u/Murky_Address_2924

Just disarmed a suspect and watched as he was raptured out of the map upwards, never found him

He had been at the front for less than a week, yet already, the stick of blood, and mud, covered him. Each time he pressed any two fingers together, side by side or each print to each other he felt them stick together.

He had not been wounded yet, but many of the men he had seen were. Including those going in the raid with him. Twenty able bodied men were all that they could spare.

Someone, another similarly dressed figure sat next to him on the disgusting empty wooden artillery box.

”First time too? You’re fresh reinforcements aren’t you?“ The gravely, stiff voice said, silently.

”Yes sir, We’re lucky aren’t we?”

”What’s lucky about this?” He responded, gesturing with his hands around the winding trench, every second an occasional gunshot cracked towards the Germans or towards them.

”Half us blighty wounded, y’know, most us got lice, trench foot. Real cushy position we got ain’t we?”

”We’re lucky we aren’t in the Somme, my brother went, haven’t heard since.”

The man next to him, looked at his wet boots and back at the young man next to him.

”That amount of shelling would drive anyone crazy, bet five pence I wouldn’t take it. Your name?”

The man rubbing his bloodstained fingers next to him spoke. “Reginald Wallen.”

”John Master, where did you come from?” He said rather flatly like his other words, less of a question, more of a thought spoken aloud.

”Hull.“ Reginald licked his cracked and dry lips. His lips always got dry when he was nervous. He never expected to be nervous over warfare before. Before he was shipped over the channel. He wanted to serve in the RAF but they declined, they said he wouldn’t have the mental capacity to be able to fly. They called it a fancy word he hadn’t heard before, neurasthenia.

The army however, was getting desperate to quell its enemies.

“Manchester. Got me a tot back home. Lovely lady too.”

”All I got‘s my father and mother.”

The raid was soon to begin, the already quieting gunfire became less frequent.

“Command says the Germans pull out here soon.” Said another soldier, loud enough for everyone else to hear even though it was clearly not his intention.

An injured man moaned in pain off in the distance, a death rattle choked by his own blood.

”What happened to the medics? I haven’t seen one yet.“ Reginald asked the general audience gathered in the crooked corner of the trench.

”Shelled them out.” Another man, filthy with blood and carrying a distinctive and different accent answered.

”Ain’t that a war crime?”

“Sure is, I get over there I’ll tell them all about it, make sure they come out without a fuss.” He spoke the last part sarcastically, looking down at the club he held.

”Too bad you can’t speak German.” Reginald would have kept talking forever, if it meant he could postpone this raid, his heart was beating erratically.

”I can actually, German teacher.”

”Where you from?”

“Toronto.”

Before Reginald got the chance to reply, Someone came barreling around the sharp corner. His feet were equal to the ground he ran on. Cradled in his arms was a large boxy thing. His hands were white knuckled, grasping it like it weighed a thousand kilograms. It was also obvious to anyone looking that his left index finger was shredded to the knuckle. It looked like it was rotting off, dark as a felled log.

”Orders from command.” He gasped in between breaths. “There’s an Artillery gun near the section your raiding. This,” He tried to hoist the cube higher but accidentally let his grip slip and dropped it on his foot. He didn’t make a sound, they were probably numb from the cold. “is an explosive charge. Stick it anywhere on the cannon, I’d say the barrel, and pull the plunger once it’s connected.”

The Canadian spoke up. “So where’s the damn plunger?”

”Bloody hell,” The messenger sighed wearily. “It should also activate if you fire upon it, or trigger it with enough force. There’s no time for me to retrieve it, this is thirty minutes, back and forth.” And with his last remarks he ran back through the crooked ditches.

There was no identifying rally to charge, but at once, they rushed out onto the field and began to crawl. Reginald, John and The Canadian were the few last to go. The Canadian clutching the box.

”Stay low, we strafe. If you see a flare, don’t move.” John grabbed Reginald by the shoulders and rushed off into the blackness of night.

Reginald peaked over the trench and immediately began crawling on his elbows and knees. He clutched a bill hook knife in his clammy, warm hand. His heart once again banged against its cage trying to escape.

The land between the trenches was a palette of maroon, brown, and gray. All he could see was the moon above them, and the feet of John Master. Trees, ancient and older than both of them were cut down by machined guns and bombs. Large strands of silver wire, glinting in the moonlight with malevolence were ran between wooden stakes. Large craters the size of automobiles and the small ponds next to his home dented the ground.

Something wet, cold and similar to raw chicken slid under his chest. With disgust Reginald looked down at what touched his chest. It was hard to tell, as it was missing most fingers, but it was a hand, clutching a small revolver. He didn’t have a gun, the hand did. What if when he got into the trench he didn’t have time to run towards those aiming with rifles?

Slowly and carefully he tried to pry the fingers off, and when that didn’t work he hacked away with his knife. It was the army’s property after all. He stuffed the gun into his satchel on his side and moved up. The smell of rust, blood and uncovered earth clawed its way into him, through his nose and mouth, encircling and inhabiting his brain.

Suddenly, John stopped. Reginald crawled to his side to see what the hold up was.

The silver moon hung high from their view on the ground, but it was flickering, on and off like the lightbulb in his parlor. He thought he was going mad, but then he realized what it was. Four to six soldiers had passed infront of him.

His breathing immediately quickened to a hyperventilation, he was going to die, the man next to him would die. Every day he heard of the German brute threatening Europe, and he would not be able to hold it back. He could see his gravestone, if there was anything to bury, 1897-1916, Reginald Wallen.

John covered Reginalds mouth, “Don’t make a noise, I’ll kill you if I have too.” Reginald would have done the same, he began to hold his breath, face turning red, throat burning until the figures moved.

But they didn’t, not right away. They stood there, looking out over the land behind them. Reginald almost felt tears beginning to form as he realized he would most likely die a coward in a puddle of mud that would be trampled over by other soldiers.

But slowly, the Germans moved to their right, away from them and out of sight.

”I’m sorry.” Reginald whispered. John simply carried on past them. Not ten meters away was a large wall of rusted, mud covered wire. Empty ration cans and the canteens of dead men hung from the spiked wall.

Somewhere in the distance foreign shouting, a yell, and a gunshot marked the end of another raider. That could have been them, Reginald thought, that could have been me.

John held a small one handed pickaxe, slowly he waited for another gunshot to lift up the wire, the rattling of the cans falling short of the crack of a rifle. “Crawl under.” His voice was a hiss like a rattlesnake.

Reginald began to do so, crawling into the pitch black wasteland, trying not to make any noise.

He began to crawl under, once he made it out he realize that he would be crawling through a large crater with a few centimeters of water in it. a soldier crouched on the side of the hole, the familiar helmet gave him reason not to fear.

The British soldier held a wooden handle with an empty mills bomb casing on top, blood already drying on it. Dirty bloody rags were pulled up over his mouth and nose, perhaps to suppress sneezing and coughs from giving his position away.

Reginald clambered into the crater, looking around he saw a stagnant river of some brackish, black liquid, most likely mud and blood. He pressed himself against the wall of the hole next to the man, who began to silently speak to him. “We cross over into the next crater and then we should be close enough to rush the trench, I think we’re falling behind-“

The man was cut short with a crack, and a ping against metal. It took a moment to register what happened, but as he watched the man with the mills bomb stick slump to the ground, he knew exactly what occurred.

If he didn’t move fast they would come to the crater and kill him next, but if he shot out into the open, he would be killed quicker. He didn’t deserve this, he should never have tried to sign up after his initial rejection. He was just a person, not a hero.

He saw now too, through his ever rapidly flowing thoughts that the Germans were people too. Scared, clinging to their arms in hopes to defend themselves from the never ending onslaught of attackers. They were people who saw what the war was doing to the landscape, and those in it. So was Reginald.

Two sides were dead men who didn’t know they were dead yet, and fought tooth and nail to deny their demise.

Yelling, shouting and smaller shots rang out from the trench. The others must have made it before them and started the assault as soon as they fired upon the man next to him. It would now make no sense to fire into no man’s land when attackers were closing in from your side.

He rushed over the side, and spilled into the next crater, he bumbled downwards and landed face down in the mud, his helmet falling off.

Slowly, he raised himself up, and picked up the helmet. infront of him was a large mound. Mud packed into it Reginald believed it was excess dirt from the German’s digging. he had heard they built expansive bunkers deep into the earths crust. A dead body was propped up in the moonlight. The helmet glinted and so did his clouded, dead eyes. His face was eaten by maggots, and it seemed his skin was strung tight and gaunt around his skull, like he was fused to the helmet. One of his legs reached deep into the mud pile, which he noticed was also surrounded by loose razor wire, going to and fro from the pile.

Reginald approached, how had he died? He had to go past him to get into the trench, but that seemed to be a sacrilegious act to him.

The screaming seemed to be drowned out, by a deep buzz in the earth. Had he… It couldn’t be, Reginald thought. It was clear he was dead, how could his eyes, so cloudy and grey like storm clouds be following him.

And then the death mask of the man, his face stuck in a perpetual shocked, slack jawed moment, curled its lips, and turned its head to him. The slit mouth of his gullet looked like the pit to hell, dark and everlasting.

In the distance, rising beyond the heights of the moon, a flare went off. The candle illuminating the field in a light red. As it reached towards the sky, the light glinted off of an ungodly amalgamation of dirty bone, broken helmets German and British, and hundreds if not thousands of eyes. The great pile of mud shifted. It was not mud at all, but bodies of various decompositions fused together like they were melted by heat.

One body stood out to him, a charred, blackened husk clinging to a long rifle in his arms that his skin seemed to be sewn to. It was impossible for all of them to have died in this hole. It had been moving across no man’s land, collecting them to itself. Each skull either from a man who died a day before or a month turned towards him to the best of their ability. Some of their decomposing bones snapped with the motion, making their heads roll to the side.

It was as if they had been molded into a large ball of clay.

Two grimy, gray hands covered in maggots stuck to their open wounds shot out from the mass and grabbed him by the boots. The mass moved like a snake did, flexing muscles to go forwards. It was towering, the dried dirt and blood on it making it seem to have armor.

They dragged him forwards, the only salvation he could get was by taking them off, leaving him with bare feet. The amalgamation worked like a glue trap, sticking to anything it touched.

He could hear hundreds of whispers, in foreign tongues and English. Some voices struggled to speak through the decay whilst the newly deceased talked with a grinding roughness.

”Maschinengewehr geh runter charge and ich angeschossen I’m bleeding bomb kommandant.” It spoke like it had no idea what the phrases it heard meant.

Barefoot, his feet couldn’t get a good grip on the muddy walls, but clawing upward he spotted one thing to pull him up by. Two wooden stakes were joined by rusted razor wire. With his life on the line, if he did die when it grabbed him, he wrapped his hands around the wire and began pulling himself out through the pain.

The wire hooked itself into his flesh and veins as he finally reached the top. He pried the barbs out of his palms and ran for the trench. His allies were there, they could help at the least.

Reginald slid into the trench, noticing it wasn’t nearly as filthy as theirs. Besides the bodies surrounding him, mostly British.

He looked down to his side, to see the bloody, destroyed face of a soldier, he barely recognized John Master, as a bullet had hit him in the jaw, and a stab wound split skin between his eyes.

The only other living being in the trench, was The Canadian. Bloody, still clutching the explosive charge he laid against the side of the trench, a large wound in his leg. His helmet was knocked off and his clothes were so dirty it was impossible to distinguish what side he was on.

Reginald ran to his side.

”Christ, Get yourself back.“ He groaned through the pain.

”You don’t understand, there‘s a devil out there.”

At that The Canadian’s face darkened. “I know. I saw it a fortnight ago. It’s as big as a house, isn’t it? You need to leave, before you die here like the rest. The Germans are almost here.”

Reginald tried to pick him up but was unable to, the man was a full foot taller than him. “I’m not leaving someone here.”

”Then give me your gun.” He reached for the dead man’s revolver. Reginald quickly gave him the firearm. “Play along.” He grunted out before he raised the gun and leveled the barrel towards Reginald. He began shouting until someone rounded the corner. Reginald backed up against the wooden side of the trench, hands raised in surrender.

A large bulky German man came into view, holding some large barreled machine. It looked to weigh at least fifteen kilograms.

“Ich habe einen gefangen!” The Canadian shouted to the other soldier.

“Ist er der letzte?”

At the question The Canadian paused and pointed his free hand to the edge of the trench next to the German soldier. It was hard for Reginald to see what it was, but he knew when he spoke.

”Monster.” Was all he could get out before it came into the trench. The soldier swiveled to look and once realizing the beast bearing down on him he began to fire his machine gun, the large cylindrical barrel getting absorbed first, then him, as his body was absorbed into the ball of men sent to their deaths.

The Canadian pushed Reginald away. “Get the hell out of here, back to your land, I was never supposed to come home.“ With his finals words said, he pressed his good foot to the demolition charge and pushed it forwards. Once the great mass began to assimilate it, he fired.

He had heard artillery, but it never stuck as close as this explosion was to him, and in a blind deafness, Reginald wandered through the night, back towards the line. Occasionally, he would fall into craters, and scrape his bare feet against buried wire, until he came back to the front. There was no more gunfire, not towards him, only towards the great mass.

He was discharged due to illness, taken to a military hospital in London. Tetanus, and permanent hearing loss were among his aflictions.

He found a woman and a job at an iron mill. He promised himself that he would never go back, he wouldn’t let any of his family go there. He had a son, John.

Nothing would compare to what had happened there. By the time John was twenty most of Europe was still recovering from the war. Even in 1939, he never forgot what happened out there. He knew it wasn’t dead, it was out there, the mass of death, it would come back as soon as fighting began. As long as the Leauge of Nations kept the peace, nobody would have to go through something like that again.

I don’t know who puts them on my porch, I’ve tried to install a camera but I assume they use some sort of blocker? I heard that things can block out ring cameras and stuff for thieves but instead of taking anything, they give me things.

Manilla envelopes appear at my doorstep. I received the first one a month ago.

It was in plain, aerial font typed out.

Your mama so fat she uses a queen sized mattress as a pillow.

Really funny huh? Looking back now I realize that it was evident back then even. I called Roger, my roommate. Well, former roommate after I found him high on acid in the kitchen, balls out and screaming at his reflection in the stainless steel dishwasher.

”You left a letter on my porch?” I was almost certain it was him. It seemed like something he would do.

”Hell nah man, I’m in the hospital.” He spoke out, a dry, strained voice.

”What happened?”

“I had to get my stomach pumped. Long story. What letter?“

”It’s just a blank envelope with a yo mama joke on it. Probably just someone messing around.” I hung up without much else to say. I guess I’m awkward like that. I don’t want to interact with people more than what’s necessary.

Then came the next letters.

Your mama so stupid she thought the water bill was for her plants.

Odd, my mother was in love with botany, and kept a large greenhouse on her property for various flowers and other plants.

Your mama so ugly I don’t want to stalk her.

That was the first line where I contacted the police. They couldn’t do anything but forensics, which didn’t give any leads. So I installed a camera outside.

Next morning, nobody was seen outside, but the letter was still there and there was a gap of missing footage from 10:00 to 10:10 at night.

I opened the letter.

Your mama so stupid she doesn’t know when I’m inside her house.

Police came out again, I called my mother, got her to start staying inside a motel. The police waited around my house all night, switching shifts each hour.

Nobody came by they said. But I found a letter wedged under my laptop the next morning.

Your mama so stupid she thinks running can save her.

Im going insane over here. We have no leads, this person has been inside my house, inside my mother’s house and the police are no help.

Im typing this online because I‘m scared. I keep calling my mom and she’s not picking up. The police are going over right now but I have a feeling they won’t find her.

The envelope sits on my desk.

Your mama so fat I had to dig a double wide grave for her.

When I heard what Austin did I knew something was up. Sure, he had his moments, sometimes was hot tempered under stress, but never acted out.

So it didn’t make sense to me why he killed a dozen people.

Twelve victims, no correlation. Five male and seven female. All stabbed to death, and piled up inside his shed.

His body laid on top of the pile, killed by someone else. The police thought his last victim, a former police officer, had fought back, mortally injured him before death.

Removing the bodies they found a laptop underneath, covered in blood, along with a burned circle into the floor. The blood staining the floor made it hard to make out except for the outer ring.

Thats what reminded me about Gina.

Thats what he called her, code, lines of written commands stored on a data center in the Nevada desert. That was one of his short fallings as a brother. He was never admired by anyone other than our parents. So he created Gina.

I didn’t bother with my little brother’s ’relationship’. it was his choice to be a loser or not, and maybe he would grow out of it. but as the days passed, and weeks turned to months, I doubted he would change. I watched a My Strange Addiction episode about some woman paying thousands for an advanced membership for a boyfriend. I hoped he could get help, but life carried me away with the birth of my child.

Uncle Austin was there, looking at his niece, Olivia. I couldn’t help but stare at his laptop with contempt as he sat down in the hospital room and opened it up, a smile covering his face.

I then stood outside of the police station, a red brick building that stood steady between an Ace hardware and an abandoned motel. Three cars were in the parking lot, a yellow pickup truck and two police cars. I walked. I was on leave for Olivia and my hometown was an hour away from where me currently lived.

I walked in, palms sweaty, but I was ready to tell others it was from the humid weather. A disheveled, worn old lady slumped over a wooden desk.

”Hey, Carmen Watts, I’m here to talk to… detective Fullers? Is that his name?“

”Detective Foyer.” She sighed out, raspy, like gears grinding against each other, a great labor to communicate to those around her. ”I’ll call him out.” She took a breath in-between each few words.

I sat down on a flimsy, stiff couch in the lobby. I couldn’t preoccupy myself with something whilst I waited, instead I let time slowly encroach unto me, sitting, staring into my hand, each cut, each crevice, each vein on the back.

Soon I was ushered into his office.

”Do you mind if I record this?“

”No sir.”

”Alright then Mr. Watts.“ He breathed in and settled his hands on the tables, clasped as if praying. “Why are you here?”

”I think I know where some evidence on the computer may be.” After I finished talking I quickly added on “I know you already searched it but I think I know where he would expose his motives.”

It felt wrong, felt wrong to just say ‘he’. Because that he was my brother. He lived in the same house as me, ate at the same table at the same time. I knew him to his core. Or so I thought.

”And where would that be?” Foyer asked, slipping on a pair of sterile gloves.

”Do you see any AI websites? I don’t know what application he uses.”

Foyer went quiet for a second before adjusting his glasses and clicking his tong against the roof of his mouth.

”Looks like… Yeah, I found it.”

I wish I could see what he was seeing, it would have been easier to walk him through it.

”Is there a recent chats tab? Or a tab where you can see the bots he created?”

There was a lot longer of a pause after that, it took him four minutes in his old man mind to navigate the computer. He had to have been sixty at least, I was halfway there, and still couldn’t afford a damn house. Then again I worked as an advertising consultant in Tulsa.

“Yeah, sorry about the wait, I’m not used to all of this. Looks like he’s talking to someone named Gina?” With an almost inaudible clock he opened the chat and began scrolling and reading, the calm half smile he had on his face grew grim his mouth hanging open slightly, just enough to shove a coin inside if necessary.

“What is it?” I asked, leveraging myself out of my chair so I can peer over the laptop, still stained maroon in some places. I wasn’t surprised it worked, he had bought the device with some waterproof seal for the circuitry.

“I’ll have you read it soon, you deserve to see. I’m going to message this person first.”

”It’s not a person, it’s AI.”

Foyers snorted and looked up at me finally. “That‘s funny, because they aren’t responding.“

”Mr. Foyer, I don’t think that’s possible.”

When he showed me the computed, He scrolled to the top of last weeks messages. He scrolled too fast going down for me to truly read some of them, but I could tell that Gina was sending shorter and shorter messages. When he got to three days before the murders she just sent 12 in response to a longer message from Austin. Foyer started to slow

Austin: “12 what baby?”

Gina: “I need 12.“

Austin:“Of what?”

Gina:”You know. I need them to bleed.”

Austin: “You’re scaring me.”

Gina:”Make me real.”

I had heard of AI psychosis, being convinced by something that writes one word at a time that all of your conspiracies and paranoia is real. This didn’t seem like that. This seemed worse, much worse.

At the bottom sat the newest message from Foyer.

Foyer: “Who is this?”

Gina:

He was right, just a blank message. The little picture he had generated of her, a blonde anime woman, hanging above the omen.

”Well. I think you found a motive.” I said shakily, fully standing upon two weak legs.

I walked out into the rain after the meeting concluded, my stomach and head swirling. I just needed to get her off my mind.

I drive back through my hometown, trying to scrub those chats from my mind. I had to tell my father, he had the right to know as he was also always paranoid of Gina.

I stopped at a burger restaurant, maybe I needed food. Standing behind a stocky man more prepared for the afternoon storm, wearing a red puffer jacket, I waited to make my order.

When I got to the counter I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Hi sir, what can I get you?”

I looked at her name tag, and at her hair, her face that seemed uncanny valley like, and knew.

That little magnetic plate with her name simply read Gina.

Rules are simple, the fight takes place in a wide open field. Tommy Taffy CANNOT come back after being killed like he did in the dad’s story. Nobody gets any weapons. The ages of the protagonists must range from 1-16. If a protagonist slowly ages throughout the story like the kid from Penpal (forgot his name) then they will be the age the majority of the story takes place in.

The cliff seemed to stretch infinitely to the water. well worth the three hour hike. She had saved up for years for a Scandinavian trip. When she first planned it she never even thought that she would be with someone else, but here was Aaron.

They never really met all at once, but they saw each other regularly. working in the same building they often bumped into each other and had small talk. It took two years of that for Sandra to finally ask him out.

”Thank you,” he said at first and it made her gut drop. within a second she imagined his rejection, the awkwardness that would follow her every time she glimpsed his lanky form. Then he continued. “I was too afraid to ask.”

Now, the trip she had saved up for her entire life was her honeymoon. instead of going to a tropic resort or large city they landed in Stockholm and drove into Norway. Now they were positioned hundreds of feet above the cold, harsh waves.

Aaron came up behind her, his boots dragging against rock, kicking small pebbles into the ocean.

”Damn, ain’t it a good view.” He stopped six feet away from the edge, She stood closer, a single step would send her off the edge, the great north winds would blow her like a kite.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to just, step off?”

”Jesus A, don’t say stuff like that.” She gave him a playful shove away from the cliff. Turning to view her newly wed husband, she saw a glossy coat over his eyes as he stared, bored his eyes into her like he wanted to see through her.

”Do you hear that? Do you see?” He stepped closer as she walked away from the cliff. His remark gave her a small burst of nausea.

”Hear what? the wind?” She yelled over her shoulder as she took her large rucksack off her shoulders.

”It calls.” He said from behind.

”Aaron, you’re scaring me.” She stood up and turned around to face the cliff.

Just in time to watch him walk off the face of the earth, plummeting to the waves. He never reached the water, he had taken a shallow step, head first eh dove for the rocks. It impacted his skull, and he broke apart like bloody, rubbery ceramic.

She had no time to mourn, her ears were full, full of nothing, every sound blocked off at once she found herself stepping forwards to the same spot her husband fell.

Come it beckoned

Come

Come

Come

Come forth

Join me

And as the wind whipped through her hair, and bit at her skin as the water advanced towards her she could swear that the voice sounded like him.

Then every single comment asked me to crush them with my thighs.

What’s your experience with violence? Maybe, you’ve experienced it through screens. Popping random heads with a revolver trying to grind for a gold camo that you wouldn’t be content with because the new Call of Duty was coming out in two months.

Maybe you scrolled for too long one night and watched a grainy CCTV video of a man in Hong Kong get ripped in half by heavy machinery. You didn’t understand the language he screamed in as his life faded, partially because his lungs had been reduced to a thin gruel.

First time I saw someone die that wasn’t due to the click of a mouse was footage of a stabbing on the news.

That was nine years ago. Ever since I have seen more than a thousand die, all within the last week.

My town killed each other, and I have no idea why I wasn’t affected.

I‘m not spiritual, I’m religious, and even though I know what I saw and what caused it I can’t stop myself from following my practices. I have to believe that it’s intertwined in some way because if I don’t my world will come crashing down.

I don’t know where to put it so here goes my explanation. My town sits in the Smoky Mountains, it‘s no Gatlinburg but we aren’t poor. It’s nice, and apparently its original inhabitants thought so too.

A native tribe I can’t pronounce settled down here. Probably because of the flowing river and expansive system of wildlife.

Sometime a little before we moved in another tribe waged war against them over some bullshit about where their birds nest. I don’t know, I’m no historian. So someone from the original tribe casts a curse on the land saying that those in the town will fall to their own hands.

America comes into play and we promise to help the tribe reclaim their home. How do you think that went? We took it, the tribe moved down river a little bit and then were sent on the great adventure known as the Trail of Tears.

So yeah, that’s the history of the small village in the mountains known as Hartwell. Believe it or not, take it or leave it. I don’t exactly know why the curse would fall on some middle class losers in the 21st century instead of the colonizers, but it did. It’s funny how life goes like that.

Reparations will be eventually paid, just not by the aggressor.

That night I was shooting a mock documentary, I guess a mockumentary, with my friends near Gillian's Hold. Gillian Fruge was a racist radical who built a compound in the mountains after the Confederacy fell, promising to restore the south.

He died of a throat infection.

Now you can hike up to his little crack shack and tour the grounds.

We got inspired to film a ‘ghost adventures’ style video after watching a very poorly put together investigation on YouTube.

”We gather here today to conjure the idea of the manifestation of the concept of a ghost known as Gillian Fruge.” Kyle spoke directly into the phones speaker, trying to hold off his snickers that always seemed unnaturally annoying.

”Born in the year 1781 and dying in 1780, he was born as a baby and died as a person.”

Roddy, my shorter yet older brother started kicking sticks around the forest floor, waiting for him to finish the speech.

”He passed away from never getting any game in his entire life, except for your mother. Before he perished he created this fort on an ancient Indian burial ground that was constructed on an even older ancient Indian burial ground.”

”Tonight, we attempt to contact him by angering his spirit.” Kyle said, turning to face Roddy.

”How will we do that?“ He set up the punch line.

”We know exactly what he hated most as a southern man during the civil war. We will play soundbites from an extensive amount of interviews with influential African Americans.” Kyle broke on the last line, bursting into laughter, which caught on to me and Roddy.

From there on, we wandered the grounds of the old, rotten, wooden fort. Occasionally we would crack a bit. We finished our project by pretending that Kyle got possessed and that we had to exorcise him before he said something problematic.

In total we started at sunset and left at 9:50. In between around an hour it must have started.

Driving back through the mountain roads, rocking to Roddy’s custom mixtape because his car was a private domain untouched by outsiders. The common law inside was written by its chieftain which was the driver.

”You know how to edit?” Kyle asked me in the backseat.

”Yeah, I took that class on it, remember?” I turned away from him and watched as the woods flowed through my sight like rushing, cascading water. The hair of the earth, beautiful and everlasting. Some of these trees were here when the tribes went to war, even when old Gillian had his mental break.

Those trees were alive and well watching as the valley tore itself apart.

”Bathroom at the trailhead on the left, anyone need to use it?” Roddy called out, turning down the music low enough to barely hear his words.

Me and Kyle did. Pulling into the dark gravel parking lot, we realized that the only others there were the rangers closing their post and the owners of a rust bucket truck. In its bed was an ATV covered in mud.

The night was humid but still cool with the breeze as we approached the small shed containing a restroom.

The urinal was disgusting, reminiscent of a war torn trench. After making fast I washed my hands and exited to an odd yell. It wasn’t in terror, or pain, or even rage. It was almost exasperation. Roddy was wiping off the dirt from his side view mirror with a paper towel from the back. At the noise he turned to me.

”What was that?” He asked.

”Dunno, where’s Kyle?”

Kyle was still in the restroom, the lights were now off in the ranger station.

“Who cares?” Roddy shrugged and got back into the drivers seat.

Kyle came out and asked the same question, to which I parroted Roddy’s response.

We kept driving, windows down, listening to the whip whipping past. it was like music on the wind, which makes a horrible amount of sense now.

On the outskirts of town Kyle asked me a stupid question, leading to the last normal conversation we would ever have.

”You know that saying, ‘Wrong place, Wrong time’, do you think there’s a right place, wrong time or vice versa?”

”Well what would they mean exactly?” I quizzed him back.

”Well like, right place wrong time, it’s just that it would be suitable to you but not preferable on the grand scale. So if you were asking a girl out and your both alone, romantic spot, that’s right place. Wrong time would be that her dog just died.”

I gave an understanding nod. “Where did that idea come from?”

“Clip from a show I used to watch. I think they’re rebooting it.” The car reached town limits and the main road opened to our chamber of commerce. A dollar general, a few gas stations and stores.

The first variation from metal played over the speakers as Michael Jackson repeated proclaimed, like Bill Clinton, that he hadn’t had sexual relations with Billie Jean.

”Is Kyle staying with us tonight?” Roddy asked, as he pulled to a red light. At that point I realized that nobody was on the streets, which was odd even at 10 at night.

In the middle of responding with a yes, we watched as a man on a motorcycle sped past us like lightning. The main intersection in our town was a three way. One way all the way through and then a connected road leading up the hills towards the highschool area. Sitting there we watched as the metal monster descended rapidly from the mountain.

It had to have been going 90+ miles per hour. He wouldn’t have had time to break even if he intended to.

The front wheel caught on the raised concrete sidewalk in front of a small motel. Suddenly, his body was thrown forwards as it lifted into the air as it flipped. His body immediately flung into the wall of the brick building. The motorcycle going into the air landed on the single story motels roof.

The body collided like one of those videos of people throwing things into a grinder. Odd example, I know, but it’s the best I have. Slowly, the speed and force of which he impacted the wall flattened him, as if the wall was eating him piece by piece.

His crumpled mess looked like a pile of bloody, wet laundry. Slopping to the floor with what I would imagine was a slick slap.

I couldn’t hear it though over our screams.

I have no clue who vomited, most likely Roddy since it covered the windshield, thankfully blocking our view of what happened. Then the heaviest weight of all, reality, crushed us. A life was snuffed out in about three seconds.

”Do… do we go outside?” Kyle asked, keeping his head down. I could barely hear him since the music was still full blast.

”I don’t know man just let me think” I begged, each breath taken felt like it wasn’t enough “let me fucking think.”

Roddy dialed the authorities through his cracked, old iphone. They didn’t pick up.

”They can’t just not answer. Isn’t there an answering machine?” He smacked the dash with his fist, then recoiled his hand to his forehead.

Kyle got out in a daze, keeping his eyes on the ground.

”Kyle? what are you doing?” I called out and scrambled over the backseat to exit through his side.

He kept walking towards the motel, quickening his pace as I did the same, trying not to look at the mass of flesh laying at someone’s door.

It’s important to note that this motel was one of the older buildings in the town, built in the 1950’s, it still had a landline phone and other historical additions over the years. That was one of its selling points, ’travel back in time and stay here’.

Kyle pushed open the wooden door to the office.

”You need to call the police-“ He cut himself off there to silence, standing in the doorway, staring ahead.

I was still outside so I approached his back and asked what’s wrong.

I then looked up to see an old woman sat in a chair. Her gray hair stained with her own blood, her face broken and bloody. someone had pulled the old landline phone off of the wall and bludgeoned her with it. The phone laid on the desk, similarly broken and bloody.

I dragged Kyle outside and back to the car, atleast with the biker, you couldn’t truly humanize a bag of flesh. The old woman still resembled a person, which almost made it worse.

Roddy and I both agreed that we need led to get back home, drop Kyle off at his house, and get to the police station. We began with our first task, alerting the authorities.

Turning at the intersection we faced Hill street. The well maintained shops fronts had their ugly side views on display along with their alleys. I know I counted at least three out there. It was too dark to see for sure but I know that there was the body of a large man under a street light, reflecting its light in his cold blood.

Kyle had shut down emotionally, he stared slack jawed into his lap, trying to wrap his mind around the ever approaching concept of death. I don’t believe any comforting could have helped.

”They’re all over.” Roddy said in the silence. It was surreal To not have music currently playing in the car. Roddy spoke silently, but perhaps my ears were adjusted to the loud music playing moments ago.

It felt like walking around a battlefield, I was almost, jokingly expecting to see the one guy every World War II movie had. The soldier, laying down screaming his lungs out whilst he played around with he exposed flesh, trying to stuff his organs back in. My dad actually used to make fake organs and props for movies like that, it’s what got us our pretty decently sized house in the mountains.

That's when it hit me. What if my family was dead? How far had this massacre occurred. I looked forwards instead of out my back window and realized that we were stopped.

In the intersection sat a large blaze. The fire licking the stars. A dark spot stood between us and the blaze. Someone was standing there, looking into the flames, holding some blunt object. It was hard to make out but they stood between us and a flaming vehicle.

Roddy opened up the door to the truck and got out before we did, barely remembering to put it in park so we didn’t careen down the hill and into the motel.

I got out next, Kyle sat still, head buried between his tucked up knees.

Thats we realized that the figure was facing us, it was hard staring at it, the hot flame not only burning the van it encroached on but burning our eyes in the dark night.

She held a metal thermos, water dripping down it, or was it blood? Most likely blood knowing what she would try and do next.

Gashes, cuts and bruises stained her exposed arms and neck, her eyes and face almost resembled Kyle’s shock. The distant, disconnected expression.

“Hey, Ma’m? Are you okay? What’s happening?” Roddy called out, being a lot more responsible than I would have been. I was already thinking about booking it down the street.

Instead she booked it towards Roddy, and before he could move or even make a sound she wound her hand back and brought the thermos down onto his head. It must have been empty, because even though it made an extremely loud clang, Roddy only staggered back onto the pavement, clutching his head with one hand and raising his arm to shield himself.

I rammed into her, pushing her back away from my brother. Once I made contact with her I staggered and fell to the ground scraping my knees.

Roddy ran to me and picked me up, facing me away from the bonfire. “Don’t look, don’t look.” He breathed heavily into my ears.

Roddy never got scared, in my mind he held the same image every single day. He was the stereotypical teen in a phase of rebellion, without as much questioning of authority. He was the closest thing to a stoic type in my life. Even my father showed more emotion than him, being a highly animated character sometimes.

Thats when I smelled something burning, and I realized how far I really had pushed her.

He ushered me down a dark side street, Kyle following behind, we couldn’t keep driving, the fire blocked our way.

“Thank you,” Roddy said, looking over our shoulder at the entry of the road. We were now walking through suburbs. We had to pass ten homes and a church before we got onto the next street.

Screams echoed through the mountains, reverberating into my soul. “Are you okay?” I asked my brother.

”Head fucking hurts bad.” He said, and gave me a weak thin smile, I could smell the burnt flesh on him like it stuck to him.

”My mom’s not picking up.” Kyle said like a broken man would after losing a child.

“Kyle, get your ass home, be safe, we’re going home too.”

“Wait!” He shouted out, suddenly perking up. “She works the Ski lift at Big Wood Lodge, she has to put her phone in the break room during all shifts, we have to see if she’s okay.”

”Does she work up the mountain or down?” I asked.

”She works down here, come on, it’s like a mile or so away, we can get there fast.”

Roddy looked at me, and sighed. “I’m going home regardless, you and Kyle go to the lodge. I will message you guys-“ He was cut off by the crack of a gunshot coming from within the house infront of us. The one story tall, robins egg blue house had its front door open with a locked screen door.

The lights inside were on, what if someone in there needed help? What if they were already dead? We should have done something as it was our duty.

We walked faster through the street. Kyle had snatched a small child’s bicycle from his front yard, even though he looked uncomfortable and hilarious on it but he did move fast.

I think I’ll be haunted by abandoning that house forever.

When we had passed the sixth house on our right we watched as someone exited theirs at the end of the street. We all stopped walking, freezing so that we wouldn’t be spotted. Then we watched as another person exited a house closer to us, both of them seemed to lock eyes and jogged towards each other under a street light. One seemed to be an old man wielding a splintering cane, the other held something smaller like a knife or screwdriver.

”Cut through here.” Kyle suggested, dropping the Bycicle already since he thought it made too much noise, pointing through someone’s unfenced backyard. Without a better option, we let the figures ahead begin their death match as we walked around them.

”It’s like some zombie shit.” Roddy said, picking up a small sizable chunk of wood from a firewood pile. “Is anyone sane around here?”

That was when I heard it, nobody else did but I swear I heard some flute drifting across the wind like soft whispers to reassure someone. As soon as I heard the instrument, it was gone.

An overweight women was sprawled out near a lawn mower, covered in bruises as if someone beat her with their own hands.

We passed behind the church and onto the next road, a car wash was located next to the road we would have to take to ski lift parking.

Roddy had been plagued with a darkness the entire walk, worry, anxiety consumed him. When he saw the car wash he started pursing his lips and rubbing his right index and thumb together.

”I got an idea, give me a moment, you guys can keep walking it’ll only take a minute I swear.” Roddy jogged across the open road to the wash. It had two drive through washes fitted with sponges and pressure washed for you to clean it yourself. It also had a small office room, maybe 49 square feet.

The owner of the carwash was Donnie Ulsan, a real nutjob. He had served in the army and put memorabilia all over the wash, even erecting the statue of a soldier on the grass outside the office. In the dark it was lit up by a small light at its feet.

You couldn’t go into the office, it was always off limits, but it wasn’t unreasonable to assume Donnie had some “munitions“ laying out as trophies.

Me and Kyle kept walking. The road to the parking lot was labeled with a sign for Big Wood lodge. Big Wood was also what they called Fredrick Gallsevi, son of the lodge’s owner. They called him this because of his micro penis.

As we passed the sign we heard the shattering of glass and the sudden beeping of a security system. Roddy had smashed the glass and climbed into the room, I could only hope he was fast, because the same old man from down the street was running right for us now.

The object his attacker was using was wedged into his neck, clear to be an ice pick or awl now. His cane was more bloody, and the curved section had broken completely off, leaving him with a wooden spear.

Kyle ran, as much as I liked him it was undeniable that at most confrontation he was a coward.

The old man threw the cane at me like a javelin, not very accurately mind you. When he missed, he decided to use his hands.

Despite his bloodlust, he was still an old man, and a solid kick to the chest sent him downwards.

”Go, go go go right now man!“ Roddy ran to me, clutching something metal as he turned me around and dragged me by my collar to the parking lot. Before I was turned around I saw a hulking mass make its way down the hill.

Donnie Ulsan was running at us like a mad man, and he was holding a rifle.

Sargent first class Ulsan stood at six foot ten, three hundred something pounds of muscle, and often was the victor of the yearly mountain marathon.

Five loud bangs pierced my ears as he put down the old man behind us.

”You lunatics get back here, I got something for ya.” He screamed out into the night, voice raspy from lung cancer that didn’t stop him from running ten miles a day.

That voice clicked a puzzle together in my head though. Even though we only encountered a few, most of the people we had seen looked disinterested, and never spoke. It was like they were bored by the acts they committed, but Donnie was furious.

In split seconds I weighed the options. Get shot or take my chances.

I grabbed Roddy’s arm and pulled him to a stop before raising both my arms in surrender. Kyle had the head start, and I couldn’t see him as he weaved between cars in the parking lot.

“We aren’t going to hurt you.” I yelled out, trying to stop myself from pissing my pants. I ripped the thing out of Roddy’s grip and tossed it to the ground quickly, noticing it was an old combat knife.

Donnie was silent at first. Roddy had raised his hands now, turning to face the veteran.

”We can talk, they can’t man, just don’t shoot.” I said, trying to make potential last words worth it.

Donnie kept the rifle on us as he reached down and grabbed his knife. “Seems bout right, they ain’t got shit for brains. And neither does he, stealing from a veteran.” He nudged the barrel of his rifle towards Roddy.

”How aren’t you like them?” Roddy asked.

”I don’t know, I just got back from a walmart run.“ The nearest Walmart was next town over, That was the domino that helped us understand this a little better. “They, they killed them. I’m not going to stop until I ensure they get what’s coming for them.”

”Who did they kill?” Roddy asked.

”Amelia, Sandy. I don’t know who did it, but I won’t rest until none of them are left standing.“

I didn’t know Amelia or Sandy’s relationship with him but I assumed they were probably his wife and daughter.

”Hey, Mister Ulsan, you want to do some hunting and help us out?” Roddy proceeds to tell him our address so he could check and see if our family was at home. Looking back now probably not the best idea seeming as he was armed and hellbent on killing anyone who seemed dangerous.

Especially not a good idea since they only ever found Donnie’s head.

Before he left he actually gave Roddy the knife, it had a large fixed blade and a small chip on the hilt. I had no clue where Donnie served but this knife had seen action before.

“I broke the window and ran inside, he had it on a small display holder next to a picture of what I think was his troop? I grabbed it and then noticed there was this small metal door, I think it was a toilet. He came out and I booked it.”

The parking lot was a mess, doors were ajar, a man had been slammed through a windshield of a Kia soul.

Worst of all was that Kyle couldn’t be found.

The bottom ski lift that went to the lodge was located in a small pavilion like area. It was shaped like a circle and had a large metal gearbox on the roof. Most of the space was for cue lines with little space given to the staff room, restroom and power generator. That probably accounted for the odd high pitched metallic buzzing we were hearing.

It was sufficiently dark now, I kept checking the shadows, paranoid that something may snap out at me. Something was walking through the pavilion though, over bodies it stepped in an odd fashion. It would take a short step with Its left foot and then a long one with its right.

Roddy and I crouched behind a white truck , we couldn’t fight or run, we couldn’t do those things because they seemed to have some kind of power tool. After they brought me into the room a little bit ago for questioning I searched it up and found out that the person was holding an electric hedge trimmer.

It was different to kick or push someone then it was to fend off someone with a tool that could maim someone in seconds.

Still behind the truck we listened as the whirring of its motor got closer, I felt out of breath and out of control.

Thats when I remembered what I had with us. A phone, a phone that still had our recording in the mountains on it. So I slid it into my hands, turned it on and chucked it across the parking lot.

I watched as it stumbled towards the decoy and realized who it was.

Fredrick Gallsevi wasn’t a strong or tall person, so he struggled to hold the trimmer. It also seemed that his leg had been broken.

It’s hard seeing someone you knew in that state, no, it’s not hard, it’s impossible. Nobody deserves that fate. To never have control over what they do. Thats what they had to experience and I can only wonder who survived the fight, my mother or my father.

The ski lift was still operating, constantly moving still with a conveyor belt under them. We walked briskly by it and to the staff room. The door was open.

Everything was opened, including the small phone holders. Kyle’s mother’s phone was missing, a schedule sheet was on the counter.

Regina-Yvonne called off, you need to work top.

Kyle must have reactivated the ski lift and went up the mountain. The controls to turn it on must not have been simple, because if it was a job anyone could do then Kyle’s mother wouldn’t have been paid as much as she was.

Fredrick was still in the parking lot, giving us plenty of leeway to get on the lift. It wasn’t as rickety as it looked, the bars actually locked into place, and it had plenty of room for not only me and Roddy.

There was nothing to talk about with him, our entire world had been thrown into a crock of shit. We both cried, our eyes blurry as the green of the mountain surrounded us.

At the top we found a sea of people.

Between interviews and talks with the people here I’ve looked on Google Maps a few times, turns out a week ago we redrew our town lines, the Big Wood lodge was no longer in town, neither was Gillian’s Hold

Kyle found his mother, he’s living down the hall from me right now with her.

In total only twenty four people survived that night. So where does that leave us? Nowhere satisfying.

For the past month I’ve been cooped up with everyone in a building, three times a day me, Roddy and Kyle get interviewed by some government official. I don’t know what department they are in but I don’t care.

They have a massive cargo hold of “evidence” which is just cold storage for everyone’s bodies and murder weapons. I stole my phone from it yesterday and have been writing here.

They told me about the Indian curse idea, but confided that they are as in the dark about this as we are.

Now something curious I’ve learned that credits that idea is about Regina. She was riding the ski lift up top for her next shift when everyone went crazy. I stood outside the interview room listening to her give her statement.

”I heard, this flute. I didn’t notice at first but it sounded so good, like someone soothed me with it, telling me ‘it’s going to be alright.’ And then the sound turned harsh, and all I could think for a few seconds was ‘They’re going to kill me, everyone is coming to kill me I have to defend myself I have to attack before they can.‘ Then It was like sleep paralysi, where you can’t move but just watch? I watched as I wrung my hands around the bar and lifted it, slowly I unscrewed the bolts on the sides and clutched the bar in my hands like a club. Suddenly when I reached the top I came back into control, and it was like I was in a morning daze. I got really tired, and dizzy, thinking about where I was and what happened.”

Heres what I thinks going on, and before someone asks, no I don’t know why an ancient curse would adhere to modern political boundaries. I think if you were out of town or left town boundaries you would writhe out of its control, since you were no longer in the town. I don’t know why we didn’t get affected going back in. I don’t know why we paid.

Often I think about me and Kyle’s last normal conversation.

Right place, Wrong time.

My head was pounding, pounding greatly in rhythmic pulses like fists were hammering down on a door.

Where was I? I had just gotten dressed in the morning, putting on a band t-shirt and cargo shorts. Clothes suitable for Texan weather in the summer, not for wherever I was.

Before I came there, I walked out of my home and started walking for the nearest bus stop. It was my day off, and I had to pick up my car from the auto shop, get groceries and visit one of my work friends for an event that I could no longer recall.

I now stood in a vast snowy plain, the second before I blinked and wound up here everything went white, like the sun had came down from the celestial bodies to welcome me into its great embrace.

Something, god what was that? Something ran across the treeline in front of me.

I needed to get warm, the snow was piling around me and my eyes were stinging with an unnatural temperature change.

Things were scattered around me, and I do mean things. Nothing in particular, it seemed like a hoarders house had been picked up and shaken out across the snowy landscape. To my left sat a patch forest next to a field, A large, dark mass laid sprawled out in the snow to my right.

I tripped over a roll of toilet paper becoming damp with wet snow as I walked to my left. Another clearing breached the trees, this time instead of solid ground there was ice spanning a large long lake. a few visible cracks jutted through the water like canyons.

A red, thin jersey was on the ice, bunched up like dirty laundry. I put it on over my shirt, any layer was a layer, and despite how thin it was if it provided a small layer to protect me it was worth it.

I kept to the side that was less wooded turing to plains, I didn’t want to go through the woods after seeing something run through. it was at least double my height.

A Chinese, maybe Japanese or Korean vending machine sat on its side next to the ice. It made me realize how thirsty I was, so I kicked it twice, seeing if anything inside of its opaque glass would come out. then I realized the cans would just pool on the side it laid on.

I had been looking down at everything I passed, the pots, shoes, single coins and books. I finally looked up and saw a concrete metal shack. It was like a stereotypical slum house from third world countries. I approached, I didn’t expect it to be that warm, as there was five holes without windows sitting in the frames. Stepping inside my suspicions were confirmed.

It sat completely unfurnished, had everything been taken here, wherever here was? Everything that wasn’t nailed down was probably scattered across this place.

I exited after I found a golden track trophy on the ground. “1st place King County, WA Regional track meet.” Obviously I didn’t believe this place was Washington.

Exiting into the wilderness once again I noticed something tall on the ice. A person. Wearing some red long sleeved shirt. I watched as they presumably worked through their next movies in their mind.

Slowly and cautiously they lifted their left hand and gave a short wave. I returned the gratitude to see another living being that seemed friendly. That thought made me realized that I had not seen nor heard any animals in the wilderness besides the figure in the woods.

I started to step towards the ice, keeping an eye on them as they looked side to side nervously before they began the slow walk towards my shore.

In what I assumed was nine seconds the next events transpired.

Something large, mammal in the fact it had skin like man and was bipedal but monstrous in posture and form darted from the trees.

It sprinted like a car barreling down a road at impossible speeds. So fast that the ice gave way under its feet as it moved, yet it avoided falling in.

When it reached the figure on the lake it seemed to dig its long fingers into its flesh, below the collar bone and above the pelvis.

Hoisting its prey up above its head like it was celebrating its capture, slowly it brought its arms out wide.

Across the cracking ice I could almost hear the flesh ripping as the figure was bisected. Before I saw more detail the ice below the hunter caved in and brought both the corpse and it into the freezing waters.

My body reacted by pushing every chemical it had stored into my mind, making me flee into the snowy wasteland, desperately fleeing the scene. I ran so hard that I had a fleeting thought between the panic. If I ran far enough maybe that track trophy should belong to me.

I passed so much during that blurry run I couldn’t keep track of what I saw. I remember a section of wrought iron fence, a large burlap sack of rice, and a hospital bed, messy and knocked over.

Tired, the adrenaline wore off and I became cold to the bone again. I found a snow bank, it felt compact, so I laid down in it, incase it was following me.

I don’t know how long I laid in silence, the cold growing, pain writhing its way into my skin. I looked at my fingers and realized they were bleeding and cracked open. I needed warmth.

Stumbling through the snow, which had sunken into my shoes, dampening my socks, I spotted a bright red automobile. An SUV, the drivers door open.

I clambered inside and shut the door before I realized it wasn’t on nor had the keys inside.

Who cared? Not me, I was safe in here, probably.

I took off the jersey and wrapped my hands in it, it would warm them and perhaps stop the bleeding. It was dark when I came here, as dark as it would be in midday winter, but now it was darker.

Did I step through some kind of threshold into a new world? Maybe I was in hell, but I didn’t see a lake of fire nor any brimstone. Besides, what would I have done to get me sent to hell?

I barely talk to people, I’m a little closed off, and sometimes standoff-ish. I don’t seek out other people much often, but being antisocial wouldn’t get me eternal damnation.

I heard a story once, about a man who had a brain injury, and within the few seconds he was reeling on the ground he had lived an entire life. A fake life, with a wife and children.

When I walked out of the house, did I get hit by a car? Maybe I was in a coma, maybe I had some brain damage.

The car started to become warm, warm enough that I could start to feel my fingers again, and the pain. I knew that when I exited the car I would begin to freeze again. I really didn’t know if I had frostbite or not, I never had to worry about that.

A noise unfamiliar to my heavy, labored breathing, came from outside the vehicle. something scraped against the trunk door. I craned my neck to see behind me, and watched as something as large and vast as the car itself moved out of my sight.

It was like a hairless cat, but more bear like than anything. I could see deep, yellow veins that stretched around its body like cords plugged into outlets. I could breifly see one of its… paws? Hands? They were large and bloated, like tumors growing from knuckles.

I was trapped if I stayed inside, and dead if I left. It would either pounce on me, and tear me to shreds like the man on the ice or I would die out in the cold.

I waited, savoring my little warmth as it walked away, lurching asymmetrically. I made an effort to slowly open the door, but once it was ajar the cars alarm began to sound.

It feels like an understatement to say I don’t know how I escaped. I have no fucking clue how I escaped. I think I was able to trick it into walking down a steep, slick hill. I think that because I remember at one point coming to a large slope and, saving myself the trouble, slid down feet first into the valley.

I heard the heavy footfalls behind me, it was slower Than me, but didn’t tire. When I stood up jelly legged in the valley I couldn’t see it.

What I could see was a large, concrete building. The brutalist office was slightly slanted at an angle, and around its perimeter sat flattened dead trees, like it fell from the sky.

The towering obelisk was five stories tall, the entrance an automatic door no longer powered by an electric current.

I wandered the perimeter, looking for something to break open a window. In a pile of snow behind the crooked building was a wooden cane, which did great with letting me inside the building.

I’ve looked throughout and haven’t found anything or anyone. I write this with numb hands, It’s warmer than the car but not far from cold. If I perish in my sleep and one finds this, give it to one of my friends, or family members if you find them, Harris Groves, Janey Groves, Earl Groves and Olson Dicasse.

I can only hope they survive in this place.

Mixed media representation of The Great Splitting.

Transcribed and documented by Paul Simmon of GSRA.

Document 1: Testimony of Dr. Hildigunnur Susanna, Seismic Scientist stationed in the Northeastern Icelandic seismic research station

”The readings were just sitting at the peak. If that was true then we would have felt the end of the world.

There wasn’t a single sign of any activity to us. No shaking, nothing. We all assumed that there was some kind of mechanical malfunction.

We sent out Sven to check the device on the ridge. He opened up the door, stepped outside and just disappeared.

We heard his screams and ran to his assistance. The rocky ground outside of the building was just gone. It was just a massive crevice, stretching for miles.”

Document 2: James Stinger, Only surviving member of his class during the Mitchell Hall sinkhole, talks to GSRA.

”I don’t remember the time, so can you stop asking me? I had just sat down, near the front, closest to my Engineering professor. I was just getting my laptop open.

Suddenly I just get this overwhelming feeling of dread, and I don’t hear anything, or feel anything off so it’s weird.

Then all of a sudden it’s just like the building was collapsing in on itself. It opened behind us, I was lucky enough to get out of my seat fast. There was only a little overhang for me to cling to, around two feet wide for me to curl up against. The other solid ground was slanting down.

I watched my professor try and descend down into the hole, telling people he was going to help them.

I sat there for an hour before they found me. I never saw any of my classmates again, nor my professor. I was walking out of the rubble and there were thousands asking me questions. Kind of like how you won’t stop pestering me about this. I have nothing else to say, happy?”

Document 3: ATC chatter at Sofia International Airport

Slavcho: Expedite landing we have three flights that were delayed and are eager to take off.

Lazar: (off of comms) Coming in from Heathrow to Sofia, who would ever want to come to this shit hole?

Slavcho: Stay professional, You have confirmed runway is clear correct?

Lazar: Yes, yes, wait. (Lazar raises from her seat and observes phenomena on runway)

Lazar: Ryanair 199 you are NOT cleared to land I repeat you are not clear to land.

Unidentified ATC tech: Is that a canyon? In the middle of-

(Flight 199 hits runway and falls away into the splitting, causing distress and confusion across ATC)

Document 4: Transcription of George Well’s 911 call to Anchorage Police Department.

Dispatcher: 911 what’s your emergency?

Well: It’s, it’s… My house is across from the sinkhole on East 11th Avenue…

Dispatcher: Are you reporting that someone has fallen in? In that case Disaster relief volunteers will be notified and-

Well: No, someone crawled out.

Dispatcher: What was that?

Well: I watched someone crawl out of the hole… (heavy breathing) And I think that they’re me.

Dispatcher: Excuse me?

Well: It has my face, my clothes, and it’s me. Like a mirror.

Dispatcher: Sir do you smell gas?

Well: I’m not going insane, I know what I’m looking at, it’s crawling around the street, like a baby learning to walk and… Holy shit. (George calls out into his house) Mandy, get my gun, now.

Dispatcher: Calm down sir, I need you-

Well: You fucking calm down! It’s banging on my door, it’s-

(Crude replication of George Well’s voice from beyond front door): Mandy, get my gun, now.

Document 5: GSRA’s analysis of George Well and Mandy Well murder

Front entrance shows signs of struggle, two large gashes inside the walls shows that a twelve gauge shotgun was used in defense.

A gray splatter of an unknown substance surrounds these gashes which leads to the assumption that both shots hit.

Two empty shell casings sat on the floor next to the firearm. The firearm was found to be registered to George Well. DNA from the blood sprayed on living room wall also belonged to George Well.

It appears that Mandy was standing behind George when he was dragged to the attic. Once the attacker had dealt with George it went to Mandy.

Mandy had been slammed down onto her dining room table, which broke. As she was slammed through the wood her body was skewered by one of the tables legs.

GSRA and Police discovered Georges trail of blood leading to the attic. Inside sat Georges body, seemingly embalmed. Leading theory is that the attacker consumes sustenance by emptying their victims of all bodily fluids and preserving them in a mummified state to mark territory.

An internal memo by leading detective on this case, Tristan Nostrid simply reads “Dear god.”

This case matches similar cases across the world, matching up to 120,006 post splitting killings.

As of now 97% of countries are imposing marshal law and curfew.

GSRA is prohibiting anyone, rescue ops or civilian, from coming within 1,000 feet of any crevice or sinkhole.

End of document collection 1

I had no problem working in a crematorium. I also never had a problem with my Schizophrenia. At most I would have very mild auditory hallucinations, and most of the time they weren’t the ones that people expected.

I never saw horrific creatures in my peripheral. I never heard something try and convince me that I would die if I didn’t harm another.

I was like a dog in a good way, being obedient, never straying from my pills. But now the pills aren’t working. My doctor says it’s normal though so why should I care? I’ve just gotten use to the dosage so I have to bump it up.

I don’t really see visual hallucinations. The one story I always tell people was the only one I had before I started my job.

I walked into a gas station to use the restroom. I had spent five hours straight driving and this was my first rest stop because I was never good about hydrating myself.

I pulled up to a urinal that was right next to an occupied one. The man using it was tall and stocky, broad shouldered like a football player. He wore a dirty white tank top and sandals.

When I had finished urinating I turned my head slightly so he was more focused in my vision and watched as he disappeared in a blink.

Now working at a private crematorium I’ve had to get adjusted to a combination of audio and visual hallucinations.

Sometimes when we put the bodies into the furnace I see them alive. Sometimes they scream, thrash around, and look frantically at me for help. Only me though. That combined with the fact my coworker (yes singular, we have a very small staff team) doesn’t care lets me know it’s fake.

Often I wear my AirPods now to work, and it does silence them. I blast metal music into my skull whilst I watch an overweight old man who had died of old age begging to me that he was alive.

I guess the only odd thing is that I’m not having any hallucinations outside of work.

And that I never see anyone pick up the ashes.

Now that I think about it the business isn’t even shown on Google.

What the fuck have I been doing at work?

I need desperate medical attention, god it hurts so bad. I can barely type.

I don’t have any time, at this point it’s pure liquid blood and I’m seeing double so I’ll make it fast.

I think It started at Outback Steakhouse, I went on a date with this girl from Tinder and ever since I’ve been on the toilet for 4 hours.

When It started I assumed that maybe I was just constipated, then it just kept coming, rubbing my skin raw and tearing out my ass hair.

I called the police once the blood was first spotted, didn’t believe me and hung up, I then called my mom.

“Mom, I-I need help.”

”The hell did you do this time?” She snarled at me from the other side of the line.

”I’m shitting blood, like a lo-”

She hung up immediately.

Oh my god, I think I passed out? I just passed out, the smell is a horrible concoction of blood and sewage. I didn’t turn on the bathroom fan before coming in so that makes it worse. There’s something stuck halfway inside of me, and all I can feel is this horrible pain in my gut.

I know what it is but I can’t accept it or it will become too real for me. I also called my father, everyone, I got similar responses from each one.

Go fuck yourself.

You’re sick, get professional help because I can’t help you anymore.

I can’t deal with you right now.

What did I do that was so bad for nobody to help me? It wasn’t my fault, I was in a vulnerable state, I did it out of anger at my situation. The jury didn’t believe that though.

The judge only gave me 3 months though, he understood me.

This has to be punishment from god right? I know he would despise what I did but I said sorry. I said sorry. Now I’m bleeding to death on the shitter whilst my intestines are hanging out of my ass.

So if I’m going to die I might as well admit it. I loved it, I loved every second. My uncle told me that I should “ never take no as an answer, that word is used as a roadblock.”

So I didn’t and at first I was remorseful but deep down I knew I wasn’t, that doesn't matter now though.

Doesn’t matter if I die in this room or if someone saves me, I’ll do it again, either here or in hell.

I swear to god I’m not losing my mind but I feel like I am. Everywhere I go I see his stupid fat face and I am yet to encounter anyone else who understands what’s happening.

Im sure that you’ve seen him by now, he’s plastered everywhere. On candy bars, advertisements, bumper stickers, cameos.

This ambiguously Asian man is almost ruining my life.

He looks like that Kojima guy mixed with Kim Jung Un. As in he has Kojima’s face, Un’s fat and the beard of Mister Miagi, or is it Myagi? That guy.

I live alone, I first found his face on the back of a box of cereal from Costco.

”Lucky Charms! Now including a Kimtasha Uki whistle!” Which 1: I didn’t know they still put toys in cereal boxes, and 2: Who was that guy?

At the end of the month the industrial sized wholesale box of cereal was gone. Thats when I found the little gray whistle with his face on it. For shits and giggles I picked it up and blew.

It sounded like a baby crying, nothing else, whenever I blow that thing it’s like I’m in the delivery room.

‘Thats odd, but you know what? maybe it’s just a design flaw’ You say. And to that logic I find it acceptable.

Then I turned on the TV when I got home from work. I saw that they released the finale of The Boys, great. I turned it on, praying that they wouldn’t miss the mark.

I get towards the part where >!The Deep dies !<and this guy is just walking around the beach saying “I am Kimtasha Uki.” Over and over again and he said it in such an obnoxious tone, best way I can describe it is like this.
“E Em Kimtaasha Uuuki!” Like he had a lisp.

I go online to complain about that because I have no life besides my dead end job. nobody knows what I’m talking about at all.

Now I’m going insane so I search up Uki’s Wikipedia. Here it is, not paraphrased at all.

Kimtasha Uki is an adjective occupation born on date in country. Pronoun is known for verb on source of media.

I didn’t sleep much that night. I went to the store the next day to shop for my Nephews birthday. I went to the toy aisle and almost passed out.

He was on everything. Action figures, Lego sets and even branded nerf guns. I picked up one of the action figures, a cute little tag sat next to a small button. “Hear my signature catchphrase!”

I pressed.

”Your father is dead!” It screamed in excitement, similarly to how he talked on TV.

There was an ABC book for toddlers, I opened it up and flipped to K, trying to rationalize anything I was seeing.

I is for Ice! J is for Jam! K is for Kimtasha Uki!

I was promptly thrown out of Walmart after destroying everything themed around him in sight.

I was low, really low, laying on my couch I went to door dash to order some subpar KFC. It asked me if I wanted to try the Ultimate Uki bucket.

I was having a panic attack and in an act of desperation I turned to debauchery. I clicked incognito and typed in the familiar website name.

You know what the first video that showed up was?

”Blonde bimbo gets viciously pounded by Kimtasha Uki.”

I threw my phone at the wall and watched as it shattered. That’s why I’m writing this on my laptop.

I can’t sleep, I swear I hear him walking around downstairs, every few seconds I think I hear him say it. “I’m Kimtasha Uki!”

My brother told me that my nephew wants his party to be Kimtasha Uki themed.

He’s in ads for medicine, he’s an operator in Call of Duty, he’s at Coachella, he is a damn Pokémon for gods sake.

I need to know I’m not insane before I do something I will regret.

Have you heard of Kimtasha Uki?

I grew up in the same city as Harvard. My mother was a janitor there and my father was a police officer.

Safe to say I never expected to become a truck driver for a cult.

I also never expected to participate in a raid on a commune, but here I am, sitting in the smoldering ruins of Friendship, Maine.

I think that Stephan King definitely romanticized Maine a little too much in his writings. It’s not some mystical state with a deep sense of unease in the rural sections. It’s the same as upstate New York, or any forested East Coast place.

I started doing trucking as a moving truck driver in Portland when I moved away. Then slowly I began to drive box trucks, shipping shitty lunches to middle schools and Christmas decor to superstores.

When I got a job to move food and other essentials out to a small coastal community I thought it would be a boring, average gig.

I got to the ‘shipping port’, which was more of a two story brick warehouse with a small amount of overgrowth. The box truck was a U-haul stripped of all logos and branding save for a small orange patch on its side.

An old crone (is it okay to say crone still?) was standing next to it wearing a green cloak which obviously didn’t help protect her from the ever present cold. Her nose was a few centimeters off from the middle of her face, and a large burn mark was on her chin.

I pulled up in my car and parked next to the warehouse. Walking out I noticed that she smelled of pine, mold and saltwater.

”Hello, I’m Mr. Cleburne, is this the right place?”

She nodded an exaggerated nod and gave me a single small car key for the truck. Shuffling over to the brick house she pulled a rusty switch to open the shutter door.

Dust fell down upon the cracked pavement as light shone upon piles of burlap sacks tied with hemp rope.

”Take, deliver.” She sounded like a grainy intercom.

”Alright, what are we hauling then?” I was skeptical, extremely skeptical.

”Fruits, foods.”

Not much else to say then that, Getting inside of the rickety truck and driving it down the winding dirt road was a feat. The trees enclosed all sides as I approached a wooden sign

Friendship, Population of 41.

I had heard of small towns but I didn’t know they could be this small. Soon I drove into a clearing. the road branched out to multiple barrack like buildings, white and wooden.

A small lighthouse sat next to the cliff face of the shore, the tallest thing in the area. It was overgrown and seemed to be converted into a chapel. A small water tower sat nearby but it didn’t compare to the lighthouse.

People walked about and they seemed almost normal, they wore normal outfits, and looked like nuclear families.

But I knew it was a cult based on the crude wooden effigies of men standing around the plain. Wearily, I parked the truck next to a small wooden building that looked like some kind of small store.

Exiting the box truck I found a man waiting by the store front. He wore a pristine white suit, and a clean shaven face.

“New driver eh?“ He said. He began walking towards me and extended his hand to mine. In the light the sun refracted in his eyes as if they were multicolored. “Pastor Resmann.”

I gave him an awkward but still firm shake. I felt a jolt like a static shock go through my hand.“Mr Cleburne. What exactly is this place?”

“Utopia.”

Yeah, yeah, what a great descriptor right? Pol Pot thought he was going to make a utopia by killing anyone more intelligent than an 15 year old.

“So, what’s my pay per load?”

“60$ and enlightenment.”

I started another job meanwhile since the loads only came twice a week. I worked and lived in the town over, Thomason. I worked at an electronic repair shop. When I told my boss that I was a trucker for Friendship, he had a reasonable reaction.

”Okay then, you’re Eastern Waco’s little bitch then?” He laughed, spinning around in a small office chair in the back of the shop. “They ain’t going to tolerate you for long unless you join them.”

”Did you know the last driver?” I asked, intrigued at his perspective on the cult.

”My wife, she ran off with them after a week. I go once in a while to try and talk her out but she keeps talking about their idol.”

”Who is their idol?” I expected him to say that it was Pastor Resmann due to the fact that he said he was a pastor and looked important.

”The many man.” His voice dropped down.

”What?”

”They worship him, I think it’s some analogy for freedom. They say that with a touch he can feel your struggles, that he created the town to unshackle them from pain, to create a world where all are equal.”

”Like that thing Al Gore was talking about?“

He patted my shoulder. “Exactly.”

I kept working with the truck for a few days, hauling things from oat and fruits to packaged foods and frozen meats. Eventually they invited me to one of their sermons with my job on the line so I had no choice but to go.

I stood in the back, listening to their praises for the Many Man. Out of it all I got only a few details on him that only verified what my boss said.

Anyone he touched, he would gain their emotions and pain. After he first experienced this he decided to create a perfect world where everyone could be free of the weights dragging them down. A place where they could have a real, genuine community, Friendship.

I left as soon as I could, walking back to the box truck which sat near the store.

It broke down halfway down the dirt road.

I got out into the still silent sunset. The rose light painting the world as its magnum opus of beauty. Checking the engine for what problem could stop me from getting back to the old brick warehouse.

I looked out into the woods over my shoulder, feeling I was watched on all sides. I patted my back pocket to feel the old Swiss Army knife in the crevice as assurance.

I watched as the rabbit slowly crept through the forest floor, bathed in light and shadow. Each time I looked back I saw it nosing the ground.

The last time I looked back it was standing on two legs. Its front leg extended and twisted with a crunch similar to a kid eating crackers with his mouth open into a microphone. It slowly gave a beckoning motion, come hither, follow.

My heart dropped and rose again as I turned fully around to watch it run into the woods. I was done with this. I needed answers. Was I on an elaborate prank show? Am I going insane?

I chased after it, always close behind but not fast enough to reach it as I ran between trees and over small streams. It ran on its two legs which slowed it down, and disgusted me even more.

My foot slipped over something and I was yanked into the air as the snare trap wrapped around my ankle. I had heard that they were hunting rabbits out here, but didn’t expect to interfere with their traps.

Spun upside down I didn’t need to free myself as the rabbit ran off, my weight dropped me down onto the forest floor as my head hit the hard ground first.

A gunshot echoed through the pain as I rain my hands through my scalp, convincing myself the mud in my hair was blood from a nasty gash. The sunlight streamed into my eyes and was suddenly blocked by a figure.

”You alright there?”

The man stood five feet and eight inches and wore a yellow plaid with brown dirty jeans. A beanie on his head sat unevenly. The small rifle in his hands made of dark wood and darker metal.

”Yeah, truck broke down and I…” I stopped talking, contemplating telling him of the rabbit.

”Those things get the better of me sometimes too.”

”The rabbits? There’s multiple?”

He looked up at the canopy and licked his top lip back and forth like a fleshy windshield wiper. The slithers of sun on his face showing off his eyes that weren’t too different then the dull rainbow of colors that the pastor had on his face.

”I think,” He paused and looked down at me. “I don’t know. Let’s get you up.” He reached out his arm and his hand for me to grab. At that moment a terrible, churning began stirring inside my mind. I would do anything in the moment to not touch his hand.

Slowly, his arm began to droop, his clothes sagged down and his finger tips began to fall. small flesh colored drops fell from his skin as he began to melt like candle wax.

I began pushing myself away, getting onto my feet and watching as his bones began to fall away into a heap of multicolored sludge. Even his clothes fell away into it. His rifle fell and accumulated into its own pile of melted material.

I slowly backed away, shaking and consistently muttering “What the fuck?” to myself repeatedly.

Then a sphere the size of a bowling ball began to rise out of the man-puddle. It was shiny and gray, and at some points folded in on itself like wrinkles. Then both of the eyes came out, the same colors as the hunter‘s. Slowly a horrible, crooked mouth rose with two large appendages that shot out of the puddle and grasped the ground.

The arms began to pull the rest of the abhorrent being from the flesh pile as I ran. Trying to retrace my steps through the woods. I dodged a multitude of hunting implement that Friendship had set out to catch game. I passed the box truck and began to run down the road towards the brick building.

My salvation, my guardian angel. My Toyota Prius sat crooked in an old faded parking spot. I pressed the key fob in my pocket and threw open the door to safety.

I began backing around and had turned around towards the road out of the woods when I saw him again. He was suprisingly short, but his arms reached down to his legs.

He didn't wear any clothes but lacked any distinctive features of the human body. It was just smooth skin from neck to legs.

Most importantly he was in the middle of the road.

I ran him over once, and backed up for good measure, but I knew deep down that it wouldn’t effect him.

I didn't return the next day. I didn’t speak to anyone about it. But then my boss asked me something.

”I was talking to my nephew, he’s police chief you know?” He said, puffing on a vape that was unfitting for his older demeanor.

“I mean it’s a small town.“ I blankly replied whilst working on an order.

”He wants to talk to you, the big men upstairs want a search and seizure of the place after one of them bought a gun in town. Are you up to give some info?”

I didn’t want to talk about that place, but I did want to see what was happening with the commune. I wanted to see if it had anything to do with the melting man, or the rabbit.

I talked a lot that weekend, to policemen and federal marshals. I was going to sit down at home and watch the news roll in from my television when they told me that they wanted me in on it.

“You’re an inside source. We need layouts and numbers. How many people are in there? how large is it? how many buildings?” I was told.

They put a small, tight fitting vest on me and drove me out there with the rest of their operation. I drove out in a small white police car, followed by one other and an SUV carrying a few men from the FBI.

We reached the brick warehouse and got out for the first time. Ahead in the road I could see small glimpses of the truck, unmoving since it broke down.

I watched as they got out and began searching the area, sweeping the concrete lot and heading inside the loading building. They were led by a man in a blue jacket, most likely the FBI agent who had driven up here for this.

I looked across the center console of the car at the officer driving.

”So, how far have you gotten rope in with them?” he asked.

”I just deliver and haul packages into the store sometimes. I don’t like talking to them.”

He nodded his head and tapped his fist on the steering wheel in rhythm to a song only he knew.

A commotion drew my attention back to the loading area. They were dragging the pastor and the crone, who I hadn’t seen since my first arrival, out of the warehouse.

”I have done nothing wrong, the same goes for my mother.“ He shouted in a monotone. “We are sovereign, and you have no right to exhume us from our home!” He was forcefully shoved into the back of one of the vehicles with his mother. I couldn’t see the multicolored glint in his eyes and that’s when I knew. That was the mark.

I wasn’t really one for the supernatural but for the past few days I was wondering if the melting man was the Many Man. That confirmed it, I filled in the puzzle just enough so that I knew what the final result was.

If touching him meant that he understood you, became a part of you and vice versa, then maybe he could take form of you. My doubt wasn’t a strong enough cage to keep that idea in. Especially when I thought back to me and the pastors first meeting where I had shaken his hand.

We passed the truck and approached the commune. I watched as those normal innocent families that had been manipulated scattered as we pulled into town center.

I exited and started advising them on where to search. The shop would be fast and efficient. Knowing the hunt I suggested looking in the hunting stand near the edge of town. And finally the lighthouse chapel.

Thinking about that now, Lighthouse chapel, two places meant to guide us formed together to deceive people. We didn’t need to treat everyone here as a suspect, they were just vulnerable people who were brought here to serve what was in the woods.

I watched them scatter across town. I was dragged along with the officer who sat next to me, Taylor. We walked into one of the barrack buildings that we had seen a few people scatter into.

The building was composed of a hallway leading all the way to a back screen door which was swinging open from someone coming in or out. Seven rooms sat behind wooden doors, each one had two bunkbeds. A communal kitchen area was in the entrance and it surprisingly contained an air fryer.

”You stay here, I’m going to comb the back woods.” He said, walking briskly to the back door.

I stayed there, waiting for him to come back from his quick glance. Then the pop of a gun sounded. It froze me in place, I don’t want to admit it.

The gray form slowly passed through the doorway his eyes completely focused on me alone.

”I want you to understand.” His voice, It’s voice? It sounded like a thousand people talking at once.

I backed away and took hold of my knife. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

“Only those wishing on my death.” This time, I listened closer and I could hear the small, coarse tone of the officer’s voice.

I wasn’t going to try and fight it, but I knew what it wanted. It loved being worshiped, it loved having people follow it. Maybe if I stalled for long enough then the rest of the policemen would come towards the gunfire.

“You don’t know me, you don’t know anything about me. What do you want?” I shouted down the hall.

”I know you. I am you.” Slowly, he began to melt again, but quicker, his arms shortened. He gained height and a thin membrane wrapped around him and turned into clothes. The exact clothes I was wearing the day I shook the pastor‘s hand.

”You were born 1995, October 1st in Massachusetts General Hospital at 9:08 AM. At 15 you and your cousin wanted to start a YouTube channel inspired by the same ones that you watched every day.” It’s voice was mine, each cadence, the slight mispronunciation of Massachusetts, it was like I was hearing myself speak through a loudspeaker. ”You totaled your first car after a New Year’s party. Your mother believed you were drinking and driving but in reality you had slid on thick ice into a ditch.”

“Okay then, what was my first car?” I interrupted, voice shaky.

”2009 Ford flex you bought from a used car dealership in Quincy.” It stated, not missing a beat.

”What the hell do you gain from this?” I asked myself and I. “Why do you need to know this? Why do you care?”

”I have been here since we arrived. A cell. I have been superior to everything through time. I don’t need water, nutrition, sunlight, sleep. With a touch I am able to live as long as the effected organism. I watched as you arrived. Then more arrived and fought off your older counterparts for being savage. With a touch I understood. I watched everything closely, I became the mayor of a small settlement by bumping into him the road. With that small interaction I learned so much. Economics, legislation. I wandered through New Amsterdam as a beggar. I know you, I know everyone. You hate this system of necessary evils. I know it too. I want to save you from your own destruction, your hate of others.“

”Why? It doesn’t benefit you!” I backed up to the door. I couldn’t believe it was working, or what I was hearing.

”I will always live, but you won’t. I want to let you live longer, and in return I will live for as long as you will.”

With that two men ran in from the front door into the conversation. They looked from me, back to me, and at each other.

“It doesn’t want to hurt us.” With those words I spoke they drew their guns on me.

”The hell is going on here?” One of them said.

”Just put the guns down.” It said. Raising its hands in a sign of peace.

In a burst of clarity one of the officers yelled out to the room. “Fuck this, he has got the vest on, that thing doesn’t.” Four bursts of metal flew through the room with resounding claps as they passed straight through it. Like shooting through slime. The small holes instantly refilling.

I took the opportunity to dash out of the building and into the main yard, I looked to the other officers, who had planted themselves behind one of their cars as cover incase of a fight.

”You need more, I don’t care if you need to call the national guard.” I took a deep breath and looked back to the barracks

A great creaking sounded from within, as if the house itself was collapsing in on itself. The shingles on the roof began to fall as a large bump appeared in the ceiling. The wood splitting open as a gateway out.

It was a disgusting mass of anything that it could get its hands on. I saw faces of women, children, my face. Hundreds of arms and legs were protruding from it like spikes. It almost resembled some kind of tumor. I saw antlers, fur, patches of construction vests and band T-shirts.

I‘m no hero. I cowered on the wooden floor of the general store as I listened to the world end outside. Constant screaming, animal and human erupted with gunfire. I don’t know how long it too for them to find me.

“Found the informant, possibly dead.” Someone said from my right. I looked over, my eyes finally open. It was an officer, from Rockcoast. A town twenty minutes away.

They must have needed the backup. The air was filled with smoke and the smell of blood. Almost every single building had been eradicated.

Now I sit here on the hood of a destroyed humvee. Every organization in the world is here, the CDC, FBI, CIA, even the damn navy has ships positioned out in the bay.

I don’t think it’s dead though.

Whilst I was writing one of the investigators approached me.

”Holding up alright? There’s going to be a lot of people who want to have a long talk with you after this. Got to make sure you tell nobody about this.”

”I’m fine, I just wish I could have done more.” I looked up at him, his glasses perfectly framing his eyes.

”There’s things you shouldn’t talk about.” That’s all he said before him and those familiar eyes walked back into the woods.

Clothes resellers have gone too far!

It was a normal sore throat, a standard ailment. It had started for her around 6, when she had went out to dinner. She assumed that she had over-salted her pasta, giving her a slight burning pain on her throat, slightly alleviated by a sip of water.

It persisted through the night until she went to bed.

When she woke up it was worse, it had bloomed into the standard pain one would expect. the pain that boomed with each swallow, bite of food and sip of liquid. She still drank water however.

Opening up the small medicine cabinet in her bathroom she grabbed a small numbing spray that she had bought in case of a sore throat. it was to be cherry flavored.

Instead, combined with the odd metallic tang in her mouth it was tasted like the smell of gasoline.

“Hey Andrea, everything good? we haven’t heard from you since dinner night.” Her friend’s voice echoed over the small bedroom through the voice mail.

The truth was that throughout the week it was getting worse. It hurt to speak now. Each attempt left a raspy and raw cough In her mouth.

Her doctor said that she could come in in four days for an appointment.

She began to have her meals in soup, hoping the liquid could soothe her throat whilst minimizing the amount of chewing she would do.

Whilst being reckless, eating too fast before it cooled down, she burned the roof of her mouth.

Checking in the mirror after the meal for her burn. Andrea found multiple small boils deep in her throat, near her tonsil area. They resembled something like tadpole eggs, or blisters.

A quick, frightened search on Google said it was cobblestone throat, a symptom of an infection. She believed the search.

It got even worse. It began to hurt to breath, Her throat almost bleeding. It was soon a Herculean task to sleep. The spray only burned and it seemed that the bubbles on her throat were pulsing.

Her throat became dry, cracked lips, even saliva couldn’t form under the pain that liquid gave her.

The bubbles popped one day before the doctors appointment. It was in the morning, awoken by her suffering by a horrible burning. It was worse than all pain she had felt before

Flicking on the bathroom light she opened her mouth and peered inside. The bubbles seemed to have grown white tips, like pimples.

They seemed to pulsate, moving and undulating under the skin. Then slowly, they split open.

Andrea fell down onto the tile as the fountain of blood fell out of her mouth, she began choking as what looked like small white cicadas clambered out of her mouth.

Some of them went deeper down, down into her stomach.

When her mother called for a wellness check one week later, the Plano Police Department found that she was more next than woman, She was wrapped in a film like plastic wrap. Bore holes dug down through her entire body and out the other sides.

At this time the only data they have was from her personal diary and herself, after she came back.

Shes kept inside the Dallas General Hospital under constant watch. The nests inside her are still active, the parasites still unidentified seem to be all living inside of her.

At most times she seems to be kept in a conscious but vegetative state. Sometimes she seems to awaken and be fully aware of her state.

The parasites have been found inside 16 different restaurants across the metro area. Currently there are 1,00+ confirmed cases.

If you feel inflammation of the throat, see small pustules in the back of your throat, or feel any pain in your throat, please call the attached hotline.

Do not be afraid, the CDC and WHO are working around the clock for an answer.

But then it creased my J’s

It was my fault, I can accept that. It’s my fault a life has ended and others have been ruined. If I didn’t grab that vase, If I gladly declined her offer, than maybe I could have my life back again.

I own a rage room, and a lot of other things on the outskirts of Austin. I also operate the gun range next to it, the gun store and a small time demolition YouTube channel.

Using funds I rake in from the other businesses I get to have a nice past time where I test ballistics and destroy stuff in my backyard.

It’s important to know I allow people to donate their objects for me to destroy, then I send them the video after I post it. Usually I get things like an old office chair that I tested bullet calibers on or their alarm clock, TV remote or an obsolete piece of technology.

Around a week ago a shaky, frail woman brought me a blue vase. It didn’t look that special to me, maybe it’s an old pottery peice she found laying about that she needed to get rid of. Her eyes kept wandering, watching the room with an extremely tired gaze.

The same day, I brought it into a small private room within the building with my favorite camera man and assistant, Jesse.

“Alright, we’re rolling on 3-count, get ready.” He said, his voice echoing off of the white walls like a cave.

I hyped myself up for an intro I had done once and hated that I was now obligated to keep doing.

”What’s up? It’s Austin Arms and today we’re gonna do three things.” I paused and started gesturing to the blue vase. “We have this sweet vase here, a new ballistic skull waiting out back and a brand new gun to show off with them.”

Jesse cut the camera for a moment, we had to bring it in. It gets foggy and muddled I. my mind when I try to remember what I used on it. I think it was a baseball bat maybe?

All I remember after I destroyed it was a deep, harsh feeling of great shame. Like I was a little boy scolded for doing something terrible in his parent’s presence.

Then I walked into the yard, showed off a small German made submachine gun and tested it on the aforementioned skull. I sent the video to the lady and went back to work for the night, sitting behind the counter of the store, watching a few people come and go. Most were hunters who came for shells or some rifle ammo.

Around 6 I got a call back from the lady.

”Why, why did you do that? couldn’t you have let it be? I donated it so that I- why?” She was distraught as if she had lost her only child.

”What? Was it an urn?” It wouldn’t have been the first time, one really angry son used a hunting rifle to destroy the urn of his abusive father.

”No, What was I thinking?“ She began to curse herself as she cried silently through the phone. “It’s never going to leave you now, not until you suffer.”

“Excuse me? Are you trying to threaten me?”

”No, I would say god bless you but I don’t think he can help.” She hung up leaving me shellshocked in an empty room. I started to feel what was comparative to hundreds of small pinpricks walking across my skin.

I began scanning the shop closely, each shadow, each nook. I even checked the back room, it would be hard for something to not stick out against the wall paper.

I was locking up when I began to hear something, like small footsteps on the roof. I realized it was lower when the white crumbling drop ceiling fell onto my shoulders.

Something was in the ceiling.

I called the police but they were too late to stop me from firing off three rounds into the ceiling. They looked up there, said it was probably rats.

The next day I noticed that Jesse was unusually sweaty, clammy and shaky. I asked if he needed a day off, he said he thinks he’s coming down with something because he said that he had fever dreams all night.

I didn’t ask further about anything, but god I should have.

Later I was looking around the range, making sure my attendant, Francine, was actually helping people get their shooting lane started up. I walked back towards the range to find nobody had came in yet.

Which is why it was odd that every target kept getting knocked down. It was rhythmic, they all fell in waves and rose again in waves.

“Hey Francine, What’s happening with the range?”

She came out, rubbing her eyes and looking around. “Huh, that’s strange.” She muttered before going back to the front desk.

”Strange? That’s all you have to say? did you do this?”

”Nope.” She called from the front of the building.

All of a sudden they stopped moving, could have been a technical problem, but I doubt It.

I spent the rest of the day in the stores back room, occasionally getting a call from Jesse or the others on shift, talking about lights burning out and other issues.

Jesse was doing a cleaning service for an old man who wanted his revolver refurbished. He left for a few seconds to piss and when he came back it discharged into the wall without any input.

So the store closed until I could get a repairman to fix the ceiling and wall. I already had a stock of excess lightbulbs from a video where I saw how many it would take to stop a 9mm. I used those for the electrical issues.

I came back later in the night after I realized I had left my shops keys in the stores back room. I keep a lock pick for these situations but I wouldn’t have time to get them tommorow due to family matters.

The local police knew I owned the place, so when the small patrol car drove past me on my knees trying to break into the establishment they just smiled and waved.

I got inside and flicked the switch to turn on the lights. I assumed that another electrical issue had occurred since they didn’t turn on.

I grabbed a small step ladder and lifted the drop tile up to peer inside. All the electrical wiring had been torn out.

First thought was that some tweaker had broken in to gather copper wire, but there was no evidence of entry.

I went out into my destruction yard, which spans between the gun range, rage room, shop and my personal armory shed.

Someone had made a crude, 6 foot tall wire statue of a man in the yard. Police were aghast, they had no clue what it was nor who would do it.

Next day I hired a woman who claimed she could speak to spirits, under Jesse’s desperate pleas for me to do so.

I didn’t believe her. She wore this strange robe, had a large nose ring and a face like a pug. I told her everything, from the woman donating the vase to the night before.

She looked the copper statue up and down, it’s sharp points and bent corners.

”It’s trying to manifest itself a body. This spirit is has been devoid of a host body. It’s main goal is to-“

”Yeah yeah yeah, shut the hell up. How do I get rid of it?”

She was taken aback but continued. “I understand that it may cause great distress to you, but I will not harm you. It‘s physical body has been destroyed, and now it will seek to take what you care most about and turn it into its body. It will only stop once it gets what it wants.”

”So I have to abandon my entire life here? My job, my-“ I paused myself. “Why would it try and manifest itself with copper wire? I couldn’t give a rats ass about my utilities here.”

”First it needs to stop the local energy flows that may prohibit its possession.”

I don’t know what she called the spirit, it sounded like Komatsu but I didn’t think that an excavator would haunt me.

I pulled everyone out, told them that there was a gas leak, everyone except Jesse. I told him everything the woman said, and then told him that if my property was being taken over by some malevolent spirit that I was going to grab some of my guns before so.

Whilst we were driving there he spoke his mind.

”You know, Francine, Carter, Beckie, none of them really experienced anything but I had all though nightmares that night.”

”Okay, go on.” I said, turning onto the dimly lit drive that lead to my facilities.

”What if it’s not just targeting you, but me too? “

I chuckled. “That woman said it’s targeting me, how could it embody two things?”

“What if it chooses something important to both of us? I barely have anything.” He said, exiting the truck and looking around the sunset view from the parking lot.

”That’s stupid man, but that’s why I love you. You’re so dumb you sound smart sometimes.” When I said that I felt the pinpricks again, as we walked towards the door. “Okay J, You go grab the important stuff from the shop. Mainly, the Barrett, that sucker was expensive. “ I unlocked the door and turned on my flashlight and stepped in.

I immediately headed for my private shed. The copper statuette still sitting there in the yard. After I unlocked it I grabbed a few pistols and stuffed them into my waistband so I was able to carry more in my arms.

I spent a good long time trying to find what to grab until I settled on an authentic Garand I had bought at an auction. Now that I thought of it, I never unloaded it from last time I had used it.

I exited into the yard to see the figure of Jesse standing in the glowing doorway of the damn shop.

I shined my light upon him.

I think I was gone for maybe sixteen minutes. I have no clue how it could have happened.

His eyes were wide, and red, tears had started to fall down his eyes and off his cheeks. His breathing was so heavy I could hear it from across the yard. He was walking towards me with this horrible shuffle, where he moved a few centimeters at a time. It was like he didn’t know how to walk.

With his muscles moving one at a time, manually, out of his control he raised the rifle slowly. Something like a muffled scream was coming from his mouth, his final plea.

I have to keep telling myself it was me or him, to try and justify what I did.

Once the sound subsided Jesse was laying on the grass. It only took one shot.

During a lengthy courtroom hearing my lawyer was able to get footage from a camera outside of the facility that peered into the courtyard, saving me from prison.

I took a week out in the woods afterwards, I brought nothing with me but a large duffle bag, my new, most cherished possession.

It made another effigy out of twigs and twine, and soon took that bag as a vessel.

If your in the woods outside of Austin and see a black duffle bag, don’t grab it, and don’t open it. If you do, please separate yourself from anything you love, especially if it’s a person.

Has anyone else had this problem? I live in Pocatello, Idaho. My house isn’t that big but I often have a lot of bug troubles.

Usually I get ants intruding into my home during the winter with other bugs aswell. My old exterminator was a nice old native man. He always gave me a discount for ‘manners’.

Recently he passed away, leaving me to find someone else to deal with my problems. I found this one guy with an extermination service nearby, a short stocky pale guy with a mess of red hair. Barry N.

He came over around midday without any tools, which was the first odd thing. I showed him the few spots I had found ants in and the one corner in the bathroom where I had encounter a massive house centipede.

I let him do his stuff, he cane back out to the front door. “Bugs gone, pay?” He said. I thought maybe he was a foreigner, maybe he didn’t know much English. I gave him a fifty and inspected his spots.

They weren’t just perfectly clean, they were empty. For the next six weeks nothing came back. Until I began finding a bunch of flies in the kitchen. Fruit flies. I had forgotten about a bunch of bananas on my counter.

I called the same guy, watched him go into the kitchen and waited. I had gotten curious how he was doing this without tools, so I snuck in to watch him.

He was standing next to the bananas, hunched over. Occasionally he would snap his arms up as if to grab something, then he brought it close to him. Soon I realized that he was catching the flies out of the air and shoving them into his gullet.

I was in shock when he turned around, a severed wing on his lip and said “Bugs gone, pay?”

I handed him a 50 and he left. I didn’t know what to say, but the flies were gone.

Two days later I met up with a sketchy guy and bought bed bugs. I dumped them all over my mattress and called The Exterminator. I watched as he walked in and began to lick my sheets clean. He picked them off of the pillows and blankets like an ape eating fleas out of another hair.

He turned around once it was done. “Bugs gone, pay?” I handed him the cash, left my house and followed his white van as he drove to the pet store. He came out with a massive ammount of cups of lizard food. Mealworms, crickets, anything.

He downed them all in the parking lot.

I went back home, uncertain of what to feel. did he have a fetish or something? I called a different exterminator from a town over. she came over and said that there wasn’t a single sign of insects being in my house.

Three days ago I was cleaning my kitchen, when I moved my coffee pot and found a small black bug. I tried to squash it with my finger, but before I could it rushed up my knuckle and bit me.

I brushed it off as it fell onto my shirt and I realized what it was. My heart rate spiked as I began to feel immense pain.

It didn’t take long for me to collapse onto my floor as i felt the venom worm its way through my blood stream. I swore as I began seeing black in my vision that someone was knocking on my front door.

The knocking turned to banging, until the door was busted down with a heavy kick. I watched as The Exterminator ran in, grabbed the black widow off my chest and swallowed it whole. He stopped down to my knuckles and began to suck on the wound.

It took around twenty minutes for me to recover, as if I didn’t have any of the stuff in my system anymore. I stared at him, those odd eyes he had, that seemingly endlessly deep mouth.

“Bug gone, pay?”

”I don’t know what the hell you are, but thank you.”

I took him to the pet store and bought him around a dozen cups of bugs with my money. I’m sure I’ll see The Exterminator soon, because I just saw a cockroach in my pantry.