” “What do you mean?” I said, tilting my head slightly. “It didn’t move, it’s right where it’s always been.”

Over the next week, more stuff around the house would begin to shift, starting with the less bothersome such as the concrete pad for the trash cans moving over about a foot, to all out pandemonium, such as the ceiling in my home office curling upwards into the attic, the paint and wood cracked and splintered. It had started spreading beyond our house at this point, the sidewalk zigzagging crazily into the grass, the street lights bent over and pressed against the road, powerlines somehow floating disassembled, electricity violently arcing between the loose wires. The worst part was again that it seemed I was the only one who could see it happening. I was frustrated and scared, and that’s what I believe set the argument off.

“How can you not see this, Kayla?? It’s getting worse by the day, the whole damn roof is diagonal, including the tiles and even the fucking chimney!!” She looked worried. I don’t know if she was more worried about my sanity or herself. “Andrew, nothing has changed! I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to try to relax, maybe call off work for tonight or-“ “I don’t need to call off work, I need to know that I’m not going fucking insane!! Ever since backwards dude vanished, it feels like the entire world is breaking! Nothing is lining up how it should!” I was practically screaming at her. I still feel bad about that. I hated myself for yelling.

I had stepped out onto my porch, leaving Kayla inside as I was struggling to maintain my composure when I saw a pair of eyes looking out at me through a crack in the floorboards of the porch, carnival mirror eyes. I froze and watched as two hands came up from separate cracks, over twenty feet apart from each other, and started pulling away floorboards and siding. I screamed, turning to run back into the house as I felt something grab my shoe, yanking me hard, the sound of splintering wood as it dragged me under the porch, under my house, under the great splintering world that only I could see, a pair of massive carnival mirror eyes staring into mine, my reflection my own mouldering corpse as I screamed and screamed and was shaken awake by Kayla, her voice cutting through. “Andrew?? Andrew what’s wrong??”

I sat up, covered in sweat and looked around our bedroom. Our completely intact, normal bedroom. I collapsed back down onto the bed, panting. “Nightmare… sorry Bug, I’m okay now.” She did not look convinced but laid back down, the sound of her breathing slowing as she drifted off back to sleep, the memory of the dream already leaving, not far behind the love of my life as dreamless sleep found me and pulled me in close.

The next day I woke up to a sunny room and birdsong. I got dressed, packed my lunch, kissed my fiancé, and went to work like normal. My lathe that I run had a few issues but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was a half decent day, nothing too crazy, just the same old bullshit. I work nights at a machine shop, so it was rather late when I got home, sometime around 3-3:15 in the morning. I had just gotten out of my car, grabbing my backpack and lunchbox, ready to go sleep in my nice comfy bed with my fiancé when I heard a noise. I turned around, expecting to see one of the stray cats that permeate our neighborhood, when I saw a man briskly walking backwards up the center of our street.

(Cw: gore and suicide)

Three days.

Three days of being trapped.

Three days of hearing that sobbing and humming nonstop, my brain threatening to crack under the stress of it.

I was losing my sanity, that vital part of my mind, my soul that my father described straining against whatever the hell was on the other side of the door, gently knocking and sobbing and humming.

I was hungry, having not been able to leave my room for the last three days. That was why I finally risked opening the door. I peered out through the crack I had made opening it, and, seeing nothing, opened it all the way. There was no one in sight, but the sobbing and humming remained. I quietly stepped out, noticing that all other doors in the house were gone. Not just open, gone, like something had scrubbed them from existence like ink on paper. My hair stood up as I walked downstairs, the sensation of being watched drowning out all other senses, my skin tingling anywhere I felt it, like spiders crawling over every inch of me in a single second.

I reached the first floor, still careful to not make any sound as I crept to the kitchen. The mockeries of my family and friends were gone, but it didn’t matter. I could still feel they were here. I just didn’t know where. I silently opened the cabinet to grab canned or dry food since I had no idea how long I’d be stuck, when the cabinet banged shut a little too loud. Every single hair on my body stood straight up. Something was coming, coming fast, coming through the-

SNAP

CRACK

The sound was deafening, clapping my hands over my ears, a million gunshots and fireworks going off next to my ears simultaneously. I pulled my hands away, stained red by the blood trickling out of my ears. I picked up what I could, turning to rush back upstairs and froze. Standing in the dining room in a square, were my mother and sister, and my two best friends. They weren’t looking at me when it started, all four of them tilting their heads towards the ceiling, before an impossibly loud rip sounded out, the humming intensified as their jaws all disappeared in a flurry of red mist and chunks of flesh, exploding like they each held a firecracker under their tongue.

I watched in disbelief and horror, my mind straining to comprehend what was happening as a set of pure black hands with spots of white were pushing open their mouths, countless fingers gripping the undersides of skulls and what was left of their jaws as they pushed and pulled and tore open a passageway, a long spindly arm with too many joints crawling out of each of their mouths. I ran.

I burst out of the back door, the snow making me slip into the railing. I picked myself up, glancing back and watching in sheer terror as a wave of black hands poured out of the door, one over another over another over and over, a tidal wave from the Void. “Fuck fuck fuck!!” I screamed, moving to jump off the porch, the stairs too close to the hands for me to risk it, but it didn’t matter.

I felt it grab my shoe, one hand grabbing my ankle, followed by hundreds quickly ascending my leg, sinking ice-cold nails into my flesh as it pulled me, pulled me into it, screaming and begging unreasonably for it to let me live. I was still screaming as it grabbed my head and pulled me under.

Darkness.

Silence.

I floated there, unable to move, somehow alive.

Adrift in pitch black, that infernal humming completely gone, robbed of all senses.

Light.

Blinding, purple light so bright I had to shut my eyes. And when I opened them, a massive purple supernova was in front of me, round and perfect, a supermassive black hole at its core, pulling in the light around it.

Noise.

That disgusting humming started again, resonating through every fiber of my existence, deafening to my mind, all senses overwhelmed and nonexistent as it hummed, the sound of the empty null-void that surrounded me.

And then the supernova blinked.

I floated in stunned, silent, primal fear, unable to move as it came into focus, the millions upon millions upon millions of hands and arms and legs and fingers that made up the Void pulling back away from me to let me see, allowing me to know the godless thing that had destroyed my family and was now destroying me.

I fully understood what my father meant when he called it godless. This was no God. It was as if it was the empty Void that should have held a God, but instead something unknowable and unspeakable had filled its place with-

Pain.

Agony.

I tried to scream but couldn’t as I watched it flay me alive, pulling the skin away and atomizing it, shredding the muscle to the myoglobins that floated free, my organs and bones turned to red and white misty stardust that floated a short distance, my brain and my soul the only things left. I somehow could see still, through my soul, watching as the unholy abomination leered over me.

My brain floated towards it, and stopped directly in front of that terrible black hole. That awful pupil that was moving, dilating, adjusting as something detached from the black, swimming towards my frontal lobe, a maggot that burrowed in, searing ungodly pain as I started to scream silently, unable to force it from my throat as I somehow felt it burrow deeper.

It blinked, the eyelids made of countless black and rotted fingers from unknown worlds and species as it gently moved my brain back into position, the rest of my body reforming, splitting off from the stars that made its sclera as I was rebuilt from the atoms of this ungodly abomination. I understood what it did, what it wanted, and I loathed the fucking thing.

It blinked a final time, and suddenly I was falling, burning agony, seeing the planet below me, screaming as I fell, my soul burning on reentry as I saw my slumped body on the back patio, slamming into it at impossible and immeasurable Mach speeds.

I’m in my room now as I write this down, the memories already attempting to flee, my room filled with my sobbing family, all of their backs turned towards me. I am going to follow in my father’s footsteps. I know what it did to my family, and I know what it’s doing to me. It finally makes sense.

My dad caught on far sooner than I did, and if I had realized earlier what was happening, I wouldn’t be in this situation. The Void is coming, there’s no doubt about it, and all I can do is delay it. My family is dead, used by that fucking thing as a doorstop, a way in through the mind. I can feel the fetid worm eating away in my head, carving my mind from me, making me empty. I am becoming the next doorstop. Unless.

Dad, Mom, Grace, Brett, and Chrissy, I love you all. I will see you soon.

Goodbye.

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If this causes offense in any way I apologize in advance. I am in the midst of doing research for a horror story I’m writing and a huge part of it involves the main character who has DID. So far, reading through some of the posts made had been invaluable towards researching the subject to make sure it’s as accurate as possible, but I do have a few questions that I haven’t noticed anyone mention.

1. When alters take over (apologies if that’s not the best terminology, I don’t exactly know what would be) is it an instantaneous switch, or is it a more slow transfer? And for people who have more control and can still be themselves (again apologies if it’s poor terminology this is new ground for me) how long does it typically take to come back?

2. How common are the memory problems associated? I’ve seen multiple conflicting answers involving either a total loss of memory/having a faint idea, to being aware at all times.

3. What are the most common treatments? I’ve seen therapy being mentioned quite a few times, but have never seen any others, is there other treatments and if so, what are they?

4. What are all the terms used to describe the condition? I’ve seen alters and systems used frequently but am curious if there are other terms that are acceptable.

5. For alters, do you have individual and independent writing styles? Say for instance, one alter would speak and type more eloquently than another?

6. Are there any forms of media, such as movies or books, that portray DID in an accurate way, that way I could possibly research them as well prior to writing?

That is all I have questions about as of now, again, I apologize if there is any offense taken, it is not my intention, I simply would like to understand from your points of view to help me portray it accurately. Thank you so much, and I look forward to any answers and answering any questions about the story. :)