u/Saturdead

Back when I was 16, I had a scary experience. I was going to bed, and my room got so dark that I couldn’t see a thing. Not the usual kind of dark, but the kind where you can’t even sense the position of your hands. I had to blink a couple of times to make sure my eyes were even open. It was terrifying; I thought there was something outside blocking out the sky. It wasn’t. Turns out, it was the first symptom of my deteriorating vision.

My vision got worse for several years. They tried a bunch of treatments to see if they could slow the progression, but I was informed that there would come a point where I would go completely blind. It was a certainty; the only variable was time. I had a biological clock that would snatch my sight away.

That made me want to work with something visual, and I got really into 3D-modelling. CAD programming, to be specific. I tried to get used to working with accessibility features, keeping my eyes closed or even blindfolded. I didn’t want to be stuck without a job or skill when my vision completely disappeared. I kept having these nightmares about being lost in that absolute darkness, unprepared and alone. And yeah, I couldn’t stop that darkness, but I could come prepared.

 

After years of practice, I ended up getting a junior position for a company working with CAD models. It didn’t take long until I got my first assignment. I was making molds used for vacuum presses. They used them to put together storage boxes for snowmobiles. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but that one model has been used to make hundreds of boxes. Hell, if you know a guy with a snowmobile, you’ve probably seen one.

I’ve done plenty of jobs since. I worked exclusively with accessibility software, allowing me to use hearing and touch to better align the models. And I want to be clear; I’m not a second-hand choice. I’m a professional. I’m not a cheaper option, and I don’t produce damaged goods. I challenge you to find someone who has better hands-on experience with their models than I do.

But, one morning, the darkness was there. There’d been a sudden inflammation that worsened my condition, causing irreversible damage. There were no more treatments left to try, no more suggestions. I was stuck in the dark, but at least I was prepared. Still scared the shit out of me, and I barely kept it together as I realized I hadn’t practiced dialing 911 with my eyes closed.

 

I had a lot of visitors in the hospital. Friends and family, of course. They meant well, but my mother had this amazing ability to voice all my anxieties out loud. ‘You won’t get to see your bride when you get married,” she sobbed. Bawling her eyes out as if she was the one hurting. Love her to death, but come on.

Before I left the hospital, there was one last visitor. I didn’t know him, but he seemed eager to meet me. I thought it was someone from the insurance company, but he introduced himself as a representative of a company. A big one. Think international.

“You’re in a unique position,” he explained. “You have years of experience working with spatial models, and you weren’t born blind. You can handle visual elements and representative modeling tools.”

“I’m well aware.”

“More importantly, it offers us a possibility.”

“What kind of possibility?”

“I’m glad you asked.”

 

Turns out, they’d been working on something. They called it an interpretive vision module, or IVM. I got to touch one of the prototypes; it’s basically a headband with two cameras mounted on the side. I could imagine it looking a bit goofy, but he explained how you could easily hide it under a baseball cap.

“We use a small electromagnetic implant, right by the side of your temple, to receive visual signals. The device interprets the environment and renders it in a gradual model.”

“What exactly do you mean when you say render?”

“It would allow you to interpret your environment, seeing a digital representation of the world.”

“So, it would allow me to see?”

“Think of it like this; the machine would see things for you and tell you what it sees in a way that you can understand. The data it would provide us is invaluable, and you would be given the opportunity to-”

“To see.”

“Yes, to see.”

It sounded a little too good to be true, but the more I looked into it, the more it appealed to me. The reason they’d reached out to me was because of my experience with 3D modeling. Apparently, being able to think spatially helps interpret the signals from the implant. I was in a unique position to be the first person to see without the use of my eyes.

And in a worst-case scenario, the implant was reversible. It was less commitment than a tattoo. I’d be an idiot not to try it, right?

 

I got the implant under local anesthesia a couple days later. There was a calibration process where I had to sit and fiddle with a Rubik’s cube, but when they turned the thing on it was like magic. Disorienting, blinding magic.

The entire world was rendered as these low-polygon basic shapes. Squares, spheres, cones, cylinders… all of them with simple pastel colors in a world without shadows or light sources. At first I couldn’t understand what I was looking at, but after a couple of seconds the entire scene rendered again. Shapes sharpened. The walls got a texture rather than color. I could see elevations in the floor. I could see my hands. They were a bit blocky, but I could see them. I could count my fingers.

I wept. It felt like stepping out of the darkness. I’d resigned myself to never seeing anything ever again, and now I could. It was a miracle.

It took a couple of weeks to properly tune the IVM. Sometimes, it would have trouble interpreting things in low-light environments, but it got better over time. If I saw something I’d seen before, it remembered how to represent it from previous encounters. There could be a bit of lag if I moved fast, so I wouldn’t be driving anytime soon but that was to be expected.

I remember coming back to work. I opened the doors myself. It took the IVM some time to capture and render the human faces of my coworkers, but it improved fast. There was this eerie quality to the faces though, where they would move mechanically and switch between captured states like “smile” or “frown”. I had a good laugh at how it interpreted my boss’ face as frowning, despite him trying to smile.

 

I used the IVM for about three months with little to no issue. It took some time to get used to constant visual stimuli without being able to blink it away, but there was an option to add artificial blinking. I skipped that. There were a couple of minor calculation errors, but the device quickly became part of my daily routine. Most of the quirks got resolved automatically through a forced re-rendering, and if push came to shove, I could just plug it in and run a manual diagnostic. The software was simpler than the CAD stuff, it was basically plug-and-play. For example, I modeled a little bug model and imported it. I was tired of seeing ants as little blobs; I wanted to differentiate them from breadcrumbs. It worked like a charm.

There were a couple of other quirks, too. For example, it assigned base colors to people whenever it had trouble rendering them. Irene, who worked at the front desk, had this bright pastel yellow. My boss Emil was a wine red. I’d see them as these square blocks with a sphere head for a second before the rendering kicked in, giving them a more detailed model. It was still like living in a video game at times, but you kinda trick yourself to seeing past it.

Irene was great. While I was probably okay to drive, I wasn’t legally allowed. We’d carpool to and from work every day, chatting all the way. I’ll be the first to admit, I had a bit of a crush on her. It’s weird to catch feelings for someone that looks like a video game character, but you have to remind yourself that it’s a real person.

 

One day, as I finished work, I went out to the parking lot to wait for Irene. She had a couple of calls left to make, so I waited by her car. As I got there, I noticed my boss Emil standing by her passenger side, looking at something. My IVM had trouble rendering him, showing him as a collection of red cubes and a sphere head. I waved at him, giving him my best practiced smile.

“Hey, boss,” I said. “You good?”

There was no response. The model moved a little but refused to render. I tapped the button on the headband, forcing the IVM to re-render. There was a flash as the world went dark, then everything came back into focus. The parking lot turned from a flat gray to a texture, using the light from the sun to cast shadows on the cracks. The cars came back into focus. Everything looked as it should; except for my boss.

I took a step forward, looking at him again. His model looked bigger. The tone of red was slightly different. Less wine, more chili red.

“Hey, boss,” I repeated. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time, I-“

My phone rang. I picked it up and answered, holding up a finger asking him to give me a second. It was Irene, calling from inside.

“Sorry,” she said, “I’ll be out in a minute, Emil found a bunch of unfiled reports that I gotta put in. You okay for another five, ten minutes or so?”

“Wait, Emil found them?”

“Yeah, why?”

The model was still standing there. Red squares and a sphere. It hadn’t moved, and it hadn’t said anything; it might as well have been a glitch. As I opened my mouth to ask Irene one more question, the model moved. It slid across the road, frictionless, disappearing behind a long-haul service station.

 

Coming home that day, everything was normal. I said hello to my next-door neighbor, Job. Funny guy; newly divorced with six kids, neither of which ever came to visit. He was a quirky fellow, complaining about how there’d been ‘Bible thumpers’ going door-to-door.

“Don’t trust ‘em,” he mumbled. “Keep your door locked. Miss Mannon thinks they’re stealing her cats.”

“If ever there were cats that deserved to be stolen, it’d be hers.”

“Harsh, but fair.”

I was a bit distracted thinking about that strange rendering error by the car. I wondered what it’d been. It could have been a stranger, but I didn’t hear any footsteps, and it disappeared a little too fast. Also, why wouldn’t it show them even after I forced a re-render?

I plugged the IVM into my home computer and ran a diagnostic. I went back in the timeline, checking all registered objects. The moment before it registered my call with Irene, there was an object list. I filtered the list based on the lowest certainty, and the result cleared.

Whatever it was, it was registered as ‘Humanoid Figure’. No prior model, no recognition pattern. Six failed interpretation attempts; no database matches. It’s like the device had been screaming at the software to tell it what it was looking at, and all the thousands of interpretive models had given it a shrug back. Humanoid figure was the closest approximation, but only at about 22% certainty.

Something was standing less than 10 feet from me and could only be interpreted as 22% human.

 

I was a bit skittish about it for the next few days. I would look out the window before going into the parking lot, giving the IVM some extra time to check for, and render, unknown objects. I’d get this sort of “pop-in” effect whenever I saw something for the first time. It’d go from a vague basic shape to a detailed model in about a second. I would keep an extra eye on Emil, but there really was nothing to see. His base model had been similar to whatever was in the parking lot, but there were some distinct differences. I’d just been inattentive; he had nothing to do with it.

At times, I’d wait a little longer for Irene to finish her work so I wouldn’t have to go out there alone. If someone was with me, and that thing returned, I’d be able to get a proper description. Inadvertently, we ended up talking quite a lot at the front desk, accidentally keeping her from doing her job a little longer.

There were times when I saw models that didn’t load in properly, but most of it was due to perfectly normal circumstances. Low-light environments, bad connections, buffering errors, that kind of stuff. I wasn’t able to find that particular entity again, and I couldn’t replicate whatever problem I ran into in the parking lot. No matter the excuse, I couldn’t find a simple answer to whatever I’d faced.

One evening, as I was cooking, there was a knock on the door. I was hands-deep into a bowl of tomatoes, so I had to take a second to wash my hands. As I hurried to the door and checked the peephole, I couldn’t see anyone outside. That got me a bit nervous. Peepholes didn’t work well with the IVM, the lighting was too bad, so I decided to check through a window.

Moving into my bedroom and opening the blinds, I peeked out the side. If I stood at just the right angle, I could catch a side glance of whoever was by the door. Doing so, I hoped to see a neighbor, but part of me was convinced I’d see a poorly rendered red base model. I held my breath, leaned a little, and let the IVM render the scene for me.

There was no one there.

I opened the front door a little. I started thinking I’d been pranked, but that’d be a first. I didn’t see any flaming bags of dog poo outside my door, but there was a rectangle on my welcome mat. Looking a little closer, the IVM rendered the cover.

It was a Bible, and it had a bloody handprint on it. There was also a piece of fabric. Something tough, like a backpack strap. No backpack though. No person, either.

“Hello?” I called out. “You dropped something.”

No answer. Nothing.

 

Later that night, as I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. I’d taken off the IVM for the night, and I kept feeling hyper-aware of my body. It’s like, when my sight went offline, I couldn’t stop thinking about what other things I was experiencing. Everything felt uncomfortable, and I kept getting out of bed. First time I got up, I used the bathroom. The second time, I got a glass of water. I could navigate my own apartment without the IVM for a bit, even if I’d gotten used to it.

As I stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, I heard something. It was this muffled noise coming from outside the kitchen window. I still had my IVM by the bed, so I couldn’t even guess what it might be. I just had to listen a little closer. I moved up to the window, feeling for it with my hand. I touched the curtains and leaned in.

At first, I thought it was a gust of wind. Then I noticed it had a rhythm. Not like a breath, but… similar. And it was close. Right there, on the other side of the glass.

I stepped back, holding my breath. As I did, someone outside spoke to me. A muffled, droning voice that stuck to its consonants like dripping molasses.

“Hey, boss.”

I ran to get my IVM, almost tripping on the living room carpet. I snapped it on, powered it up, and threw myself back toward the windows. By the time I was back in the kitchen with my vision online and my finger on the emergency call button, there was nothing to see. But I did pick up on a strange hand-shaped imprint left on the outside of the glass.

 

I talked to my neighbors the next day. I asked if anyone had seen anything, or if there’d been any strange people knocking on their door. They had no idea what I was talking about. A couple of them had been visited by a, to quote, “Bible guy”, but that was it. Job was convinced it was miss Mannon’s cats desperately looking for someone to take them in. I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t seen them for some time.

While I was anxiously worrying about whatever was happening around my apartment building, Halloween was rapidly approaching. We were having a company party, and I was having some trouble coming up with a costume. I ended up going for a cheap Aragorn costume. I completely forgot that it was Irene’s favorite character, from her favorite movie series. Happy accident, I suppose.

It was a pretty standard company party. Bring-your-own-booze kind of deal, and no hard stuff. It was a weird experience. The IVM was going crazy trying to figure out how to interpret the various costumes and what they were supposed to be. The idea of a costume party wasn’t really programmed into it. Sometimes it would just cast the base model and an error, other times it would actually render people as the thing they were portraying. For example, this one guy who worked customer service was dressed as Peter Pan, and the IVM just rendered him as the actual Peter Pan.

Irene was so enamored by my costume that we ended up talking about movies all night long. She was a fountain of trivia, and it was a genuine delight to listen to. We talked until the party ended, and when she dropped me off at my place, we decided to talk a little longer.

But, uh, yeah. We didn’t do much talking.

 

It must’ve been somewhere around 2:30am. My IVM was on the nightstand. I was in bed with Irene cuddled up against me, letting an open window cool us. We’d been quiet for a while, waiting for someone to say something. Irene broke the silence.

“Why’d you get that thing?” she asked. “The headband, I mean.”

The question snapped me back to reality for a moment. The answer felt obvious, but in another way, it wasn’t. I’d prepared for blindness for years. I knew how to handle it. So why did I resist it?

“It’s a big change,” I admitted. “Sometimes the change is scarier than the thing itself.”

“So you don’t mind losing your vision?”

“I mean, it’s inconvenient. But, you know, I feel pretty damn good.”

I smiled at her. I couldn’t see her smiling back, but I knew she did. I could hear it.

 

I put on the headband and got up to get Irene a glass of water. I wandered into the kitchen, letting the cool breeze from the open window dry me off. I had a glass of water and filled a second one for her. I checked the freezer for some ice cubes, but the IVM was having trouble rendering the contents of the freezer. It was a little too dark.

I could hear Irene tip-toeing into the kitchen behind me. I opened the fridge to get a little light and turned around to hug her.

It wasn’t Irene.

The IVM rendered the kitchen. The blue and white checkerboard walls, the off-white ceiling, the simple stone floor. I could count the knives in the knife block and trace the shape of the ceiling lamp. But standing there, just a couple of feet away, wasn’t Irene. It was a simple collection of squares, vaguely resembling a person, with a sphere head. It was a bright red chili pepper color.

It was much larger than an ordinary person. At least a head taller than me, but it seemed to change. With its every awkward breath, it seemed to grow and shrink. It took a step closer. I stepped back, almost tripping over my own feet as I fumbled around for a knife. It spoke to me, its voice low and monotone.

“Hey, boss.”

I could hear Irene call out from the other room. She was asking something. I slipped my hand around a knife handle and readied myself to strike. The thing leaned in closer, but the IVM kept bugging out. The model would snap back and forth, as if the position was hard to estimate. I couldn’t take a swing at it, and I couldn’t even raise my hand to remove the headband. I was frozen, leaning against the counter.

Something reached past me and gently closed the refrigerator; removing the last light in the kitchen and glitching the rendering even further.

“Hey, boss.”

 

I circled to the left, slowly. In the dark, the thing seemed to teleport. The IVM couldn’t make sense of it. Its position was uncertain, and the size was hard to estimate reliably. It didn’t attack. It just stood there, and as I circled it, it circled me back. I couldn’t even hear its footsteps; they were too soft.

“Hey… boss?”

“Hey there,” I whispered back. “How’d… you get in?”

“Hey, boss.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, backing away. “Hey to you too… boss.”

I made it all the way around the kitchen, ending up with my back to the hallway. Taking another step away, I grasped the kitchen door and slammed it shut. There was no lock, but it could buy me some time. The moment the door closed, the thing made this awful shrieking cry. It was so loud that it seemed to mess with the IVM, rendering the vibration in real time as a sort of visual spaghetti shimmering across my field of vision.

I wanted to run for the front door, but I couldn’t leave Irene. I could hear her getting out of bed. I decided the bedroom window was the better bet. I ran back and saw Irene on her feet with a blanket wrapped around herself. I threw away my knife and pulled up the window. I grabbed Irene and ushered her forward, but before she could get her first leg out, the kitchen door broke off the hinges. I pulled her back.

We fell to the floor and crawled under the bed. I was having trouble breathing, so she put her hand over my mouth. I wouldn’t say it calmed me down, but forcing me to feel the air rush through my nose emphasized the odor of the thing. I could smell it from afar. It’s hard to describe it; something akin to grass growing in wet old sugar.

It entered the bedroom, huffing. It walked around a little, then leaned in – and closed the bedroom window. That seemed to calm it down. It didn’t seem interested in pursuing us.

There was no way it didn’t know we were under there. It dragged its feet back and forth, occasionally bending down to sniff the bedroom carpet. Every now and then, I’d hear a mumbling variation of ‘hey boss’, almost like a verbal tic.

 

I have no idea how long we were under there. I couldn’t reach my phone and call for help, and the IVM was running out of batteries. I hadn’t gotten the time to charge it. Irene curled up next to me and we tried to stay as still as possible.

Then, we heard something. It wasn’t the thing pacing my bedroom, it was something else. Something outside.

Something scratched on the front door. All the way from the top to the bottom. Over, and over, and over. There was a groaning noise, and the thing standing in the living room didn’t seem to like it. I could see the polygon model expand and shrink, like an animal rearing up to make itself look big. It made this barking noise in response to whatever threat it perceived.

“Hey! Boss! Hey! Boss!”

It took a couple steps forward and slammed something into the door. It didn’t seem to want to break it; it was more of an effort to make noise. Like it was scaring something away. As the battery to the IVM ran out, I leaned my head against Irene and whispered.

“I’m going dark. I can’t see.”

“I can’t either,” she whispered back. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

The lights died. We were both left in the dark, listening to one thing and another, holding a conversation of their own. One barking my own words, and something responding with tooth and claw.

 

We stayed under the bed all night. At some point, Irene poked me on the shoulder to check if I was awake, whispering that the sun was rising. It was over. The thing was gone. I could hear birds singing; it’d left the front door wide open, and we hadn’t heard it leave. Then again, I never heard it enter to begin with.

We got up and got dressed. I put the IVM in the charger as Irene took my hand, leading me outside. I could hear the other neighbors out and about. Job was on the phone, having an elevated discussion with someone on the other end. Irene squeezed my hand and leaned in.

“There are claw marks on the wall,” she whispered. “A lot of claw marks.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Looks like something tried to get in.”

The building manager came by shortly after, followed by the police. It didn’t take long for someone to notice the marks going up the side of the building, having seemingly climbed on the wooden panels. Not long after that, someone got up on the roof. There were bones up there. Cat bones, and a broken femur that looked suspiciously human. Something had gathered twigs, grass, and blue sunflowers from a nearby field and made that roof into a nesting ground. It must’ve been there for months.

 

This was all some time ago. I still use the IVM, but I got some bad news a couple months back. Turns out the neural pathways in my brain necessary to send visual signals are deteriorating when I’m not using my physical eyes, meaning there will come a point where the IVM can no longer function. It’s an early prototype, so I’m not surprised. There are some glitches already, and it doesn’t work at all in low-level environments anymore. I usually walk around with a flashlight to help it render. This puts me right back in the place where all this started; waiting for the darkness to come.

Things are different though. Irene and I moved into a place of our own in January last year. I still work in CAD programming, while she got into veterinary school. She still drives me to and from work every morning. I still dress as Aragorn every Halloween; I just update the costume. She pretends to be annoyed by it.

But every day I wake up wondering if the darkness is there to stay. So far, I can turn on a little light, and there’s something to see. It won’t always be like that, and there’ll come a day when nothing happens, but I’ll take it as it comes. I don’t fear it as much as I used to. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the digital morning interpreted through my degrading pathways, watching a simulated sun rising over static pine tree models.

Every now and then, there’s a spot of red rendered in the distance. Rough squares stacked as a vague humanoid, peeking out from behind a tree. I don’t know what it is, but I always raise a hand to it. I like to believe it raises one back. Then I say, just loud enough for it to hear;

“Hey, boss.”

And sometimes, it says it back.

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

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

 

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

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

“Excuse me.”

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“KILL THE BABBELOCK”

 

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

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

“Hello?”

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

“Liv?”

“…your family is in jeopardy.”

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

“Who is this?”

“Kill the Babbelock.”

The call was terminated.

 

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

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

“No, of course. What’s the number?”

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

“Kill the Babbelock.”

“What?”

He blinked, looking just as confused as I was.

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

“No, my wife, you said you’d-“

“I’m sorry, please don’t bother me.”

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

Your family is in jeopardy. Kill the Babbelock.

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

“100 points.”

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

“Fuck your Babbelock!”

“She is in jeopardy.”

“Let me go!”

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

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

To kill the Babbelock.

 

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

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

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

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

“You’re close!”

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

 

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

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

Someone coughed.

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

“They got-“

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

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

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

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

“I’m not a-“

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

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

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?”

“I don’t know. I don’t-“

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

 

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

“What the fuck is a Babbelock?!”

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

“Kill. Kill. Kill.”

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

“Need help. Call for help.”

“What’s going on?”

“Please!”

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

 

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

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

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

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

“Fuck off.”

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

“Kill the Babbelock!”

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

“Kill the Babbelock.”

 

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

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

“You have my family,” he wheezed.

“You have my family,” I gasped back.

“Fucking Babbelock.”

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

“Kill the fucking Babbelock.”

Then, a gunshot.

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s not for us to decide.”

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

“Babbelock.”

 

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

“What the hell did he say?”

“Babbelock,” the other answered.

“What the hell’s a Babbelock?”

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

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

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

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

“Spoilsport.”

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

“Tough luck, bud.”

 

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

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

“Hey,” I coughed.

She turned to me, seemingly surprised.

“You’re alive?”

“Help. Please help.”

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

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

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

“Yes. Liv.”

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

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

“What?”

“Never mind that.”

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

“Oh, to hell with it.”

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

 

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

“He’s up!” he said. “He’s conscious!”

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

What was the point?

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

I usually do administrative work for the local government. Municipal level stuff, nothing extravagant or life changing. I’ve worked at that same position for 15 years, dealing with scheduling, relaying information to the mayor, and making sure new hires are up to speed on their first day. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s one of the better jobs you can hope for in a mid-sized small-government kind of town in the Midwest.

One morning, as I was getting ready for work, I got a call. I didn’t recognize the number, but I could tell it was a government affiliated one. I answered.

“We’re going to need your help,” the man on the other end said. “We’ve had a last-minute cancellation, and we need someone to perform a series of interviews.”

“I’m not a reporter,” I joked. “What kind of interview?”

“We’re hiring for a new position. You’re experienced in performing job interviews and assessment tests, correct?”

“I’ve done my fair share.”

“I’ll send you the details.”

With that, he hung up. I didn’t even catch his name, but I got the sense that was somehow the point.

 

I got an e-mail with instructions. I’m not going to go into detail about what department sent me this, but let’s just say it was the kind of people that should make you reluctant about asking too many questions. I hadn’t been in touch with that side of the government before, and it was way above my pay grade, but I figured it was just an interview. But looking at the details, there were some things that didn’t line up.

For one, I wasn’t interviewing people for a government job. This was strange, given how I worked for, well, the government. It was supposed to be a private company that was hiring a remote communications field technician; a junior position at that. In fact, I was strictly forbidden from mentioning that I work for the government to begin with. If anyone asked, I worked for a very well-known telecom company. They’d even added the logo on the print-out info slip that I was to hand to the applicants.

The fake job itself wasn’t that special. It was an in-house maintenance position with on-the-job learning. A lot of travel to remote locations and, over time, solitary work on a rotating schedule. They were to maintain microwave relay stations, transmitting information over large distances. That meant working with a lot of power and being responsible for critical communication infrastructure.

The questions for the applicants were fairly standard and technical, but there was a subset of instructions that were to be kept hidden. I was to make note of a series of observations about the applicants. This is where it gets tricky.

I was to check for yellow nails.

Not just yellow nail polish, but actual yellow-colored nails. This was very important. If the applicant had yellow nails, I was to write their name in a separate list, in a separate folder. I didn’t really have time to question it. I just went to the assigned address.

 

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. I’d never been asked to lie, but I also didn’t have much of an option. They made that very clear in the instructions. This interview was supposed to be done by a much more seasoned representative, but they’d cancelled on short notice. I was next in line. Not just because of my experience, but my proven loyalty. Honestly, I think it was less about loyalty and more about being comfortable in my position. They knew I wasn’t about to throw over a decade of experience down the drain.

I got to the address outlined in the e-mail. It was a temporary barracks-style building on the outskirts of town. I remember it being a bit of a build-site earlier. It had the company logo and two more cars parked out front. I felt uneasy about going in, but as it turns out, I wasn’t alone.

There was a woman there. Late 40’s, short gray hair, and a tired bloodhound-like face. She looked like she had either been chain-smoking for decades or forgot to sleep for the past week. I’d never seen her before. She walked up to me and handed me a couple of folders. She pointed at them, one after another.

“The white one’s for ordinary people. That blue one’s for yellow nail-people.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“We got twenty-two people to clear today, so we better get started.”

“Yes, but who are you?”

“Do you want to chit-chat or do you want to get some work done?”

“I’m just asking-“

“I’m Joan of God-damned Arc, patron saint of sit down and do your job.”

 

She showed me to a small side office where I was to conduct my interviews. There was a cheap IKEA-style desk with some office supplies. There was a sign with a name on it, but “Joan” removed it for me. The sign had been made for whoever I was replacing. Before I was left to my own devices, I noticed a bottle in the first drawer. Something chemical.

“It’s acetone,” Joan explained. “If they got painted nails, you gotta use it to check the real color.”

Before I could ask any follow-up questions, Joan was out the door. I could already hear an applicant stepping into the waiting room. I hurried through the questions again, checking the print-out information pamphlet that I was to provide them, and practiced my introduction. Was I supposed to have a fake name? If not, they could easily find out that I worked for the government. There was no time to think.

Joan walked off to conduct an interview with the first applicant, but I was handed the second one – a man in his mid-30’s. Middle eastern background with well-combed black hair and surprisingly round cheekbones. We shook hands, he introduced himself, and I thanked him for coming. I handed him a pamphlet, and we sat down to conduct the first interview.

 

While I asked him various questions about his experience in relation to the position, I couldn’t help but look closer at his hands. I couldn’t tell if he really did have yellow nails, or if I was just hyper-fixating on them for no reason. What does “yellow nails” even mean? In context to what?

Thankfully, my employer had thought about that. One part of the interview was to perform a simple physical test. In short, I was to check their hand for damages and flexibility. There was a small desk light and a short procedure where I was to check the front and back of the hand and flex the fingers to see if there was any pain. What I was really doing was checking the nail color under a clear light.

This man had yellow nails. No doubt about it. When I checked his hands under the desk light, it was clear as day. But it wasn’t just a yellow color, it was a small pattern of S-shaped yellow indents that you could see through the nail. It was almost completely invisible unless you looked right at it, but once you saw it, it was impossible to miss.

“Looking good,” I said, trying to disarm him a little. “No joint pain when I flex this finger?”

“None at all,” he smiled. “I’ve done this kind of work before, you know.”

“It’s an insurance thing, we have to be thorough.”

“I understand.”

As we finished the interview, I picked up the two folders. One had a white tulip on it, while the other had a blue sunflower. Just little stickers in the corner. Looking at him, I switched to the blue folder, and noted his name at the top.

“Thank you for your consideration,” he said. “When can I expect your call?”

“The process shouldn’t take more than a week, but that depends on my employer.”

“And who is your employer?”

He looked at me as my tongue got stuck in my throat. I’d forgotten the name of the telecom company I was supposed to say I worked for. I swallowed hard and peeked down at the folders, noting the company name in the corner of the printed paper. I straightened out, answered his question, and sent him on his way. He didn’t seem entirely convinced, but what’s done is done.

 

I performed three more interviews. First one was a man in his early 20’s. Cocky kind of guy; didn’t have yellow nails. He made a snarky comment about checking his fingers though – very unprofessional. The second person was a woman in her early 40’s. Athletic build, very serious demeanor. She had a bit of a nervous streak; I could tell from the way she was biting her fingers. She barely had any nails left, but they were free of any yellow discoloration. Both of them went into the white folder.

The third interview was a woman in her late 20’s. Let’s call her Donna. Mediterranean, curly brown hair, dark eyes. She had these big pupils that gave her a doll-like appearance. Whenever she listened, she tilted her hear slightly to the left. I introduced myself, and noted that she had painted red nails.

“As part of the interview, I have to perform a simple physical to make sure you have no prior conditions impacting your flexibility,” I said. “For insurance purposes.”

“Of course,” Donna said. “That’s not a problem.”

“Great. I also need you to remove the paint from one of your nails.”

“What’s that?”

“The paint,” I said, putting the acetone bottle on the desk. “I need to remove the paint from one of your nails.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary. These were expensive, you know.”

“I’m sure they were. But protocol is protocol. You understand, I’m sure.”

We both looked at one another in silence. Neither of us spoke up. She furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, as if shielding her hands.

“I’m not doing that.”

“Then I’m afraid we can’t proceed.”

She looked at me for a long while, then turned her attention to my folders. Then, to the acetone bottle. Her furrowed brow loosened as her expression changed.

“Why do you have two folders?” she asked.

“We’re evaluating different positions.”

“What’s the other position?”

“Similar to yours, but a senior level replacement.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep up with my lies. She wasn’t buying it. I was making it up on the go.

“I didn’t see anything about that. I’ve been looking for those positions too.”

“We’re looking at making an in-house promotion.”

“Then why do you need to conduct interviews?”

“It’s a legal issue when offering new positions to-“

“You’re lying.”

She got up and pointed at me.

“Which folder are you putting me in?”

I kept my mouth shut. I pulled the folders back as she reached for them. Before I could say anything else, she stormed out of the office, running down the street at a full sprint.

 

As I got a chance to catch my breath, I met Joan in the waiting room. There were more applicants coming, but we had a moment to ourselves. I told her about Donna with the red nails, and how she’d stormed out.

“If they refuse the test, put them in the blue folder,” she said. “Yellow nails or not, if we don’t even get a chance to check, something’s wrong.”

“Why are we checking the nails at all?”

Joan rolled her eyes and retreated to her side room. Before I could ask her to clarify, the next round of applicants arrived. It wasn’t even lunch yet.

I went through interviews all day. A little over half of them had yellow nails, but most of them were ordinary applicants. I talked a lot about the various responsibilities and benefits, having to make up on-the-spot lies about things like what company vehicle was offered, and the exact extent of the coverage area applicants were to work within. They asked things about work rotations and housing on extended assignments, and I was having trouble keeping up with the lies. I started making notes about what I’d told people so I could act more confidently in future interviews.

There were a few things that I noticed about the applicants with yellow nails. While the ordinary applicants usually asked things about the position and its responsibilities, those with yellow nails seemed more interested in the company and the access they gained through their assignments. They also seemed eager to work on their own, and to get away from the senior technician they were to be assigned to. Not a single applicant with normal nails asked about that, but every applicant with yellow nails did. A lot of them also asked if it was okay to bring family or friends on longer excursions once they reached a senior position.

 

After my first day of interviews, I had nine names on my list of yellow nails. Joan had seven. We compared notes and exchanged a few tips on how to convincingly lie about certain things. She was incredibly well-read on the subject. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was actually working with telecommunications. She could describe the functionality of a microwave relay station in detail, and the most common maintenance issues associated with them. I got the impression that Joan had been doing this for quite some time.

I bought some Thai food on the way home. I didn’t know what to make of that day, I’d been so out of my comfort level that it seemed unreal. I was to come back the next day for another batch, but there wouldn’t be as many applicants. Joan could handle it from there, apparently.

Coming home and parking my car, I noticed someone standing outside my front door. It was Donna, the woman who’d stormed out of my office earlier. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere. She turned to me, looking at me; her hand was still on my door as if she’d just knocked.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I carefully stepped out of my car.

She put her hand down and searched for the right words. She tried to answer a couple of times, until she finally gave up with a deep sigh.

“Did you put me on a list?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are they putting people like me on a list?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I pushed past her, sliding my key in the door and opening it. She didn’t seem like much of a threat, and the longer I talked to her, the bigger the chance I slipped up.

“You work for the government,” she continued. “I looked you up.”

“I’m going to ask you to leave.”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, but I could still hear her talking from the other side.

“Just please, remove me from the list. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Leave, or I’ll call the police.”

“Will you please take me off the list? Please!”

I stood there in the hallway with a grocery bag in hand, waiting. After a while, I heard her footsteps disappear down the path. I let out a long breath, taking a moment to collect myself. There was something happening outside my control. I was lying to people, and for what? Some kind of identification? What did it mean?

 

The next day, I was back for a second round of interviews. I was a bit more prepared this time. I had the same folder and the same list; I was probably going to hand it in once we were done with the entire process. Looking at the list, my eyes lingered on the woman’s name. Donna didn’t seem like a bad person. She seemed desperate, and if she had bad intentions she could’ve hurt me outside my door. But she didn’t. She just asked me to take her off the list.

It took a bit of work, but I removed her from the list. I took a blank sheet and rewrote the whole list without her name, throwing the old list into a shredder. I don’t know why, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. This wasn’t a list of bad people – it was a list of people with strange nails. If they weren’t going to be honest with me about the purpose of it, I didn’t have to be honest about the names I put on it.

Joan was there again. There was no small talk, but I noticed a couple of things about her that I hadn’t paid attention to the previous day. For example, she would regularly step outside to take phone calls. I have no idea who kept calling her, but it was regular, like an hourly check-in. She was just as rude to the caller as she was to me, that much was consistent.

The day was fairly straightforward. I was a bit more comfortable with the procedure, even if I wasn’t happy about lying to people. I was lucky; a majority of people I talked to on the second day were ordinary. One had painted nails, but she had no issue with me checking the color. Unsurprisingly, she was clear. After a while, I could sort of tell who was fine and who wasn’t without checking the nails. There were a couple of tells.

For example, those with yellow nails asked a lot more questions. They were a bit twitchier, looking around and watching their backs. They were usually pleasant to talk to, but you could tell they were more nervous. They always seemed to be one ill-thought sentence away from bursting into a sprint.

 

By the end of the second day, I had five more names on my list of yellow nails. I sat down with Joan and compared notes. She counted them out.

“You had nine yesterday, five today. Fourteen total.”

“I had, uh, eight yesterday,” I corrected.

She raised an eyebrow at that.

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah, eight. Sorry, I wasn’t clear.”

She brought out her phone and showed me a picture. She had taken pictures of the list from the previous day. It was clear as day; there were nine names.

“You covering for someone?”

“I just made a mistake. I corrected it.”

She looked at her phone, then back at my list. She smiled.

“You rewrote it. I can tell which name you took off. You know her? Is that it?”

“No, I don’t know her. I put her there by mistake.”

“And you magically remembered that when you came to work today? I’m not buying it. I’m putting her back on the list.”

“Hold on.”

I raised a hand, asking her to stop for a moment.

“Okay, yes, I removed her from the list,” I continued. “I don’t think she should be there.”

“What you think, and what you don’t think, is of no consequence. We’re doing our job. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Actually, yes. Why are we doing this? Who are these people?”

“They’re tooth fairies, and you’re making sure all the good little girls and boys get a treat.”

“Why aren’t you answering the question?”

“Why aren’t you putting down the goddamn names?”

She was shouting at me. Before the conversation could continue, she stepped outside to take another call. I only caught parts of it, but the intention was clear; she was reporting something. The discussion was over, and I was to return to my regular job in the morning. They didn’t need a stand-in anymore.

When I got home, I didn’t know what to think. I felt guilty. I’m not much for conflict, and Joan just brought out the worst in me. It’s one thing to be new at your job, and another thing entirely to be caught in a lie. I wasn’t a good liar. Never was. That’s not the kind of job I signed up for.

As I got home and closed the door behind me, I was looking forward to going back to my normal job. I didn’t mind doing interviews but doing them under false pretense sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I was trying to distract myself with my fancy noise canceling headphones and a brand-new audiobook, but I was having trouble focusing on the plot. Then I rounded the corner to my kitchen, and stopped.

There was someone sitting there. Someone with a black ski mask.

 

Before I could react, there was a hand on my shoulder. Two people. One by the table, one standing behind me. I felt something sharp against my neck. The stranger sitting at my kitchen table was slightly taller than me, somewhat muscular, and had dark eyes and skin. I couldn’t see any other particular details. I think it was a man. He slid a paper and pen over to me, as whoever was behind me urged me to sit down.

“I need you to write down all the names of the people on your list,” the man said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

“I don’t remember them all.”

“Write them down, now.”

“I told you, I don’t-“

My entire world shook. It took me a moment to realize that I’d been struck in the face; the pain came much later than the impact. It felt like my face was on fire, and I could feel this immense pressure building in my skull. My neck ached from the sudden movement, and I could feel the nerves in my nose constricting as a nosebleed stained the paper.

“Write,” he insisted. “Now.”

 

I wrote down what names I could, starting with Donna. I didn’t remember all the names I’d seen on Joan’s paper, but I wrote down what I could. At one point, the one who was standing behind me got up and moved away, checking one of the windows. They talked to one another in a hushed voice. The other person was smaller, and had big, doll-like eyes. They also tilted their head slightly when listening.

“You sure there’s no one else? No roommate, girlfriend, anything?”

The other person shook their head. As I wrote, they took turns checking on me and going through my apartment. I think they were looking for weapons, or cash. I didn’t keep anything like that. Once I finished the list to the best of my ability (including a couple of names that I only remembered the first or last name of), they seemed satisfied. They folded up the note and moved to the front door.

As they were about to leave, they stopped. The man looked through the peephole and slowly backed away. There was someone outside. Someone they didn’t want to interact with. I knew better than to interfere. They were about to leave; they wouldn’t double back just to kill me. If I just kept my head down and waited patiently, this whole ordeal would be over. So, despite knowing there was someone outside, I kept quiet.

A woman’s voice whispered into my ear. I recognized it instantly. Donna.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked. “Someone with a spare key?”

“I have all my keys,” I said. “It’s just me.”

She looked up at the man, who nodded. Then, there was a metallic click. Someone slid a key into the lock of my front door, and turned. It worked.

 

The next few seconds were intense. The man rushed the door and slammed it shut, grabbing the lock and twisting it shut. He held it close, yelling at Donna to check the window in the bedroom. As she did, I heard this absurdly loud metallic noise as the front door was pulled off its hinges, straight out of the frame.

I didn’t see what happened to the man that hit me in the face. I just saw him falling backwards, as he’d propped himself up against the front door, trying his best to keep it close. As the door was torn away, he fell, and I heard this flesh-like squelching, followed by a scrunch and a pop.

Without so much as a second thought, I got out of my chair. Donna, still in a ski mask, came back around the corner. Something shot past her, slamming into my hallway wall, rocking the whole floor with a force that might have moved the foundation of the building. Donna grabbed me by the arm and pointed a knife at me, dragging me into the bathroom.

We got in and she locked the door. Meanwhile, something was going ballistic outside, triggering all kinds of alarms and warnings. I could hear cars in the parking lot react as a series of alarms blared. Donna pressed her knife against my throat, looking me in the face. The ski mask was barely hiding anything at this point.

“Was this part of it?” she gasped. “Did you tell them I came here?”

“I didn’t tell them anything! I tried to remove your name! I didn’t-“

There was a thump at the door, and the lights flickered. Donna grabbed my collar and pulled me closer into the knife, almost drawing blood. I tried to stay calm as I could feel my pulse pushing up against the blade.

“Step back!” she demanded. “I’m walking out of here!”

Whatever was on the other side seemed to disagree as a shockwave rocked the bathroom. The mirror fell over and shattered against the floor, and the shower started spewing out this steaming hot water. The ceiling lamp shut off completely, leaving only a sliver of light coming in from underneath the door.

“I did everything right!” Donna cried. “I’ve lived here for years; I never hurt anyone! I didn’t even play the market!”

The top of the door bent outward and came loose as something claw-like tore the corner off. Donna pressed herself backwards, her arms almost cramping as she held on to me for dear life. It felt less like keeping me hostage, and more like a desperate passenger holding on to a sinking ship.

“Please don’t take me away,” she whispered. “Please, I didn’t-“

The door came loose. In a sudden flash of light, I saw something vaguely humanoid standing in the doorway. There was this intense flurry of movement as Donna was pulled away from me at breakneck speed; her voice immediately silenced with a violent bang. It took me a moment to realize that, as she was pulled away, she’d accidentally cut me across the throat.

I sat down on my toilet. My throat was warm, like I’d been burned. I could inhale, but I never felt the air reach my chest. Trying to form a word, all I managed to do was spit up a glob of blood. The wound itself didn’t hurt, but as I felt my body fail, I realized this must’ve been what dying felt like.

A glowing pair of eyes looked me over. It looked like a person wearing either matte aluminum armor, or some kind of hardened plastic. My eyes blurred, but I could see them grabbing my hand. I couldn’t feel it. They lifted my hands, checking my nails. After doing so, it nodded, and spoke in a voice that I can only describe as ethereal. Like a whisper in the wind.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

 

I blinked in and out of consciousness, not realizing what was happening. There were people shining lights into my eyes, and I had a mask over my mouth. There was this intense pressure on my neck, and I could see a bag of blood hanging from a stand. I think they were doing a transfusion.

By the time I woke up, I was in a hospital. I was lying in a bed, looking up at a tiled ceiling. I was breathing, albeit with a bit of pushback. There was something wrapped around my neck, but I couldn’t feel any pain. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I was probably hopped up on painkillers.

A nurse came in to change my IV and to check on me.

“I’ll let the doctors know you’re up,” she said. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

She took off an empty bag and put up a new one.

“Hell of a thing,” she continued. “You’re lucky to be alive. That was a nasty cut.”

She adjusted something on my wrist, staying long enough for my eyes to focus. I couldn’t help but notice something on her hands. Little S-shaped indents in her nails. Her yellow nails.

She noticed me looking. For a moment, her hands lingered on something stuck in my arm, considering her options.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” I wheezed.

“That’s right,” she smiled. “Nothing. Right?”

“Right.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

She stepped back, giving me a light pat on the arm. Her expression had changed. Her breathing was faster.

“What does it mean?” I asked, looking at her hands.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Is it dangerous?”

She opened the door and stepped outside. As she turned to leave, she nodded.

“Sometimes.”

 

It took a long time for me to recover. I didn’t see anyone else at the hospital with yellow nails. I saw that nurse a couple more times, but we just nodded at one another in passing. She knew that I knew, but I wasn’t going to rat her out. That didn’t mean she didn’t keep an eye on me though. Before long, I was okay, and on my way; albeit with a nasty scar across my neck.

I don’t know what happened to Donna or her helper. I can only imagine. I was never asked to perform another interview, and I never got as much as a text or e-mail from anyone involved in it again. I don’t think I’ve even seen Joan in another context, or heard anything about her. I know for a fact that it was a legitimate government assignment, but for whom, and what purpose? That’s anyone’s guess.

Every now and then, I run into people with yellow nails. I’m sure you’ve seen them too. Sometimes when I ask people about them, or point them out, they seem genuinely surprised. I’m convinced some of them don’t even know they have them. Others get strangely defensive. Be careful when you look.

 

I still work in the municipal government. I don’t have to lie anymore, and doing the work I was hired for feels like a return to form. The interviews I conduct nowadays are more about finding temp workers or clarifying things in resumés.

But every now and then, when someone new walks into the office, I shake their hand. And when I do, I look a little closer at their nails. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s nothing. But sometimes, there’s something there.

Perhaps they know something I don’t.

Perhaps they know that I know.

I’m moving into a new apartment. As part of the move, I’m going through the age-old ritual of packing my things and reviewing what to keep, and what to throw away. In that process, I found something that I thought I’d long since discarded. It’s just a calendar from a couple of years ago, but it brought up a lot of memories that I haven’t thought about for some time. Partly because, looking back at it, it feels surreal. And partly because I wanted to forget.

I think it’s time I put this into words. If I’m going to throw this calendar away, I want to put the full story on paper. I don’t want to look back at this in 20 years and wonder if I got the details right.

 

About six years ago, I got a new car. I say “new” in quotation marks as the car was a cheap secondhand Toyota, but I got it for a fair price. I picked it up, paid cash, and stopped at a gas station to give it a good rinsing; inside and out. After a proper wash and wax, I double-checked the interior. There were a few candy wrappers stuck between the seats and a bit of dog hair in the trunk, but apart from that there was only one thing that stood out – a six-pack of mineral waters. They looked kind of old, but they were sealed tight, and I figured mineral water doesn’t really go bad, so what the hell.

I got home and checked some e-mails. I had spaghetti for dinner and washed it down with one of the water bottles. I smelled it, tasted a little, and it was fine. Had a bit of a citrus tang to it, no biggie. All in all, it was an uneventful day. I was settling in for a long Labor Day weekend; the first one I’d had on my own for quite some time.

I was still smoking back then - a nasty habit that I picked up in college. I went outside to have a cigarette when I met my neighbor Roger. He and his wife lived across the hall from me. He was in his second year of retirement, but he had a kind of way of talking that made me think he’d been an old man all his life. We chit-chatted a bit, I showed him my new car, and that was that.

“You be careful with that thing,” Roger said, pointing to my car. “I’m good with ‘em, don’t be scared to ask for help.”

“It’s fine, it runs well enough.”

“Just be careful. You can’t assume every car’s the same. You gotta know it.”

“As long as there’s four wheels and an engine I can figure it out.”

He shrugged it off, finished his cigarette, and lumbered back up to his apartment. I could hear his wife through the front door, eagerly chatting on the phone. I went home and got ready for bed.

 

When I woke up, my eyes were already open. It’s a strange sensation. In all my years on this planet, the first thing I do every morning is open my eyes. This one time, I didn’t. It was unnerving, to say the least. I was lying on my side, facing my bedroom window. The blinds were down, leaving a sliver of sunlight peeking through the cracks. One of them hit me square in the eye, but I couldn’t blink it away. I was just lying there, staring at the sun. I couldn’t blink. The more I thought about it, I couldn’t close my eyes at all.

I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move. I saw my hand resting on the bed next to me, but I couldn’t will myself to move it. I was completely still. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize how hard my heart was beating. Something was wrong. I could feel warmth through my hands and arms, but I couldn’t so much as twitch.

I wasn’t breathing. That’s why my heart was beating so fast. I wasn’t breathing.

I wasn’t holding my breath. There was nothing in my throat. I tried to focus all my attention on opening my mouth, but my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel my face changing color. I tried exploring every nerve I could trace, but I still couldn’t bring myself to move. I was just lying there, pushing every conscious thought to a single word.

“Breathe.”

 

I finally felt my mouth moving. I didn’t move it. My mouth opened wide, and my body inhaled. It inhaled so forcefully that my lungs ached. My mouth still open, the breath was held in my lungs for a couple of seconds. I tried to focus on another word.

“Out.”

There was a moment of hesitation. My eyes were getting dim from the morning light. The breath was exhaled, but not by my effort. I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t in control.

It took a couple of tries, but after a steady rhythm of breathing in and out, it seemed to work on autopilot. I didn’t have to think about breathing, it just happened. Instead, I focused on my eyes. They hurt.

“I have to blink”, I thought. “Shut my eyes.”

Nothing happened. I was still lying there, staring straight ahead. I focused on the eyes, and the burning sensation. Can you go blind from forgetting to blink?

“Close the eyes,” I thought. “Close them and open them again.”

Still, nothing. I tried a few variations, but the eyes remained open. I traced my thoughts to the eyebrows, then feeling my way down to the early-morning eyelids. From there, I conjured one word.

“Down.”

My left eye closed, then opened. Then my right one. The relief was intense, and I could feel my body relaxing. Blinking. Breathing. One eye at a time, sure, but it was a start. My heart was coming down from that self-induced choking hazard, trying to figure out what was going on. I was panicking, thinking I was experiencing some kind of medical emergency, but my heart rate was still slowing. “I” was panicking, but that was different from the “I” that was in control of my faculties.

That’s when the thought clicked. I wasn’t in control, but something else was.

 

I watched my body lying there for a while. I could see my bedroom window and my hand in between infrequent blinking. There was this painting with a woman picking blue sunflowers that my eyes kept coming back to, like I was trying to figure out if it was a picture or a window. My breathing sounded weird. Not sure how, but it was different from how I usually did it. Less nasal.

After a while, I felt a surge through my hand going up my index finger. The finger pointed upwards, stretched, and flexed the joints. Every joint moved individually, as if testing the boundaries. It hurt like hell as one joint tried to flex backwards, and another forwards. There seemed to be a bit of confusion as the pain registered, as if something was still trying to figure out if pain was bad or good. When it flexed the wrong way, I thought “bad”. When it flexed the right way, I thought “good”. After a while, the finger was moving naturally.

From there, I could feel other parts of my body waking up. Other fingers, toes, knees, elbows. One by one they moved, and as something started to register pain as “bad”, and not-pain as “good”, it seemed to come to terms with its limitations and range of motion. It was still trying to figure out things like swallowing my saliva and ended up drooling on the pillow. At one point the elbow contracted so hard that I slapped myself across the face. It took a couple of tries, but it seemed to figure out that holding the hand in front of my eyes blocked what I could see.

I must’ve been in bed for a couple of hours, at least. I could feel my hand running through my hair. My arm would bend, trying to trace my spine with my fingers. I could feel something taking control and slowly realizing the limitations of my body. I kicked, and punched, and turned, all without ever getting out of bed. Once it learned my neck could move, I could feel my eyes darting from one object to the next, staring intently at everything in my bedroom.

In the sharp contrast of the morning light, it was hard to tell things apart. It was all shadows. While I knew what those shadows were, whatever was in control didn’t. To it, that bathrobe on my office chair could be an intruder. A predator.

I don’t think I’ve ever looked at things like that. Turned-down lights, my head at a weird angle, and everything looking like someone else’s things. What does my place look like to something that’s never seen it before? To something that, maybe, haven’t seen anything like it before?

 

At one point, it kicked my right leg out and turned. It turned so fast that the momentum of the swing flung me straight out of bed, making me roll to the floor. I smacked my head against a dresser and bruised my arm a little, but it wasn’t anything bad. Hurt like hell though. This noise escaped me, like a low “hrrrrng” noise. I didn’t make that noise. I don’t think I’ve ever made it, but there it was.

“Calm,” I thought. “Good. Good.”

That seemed to help. It flexed my limbs, getting up on all fours. My knees scraped against the floor as it crawled. I thought about how to begin explaining the motion of getting up on two feet, but I didn’t know where to start. I watched myself crawl around, smacking into my office chair and a bedside table, pulling down a lamp, and exploring whatever was accidentally left on the floor from the previous night.

I tried to reach out with other words. I wanted to ask questions or better understand what was happening, but questions like “who are you” or “why are you doing this” didn’t even slow it down. I had to be careful, concentrated, and specific to the context. I could stop it from reaching an electric socket by thinking “bad”, but that’s as far as my influence reached.

After at least four hours of fumbling around my bedroom, it accidentally moved the knee in a way that made my left foot stand flat on the ground. From there it propelled itself forward, slamming my head on my work desk. But that movement seemed intriguing to whatever controlled me, and after a couple more tries, it managed to stand up straight.

It was finally starting to understand my full range of motion. How I could be really low when I crouched, and really tall when I stood up straight. It was starting to understand high and low, left from right, and forward to backward. And as it took one first tentative step, balancing like the floor was a tightrope, I had a thought. If it was learning to walk, it probably had somewhere to go.

 

Thinking about those first moments of watching myself walk around my apartment feels like a nightmare. I could feel the floor under my feet, but I wasn’t the one contracting my muscles and moving my joints. I was a passenger on the sidelines, watching something so intimately familiar as my own self being used as a second-hand object. There are so many things we take for granted in the way we move and interact that it can’t be put into words. How was I to know that there’s a manner to the way I walk, or the way I open doors? You don’t know these things until you see them done wrong.

I was watching myself stumbling and failing but slowly coming to terms with the basics. As the sensations of my own physical body seemed to get more comfortable, the focus slowly turned outward. I was watching my environment. I saw my hands trace along the walls, carefully studying the doorways, windows, and picture frames. Every now and then I could advise a finger to push something, doing things like turning on or off a light. Sometimes, it obliged.

There was also temperature. I was still in my underwear, and I had a window slightly open, giving the room an uncomfortable chill. I was shivering, and I could tell my host was uncomfortable. Instead of trying to explain how to put on clothes, I instead turned its attention to a blanket next to the bed. It took some trial and error, but I managed to get it to understand the word “grasp”. I just had to repeat it a couple of times as my eyes looked at the blanket, and the connection was made.

 

After a while, my input wasn’t as critical. It managed to step into a pair of slippers and wrap the blanket around the body. It learned how to control the lights, and how to turn on the water in the bathroom. It left the shower running, not realizing the necessity of turning it off. It figured out that it wanted to drink water, and that it wanted to eat something. I managed to direct it to a jar of peanut butter that it treated like an egg; smacking it against the floor until it cracked, picking out the plastic, and scooping up the contents with my fingertips. It seemed to enjoy the taste.

I couldn’t get it to understand things like drinking from a glass, but I could get it to wash its hands. It seemed to dislike the sensation of sticky fingers. It tried a fistful of granola from the cupboard but didn’t seem to like the dry oats. It ended up pouring out the whole box and foraging for raisins and nuts. It was biting down a bit too hard. I could feel my teeth ache.

There were a couple of hiccups. At one point, my cellphone dinged. It didn’t like that. It picked the phone up and threw it across the room, into a wall. As the phone cracked, it checked the “corpse” for meat, only to realize it was a mechanical gadget. It discarded the phone without a second thought, leaving it in an empty corner of the room.

 

It noticed the sun going down. As the outside turned dark, it went from room to room to turn on all the lights and look around. It’s as if it was searching for something. It moved furniture, looked in cupboards and drawers, and tore down my coat rack. I’m not sure if it was trying to attack things, or if it was just looking to see what kind of material it was. Either way, it’s clear that it didn’t know what the things in my environment were. It couldn’t differentiate a jacket from a towel.

As night settled, I didn’t know what to think. I was still stuck in there, watching myself being piloted from inside. Was this going to last forever? The thought scared me, but it’s hard to feel scared when you’re not in control of your own nervous system. You can scream on the inside all you want, but there was this disconnect that forced me to focus on the here and now.

At one point, I wanted to try something. I saw my hand hovering over my TV remote, and I saw an opportunity.

“Push,” I thought.

It considered the proposal as a finger brushed the big red power button. It seemed to like the texture, running the tip of the finger back and forth. Then, as suggested, it pushed. The TV screen lit up, showing a nature documentary. A cheetah running across the savannah, chasing down a gazelle.

My body recoiled, clutching the blanket tighter. It listened to the narrator and blinked at the quick cuts and angles of the camera. Creeping closer, it placed my hand against the screen.

“That is a TV,” I thought. “TV. Tee-vee.”

A couple of noises spat out of my mouth. It sounded like “pfi-pfi”, with plenty of spit blubber, but on repetition it got better. “Pfi-pfi” turned to “bvi-bvi”, turned to “vee-vee”. It didn’t quite get the ‘T’ right.

“Vee-vee,” it muttered. “Vee-vee.”

Its hand rested against the screen and it leaned back, watching. I can’t imagine what it must have looked like to someone with no context. Did it think it was a window?

 

My body slept in short bursts of an hour here and there. It slept on the floor, at the foot of my bed, in bed, next to the bed, and for a while in the bathroom. It seemed to enjoy the sound of running water. It left the TV on, coming back every now and then to watch the colorful ads and curious animals. It didn’t attempt to say any other words, still working on getting the TV word right.

When the body was sleeping, I was still somewhat aware. My thoughts were like feelers, traveling down the length of my limbs as I concentrated. If I focused enough, I could listen to what the ear was hearing, despite the body being asleep. I remember hearing nature documentaries in their entirety, waiting for something resembling sleep to take me away.

There was also this one moment where I watched the screen, as my body lay on its side, and a hyena was feasting on a zebra. It was sticking its face inside its chest cavity, grabbing whatever it could and pulling out chunks of meat. As it tugged, and chewed, and tugged, and chewed, the narrator spoke.

“As hyenas gather around the prey, they must keep a watchful eye for encroaching lions.”

Suddenly, my lips moved.

“Prey,” it spat out. “Prey. Prey.”

“Yes, that is prey,” I thought. “The hyena is eating prey.”

It raised my tired hand toward the screen, letting the fingers brush against the surface. There was still peanut butter in the creases of my nails.

“Prey,” it said again. “Prey good.”

 

On the second morning, my body was up at dawn. It was energized, pacing back and forth. It had figured out how the doors in the apartment worked after playing with the handles. It was eyeing the front door, as if considering a venture outside. But first, it was scouting.

As it figured out how the window blinds worked, it started to look outside. It was searching for something, standing completely still. It sat for a full hour staring at the cars passing by and memorizing nearby roads and landmarks. It felt animalistic; crouched on the kitchen table, staring. The body made a noise every time someone walked by, like a yappy dog. Some of them were people I knew, or acquaintances. It was a pretty small neighborhood, so these were faces I recognized.

I remember seeing a woman with a stroller. She stopped to pick up her baby, cradling it and comforting it. My body perked up immediately, pressing my face against the glass. I could feel something in my mouth. Saliva.

“Prey,” the body whispered. “Good prey”.

“No,” I thought. “No, no, no. Bad. Bad prey.”

It wasn’t listening. Not a single muscle changed. It crawled off the table, then looked at its hands. It curled the fingers over and over, as if expecting claws to come out. When they didn’t, it looked around the room, spotting my knife block next to the kitchen sink. It took a moment of fidgeting, but it managed to extract my largest knife. It quickly figured out how to work the handle, turning the knife into an extension of its arm.

Knife in hand, I watched my body rush to the front door, panting like a dog excited for a run. It was flailing my arms around, knocking down things from the walls. Still just wearing a blanket, it tugged on the handle of the front door. Thankfully, it was locked. It hadn’t figured out what a lock was yet. It pulled on the handle, squealing with frustration.

“Prey!” it barked. “Prey!”

I tried to interject my thoughts with “no” and “bad”, but to no effect. It stabbed the knife against the door over and over, eventually breaking the tip with a clean twang. Getting increasingly irate, it checked the other doors, trying to work out why one could be opened, while another couldn’t.

“Prey!” it kept barking. “Prey! Prey!”

It had some kind of breakdown. Being unable to leave, it started to throw around furniture and decorations. It smashed paintings, broke a chair, and pulled out drawers of cutlery in the kitchen; spilling forks, knives, and spoons across the floor with a clattering bang. At one point it picked up a cup and threw it at a window, breaking it. It watched the cup sail right through, landing on the grass outside. That made it stop.

It walked up to the window, carefully looking at the sharp edges. It was figuring out that glass was brittle. Looking down, it could see we were on the third floor, and it didn’t seem all that eager to fall from a great height.

 

It’s difficult to explain where my mind was at that moment. I was trying not to scream into the void, thinking this was going to last forever. I was helpless, watching my home get smashed to pieces. I was watching my own hand, grasping a knife, and feeling myself drooling at the sight of “prey”. It wasn’t just a matter of fear; it was a matter of existential dread. What if I really was stuck? Would I look out through those eyes for decades? Would I be seeing myself become a murderer? Or was I to, eventually, disappear entirely? What the hell was “I” anyway, and what part of the body did I still inhabit?

My body eventually settled back into bed, calming down. The nature documentaries were on pause for commercials, showing a woman happily accepting a package. She turned the lock on her door and greeted the postman, giving the million-dollar smile right next to the corporate logo. My body sat up straight. It looked down at its hand, doing a twisting motion. It was learning; connecting the actions it saw on the screen to the properties of my door. While the “prey” was long gone outside, that wouldn’t stop it from performing an experiment.

It rushed to the front door, placed my hand on the lock, and turned. There was a click. It turned the handle, and the door swung open. The world opened up, showing a staircase leading downstairs. Thankfully, there was no one in the hallway. I can’t imagine what I must’ve looked like; wrapped in a blanket, wielding a knife, my eyes and hair a mess. It retreated back inside, closing the door and locking it. It seemed to understand the concept of a defensive barrier.

 

As afternoon turned to night on the second day, it found a black marker. It’s one of the things I keep in a bowl next to my keys, which was accidentally knocked over earlier. It found this marker and probably thought it was some kind of food. After licking it and spitting at the acrid taste, it instead chose to admire its coloring properties. Drawing a line on my wallpaper, it realized what this thing could be used for; marking things.

With the TV still running, I watched myself tear down everything on my bedroom wall. A mirror, a portrait, a decorative cactus. Then, using the marker, it started to draw.

“Prey,” it said, drawing a sort of stick figure surrounded by sharp lines, resembling teeth.

Then it searched its mind for another word. It couldn’t figure out which one, or how to describe it. It pondered for a while, watching the TV. There was a story about penguins huddling together in a colony. It took it a while to get the word right, going from co-lo-lo to co-ni-no, to finally, colony.

“Co-lo-ny,” it repeated. “Co-lo-ny.”

It drew identical stick figures next to one another in a group.

“Colony.”

It was making a list of important things. Food. Tribe. And now, it was looking for something else. It turned the head around the room, looking up and down. It was this very room that it needed a word for. A word for shelter.

“Home,” I suggested. “The word is home.”

It made a grunting noise in disagreement. The narrator on the TV talked about penguins nesting, which seemed to resonate better.

“Nest,” my mouth corrected.

It made a drawing for “nest” by four black walls in a square. As it stepped back to view its work, I asked a question.

“If this is a nest, what is home?”

It blinked, then looked down at the marker. It drew another square, but filled the inside with a solid black.

“Home.”

 

It was trying to figure something out. There were combinations of words. There was the Nest-Colony and the Home-Colony. There was Good-Prey and Bad-Prey. It was drawing, making lines, combining symbols into concepts.

There was the Good-Home that seemed to be an origin point. From there, I saw it drawing the Good-Colony. Then there was the Bad-Home. It illustrated Bad-Home as a filled-in square surrounded by a circle. The idea was fairly simple. It was currently in Bad-Nest, in Bad-Home, with Bad-Colony. It wanted to go to Good-Home, using Good-Colony. To get there it needed to avoid Bad-Prey, and hunt for Good-Prey.

It fell asleep clutching the marker, looking at the cluttered wall. A narrator prattled on in the background, talking about the penguins and their journeys across the blistering ice.

 

By the time I woke up on the third day, my body was already up. It had laid out all knives on the kitchen counter. It drank water from the running shower and washed itself. After spending some time in the hallway, it managed to figure out that shoes could be worn on the feet. That made it inspect other things, eventually putting on a hoodie to keep warm. Then, it opened the front door.

It didn’t take long for it to understand how stairs worked. It also noticed the other doors – doors of my neighbors. The implications were making a dent in its thoughts; there were other people, and they were near. I could feel a hand tightening over the knife handle. It continued down the stairs, carefully peeking around every edge and corner.

As it reached the ground floor, it looked outside. I could see Roger out there, having a smoke and chatting with another neighbor. He hadn’t noticed us yet. My body hissed.

“Bad-prey,” it mumbled. “Bad-prey, bad-colony.”

Someone came down the stairs, and my body leapt to action, hiding around the corner. As an older woman walked by, I could feel my nerves and tendons tensing, preparing myself to jump and strike at a moment’s notice. I was trying to hold back an age-old instinct that wasn’t even my own, but there was a kind of laser focus that I couldn’t distract from. Like a cat watching a plump sparrow.

But it never leapt, and it never struck her down. She walked straight out the door, never knowing she was a breath from being murdered. Hissing, my body ran right back up the stairs, and back into my apartment.

Using a marker, it made plans. I had this calendar, the one I mentioned before, which it realized it could flip. It was a handy way to keep several drawings at once. On the first page it drew all combinations of words that it knew. On the second page, it used those words to describe the situation. On the third page, it tried to plan ahead. At one point it was drawing too fast for me to understand – its language devolving into an absurd short-hand of stick figures and shapes.

It took a plastic shopping bag and inserted its arms into the handles, letting the pouch of the bag rest on the front of my torso. It soaked clothes in cold water, dumping it into the bag. It was a way to store water; it could suck the water from the cloth like a sponge. It gathered some raisins and nuts, eating some and pouring the rest into the plastic bag.

Then it waited for the sun to set. It was going to travel by night.

 

On the evening of the third day, it crept out of the apartment, staying low to the ground. Wielding the knife, it tip-toed down the stairs, keeping a close eye on the other doors. It shivered a little from a sudden chill, but didn’t seem deterred.

Then, a door opened. Roger’s door.

He peeked out, spotting me. I can’t imagine what he must’ve thought at that moment.

My body froze, seemingly contemplating my options. I felt the knife handle. My knees were bent, ready to spring into action.

“Prey,” I muttered.

I hadn’t decided if he was good or bad prey, it seemed.

“No,” I thought. “No, Roger is bad prey. Bad. Very bad.”

“Row-yore,” my body muttered, looking my neighbor straight in the eye. “Row-yore.”

Something shifted in Roger’s expression. At first, he’d been worried, and a little amused. Now, there was something else. It’s like he realized he was about to step on a coiled rattlesnake. Something clicked, and he threw himself backwards, slamming his front door shut. My body exploded into action, bursting forward at a speed I could never replicate. It grabbed his door before he could lock it, pulling it open. I caught a glimpse of Roger’s face as he used the momentum to swing the door closed again. The back-and-forth pulling ended as my body got a kick to the shin, and the door swung shut with a click.

I could hear Roger’s wife screaming as my body turned to run.

 

Once out of the building, it stopped to look at the stars. It wasn’t admiring them; it was mapping something. As it spotted the pole star, it leapt to action; running heedlessly through the freshly cut evening grass and into the wild underbrush beyond. Scratching my legs and arms on thorns and branches, I disappeared into the forest.

I could barely see. My hands fumbled forward, leaning against tree trunks as my feet slipped on wet rocks and leaves.

“Bad-colony”, my mouth snarled. “Bad-nest. Bad-prey. Bad row-yore.”

“Roger good,” I interjected. “Good.”

“Good row-yore prey?” the body asked.

“Bad prey. Very bad.”

It didn’t seem to understand. It let out a frustrating grunt and continued on, watching the shadows of the forest for movement.

That was one of the longest nights of my life. I could feel my body growing weary, but it had somewhere it needed to be. At one point, it crossed the highway, and there was nothing but luck keeping me from getting run over. It didn’t stop to look both ways; it just ran.

At one point, it climbed a large rock. It was surprisingly adept at it, getting up there far faster than I would. In some ways, it seemed to be able to better utilize my body than I would. Other times, it seemed completely lost. It could scale an almost vertical rock, but it would trip over fallen branches.

 

As dawn rose on the fourth day, I found myself sitting on a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, sucking moisture from an old t-shirt. My arms and legs were covered in cuts. Then, I noticed a woman approaching.

She was walking up a small forest path. At first, I thought she might be a hiker, but she was dressed surprisingly formally. All black, all business. My body perked up, looking at her. Not like it had looked at others. There was something there, some kind of recognition. She made a calm hissing noise, as if trying to get me to settle down. My body stayed seated, looking at her. She stepped up to me, holding a small pen light and checking my eyes.

“You’re still in there, aren’t you?”

I tried to answer, but I couldn’t. My body raised a hand, carefully touching the woman’s hair.

“Good-home,” my body muttered. “Good-colony.”

“Yes, good home,” the woman answered. “Very good.”

Using the other end of the pen light, she poked me with something. There was a sting on my neck as my hand dropped and my body toppled over.

 

My mind was racing a hundred directions at once. At one point I could control my fingers again, but the sensation came and went. I could blink, but only one eye. I could partly move my tongue. As I came to, I was lying on the side of a gravel path, my hands handcuffed behind my back. The woman was sitting next to me, snapping her fingers in front of my eyes.

“You drank expired mineral water,” she said. “Almost 30 years old.”

“What?”

I didn’t realize I could speak. The word just slipped out of me, but it was my own – spoken by my actual tongue, albeit with some pushback.

“You drank something bad. It’s running through your system. I’ll extract what we can.”

“Who are you?”

She put on gloves and produced the largest syringe I’ve ever seen.

“Part of something bigger.”

 

As she stuck me in the spine with that syringe, my body was torn with pain. I could feel something inside my mind being pulled and pushed. I saw my memories as two-fold, overlapping my hands with images of claws and teeth. I imagined my face dipping into an open chest cavity, tearing at raw meat with predatory fervor. I could hear the narrator from the nature documentary.

“…a watchful eye for encroaching lions…”

Then, the voice of my neighbor, Roger.

“… don’t be scared to ask for help…”

I saw myself crouching in a field of dry grass, holding something in a scaly hand. There were others near me; their eyes shining in the moonlight. I could hear my voice, but using another’s words.

“… Good-Colony…”

I saw myself swimming. Diving. Spearing strange creatures and feeling the warmth of their blood spread through the waters. Dragging something by a slick fin through black sands as the young cheered and hollered on a torch-lit beach. The pole star looked the same.

Then, the sound of a crying infant. An all-encompassing, helpless, squealing.

“Good-Prey.”

An emotionless image of a mother torn from her child is drawn further and further away, fragmenting as the syringe digs deeper into my spinal cord, and pulls a dark veil over thoughts that were never mine to begin with.

 

When I woke up, I was lying flat on my stomach. I could feel gravel scraping against my face. I sucked in a breath, accidentally choking on dust. As I coughed, I could feel this intense relief flushing through me as realization dawned.

I was okay. I could control myself. They got that thing out.

It took hours to walk back home. I had nothing but a hoodie, shoes, and underwear. I’d lost the plastic bag somewhere along the way. I was shivering so badly that my teeth chattered, and I could feel my left eye starting to swell. There were bumps and bruises all over my body, and I’d twisted my right ankle, giving me a limp.

When I got home and entered my apartment, I saw the devastation for what it was. Everything was broken or thrown to the floor. They’d shut off the water to my apartment. The TV was still running, showing another nature documentary in the background. I stepped over glass and wood, slowly making my way back to my kitchen. The walls were covered in markings and signs, half of which I didn’t even remember making.

But it was over. Despite it all, it was over.

 

I talked to Roger the next day. He didn’t press any charges. He insisted that whoever that was, it wasn’t me. I know he recognized it was my body, but he had seen something clear; it was my body, but it wasn’t me. He’d looked me in the eye, but he knew there was something else holding the reins. He didn’t ask for an apology. He didn’t even ask what happened. He was just glad to see I was okay.

I checked the mineral water bottles. Turns out, they expired in the 90’s. I didn’t even know water could expire. There was this mineral build-up at the bottom that I thought about sending to a lab, but I ended up flushing it all down the sink and throwing away the bottles. I couldn’t stand thinking about them.

Despite it all, I stayed in that apartment for six more years. Roger and his wife eventually moved out, and now that it’s my time to move on, I have mixed feelings. Those four days feel like someone else’s life superimposed onto mine. It was a glimpse into something that shouldn’t have happened, and I can’t begin to imagine the implications.

I’ve never seen that woman again. No one has ever talked to me about it. For all intents and purposes, it’s like it never happened.

 

But sometimes, as I look up at the night sky, I see the pole star.

And I get this sense that something else sees it too.

Before I start, I want to preface this with something important. As you read this, you might be inclined to ask yourself why you haven’t heard about it. Why wasn’t this on the news? This should’ve been covered nationally, you might think. But there’s a reason it wasn’t, and by the end of the story, that reason will be more apparent. I’m telling this story - my story - from my perspective.

I probably have one of the most boring jobs in the Midwest. I go to the same building every day, I check in with security using my picture ID, I put a code in at the console, and I sit in my office. I’m sort of a data archivist. I work with an esteemed stock brokerage firm that’s been around for decades, and they legally need to keep their paperwork in order in case of a review. One day, absolutely nothing happens. The next day, you get a call for obscure files that were handwritten in the 80’s. When you do, you better have your ducks in a row. When you have a boss that doesn’t understand why they need you, you better make sure you do things right when they do.

It was 2024. I was doing alright, it wasn’t my first job, and it wouldn’t be my last. I’d worked there for two years digitizing archived information. Analytics, agreements, predictions, board meeting protocols… all of it. Scan, file, backup, repeat. I’m not exaggerating when I say a literal ape could do that job.

I was struggling to make ends meet. I’d been living with a roommate, but I had to move out on short notice. His girlfriend got pregnant, and the two of them were moving in together. The apartment was in his name, so I had to pack and leave. I got a two-room apartment in a nice neighborhood, and two months later the rent shot up. We’re talking a 35% increase overnight. Didn’t even know they could do that.

I was working as many hours as they let me. Sometimes I’d sleep in the office so I wouldn’t have to take the 30-minute drive back home. It saves on gas. I only drank coffee from the break room, and I was hand-washing my shirts in the sink. It was better than being homeless, but I was losing a lot of sleep. It’s hard to close your eyes when your mind is screaming at you to do something.

 

It was Monday morning in mid-June. I was 20 minutes early, overestimating traffic. The electronic doors swung open, and I greeted Lois at the reception. We didn’t get a lot of visitors, but the boss insisted on us having a friendly smile greet whoever stepped in. Lois had a very friendly smile – I think she used to be a kindergarten teacher. She waved me in. I held up my pictured ID to security guard Cole as I passed him by the stairs, taking the long route down.  It was so hot that the metal railing in the staircase burned my hands if I held on too long.

While I worked in the data archive on the basement level, there were three more floors with people slaving away for the firm. 125 employees in total. Three security guards on rotation. Plenty of fire exits that’d never been used, and locked doors that’d never been opened. This place was a sleeping fortress that’d never been challenged.

I got to my office, a small room adjacent to the server bank. Plain walls, apart from a poster with a kitten chewing on a blue sunflower, with the caption ‘this fish smells weird’. You could hear the servers humming through the wall, but the noise-cancelling headphones helped. Damn thing was flaking though, leaving me with little black spots in my hair that made people think I had fleas. Not great when you’re coming up to chit-chat during lunch.

There’d been six requests over the weekend. Not bad, I was expecting at least a dozen. Only one of them was time-sensitive, so I’d have to get that done by lunch. The others could wait until Wednesday, at the earliest. I might do them earlier if I got bored. All in all, nothing unusual.

 

According to official reports, the first disturbance was recorded at 10:15am. There was a short power outage that caused the building to go dark for a couple of seconds. Some of my colleagues would later tell me they noticed a couple of things ahead of that, but that didn’t make the report. One guy on the second floor told me that his paperclips had started spinning. Just like that, spinning. The janitor told me his battery-powered radio started screeching like a 90’s internet modem.

I was in the second-floor breakroom when it happened. I was talking to Michelle in HR about getting some new headphones, but she was having a completely separate conversation with Mark about a homemade mustard recipe. I was about to walk away with a fresh cup of coffee when the lights flickered. I heard the fridge power down. It’s amazing how quiet things can get when all the little machines stop running. And why do we seemingly hold our breaths while waiting for it to come back?

There was this loud boom on the third floor. A couple of plates fell off the counter, tumbling to the floor. Someone thought it was an earthquake and dropped to the floor, and others followed. I didn’t know what was happening, but I got under the break room table just in case. There were screams, but I couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from. They were seemingly everywhere.

I joined a group of others heading for the staircase. There was this one guy who was supposed to be a supervisor, yelling that the elevators were off limits during an earthquake. Someone was yelling back that it was an active shooter. People were calling emergency services and hiding under their desks. I saw the door to the staircase at the end of the hallway, about 40 feet ahead of us.

Then the door swung open with a bang. Smoke billowed out, and there was this loud crack. I saw something roll out of the smoke. Something small, like a football. At first, I thought it was a broken melon. It was this weird mix of white and red, but it had something attached to it. I think it was Mark who started yelling first.

“It’s a head! It’s a goddamn head!”

 

If you’ve never experienced an “every man for themselves” moment, let me tell you what it’s like. You are no longer a person. Whoever you are becomes an impediment for a herd of people flocking to get away. They won’t stop to check on you. They will push, and shove, and scream, and kick. Even Michelle from HR. I was thrown off balance and pushed up against the wall. As I realized I was at the end of a long line of people running away, I decided to dip the other way – you don’t want to be the last in line when chased. There was a storage closet just across the hall, so I ran straight ahead and threw myself in there, slamming the door shut behind me.

I propped myself up against the door, keeping it closed. The storage closet didn’t have a lock, and there was a slight hole where the mechanism was supposed to be, giving me an impromptu peephole. I could hear this meaty squish noise as something moved down the hallway, and for a split second, I saw something massive. At least 8 ½, maybe 9 feet tall. It was wearing something dark and was covered in what looked like blotches of wet skin. I saw hands, a metal sheen, and spikes. It passed a couple of feet from the door.

I heard it entering the main floor. The screaming got louder. There was a loud ‘thunk’ noise and another yell joined the choir. Someone fired a handgun, then suddenly stopped. I held my head down and fumbled with my cellphone, trying to get a call through. I couldn’t believe how sweaty I was; my fingers left streak marks on the touchscreen. I decided it was better not to make any noise. Not even a whisper. Someone else had probably called for help anyway, so I turned the sound off and stuck the phone back in my pocket.

According to official reports, the suspect entered the main cubicle area at 10:21am. He fired a rudimentary metal projectile at an unarmed office worker, pinning him to the wall with a shattered scapula. A security guard opened fire but was unable to halt the offense. 18 people barricaded themselves in the meeting room, while 31 managed to get out through the fire escape.

 

I remember sitting there on the floor, trying to make myself as small as possible. I had my head against my knees, trying to block out the sounds. I knew I’d be hearing them in my nightmares. I’d heard people screaming before, but this didn’t even sound like people anymore. We’d been reduced to frightened animals, screeching this recurring danger noise back to our flock, hoping to hide in greater numbers.

Then I heard the footsteps. Metal rattled with every step as this massive thing came my way. There was a click as a mechanism was put in place. There were already sirens outside. A couple of minutes passed as the screams grew more distant, before there was a knock on the door. I didn’t say or do anything, I just held my breath and stayed down. There was another knock, then a push. Remember – there was no lock. The door opened inward, making my weight the only thing standing between whoever was out there, and me.

Then the door flung open. I was thrown face-first into a shelf, knocking down cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I could immediately tell I was going to get a bruise. The door was open, but no light was coming in. Whoever was standing there was big enough to completely block the view.

I remember seeing a head hanging from a chain. I didn’t want to look at it, but I couldn’t help it. It had these dead, tired, eyes. They don’t roll back and turn white like in the movies. It had this big metal screw pressed into the cranium, with a chain connecting it to a belt. That’s the first detail I saw.

“Don’t do this,” I whispered. “Don’t do this.”

A hand reached in, grabbed my collar, and pulled me out. I was thrown to the floor like a wet towel.

 

He was taller than anyone I’d ever met and dressed in makeshift metal armor. It looked like old cookware, this black, thick, roughly hewn and oiled metal. There were spikes with little lights coming out of his back, and he had this helmet resembling a kabuki mask with big, puffy cheeks. He was wielding what can be best described as a harpoon, but without a retraction mechanism.

There was blood everywhere. It was dripping from him. I counted at least three severed heads. There were limbs strewn across the hallway. He had fresh strips of skin hanging from his shoulders, slapping against his armor with every step he took.

And now he was looking right at me.

I wanted to say eight things at once. I wanted to say I was a nobody, and that I just worked there. I wanted to say he could do whatever, and I’d look the other way. There was nothing I wasn’t prepared to do to be able to close my eyes and disappear into myself – far away from the monster staring me down. The words got stuck in my mouth, and I ended up stammering and whimpering.

He raised his harpoon back up and checked a little black cube he’d taken from his belt. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped something on the floor in front of me, gesturing to it with his weapon. I picked it up.

It was a small, laminated card. It was all scrunched up and yellow with age. It only had two words.

“ARCHIVE NOW”

I looked up, blinking at him. I read it again, nodding.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get you there. It’s in the basement. There’s a door code, and-“

He stomped his foot, making the gore on his armor rattle. He held a hand out for me to return the card. I did, and he slid it back into a pouch on his belt. Pushing me in front of him with the harpoon raised, he forced me towards the staircase. He checked his black cube one more time, making sure all was in order.

 

He’d done a number on the place. There were streaks of black along the walls, like a bomb had gone off. Fresh blood on the floor, making the staircase stink of iron. I almost slipped in a puddle as I hurried down. As I did, I noticed him removing the severed head from his belt and dropping it behind him, like he was leaving a trail. When we got to the first floor, we had to go out and across the hall to another staircase. We would have to pass through the reception.

He took out three capsules. Two gray ones and a red. He kicked the door down and threw it all out in a bundle; chaos erupted immediately. There was a cloud of dust and smoke that bloomed out, and I heard gunfire. Blood splattered on the wall, and it sounded like someone screaming for their life. We walked out into the hallway as people were running past us through the smoke, desperately trying to make it to the front doors.

The attacker grabbed the first person he could, dragging them along with us. As it happens, it was the receptionist, Lois. She flailed and screamed. He had this hold on her where his hand could fit over her entire head like a basketball, and when he squeezed a little, she went quiet. There was blood trickling down her face, but I’m not sure it was hers.

I had to take point, leading him to the basement stairs. There were no people down there, so at the very least no one else would have to die. Official reports recorded the assailant moving through the building, entering the basement staircase at 10:29am. First officers on-site were busy setting up a perimeter around the front of the building, while another patrol was set up along the fire escapes. About 70 people in total had evacuated.

Witnesses speak of having seen the man handling strange technological devices on the third floor, prompting officers to treat the initial contact as an active shooter and potential bomb threat.

 

Walking down the basement stairs, the sounds of approaching sirens faded. The man dropped another head at the door, leaving a blood-smeared handprint on the wall. Pushing Lois in front of me, the two of us took point. She looked at me, and I looked back. Neither of us dared to say a word as I felt the poke of the harpoon.

Coming down to the archive level, I put in my code and opened the door. The man struggled to get inside, having some of the spikes on his back snag on the corners of the doorframe. As we made it inside, he held up his note again – pointing with a big finger on the word ‘ARCHIVE’.

“This is it,” I said. “This is the archive.”

He pointed at me and Lois, then at chairs over by the corner. We sat down and kept our hands visible. He removed a bag from his shoulder and connected a couple of cables from his helmet to an antenna. He checked the black cube again and put it down on a table. It was making little bleeping noises, like it was scanning for something. Lois whispered under her breath.

“He’s going to kill us.”

“Calm down. We’re still here. We’re okay.”

“He’s going to kill us.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe he’ll take this and leave.”

“Take what? What’s there to take? He’s crazy!”

I didn’t have a good answer. 50 years of financial records and transactional data. Why’d anyone need that?

 

He started doing this strange thing where he removed spikes from his back, and I could see they had a white strip of light going up the side. He took one of the spikes and rammed it right into a server bank. The white light turned red, then began to rise. As it reached the middle of the spike, the light turned yellow. It was charging or loading something.

He went all around the room, pushing down spikes into our servers one by one. Once one of them finished he retrieved the spike and put them in a pile in front of us. He left this roll of metal threading on the floor and pointed to Lois. She started bundling the spikes together, which seemed to please him. He returned to check the cube once every couple of minutes, impatiently walking back and forth. I saw him looking into my office at one point, noticing my cat poster. He looked back at it a couple of times.

I don’t know how long we sat there, but I could tell things were happening upstairs. Official reports state that, at 10:40am, most civilians had been evacuated from the building, but that there were about a dozen still unaccounted for. They were treating it as a bomb threat and hostage situation, with presumed casualties and several wounded. They couldn’t go in guns blazing – they had to wait for a specialist team to arrive. Meanwhile, there were police surrounding the building, demanding the offender to come out with his hands visible. A hostage negotiator was on route.

Once he had a bundle of twenty fully charged spikes, the armored man picked the black cube back up. He stopped to listen, turning his head upward. He could tell there was trouble brewing outside. Getting a pep in his step, he loaded the bundle up like a backpack and grabbed Lois by the arm, forcing her to take point as we went back up the stairs.

 

As we returned to the reception and into the light of day, I could see the front doors. I could see shotguns and handguns pointing our way. Sirens blaring, lights flashing, officers taking cover behind their doors. Lois was pushed ahead, and when she looked back, the man shooed her with his weapon. He was telling her to run. She didn’t stop to think about it and rushed for the front doors. While the officers were busy dealing with her, he kept going across the hallway and into the staircase leading back to the upper floors. He wasn’t letting me go yet. There was something left to do.

It was tricky getting back up the stairs. I’d never seen so much blood in my life. I could see it dripping down the main shaft; these long drops falling from two floors above. He kept going up the stairs, checking his black cube as he went. We made it all the way up to the third floor, where he had seemingly entered. I can’t imagine how he’d done that, but that’s where all this had started. The door to the staircase was blown out.

As we entered the floor and moved past a window, someone outside fired a shot. It dinged off the side of his helmet, making him step back. He grabbed another red capsule from his belt and threw it on the floor ahead of us. It exploded with the sound of a gunshot. Blood spurted out in all directions, and there was this noise coming from it like someone was dying on the floor. It was a small device, like a speaker, but it sounded like a real person.

Official reports speak of a successful shot that wounded the assailant at 11:01am. Witnesses describe it as seeing the shot connect, blood spurt out, and hearing a painful wailing. Seeing as the assailant was wounded, the threat was less immediate, giving the special weapons team more time to prepare a response.

 

We were moving from room to room as he checked the black cube over and over. As we got to the third-floor meeting room, something went wrong. He seemed frustrated, like something wasn’t going according to plan. He stepped down on one of the office chairs, crushing it. Holding the cube up like a compass, he turned his face downward, as if looking at the floor below us. We were in the wrong spot. Grabbing me by the arm, he pulled me back to the staircase; making sure to stay clear of the windows.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the police were preparing a squad to enter the building from the third-floor fire escape. They were still waiting for clearance and determining the rules of engagement, but we were talking about a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, we were making our way back down to the second floor.

He was in a hurry. He threw furniture to the side like it was nothing, moving like a wrecking ball. We had to go through the break room to stay away from the windows. He bowled over the water cooler and coffee maker. At one point he accidentally bumped into one of the door frames; they’re not really built for people his size. His tools rattled a little, and he dropped his black cube. I don’t think he noticed.

I don’t know why I picked it up. It was just there, and he was looking the other way. I snatched it off the floor. It was this four-inch cube, but it seemed really important to him. The corners were so sharp you could accidentally cut yourself if you weren’t careful.

 

As we made it back to the main cubicle area, I saw the result of his assault. One of the office workers was still nailed to the wall with a long metal rod. It had pierced his shoulder. He was still breathing, but he couldn’t move. I knew the guy, he worked in targeted advertising. At least he wasn’t dead, but the more he struggled the more he hurt himself. I gave him an apologetic look as we hurried past him.

I rounded the corner to the main workspace with the armored man right behind me. The room was a mess. It was covered in blood stains, and I could hear these weak screams coming from under the desks. I could see those red capsule casings littering the floor, like the ones he’d used when he got shot. There was something off about this. All of this. I got the feeling that I didn’t see the entire story.

As he stepped into the middle of the room, he stomped his foot down and looked up. Using something akin to a laser pointer, he drew a circle in the floor. Waving at me with his harpoon, he was silently shooing me away. I was free to go, just like Lois. I didn’t think twice about it; I turned and headed for the staircase.

Official reports speak of a tactical breach at 11:09am. Flashbangs were deployed by the fire escape on the third floor, where they thought the attacker had been shot. Another team entered through the bottom floor. There was still a suspected bomb threat, but an active shooter took precedence. All attempts at communication had failed, so they had to move faster than usual and take some risks.

 

I heard this frustrated growl as I realized I was still holding onto the armored man’s black cube. I don’t think he ever noticed dropping it. I could hear people coming down the stairs, yelling out instructions. I wasn’t really watching where I was putting down my feet as I almost tripped on a severed head. It was the same one that’d been thrown in when I first saw him – the one I’d mistaken for a broken melon. I could hear a tactical team in the staircase, and thundering footsteps coming from behind me. But I didn’t look either way – I turned to the severed head.

The eyes were painted on.

It all clicked. The blood smelled wrong. The skin flaps on his armor were a bit too stretchy. And now, looking down on the floor, I realized this was a fake. Theatrics. Shock and awe.

But when I turned around, the threat was anything but exaggerated. The armored man was standing further down the corridor, harpoon raised and hand outstretched. He wanted the cube, no doubt about it. I could hear officers coming down the stairs, taking care not to slip on the blood. I remember hearing words like “fan out” and “cover left”.

Looking down at the cube, and back up at this metal-covered giant, I didn’t know what to think. The cube had this slick surface, like a perfect ice cube. It was cool to the touch, but not freezing. I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. He lowered his harpoon, as if to show good faith. Maybe a negotiation.

“What is this?” I asked. “Is it a weapon? A bomb?”

He grunted at me and raised his left hand, pointing at something on the wall.

An exit sign. He pointed back at the cube, then at the exit sign.

“An exit?”

He tapped the sign again.

 

I threw the cube back to him. I don’t know why, but if he stayed a little longer, there’d be a firefight. Not only would I get stuck in the crossfire, but there’d be other casualties. Giving him the cube back seemed like a good idea at the time; maybe it didn’t have to get any worse. He caught it and held it up, checking one of the sides. He glanced back at me as the voices approached, giving me a nod. He dug out something from his belt and threw it at me as he disappeared around the corner.

The first thing to hit me was a gray capsule. It exploded in this glittery gray dust, stinging me with tiny slivers of glass. The second thing that hit me was a little plastic case. I couldn’t see what it was, so I just clutched it in my arms and fell to the floor.

According to official reports, I was encountered by officers at 11:11am. I was dragged outside as the team swept through the rest of the building. There was a small localized explosion in the middle of the second floor at 11:12am. In hindsight, it’s been argued that this smaller explosion was most likely the result of a larger charge failing to detonate. There is no way to be completely sure. The assailant was never recovered.

As the last people were shepherded out of the building, me included, the scene looked like something out of a war movie. People covered in blood and wrapped in blankets as their loved ones offered their condolences. But if you looked a little closer, you noticed something strange. There were plenty of ambulances in the parking lot, and none of them were occupied. No body bags.

Only two people got shot by the harpoon. The security guard, Cole, took a shot to the meat of his thigh. The guy from advertising got stuck to the wall. No one else was shot. The blood turned out to be a mixture of corn syrup, cocoa powder, cornstarch and food coloring. The severed heads and limbs were all theatrics. Not a single one was real.

 

While the attack was reported, it wasn’t a big headline. The police didn’t want it to make national news – they’d endangered the lives of civilians for what turned out to be smoke bombs and corn syrup. Yes, there’d been two injuries, but they were relatively superficial. And, all things considered, they were lucky. They made it out, and this was all framed as a “failed terrorist attack”. The material damage, however, was quite severe.

Now, there was one more thing. The case. The thing he threw at me before he left.

The case contained a CD. It took some time to get it to work, it had some kind of quirky 90’s encryption, but I got it to run on an older machine. The CD contained financial data similar to what we’d had in the archives, but from another firm. But here’s the kicker – the data covered transactions and market movement that were two years into the future. Things that hadn’t even happened yet.

Using what I read in those documents, I put my savings into some very targeted stocks at a very specific time. In March of this year, that paid off.

I am no longer in need of employment.

 

I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t think the armored man spared lives out of the goodness of his heart. Looking at the effects of the assault, I think it was a matter of earning time. Nailing someone to the wall makes sure there are innocents around. Police can’t go in guns blazing when someone needs medical attention. Letting Lois run out the front door showed that he might have hostages, and that he was ready to let them go in time. It was a calculated attack, but it was clear that the end goal wasn’t terror and death – he wanted what was in that archive, and that was that.

I have no way to know where he went. I think the answer was in that little black cube; his exit. Some say that he blew himself up, but that’s not what I think.

There was never a bomb.

 

Marco and I were sitting on a bench, having hot dogs. It was the only kind of meal we could get our hands on before we got to the site. They were getting ready for us, setting up warning tape down by the beach. Marco was savoring every bite of his meal. I’d just finished mine.

“You know, I used to hate mustard on these things,” he said. “Now I can’t get enough of it. Dijon, spicy, honey… love it.”

“Good for you, man. I’m not much of a mustard guy.”

“I’m just saying. The mustard was always there. It hasn’t changed. It didn’t get better to accommodate me, you know? I changed to better fit the mustard.”

“I have a hard time believing that you, wanting to enjoy mustard, was the sole reason for you to evolve your sense of taste.”

“It’s just weird when you think about it. You thinking about it?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

One of the officers waved us over. I got off the bench and whistled for the other volunteers. The sun was about to set, and we had a long night ahead of us.

 

I’d been to Lullaby Beach at least once or twice a year since I was fifteen years old. Now I was about to turn 42, and I was still around. It was the one place where gray whales tend to get beached. The old ones get swept in by the current, and they get confused by the rocky coastline. I once talked to a marine biologist about it, who called this one particular spot a perfect whale trap.

Still, it broke my heart every time I saw one. Their big cow-like eyes wondering why everything hurt.

We were six volunteers coming down to check her out. We’d got there early, so we would just be assessing damage and making her comfortable for now. If she was okay to be moved, we’d be looking at bringing in some inflatables in the morning and digging out a trench for the current. But for now, we were just looking.

Freddy was already crying. Whales are his favorite animal. The guy has six different shirts with whales on them, all with little hearts and cartoonishly sad eyes. Before we even saw what kind of whale it was, he was bawling his eyes out. He’d already given her a name; Minnie the Whale.

It wasn’t normal for cops to oversee this kind of thing, but we’d had some problems with random people coming down and getting hurt when no one was around. These animals are so immense that even an accidental movement can be enough to get you killed. It happens, and if it happens once, you bet your ass someone is going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The cops knew me though. Every six or seven months or so, I’d be first on-site.

 

Walking up to a whale is unreal. You gotta remember that you’re looking at an animal the size of an inner-city bus. While gray whales might not be as big as the famous blue, they’re still humongous. You can’t really fathom their size until you’re standing there with your hand on their rough skin. Like a mix of sandpaper and wet cardboard.

Minnie was different from other gray whales I’d seen. She had this thick layer of salt on her skin, to the point where she smelt like pickles. Her breathing was short and shallow, but that might just have been the distress. Being surrounded by little strange creatures would probably stress out anyone.

“I’m not seeing damage,” Marco called out. “I think she got turned around.”

“How’s the eyes?”

“Closed. I think she’s resting.”

“She’s so beautiful,” cried Freddy. “And she’s healthy, right?”

I nodded, looking her over. No unusual smells, no blood in the sand. We’d have a proper marine vet check her out in the morning, but things were looking good.

“Looks like it,” I said. “Let’s get her comfortable and clear the rocks.”

One of the officers overseeing us whistled.

“You got an hour, we can’t stay here all night. Do you what you gotta do.”

“An hour?” Freddy protested. “We can’t do shit in an hour!”

“It’s what you get for now. We’ll be back in the morning. Can’t leave you folks on your own out here.”

He pointed at me, growing impatient.

“You can stay a little longer if you want, we’ve got your papers in order.”

 

Marco’s initial assessment was that Minnie was healthy enough to make it a day or two. She was an adult, but not elderly. Probably strong enough to have some kids once she got back out there. As the others cleared out, I was left on my own. As a veteran working this beach, and many like it, I had a bit of a working relationship with the law. People who knew what they were doing didn’t get into whale-related accidents, that was just a fact. And someone had to keep an eye on Minnie.

After a while, it was just me and the whale. I got a closer look at her. She had this big scar between the eyes, probably from a boat. She’d been lucky; the Oregon coastline is rocky as hell, but she’d managed to slip right up the smooth sand. If they’re unlucky, they can skewer themselves if there’s something sharp beneath as the tide recedes. I gave her a gentle tap on the head, shushing her as she rested.

“We’ll get you out, girl. Don’t worry.”

There wasn’t much I could do until morning. I’d already sent out the requests and got confirmations, so we were good to go. I figured it was best to sleep in the van; it was an hour drive back home and an hour drive back. I’d only get about three, maybe four hours of sleep at most. Might as well nap in the back of the van.

As I turned to leave, I felt this wave of heat. Minnie was opening her mouth, letting out this pent-up warmth. It smelled like kelp and rock salt. With her mouth open, she made a noise. I stepped a little closer, being sure to give the distressed animal some space.

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “We’ll get you home.”

“…thank you.”

 

I blinked. Where did that voice come from? I took a step back, looking up and down that immense creature. My first thought was that someone else was left behind. It sounded like a woman, but not like any woman I knew.

“Excuse me?” I said. “Who’s there?”

“…I am here.”

Such a sweet voice. Like a caring mother, trying to calm an anxious child. Minnie moved her mouth a little.

“…do you not hear me?”

The voice seemed more muffled the more closed the mouth was. It seemed to be coming from inside her. I blinked again, trying to figure out just how tired I was. Had I been drinking?

“No, I hear you,” I said. “Who is this? Where are you?”

“…I am right here, silly.”

The whale’s left eye stared at me.

 

I turned my back and walked away. I didn’t even think twice about it, I walked away. Something was clearly wrong with me. I got back up to my van, hopped in the back, and got a first aid kit. I checked my pulse and blood pressure. I tried counting down from ten, and I checked the size of my pupils. Maybe Marco slipped something in my coke while I was in the bathroom at the gas station.

But from what I could see, I was fine. But I couldn’t be, right?

I rolled out a sleeping bag, but my heart wouldn’t stop racing. My mouth felt dry, and I could still smell the salt of the whale. I was not okay. But I wasn’t going to be okay just lying there either. I had to take a deep breath, control myself, and look at this objectively. Whales can’t talk. That’s not the kind of world we live in. Hence, I must have imagined it, or it wasn’t the whale doing the talking.

I made my way back down the beach, fully intent on exposing whatever this was. The moment I returned, the eye shifted my way again.

“…where did you go?”

“You’re not talking,” I said. “You can’t be talking. You can’t understand me.”

“…I do.”

“Then blink three times.”

She did. Three blinks, in rapid succession. My knees weakened.

 

I walked a couple of laps around her, watching every angle. Apart from the salt, there wasn’t anything strange about her. No stranger than any other unfortunate thing I’d seen on that beach. But she was an animal, not a person. Not a being capable of making polite conversation. And yet…

“If you’re a whale, talking to me, explain why you’re here.”

“…I promised I would be.”

“You promised to get stranded and die?”

“…I promised to meet a friend.”

“What? What friend?”

“…she lives in the city. Would you mind fetching her for me?”

I laughed. I actually laughed. I walked in a circle with my hands on my hips, shaking my head.

“You got some nerve, I’ll give you that.”

“…you are very helpful. That is one of many reasons I enjoy you.”

“You enjoy me? What’s the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

The whale shook a little. Was that a laugh? Can whales laugh?

 

I moved right up to Minnie and brought out a flashlight, looking into her mouth. The voice was clearly coming from inside, but I couldn’t see the source. Then again, a voice doesn’t really have a source, it’s just the way you shape your airways. Problem is, whales don’t have that kind of biology. Hence, the words couldn’t be coming from the whale.

“…are your children well?” Minnie asked.

“My children? You want to ask about my children?”

“…yes. Are they well?”

“I’d rather not talk about my children.”

“…what of the small one, is he still playing the string instrument?”

Something cold shot up my lungs. I have two sons, and the younger started playing guitar about a year prior. He was getting pretty good. I scratched my head, as if trying to tune my ears to only hear something that made sense. I was so shocked by the question that I couldn’t even begin to respond. Instead, I asked a question of my own. One I didn’t really want an answer to.

“Do you know my family?”

“…I know them well.”

 

The whale carefully explained. It knew the name of my wife and two children. It knew the name of my dog, and the name of the street where we lived. It knew my full name, including my middle name, and the name of the wildlife rescue organization I worked for. It knew the color of the wallpaper in my bedroom; a flowery arrangement of yellow tulips and blue sunflowers. But by then, I’d made up a theory.

“You’re just me!” I said. “You couldn’t know these things, but I do. You’re just telling me things that are already on my mind.”

“…find the woman,” Minnie said. “She is a stranger to you, why would you know her name?”

She had a point. If this was my own mind playing tricks, it wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the name and address of a person I’d never heard of. Saying things about my family was one thing, that information was already in there, but this was something else. Something I could check. I excused myself and walked back to my van, firing up my laptop. Minnie had given me the full name and address. Galina. It was an unusual name, so I’d remember seeing it.

It didn’t take long for a result to pop up. Galina was, for all intents and purposes, a real person. I confirmed the address and the full name. I checked my contact list and newsletters if there was ever a mention of this woman, but she was nowhere. We didn’t even work in adjacent fields; she was an administrator at a private prison company.

How could a whale know a name? How could it know me?

 

I contemplated my options. I could try to just go to bed and wait for morning. I could go back and talk to Minnie a little more. Or, I could just sit back in my van and pretend I had an answer. Neither of which seemed like good options. I couldn’t get the phone number for Galina, but I had her home address. I could be there just before midnight if I left right then and there. I wasn’t about to ‘fetch her’, but maybe she had some answers.

I checked the time, strapped my seat belt, and drove off.

Hitting the road helped a lot. I could occupy my mind with speed limits and stop signs for a while, occasionally looking down at my GPS. I’d gotten a text message from Freddy, asking if Minnie was okay. I assured him that she was. He’d made an open call for more volunteers to come in the morning to help dig her out. He was getting a lot of likes.

Galina lived in a gated community to the north. It was just further up the pacific coastline, but it was a bit isolated. Not the usual rich people kind of home. Once I got close, the GPS didn’t really know what to do. There were entrances, but they were locked. There was a gated fence, with a night guard on duty. I drove up and slowed down. He came out with his flashlight, giving me a once-over.

“A little late for solicitation,” he said. “You lost?”

“I’m with marine wildlife rescue,” I said. “I’m looking for a Galina.”

I gave him the full name and address.

“Oh, I know she’s all about animal welfare. Not sure she’s expecting you at this hour though…”

He picked up the phone, said three words, and looked genuinely shocked. With no further discussion, the gate swung open, and he directed me to the third house on the right.

 

There were rows of two-story homes and open yards. B-list movie stars and stockbrokers. Probably some billionaires in a witness protection program, who knows. I didn’t like the vibe of the place; nothing healthy is ever this clean. I followed the guard’s instructions and drove up a gravel road, stopping just short of a garage that could easily hold at least six cars.

The moment I stepped out of my van, a man walked out the front door. He was dressed in a bathrobe and holding a cocktail, pointing at me with his whole hand.

“You!” he yelled. “You get the hell out!”

“I’m sorry, I was told Galina was-“

“You don’t talk to her! You get back in your car and fuck right off, you hear me?”

I sat back down in my van, only to see a woman emerge from the house with a handgun.

 

Galina was in her early 50’s, her pale complexion highlighting her crow’s feet. She had these tired brown eyes, and spoke with a soft voice. She raised the handgun towards the man with the cocktail; her husband, or brother, one could assume. She was dolled up. Full makeup, a yellow summer dress, and her hair all done and dandy. No handbag.

“This is happening,” she said. “It’s happening, and you’re not stopping me.”

“For Christ’s sake Gale, you pull a gun on me?”

“You’re the one telling me you’re gonna duct tape me to a goddamn chair, of course I’m pulling a gun!”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Twenty-eight years!” she spat back. “Twenty-eight years I’ve planned this, and you knew it! You knew it from day one!”

She rounded the van and got in the passenger seat, still holding her gun. She closed the door and put on the seatbelt. She nodded at me to go as the man threw his cocktail on the windscreen, cracking it in the top left corner.

“You can’t just leave!” he called out. “I love you! We’ve got Hayden’s wedding in six months!”

She wasn’t answering anymore. She just looked at me, keeping her hand on the gun.

“Drive.”

 

We left through the gate and got back on the road in silence. As the houses disappeared behind us, she breathed a sigh of relief. She checked her gun; a six-chambered revolver. It was fully loaded. As if just now realizing what she was holding, she popped open the glove compartment and threw the gun in there, holding it with two fingers like it disgusted her. I tried to put my questions into words, but I just ended up stammering a couple of syllables. Finally, I got a full sentence out.

“What do you think this is about?”

“The beach,” she said. “She’s back, isn’t she?”

“You mean the whale?”

“Whale,” Galina snorted. “Yeah. The ‘whale’.”

She rolled her eyes, then looked at me. A realization dawned on her as she turned to me.

“Wait, you’re not kidding, are you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I thought you were part of the pod. What are you, fourth in line? Sixth?”

“In line for what?”

She tapped me on the shoulder, pointing at a gas station up ahead. Same one Marco and I had stopped at earlier to get hot dogs.

“Stop for a bit,” she said. “I have to do something.”

 

We parked at the gas station, and Galina hurried out. She jogged in and started grabbing things by the armful. Cheese snacks, beef jerky, sugary drinks and chocolates. As much as her skinny arms could carry. There were two other guys in there, and they looked at her like she was on drugs. She ran up to the counter and dropped it all off with a fwomp.

“Total is $39.46, will that be cash or credit?”

Galina looked back at me, then down at her snacks. She took off her jewelry. A necklace, an earring, a wedding ring. She put it all down and looked at the cashier.

“The ring alone is $8000. Take it.”

She pushed it over to him. The cashier just stared at her in disbelief. He made no objection as she walked out with her arms full of snacks. Before I could leave, he called out to me.

“Hey,” he said. “Is the lady okay?”

I shook my head and shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

 

Getting back on the road, Galina was shoveling snacks into her face, ruining her pretty makeup and lipstick. She was almost bouncing in her seat, making these content humming noises as we drove off.

“I can’t believe you haven’t said yes yet,” she said as she devoured a chocolate-frosted donut. “If they got you driving, you’re pretty far ahead though.”

“Said yes to what, exactly?”

“You know, the proposition. Isn’t that why you’re doing this?”

“I’m doing this because I need answers.”

“Well, that’s why I’m doing it too.”

“No, I need to know why a goddamn whale can talk.”

“Whales can’t talk, are you crazy?”

“Then what the hell’s that thing on the beach?”

“Why do you need a label?”

“I don’t need a label, I need to know what the hell is going on!”

Galina slowed her chewing and washed it down with some red Mountain Dew, spilling it on her pristine dress. She was barely a quarter through her stash, and she was already looking full, letting out a belch. She unclipped her seatbelt, leaned back, and kicker her feet up on the dashboard.

“When I first started, in the nineties, they were just looking for anyone. People that didn’t have anywhere to go, people looking for purpose, that sort of thing. But it didn’t know what it wanted, right? So those first few people got all torn up.”

She opened the window, letting the wind ruffle her hair a bit.

“We couldn’t keep doing that. So there was a vetting process to make sure we only brought out good people. The appropriate people. And hell, I wasn’t even on the list! I haven’t been on the list until now, and I’ve been begging for a spot. The fact that you haven’t agreed yet is ludicrous.”

“Please just answer me this one thing,” I insisted. “What have you been on the list for?”

Galina closed her eyes, letting out a relieved sigh.

“I’m going far away,” she smiled. “After all these years, I’m going far, far, away.”

 

We made our way back to the beach, and I put the car in park. Galina kept her eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the ocean. My phone dinged again. Freddy was updating our socials with images of whales we’d rescued over the years to drum up some volunteers for tomorrow. Looking at them, I noticed something. Last whale we helped had a scar between the eyes as well. How could I not remember that? They looked remarkably similar.

“I’ll be honest,” Galina yawned. “I didn’t know if I wanted it at first. It was scary as hell. But once you get a little older, a little more mature… you know what you’re getting into.”

“You’ve met it before.”

“Oh, many times,” Galina smiled. “But she hasn’t summoned me before. Not like this. Every time she’s returned, I’ve been rearing to go, and now, finally…”

She clasped her hands, offering a silent prayer.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”

 

She ran down the beach. I had trouble keeping up. As we rounded the corner and the whale came into view, Galina threw her arms open as if expecting a hug. The whale made a deep trembling noise and flapped a fin.

“…you are here.”

“I’m here, I’m here!”

Galine ran up to Minnie and pressed her body against the whale’s skin. There was not a moment of hesitation. Minnie, in return, seemed a little livelier.

“Have you decided where I’ll go? I didn’t know what to pack, so I just put on something pretty. It’s not the cold one, is it?”

“…not the cold one,” Minnie reassured. “You will see the green one, off the coast of Portugal.”

“Portugal!” Galina squeed. “Oh, my darling, you know me so well.”

Galina gave the whale a kiss and turned to me. She put a hand up, waving at me with just her fingers in a dainty goodbye.

“Thank you,” she said. “And don’t worry. It will all be fine.”

Turning back to Minnie the Whale, she held her arms open and closed her eyes. Minnie opened her mouth.

 

Something emerged. It looked like an expanding flesh-like mass, like a viscous balloon composed of a swarm of tendrils. Hundreds of appendages, like oil-slick newborn arms. Each with dozens of hinge joints, covered in brine and mucus, and ending in a long claw-like spike.

They slowly wrapped around Galina and pulled her into the whale’s mouth.

The last thing I heard from her was an excited laugh – like a kid coming down a roller coaster.

 

I stared in disbelief, my mouth trembling. Should I say something? Should I run? How far could it reach?

“You ate her,” I mumbled. “You fucking ate her.”

“…thank you for bringing her.”

“You tricked me! You made me do this!”

“…I asked politely.”

“What the fuck are you?”

“…you always use such colorful words.”

I took a step back as the tendrils emerged again. This time faster. One of them reached out and tripped me while another slipped under the back of my shirt, emerging through the collar. It felt like warm algae rubbing against my skin.

They pulled me back. I protested and flailed, but it kept pulling me back.

“…you made it further last time,” Minnie said. “Perhaps next time, you will not run with such vigor.”

I was pulled in, and the whale’s mouth closed. I was poked by something sharp as the air turned sour. It felt like being pulled across a pool of wet jellybeans, until the ground gave way and I fell.

 

You know what the strangest thing is?

It wasn’t a new feeling. I’d felt it all before. Minnie was rifling through my pockets, looking at all the pictures in my wallet. The one with me and my wife in our bedroom, next to our flowery wallpaper. The one with my youngest child playing the guitar. I was choking from a lack of air, but there was something punctured in my leg that made my lungs swell and recede; like I was breathing, but not through my mouth.

The best way to explain it is a conveyor belt. I was pulled down and processed. Clothes removed, hair checked for lice, flipped back and forth like a hamburger. Every fold of skin turned and inspected, cataloged, evaluated. Some of the appendages had hands. Fingers.

The voice was everywhere. I’d been pulled inside it.

“…your loyalty is admirable.”

I wanted to say something, but as soon as I opened my mouth, something pushed inside. I felt a suction against the roof of my mouth as something chemical pushed into my brain. There was this sickly smell, like burnt sugar and flower detergent. There was a pressure from behind my eyes, so powerful that I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t think. My heart wasn’t even beating of its own accord; it was accepting directions from a foreign agent. An outside being, pushing itself in.

“…I am so pleased to have you here.”

 

I blinked. I was somewhere else, but I hadn’t moved.

I was standing on a warm beach as the sun set. Sand slipping through the space between my toes. In the distance, a city burns. The sky is black from smoke, blocking out the stars. The ocean bathes in lightning strikes as a storm of the century approaches. A storm to end all storms.

Someone grabs my arm and leans on my shoulder. I turn my head to see Galina – but not the way I’d seen her before. She was in her prime, the crow’s feet around her eyes replaced by wonder. Her tiredness gave way for eagerness. She still wears the same yellow summer dress. She hugs my arm tight and closes her eyes contently.

“Don’t be discouraged,” she says. “You’ll get here soon enough.”

“I don’t want this.”

“Neither did I, at first,” she says as she kicks the sand around. “But things change. And even if they don’t, just… look ahead.”

The closer I look at the burning city, the more impressions I get. People cooking alive in the seat of their car. Bomb shelters overflowing, pushing out the elderly and the sick. The sky cracking open above the clouds, out of reach.

Galina kisses me on the cheek as she backs away, letting her feet soak in the ocean. The water is boiling, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“It’s not everyday you’re invited to someone’s house,” she smiles. “If you never say yes, sooner or later, they’ll stop asking you.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Depends on the house.”

She laughs as she falls, her body dissolving in the tar-like ocean water. The fires spread, engulfing the beach, as a hundred hands pull me to the safety of the void.

 

 There’s a soft hand stroking my cheek. Another brushing my hair. There’s laughter, and kindness, and beauty. A refreshing drink after a satisfying sleep.

“…I will care for you.”

Sculpted muscles and sensual dances. Fragrant, well-combed hair on a soft pillow. Sweet nothings whispered as I’m half-asleep.

“…would you care to stay?”

Fingers intertwining with mine. I push them away. There’s a pain in the roof of my mouth. I shake my head, and I can’t answer, but I make my will crystal clear. I’m willing it a ‘no’. I’m saying no. No, no, no!

“…there is always next time.”

I grab the thing in my mouth and pull. A six-inch long bone spike recedes as an inhuman pain explodes in my cranium.

Darkness gives way to the morning sun.

 

I’m face down in the sand, naked. A bright light is crawling up on the horizon. The water’s coming in, slipping into the corner of my open mouth. My arm is numb. I can feel a wound on the roof of my mouth, and it looks like I’ve been stung by something on my shoulder. There are puncture wounds on my skin. Discoloration. Infection?

“Jesus Christ, are you okay?”

Marco’s voice. I try to turn my head, but I can’t bring myself to move. He’s running up to me, his feet splashing me with cool ocean water. I hear Freddy in the distance, and a lot of other people. They brought the cavalry.

“She got loose all on her own?” he laughs. “How did she do that? How did she-“

“Freddy, shut the fuck up and look for his clothes!”

Someone said I had a fever. A police officer was calling for medical assistance. A dozen volunteers with Minnie the Whale shirts took pictures of the wet outline in the sand, celebrating her departure. But as it turns out, even people with regular experience of whales can have accidents.

 

Minnie made it off that beach, and back into the ocean. I was taken to the hospital and given antibiotics. My wife and kids were beside themselves; I’d never been injured at work before. Not like this. I’d gotten stung by nasty insects before, but that was months ago. Come to think of it, I’d gotten similar stings last time I went to help a beached whale. According to my wife, at least. I have no memory of it. That one, too, had barely required any effort on our part. It’s almost like it swam back on its own.

Marco came to visit me in the hospital, chowing down on a cheese and ham sandwich with extra mustard. We were just talking like we always did.

“You know, Marco, I don’t like mustard.”

“I know.”

“I don’t have a taste for it, but I’m getting there. I’ve tried it. Getting used to it.”

“Ain’t that strange?”

“I dunno, Marco. You tell me.”

He thought about it, turning the question over and over. Then he nodded.

“You know, I don’t think it is. It’s delicious. It just takes a while for you to get that.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Maybe.”

 

The moment I got out of the hospital, I wrote down what I could. I’m posting it now, but I suspect I’ll forget that I ever wrote it. Some details are already spotty. I can’t remember what Galina’s husband looked like, or the address where they lived. I can’t remember exactly how tall she was. It’s like there’s this gel in my brain, hardening around just the parts of the night that it wants me to remember. Putting a hand on the skin of a gray whale. Lying down in my sleeping bag, waiting for dawn.

I’ve written down what I can, and I’m sharing it. I hope I’ll come back to this someday. I hope it happens before I change my mind. It’s going to happen again, I know it is. She flat out told me.

I’ve been doing this for decades. I don’t know how many times I’ve said no. I don’t know if I’ve ever been asked before. But I know for a fact that, in my heart of hearts, this wasn’t a sure thing. I didn’t give Minnie an immediate no.

I’ll just have a little mustard. Just a taste.

Maybe I’ll learn to like it.

A couple of years ago, I walked in on my wife Laura and her coworker, Henry. The same guy she’d promised there was nothing going on with. Same guy we’d had not one, but four different fights about. Especially after the Christmas party; someone shared a picture on their socials with the two of them slow dancing. She had insisted and sworn that nothing was going on, and yet here he was with his tongue down her mouth.

It feels strange to be in a moment like that, where you know there was one distinct life before, and a separate life after. But in that moment, all I could focus on was the sweat bead on his brow, and his hand on her chest. Part of me wanted to cry, but another part of me wanted to fight. The fighting part won. I ended up beating Henry within an inch of his life. He got a jaw fracture, a concussion, and lost nine teeth. It took three men to pull me away. Next thing I know, I’m in county jail.

It was a fast trial. I took a guilty plea. The judge acknowledged that I had no prior record, and that it was an emotionally charged situation. Despite that, he couldn’t condone vigilantism. I got a three-year sentence with the possibility of parole after one. And, of course, a restraining order. Needless to say, Laura is now my ex-wife, and I found out how expensive a divorce can get.

 

I could write a whole book about my experience in jail, but what I want to talk about is what happened after that first year. When it was time to review my options, I was asked to stand in front of the parole board. Five people who were to decide what to do with me. I’d behaved. I’d showed up for the anger management classes. I didn’t have any beef with any of the inmates, and I kept to myself. Odds were on my side.

“After reviewing your case, we see no issue with proceeding as intended,” they said. “Do you agree to the terms of your parole as outlined in the agreement presented by the board?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Have you been given the opportunity to properly review the conditions with your legal counsel in a timely manner?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Then unless anyone has anything to add, I think we can proceed with-“

The board members on the far right raised a hand and looked at the others, waving her fingers a little for attention. Miss Wells. She was in her mid-30’s. African American with a bright smile and square glasses. She was a little younger than the others and dressed in more expensive clothes. I’d seen her before; I think she’d been rearing up to run for public office.

“Sir, are you aware that this parole is scheduled for the next 24 months?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Have you been informed that there is an option for a suspension of the last 14 months of sentencing?”

That made me raise an eyebrow. I looked over at my lawyer. He shrugged at me. Turning back to miss Wells, I shook my head.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Interesting,” she said, looking at the others. “Very interesting. There is an option for a 10-month parole, but with alternate provisions and requirements. Have you not been given the opportunity to review this?”

“No, I have not.”

“We’ll rectify that.”

 

The conditions of my parole were pretty bog standard. I couldn’t procure a firearm, I was to submit to random drug testing, not to associate with criminals, reporting to my parole officer, that sort of thing. It was scheduled for 24 months, but I was given the opportunity to start a 10-month program once I’d had time to review the alternate conditions. They handed me a folder and shoved me out the door.

At first I was just happy to be out, but after a couple of weeks I realized how the odds were stacked against me. My parole officer didn’t give two shits about the context of my incarceration; a felon is a felon. I was on the same level as drug dealers and gang bangers. You don’t get special treatment for being nice; they just look you in the eye a little longer.

I was having trouble finding a stable job. I was barely holding on to a part-time thing at a gas station and sleeping in my car in the church parking lot. And yeah, I wasn’t my best self. I kept seeing Laura living the high life on her socials. She wasn’t dating Henry or anything, their connection meant nothing. That somehow made it worse.

But looking at Henry’s scarred chin on his LinkedIn profile, I can’t say the fucker didn’t deserve it.

 

The 10-month program they’d offered me was called the ‘pilot enhancement scheme’. I’m not one to walk right into something named ‘scheme’, so I read through the folder cover to cover about three times over. It sounded a little too good to be true.

The pilot enhancement scheme was supposed to be this experimental program that allowed the state to invest less resources to monitor and control paroled inmates. I’d still have to submit to random drug tests, and I still couldn’t carry a gun, but there were certain improvements. I didn’t have to physically check in with my parole officer more than once a month, for example. But I had to agree to an external monitor device.

That’s where things got murky. It was called the compound wave pattern control, or the CWPC. This little electronic thing you kept behind your ear, no larger than a hearing aid. It came in six different colors, including transparent. It had a wireless charger and had a 20-hour battery life. But it wasn’t entirely clear what it actually did.

I remember lying in the back of my car, balancing my phone on my forehead, trying to read in the dark. I read the same sentence ten times over, but it didn’t make any sense.

“The CWPC monitors corrigible intentions and suggests alternate action patterns in accordance with provided guidelines of good personal conduct parameters. This is done through a mild and reversible external wave stimulus.”

The fuck does that even mean?

 

I scheduled a meeting with miss Wells from the parole board. The one who’d suggested the scheme to begin with. She’d given me her number, allowing me to ask further questions about the enhancement scheme. Not only were questions allowed, they were encouraged. I could schedule a meeting with her instead of going to a parole check-in, so it was a win-win.

I met miss Wells downtown on the third level of a small office building. It was abundantly clear that she was pursuing an elected position, meaning she was in no uncertain terms, a politician. That made me more nervous then the stupid tech jargon. You can trust a nerd with specifications. You can’t trust someone with smiling posters of themselves plastered on the wall. She was short, reaching no taller than 5’1. I think her small stature served her; it made her less imposing. You don’t want someone scary to offer you strange tech. As I entered her office, she walked over to shake my hand.

“Right this way,” she said. “And thank you for your consideration.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will.”

She showed me the CWPC. It really did look like a hearing aid. The thing was so light that I was scared to pick it up. Who knows how much something like that even costs? Miss Wells clapped her hands together and sat down on top of her desk like a cool youth pastor.

 “Isn’t it handy?” she said. “I’m sure you’ve read the specs already.”

“What does it do?”

“Why don’t you try it on?”

I looked at it and shook my head. She picked up the CWPC and held it out to me, giving me a knowing look.

“It’s not dangerous,” she said. “Yes, it’s a pilot program, but the results are astounding. You’d have to get struck by lightning for this thing to bother you, and by then, you got bigger problems.”

“So it’s not dangerous?”

“You tell me.”

 

I picked it up and turned it around. Putting it to the back of my ear, I could feel it slotting into place. There was a little startup beep, and that was that. I couldn’t feel a thing.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now it’s monitoring. That’s it.”

“So it’s a camera?”

“No, it’s all local, like a filter. We’re very serious about client privacy, as outlined in the extended agreement.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, please talk like a real person.”

She snorted at that and adjusted her glasses.

“You want real? Alright, let’s talk real.”

She got off her desk desk and looked up at me, pointing at my ear.

“That thing will get you off the hook in 10 months. You can’t break it. You gotta charge it. But if you sign the papers and walk out of here with that thing, today, you’re gonna notice that life will be a whole lot easier.”

“What’s the catch?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Raise your hand.”

I did.

“Now, think about hitting me.”

I put my hand back down, but she grabbed my arm and raised it, putting me back in the same position.

“Think about hitting me,” she insisted. “Don’t do it, but think about it.”

 

I did as miss Wells asked – sort of. I thought about pushing her away, because she was annoying. But something took hold of my conscious thoughts. The moment I thought about pushing her, a black square blinked in the top right corner of my eye, and my vision shifted. There were flashes of images. Each one went off in my head like a gunshot. I saw miss Wells falling and breaking her foot. Screaming on the floor. I saw her limping, weeks later, and falling down a staircase because she couldn’t get the crutches right. I saw her eyes turn white, dead, and cold, as her neck snapped.

The image dissipated, leaving me with a burning sensation that turned my ear flaming red. My eyes teared up with a thick viscous jelly that stuck to my lashes. Miss Wells was standing in front of me like nothing happened, offering me a paper towel.

“That’s what it does,” she said. “It detects corrigible intentions.”

“It’s messing with my brain.”

“It’s reminding you of the consequences of your actions. Is that something to be afraid of? You do a lot of unconscionable things?”

I couldn’t stop looking at her eyes. They were brown, but I could imagine them with a thin layer of dust. Her head looked different with a broken neck. I shook my head and felt an ache. Maybe a sympathetic pain from what I’d seen.

“I suppose I don’t,” I said. “And it’s only 10 months.”

“That’s all there’s to it.”

I took the deal.

 

First few days with the CWPC went by with no issue, to the point where I thought the thing didn’t even work. It wasn’t until I got stuck in traffic on my way to work that I got another jolt. I was getting frustrated with the driver ahead of me, and it triggered the machine. I got the same flickering black square, and this explosive head noise with every image shown to me. It all played out in front of me in the space of a breath.

I saw the driver; an older man and his teenage daughter, trying their best to cut a yellow light to get away from me. They ended up getting T-boned by a Mazda and a Jeep. I saw firefighters trying to pull them out of the wreckage. There was fire, and crying, and screaming. A woman scraping her knees against the asphalt, clutching a cross around her neck and screaming at the top of her lungs that the Devil took her baby. The Devil took her baby.

When I came to, I slowed down. There was no wreckage. I was still muttering that woman’s words. Devil took her baby. I wiped the eye jelly with my sleeve as I felt my ear flaming up again. The effect was painful, but I couldn’t deny that it calmed me down. It put things into perspective how a little road rage could destroy lives far beyond my own. I had to stay in control. Device or no device, I had to be careful.

That was pretty much the worst of it. I could feel it flare up a couple of times over the next week, but nothing quite like that. It almost triggered when I cut in line at the supermarket, but I managed to step back before it went off completely. I got away with a warm ear and an apology. I thought it might go off when I watched the Timberwolves game with some guys from work, but the device didn’t react at all. It seemed to be able to register the context of emotional reaction to a game differently.

All in all, I was pretty happy with it. I could go ten months with it, no problem.

 

With a little more leeway, and a little more freedom, I was able to get some more hours at the gas station. Not much, but enough that I could afford a motel room. No more sleeping in the car, but I had a long way to go before I could get an apartment. Most days, I’d forget I was even wearing the CWPC. I had one of the guys at work ask me about it, and I just said it was a new kind of air pod.

Working the counter was the only thing I didn’t like doing. Stressed people can be frustrating to deal with, and some can be outright demeaning. People like feeling better about themselves by putting down the guy working the register. They like to flash their most expensive cards or make snide remarks.

I had the CWPC trigger three times in one day. The last time, I imagined jumping over the counter and strangling a woman on the floor. I saw the whole chain of events, leading all the way up to her family crying over her picture as her closed casket was lowered into the earth. The moment I came out of it, I almost broke down in tears. I kept apologizing to her despite not actually doing anything.

The CWPC wasn’t meant to be comfortable. The damn thing burned as the battery ran hot, forcing me to alternate between my ears. Just triggering a couple times a day was enough for a boil to pop up on my skin. Thank God I don’t have to wear glasses.

 

After a month of using the device, I’d gotten into a rhythm. I charged it at night, I wore it during the day, and I stuck to the straight and narrow. If I felt it going hot, I stepped away from whatever I was doing. If it actually triggered, I went ahead and did something else for a while. I got a cream to put behind my ear and started carrying a handful of wet wipes for the eye jelly.

Then one day, as I worked the register, Henry walked in. Yes, that Henry.

He was getting some cigarettes, but that was enough to send me down a rabbit hole. Laura hated cigarettes. She’d made me quit smoking when we first started dating back in college, but she had no problem rounding third base with this guy?

The thoughts snuck up on me. I imagined walking out from behind the counter and breaking his goddamn nose. But as the device triggered, I saw the rest of it play out in my mind’s eye. How he toppled backwards, smacking the back of his head on the cold stone tiles. How he ended up in a hospital on life support. His brother holding his hand as they pulled the plug. I could feel the sorrow of it. The hatred directed rightfully back at me.

The moment I snapped back, I got a wet wipe and cleared the jelly from my eyes. Henry looked at me, shaking his head.

“…are you crying?”

“I’ll let someone else take this.”

“You’re crying, aren’t you?”

He crossed his arms, clearly confrontational. Maybe our last encounter made him feel like less of a man. Maybe belittling me made the scar on his face feel a little lighter. I stepped away from the counter and asked one of the other guys to take my place as I slipped out the back.

 

Just a couple minutes later, I met Henry outside in the parking lot. The CWPC was on the edge of triggering again, but I did my best to stay calm. As long as I didn’t look at him, I was fine. I could think about nice things. Purring kittens. Grass beneath my feet. Serene blue sunflowers, swaying in the wind.

“Don’t think you can take me when I ain’t got my pants down?”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“I ain’t here to get you in trouble,” he said. “I just want you to know you’re a bitch.”

“Yeah, fine, a bitch.”

The back door clicked. The thing is on an automatic timer, and I’d been out a little too long. I’d left my keys on the counter by the register. I’d have to walk back around, but Henry was in the way. I tried making a wide turn, but he cut me off.

“Man, prison did a number on you, huh?”

“I’m just trying to work, man.”

“I think we’ve got some unsettled business.”

He raised his fists, but I shook my head. He was clearly looking for a fight and I couldn’t risk it. I looked up at him, met his eyes, and felt the CWPC firing up.

“What’s it gonna take for you to let me go back to work?” I asked.

“How about I beat the shit out of you?”

The CWPC triggered. The black square flared up. I could see myself sweeping his leg and putting my foot on his neck. There were more images of him getting taken into an ambulance, but that just didn’t seem to invoke the same kind of emotional response in me. It wasn’t powerful enough, so it switched gears. The black square doubled in size, instead showing me a kid across the street seeing me kill this guy. This kid would be destroyed. He’d lay awake at night. He’d be in endless therapy sessions. They called him ‘Murder Boy’ as he played on the swings.

That seemed to get the reaction it wanted from me. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of that.

The moment I snapped out of it, I almost took the device off. I could take it off for a couple of seconds to wash my ear, but any more than that and it would alert my parole officer. This time, I wanted to chuck it into the parking lot and piss on it. I got another wet wipe and cleared my eyes, just in time to see Henry’s fist coming down on me.

It hit the CWPC straight on.

 

First thing that came to mind was that one thing miss Wells had said.

“You’d have to get struck by lightning…”

Well, it wasn’t lightning, but it was a fistful of knuckles with two thick silver rings, and they broke the battery. The gadget made a popping noise, leaving me with melting plastic and sizzling battery acid on my skin. I tried clawing at it to get it off, but it ended up burning my fingers. I stepped away, screaming, and I saw his face shift. He knew he’d fucked up. It was one thing to take a swing at someone; this was something else.

One of my co-workers came running as Henry took off. The one good thing to come from this was the fact that I could finally let my emotions out. I could act like an idiot without having a nanny cam burn through my mind. So I gave Henry the middle finger, and I raised my voice to tell him what to expect next time we meet. I had every intention of making a threat.

I stopped before I got past the first syllable. My right eye was twitching, and I could see the outlines of a black square. I didn’t even have the CWPC anymore.

 

I had to schedule an extra meeting with miss Wells to get a new device. I wanted to press charges against Henry, but there was no camera on that side, and I wasn’t even supposed to be near him to begin with. Bringing litigation into this was inviting a boatload of scrutiny, and he’d have the jury on his side. It was a pointless fight, even if I’d win. Much like what went down in that parking lot.

Returning to miss Wells, I had to wait in line. There were two other guys ahead of me. One of them was this rough-looking skinny dude with a crudely drawn cartoon tattooed on his neck. He kept looking up at me. At my ear, specifically.

“They got you with the butterfly eyes?”

“The what?”

“Butterfly Eyes. You got the burns.”

“Why you call it that?”

“Chaos theory, man. A butterfly flaps its wings, there’s a hurricane in Tokyo. We get to see that. Butterfly eyes.”

He pointed to his own ear. The skin around it was patchy and rough, like the scales of a lizard.

“Done the program two times,” he continued. “Makes you crazy.”

“Then why you keep doing it?”

“I told you,” he smiled, “I’m crazy.”

 

When I finally got to see miss Wells, I showed her my ear. The burns were pretty bad, but I’d put on a salve and some surgical tape. I couldn’t sleep on that side, but apart from that I was doing alright. She didn’t seem all that convinced.

“We can get you a new one, but I think you’re gonna need some time for that to heal.”

“You’re kicking me off the program?”

“Not at all! You’re enrolled, consider this downtime. Give yourself some time to adjust. Let’s say two weeks, alright?”

“That’s alright with you, it’s alright with me.”

“Good, good.”

She nodded as she closed a folder, inspecting my signature on the last page. As she put it away, and I got ready to leave, she crossed her arms and gave me a knowing look.

“Have you had any problems?” she asked.

“What kind of problems?”

“Since the CWPC broke,” she clarified. “Some folks reported dizziness when it crashes unexpectedly.”

“Not sure. Maybe a couple of twitches.”

I could tell she didn’t like that answer. She didn’t like it at all.

 

I thought a couple weeks without the CWPC was gonna be a walk in the park, but it turns out things are rarely that simple. Now, I have no need to do bad things, but there are certain impulses that are impossible to repress. If someone was to jump out at me, I’d push them away – that’s just instinct. Same thing goes with other surprises like a sudden phone call, or when a car backfires.

I was crossing the road this one time. Late afternoon, coming home from work. Got a bag full of groceries. This car didn’t see me and slammed the breaks at the last second, screeching to a halt and barely grazing my left leg. There’s this loud horn and someone screaming. My adrenaline spiked and this guy comes running at me. My first thought is to keep him away, but as I raise my hands, something happens.

The black square flashes in the top right corner of my eye.

I see myself pushing him back. He stumbles into oncoming traffic, getting run over by a sedan. Blood on a broken windshield as a mother of three gets out of her car, crying for help. A boy in the back seat sees brain matter for the first time.

As I blink, the image dissipates. My hand shoots up to my ear, feeling the empty space where the CWPC used to be. My ear feels warmer as the man helps me to my feet, apologizing profusely. The effect was still there, despite the gadget being reduced to dust.

 

After that encounter, it triggered more often. Not just when I got nervous, or angry, but pretty much whenever I did any deliberate action. It could trigger when I buttered my toast in the morning, giving me a vision of me getting electrocuted. It could trigger in the shower, showing me slipping. But the worst was whenever I was out among people.

It’s the guilt that really sticks with you. It always frames your actions as the cause of suffering. You buy a pack of smokes? It shows you that it was the last pack of that brand, causing the next guy in line to have to go to another store. On his way there, he gets murdered. You wanna fill up with gas? You see yourself spilling, and someone later sets themselves on fire. I didn’t even have the CWPC anymore, but the visions kept coming back over and over again.

Every single day was filled with images of dying men, women, and children. Starving dogs, poisoned birds, baby kittens choking to death. Crying babies left in the car as my actions cause a mother to come back a little too late.

It was getting worse, and when I picked up the phone to call miss Wells, it triggered again. I saw her missing the last words of her dying father because he would call seconds after me. I held my thumb over the call button. It felt so real. How could I tell if the consequence was something to be expected, or something completely fabricated? I saw three more scenarios play out as my finger trembled over the call button. She misses a call from the hospital. She gets distracted and falls down the stairs. She looks away for a split second at an intersection.

Death, death, death.

But I pressed anyway.

 

Defying this thing just kicks the effect up to eleven. I can’t even count all the way it showed me miss Wells dying. The moment she answered, I couldn’t tell her real words from the screams in the gaps in my mind. One version of her politely says hello while another is being lit on fire, screaming at the top of her searing lungs. I can’t tell which is which.

“It’s broken!” I call out. “It’s broken, and it’s fucking with my head!”

She’s screaming at me, gargling battery acid. There’s crying, and pain, and I see the white of her eyes. Then she asks how bad it is.

“Please!” I cried. “Please, it’s not working! It’s out of control!”

The call disconnected. Maybe I did it myself, I couldn’t tell. The image subsided. There was blood flowing from my ear as the boils popped, making it look like I’d taken a bullet at point-blank range. I had to call for help. I had to try again. Miss Wells. Anyone.

I picked up the phone and dialed the emergency services, but I could feel it all coming back. The black square grew larger in the outline of my eye. I saw my one call blocking a child from reaching an operator in time, forcing her to watch her mother choke to death on the floor. An elderly woman trying to get through, desperately performing the Heimlich maneuver on her dying husband. If I pressed that call button, I would be the cause of so much pain.

I picked up my phone, got on my knees, and smashed it against the kitchen floor over and over. That helped a little. The visions couldn’t come back if I couldn’t make any calls.

 

Somehow, it got worse.

Every step I took could cause another trigger. It might show me stepping on a ladybug. If I hadn’t done that, it would have distracted a kitty cat from walking into oncoming traffic. A little girl sleeps alone because of me. I flush the toilet and see the pipes clog, causing a blockage that stops a man from getting that glass of water he needs to swallow his life-saving medication. Do pipes even work like that? That’s what it showed me, so it had to be true.

Every single action I took, I was bombarded with impression of how fucking awful I was. Every action leading to consequence of pain, death, dismemberment, and this endless sadness. I started to see so much terror that I went from having the image of a dead person on my mind to having a catalog of them. I could no longer think about a single dead individual. There were too many of them.

After a while, they all start to look the same.

I would lie in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Even the most basic autonomous actions of my body would cause images of pain and destruction. I stole a breath meant for a better man. I blinked at a moment when I needed to see something critical. I raise a hand, blocking a signal from reaching an intended target.

I tried holding my breath, but I couldn’t win. Living or dying, breathing or not, none of it mattered. All I saw was the never-ending circle of pain emanating from me, killing everything cursed enough to be in my vicinity.

What the hell was I supposed to do? If you’re getting the same result either way, does it matter what you do?

 

I stayed in bed for two days, just watching this endless loop play out in front of me. I must have seen millions of people die. Tens of millions. I could see it in excruciating detail; in ways I could never have imagined on my own. There are so many ways to get cut by a knife. So many nerves that can be severed. I could anticipate the pitch of a death scream from the angle of a cut.

Since it didn’t matter what I did, I got up. When I did, I could barely see anything. I was experiencing the world as a kaleidoscope of possibilities. In one world, I’m taking a step forward. In another, I’m crashing through the floor, killing the guest in the room below. But I’m still taking that step. If I would have killed something either way, what does it matter if I get up to get a glass of water?

It felt like re-learning everything. I had to stop relying on my sense of hearing, as my ears had swollen to the point where all I heard was my heartbeat. The right side of my face was caked in dry blood, and I could tell I was a little pale in the bathroom mirror. I think I was, at least. I saw so many things in that mirror that I can’t tell which was the real me.

What surprised me the most was how these images made me feel. At first, I’d felt like the worst man in the world. Like the core and center of all evils, but after a while, I didn’t feel a thing. If I feel the same putting on shoes as I would shooting a man in the head, what’s stopping me from doing both?

 

I tested the boundaries a little. I took a walk around the neighborhood. Yes, the images were there. No, I didn’t care. I thought about things that I knew would trigger a response, like pushing a woman into traffic, or taking a taxi to Henry’s place and rip his tongue out with my bare hands. Yes, the images remained. More death, and terror, and guilt. But that was already there. If everything is already tuned to max, you can’t go louder.

I don’t know when I decided to do something. I don’t think it was a conscious choice. Maybe I thought about testing a little more or doing something stupid to see if I could get the damn thing to short circuit my brain completely. I remember picking up a knife and stuffing it in my pocket. I remember throwing a potted plant out my bedroom window. I punctured the tires of a parked car, just to see if things could get worse.

And yes, I saw images of a family of four careening off a steep cliff. Yes, I saw an elderly woman getting the back of her head caved in by a potted plant. But I would’ve seen variations of those things even if I’d just stayed in bed, breathing, so what does it matter?

 

There was this long road. I think I took the bus. I either stabbed a man or paid the bus fare, I couldn’t tell. Maybe both. It was supposed to be a ten-minute ride, but it was dark when I got out. I walked in circles, not arriving at my destination until well after midnight. I recognized the shape of the name on the door, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. I wasn’t knocking anyway; I just had to be sure I was in the right place.

I thought about having a civil conversation with Henry. I thought we could work things out and put this behind us. After all, I did a number on him. I’d deserved to be punished back then; I’d been out of control. But I wasn’t like that anymore. That rational part of me was a fraction of an exponentially growing cavalcade of actions. When the most sane part of you occupies a ten-thousandth of a percentile, you have to expect yourself to submit to the irrational.

I’d intended a conversation but ended up breaking through his window.

Before I even saw him, I’d killed him a thousand times over. By the time he stepped out of his bedroom in nothing but his boxer shorts, I’d already heard the multitude of death screams he could muster. I didn’t plan to do anything. I had no intention of hurting him. I just let whatever came naturally happen. Whether that was apologizing or putting my hand down his throat was a coin toss. Let the chips fall where they may.

I saw myself stabbing him to death a hundred times over, and it was nothing I hadn’t seen before. But I didn’t see a single word where this man was not condemned to die a horrific death.

 

I think someone pulled me off of him. There was this pain in my arm, and I was having trouble breathing. I was face down on the ground. Strange red and blue lights illuminating new corpses with every rotation. I think miss Wells was there, too. There was a man in a white coat with a scalpel. When I didn’t see him stabbing himself to death with it, he was being instructed to do something to me. I was given a tranquilizer.

When I woke up, I had this awful ringing noise in my head. The right side of my face was burning, and I couldn’t hear anything. I was lying on the side, looking at a hospital room. There were no images. No screams. Just me and miss Wells.

I couldn’t hear her speak, so she wrote something on a tablet. Her hands were trembling, and I could tell she’d been crying. She spelled out an explanation as simple as she could.

I had done something bad. They had to remove my right ear, and puncture my eardrums. I was going to be okay, but things were going to get complicated.

 

I had a couple of false alarms as my ears healed. I would imagine seeing that black square, but I never really did. I was so used to having my head occupied with things that weren’t my own that it was strangely empty without it. Sometimes I had this feeling in my gut that maybe I was still stuck inside one long vision, and that I’d snap back to whatever moment triggered it. Maybe it was that meeting with Henry in the parking lot.

I don’t think they were allowed to continue with the scheme. They’d had hiccups before, but never anything like this. There was a settlement, an agreement, and I relocated to the west coast under a new name. Far away from prying eyes and curious questions. Funny how beating a man up got me a year, but killing him didn’t cost me a day.

Nowadays, you can see me walking down the street like anyone else. I go to the park to watch the sea gulls fight over French fries. Hush money runs deep, but there’s nothing for me to do with it. I want nothing. There’s this part of me that’s completely blown out, like they took a piece of me and left it on the floor somewhere.

I don’t turn my head when I hear a crying baby, and I barely slow down when the lights turn red. I cut in line at the store. I smoke in crowded spaces. I don’t care. I can’t care even if I wanted to.

You can’t see guilt through a butterfly’s eyes.

Back when I was in college, life seemed easy. You gotta work hard, sure, but it’s predictable. Even hard work doesn’t seem all that hard when you know it’s coming. You can prepare yourself. You can mentally put yourself in a place and say, ‘this is what life is going to be like, to some extent’.

What makes life hard is when that expectation is broken. When you’re thrown into something you not only can’t prepare for, but never knew about to begin with.

That’s what happened to me in my last year of college.

 

I want to preface with the fact that we weren’t party animals. We were gonna be engineers. We were, in one way or another, nerds. But when we had a good enough reason to cut loose and test our boundaries, we took that opportunity to heart. Myself included.

We’d just finished our midterms. Some of us had spent the afternoon preparing notes and trying to figure out how we did, while others stayed at home and tried to handle their anxiety. Not all were as emotionally tempered as me and my crew. And yeah, I say crew, but we were little more than acquaintances. We gave each other little nicknames and had a group chat, sure, but we could tell that once we were done with college we were never gonna see each other again. Except for Samson, he was cool.

On that one particular night, I’d been out a little too long, and had a few too many drinks. I’d been running up the stairs and my stuffy one-room apartment (that my parents paid for) was feeling a bit claustrophobic. I opened a window and turned on my floor fan. I can’t overstate how big this thing was. They used it at a department store when the AC didn’t quite cut it, but sold it off cheap at the end of summer to bring in new models. Damn thing was half as tall as me and sounded like a jet engine.

When I finally went to bed, I did so with the white noise of an open window and a blaring fan in my head, and I was too drunk to care.

 

It was the strangest night of sleep I’ve ever had. The noise of the fan and the street outside melted away in my head, and after a while I didn’t even hear it. I remember twisting and turning, wondering why it was suddenly so cold. I pulled the covers over my head, and I could hear the wind passing over me.

I conjured this strange image. For a moment, the covers didn’t feel soft and warm. They felt like ice. Like layers of thick, unbreaking cold. I could imagine myself beneath the surface as the wind screamed past, clawing to get at me. For a couple of hours, I didn’t feel like me. There was no fan, and there was no busy street.

It was layers of darkness, pressing down on me, suffocating me in the crystal cold. Holding my bones in a generational grip as the world wrestled with my presence. Frost sticking to my skin and cutting my flesh at a glacial pace.

Then I woke up.

 

The first thing I did was to sit straight up, look ahead, and speak.

“Tra.”

It was a two-syllable word. The ‘T’ sounded the ‘Thu’ noise in ‘Thus’. The ‘r’ sound in ‘row’. The ‘a’ sounded like the ‘a’ in ‘act’. In combination, it was like ‘Thu-ra’. With emphasis on the ‘A’.

I said it over and over. It was just stuck on my mind, and I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard it before. It took me a couple of minutes before I even realized how hung over I was. A couple more minutes to close my damn window and turn off the fan. I’d been hearing the noise for so long that when it finally got quiet, I could feel my own heartbeat pushing through my ears.

I brushed my teeth, shaved, and looked in the bathroom mirror.

Tra.

Why was I thinking that? Where’d I heard it? And why did I feel so cold saying it?

 

I kept mumbling it over and over during the day. Not because I was afraid I’d forget it, but because it felt different every time I said it. It felt like tuning a radio, saying it just a little more right every time. A little more emphasis on the ‘A’. A little more roll of the tongue on the ‘r’. Tra. Thu-ra. How did I know the spelling?

I remember getting some strange looks at the coffee shop. I was craving an Americano and there’s this place just off campus that had a huge discount for students, so I liked to stop by there at least once every other day or so. I dropped in just after the lunch rush to get myself a coffee and a bear claw.

As I’m walking around, looking for a place to sit, I’m still saying the word. I don’t realize I’m doing it, but I am. It’s like an audio stim, like how an old man might mumble “tut-tut-tut” and snap his suspenders. It didn’t mean anything, it just felt good to say. At one point, there’s this guy with these big headphones that tap me on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said. “Did you say something?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I thought you said my name.”

“No, I said…”

I trailed off. He looked at me, confused. Part of me felt like I had an obligation to just shut the hell up. A part of me split straight down the middle; a conscious thought telling me to excuse myself, and a subconscious thought telling me to keep saying it. And why shouldn’t I? It was just noise.

“Tra,” I said, looking him in the eye. “It’s just this-“

He gasped.

 

Now, when I say gasped, I don’t mean as in recognition, or fear. I’d seen that gasp before. It was the same kind of gasp my dad would make when stepping out into the cold. The same gasp my ex-girlfriend would do when stepping out of a warm shower onto a cold floor. Not a dramatic gasp, but a very distinct one.

Except headphone guy didn’t just gasp; he kept inhaling. He kept sucking in air, going, and going, and going. Then he stopped. He just stood there, leaning back, his mouth twitching. I could see his eyes shaking as he looked at me, then around the room.

 “Are you okay?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He pointed to his chest. He tried to close his mouth, but it’s like his jaw muscles cramped. His eyes looked up, and I could see something shift. Everyone turned to us as his big headphones rolled off his head, barely hanging on by a line. His macchiato fell out of his hands, crashing onto the floor with a splash.

I asked again if he was okay, but someone was already yelling that he’s having a seizure. I backed away to make space. Someone tried to sit him down, but he couldn’t bend his legs. He couldn’t breathe. His fingers were shaking as his hands constricted into curled fists. Someone was calling for help. They threw a towel on the floor to keep people from slipping. Some were crowding at the door to leave; others were standing up to get a video.

And I’m just standing there, trying to make sense of what I’d witnessed. They drove him off in an ambulance. I thought I heard him cough when the EMTs put one of those pumping valve masks on him. I didn’t finish my Americano. I think I left it on the counter.

 

I spent most of the day thinking about that word. I got lost in my thoughts at the supermarket, mumbling to myself as I forgot to put up my groceries. I said it when I slowed down to look for a parking spot outside the dry cleaners. I said it a couple more times as I walked around town. No one seemed to react the way that guy at the coffee shop did. And yet, when I looked at my reflection in a passing store window, I didn’t want to say it again. Your reflection looks different in glass. It looks darker, and your eyes take on a different shape. The sharp edges of your face get a contrast. If you just squint a little, it barely looks human.

I didn’t want to say it to him. To me. Maybe I’d gasp. And yet, I couldn’t help myself. I turned to my reflection, defiant to a feeling I’d made up in my mind and said it out loud with the same intensity as a man screaming from the hilltops.

“Tra.”

A chill of anticipation passed over me, but nothing happened.

 

 As I got home and put my groceries away, I called up Samson. I had my headset on as I fumbled about in the kitchen, taking some time to put away one of my four plates and two sets of cutleries.

“I can’t explain it,” I said as I popped a root beer. “I wake up, and it’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“You sure it’s not a name?” he asked. “I saw you talking to that Korean chick last night. Saw you talking an awfully long time.”

“You mean Sue?” I snorted. “She’s from Wisconsin, you fucking pancake.”

“I feel like there’s a story there that’s far more interesting than fever dreams.”

“My guy, she believes in crystals. I don’t want my kids getting good vibes and tarot card readings instead of vaccines.”

“You two already having kids?”

Samson had this ability to pull me out of my funk. No matter if it was test anxiety or missing a deadline, he could keep me from spiraling. But for the first time, a single word persisted through his best efforts. And it wasn’t like I was sad or anything. I was doing pretty good. But I kept hearing that inhale from the guy at the coffee shop. I could hear it behind my ears.

And it made me shiver.

 

I hoped it’d go away, but it was on my mind the next day, and the day after that. I noticed myself saying it every now and then, even in passing. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like me saying it, it was a word that fell out of me like a verbal tic. Some people might have heard me saying it as they passed me on the street, but no one reacted like that guy did. No one did the gasp.

I still had this knot in my stomach about it. Like I was missing something. If I could figure out why I was thinking about that damn word, maybe I wouldn’t have to worry as much. And if I could say it straight to someone without them reacting, I could exclude the thought that maybe, somehow, I’d been responsible for that man’s reaction.

Tra.

It wasn’t really a conscious thing. It was a kind of experimentation. As an engineer, you gotta know the structural properties of the materials you’re working with. You gotta map it out and make predictions based on observable data points. I could say the word in a crowd without anyone caring. I could say it in passing. I could record it and play it back to myself. No reaction, apart from a heightened pulse, but that was probably just anticipation.

It all boiled down to one property. Looking someone in the eye and telling them directly. That’s what I’d done. I had to figure out if that was a trigger. So I called someone I trusted. I called Samson.

 

He came over to my place. Samson is just below 6 feet tall but wears the kind of shoes that give him that extra boost. He had short reddish-brown hair, with a goatee that’d grown way too wild, giving him the side profile of a monkey. The guy was thin as a twig but made of sturdier stuff than most pro athletes. He’d brought a six-pack, thinking we were gonna have a night out. I asked him to sit down as I explained.

“There was this guy at the coffee shop the other day,” I said. “He had some kind of seizure.”

“Shit, like epilepsy?”

“Kinda, yeah. Right next to me.”

“How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad.”

He snapped a beer and passed it to me. I cracked it open, but just sipped it. He noticed, but kept quiet.

“He had it right as I said this… thing. That word. I said it, and he freaked out.”

Samson shook his head, making an uncomfortable noise. Like a 12-year-old kid squirming at a scary campfire story. I continued.

“I’m not saying I caused it. I’m not saying that. But I got this feeling that I did something wrong.”

“This really bothers you, huh?”

I looked at my open beer, nodding.

“Yeah. It does.”

 

We talked about it for a while. I wrote it down, explained the spelling, and talked about the various things I’d done around town. Not so much to explain, but to illustrate my point about how much this’d bothered me. I could tell Samson was a bit freaked out, but in the end, he shook it off. He finished his beer.

“Say it to me.”

“No, I’m good.”

“Look, this is bothering you. Just say it to me, you’ll see it’s fine.”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“See, that’s why you’re feeling this. You got the feeling it’s bad. You gotta test that. Challenge it. So look me in the eye and say the damn thing. Get it over with. See that it’s fake.”

“You sure?”

“One word, then drinks are on you.”

I looked him in the eye. I thought about that word. Really thought about it. I thought about that night under the covers, the fan blasting through my bedroom. But it wasn’t my fan. It was the arctic winds, clawing at the ice pressing me into this broken shape. Screaming gales demanding that the ground give way. Expanding cold sucking me down into the dark, like being slowly unbirthed. A grave womb, wearing a word.

I open my mouth, and I say it.

Tra.

 

Samson blinks. He looks at me and nods. He sighs, giving me a shrug. Then he sighs again. His eyes wander a little. He sighs a third time, drawing in a deep breath.

And he doesn’t stop.

“No,” I say. “No, no, no…”

He sucks in air and leans back in his chair. He leans back too far and tips over, knocking one of our half-drunk beers off the table. His mouth opens wider and wider, sucking in more air, and he can’t press it back out. His eyes flail as he smacks the floor with the palm of his hand like a boxer tapping out.

I’m already calling for help. I’m screaming at the operator. For anyone. His eyes roll up, and I see his lips turning blue. But is it lack of oxygen, or the cold?

It’s a blur after that. A nice lady on the phone. Someone rushing in from the hallway. Chest compressions. Pinching his nose and blowing into his mouth. Someone says ‘seizure’. Someone asks me questions with words I don’t understand. By the time the EMTs get there, I’m begging them to put a mask over his face. I tell them he can’t breathe.

By the time they’re leaving with him, something unclogs in his chest, making him spit up over my hallway carpet.

 

I followed Samson to the hospital. It didn’t take all that long before I could see him. He’d had some kind of attack, but he was recovering fast. He’d probably be back out after a couple hours of observation. They’d called his mom and dad. His dad just looked like a bigger, chubbier version of him. Even the same goatee.

When I could finally see him, Samson was already sitting up in his hospital bed. The others were waiting outside for him to get dressed. As they left, I saw something in his eyes change. His hands were trembling as I sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

For a moment, we just sat there. We knew this one word held some kind of property, and it was causing real, physical, harm. We’d never seen anything like it before. No one had. That realization just dumbstruck us, making our minds race to find something to say.

“It’s real,” Samson settled on.

“Yeah. It is.”

“It’s fucking real.”

I put a hand on his shoulder as he broke down crying. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

 

Samson told me what he’d experienced. At first, it was nothing. A cold puff of air, at most. Then there’d been this tension in his chest, like he was sinking underwater. A pressure building, forcing him to push back by sucking in air. Then it hit him; an immense, all-encompassing, cold.

“Like someone dunked my spine in an ice bucket,” he mumbled. “But not like… ice, ice. It was colder. Impossibly fucking cold.”

He’d been waiting for it to pass. When it never did, his mind had been locked and the key got thrown away.

“It’s like you get frozen,” he explained. “But not just your body, it’s like… everything. Even your thoughts”.

He was discharged from the hospital not long after that. Thank God he had insurance.

 

Things were a little strange after that. We still had obligations. We had new classes to take, friends who invited us out to things, and plenty of fun to be had. Few people even knew that Samson had been in the hospital. The way he explained it, it sounded like nothing more than an allergic reaction. But whenever he talked about it, he’d give me this look, like there was something more to be said.

We tried to forget it. It’s one thing for an accident to happen, you can still pretend like it’s a coincidence. But even so, I would find myself whispering that same word. I’d say it while brushing my teeth, the ‘th’ sound making me spit toothpaste on my bathroom mirror.

But Samson and I weren’t talking about it. We didn’t want to think about the implications. If this one word could have an actual effect on people, it wouldn’t just challenge my conventional view of language.

It would change my view of the world at large.

 

I remember going to a house party about a week after Samson’s hospital visit. He was there too. I was trying my best to survive an encounter with crystal child Sue, while Samson was off in the corner on his phone. Except, I could see he wasn’t really on his phone. There was no light shining on him; the screen was off. He wanted it to look like that to get some space. There was a thousand-yard stare to him, and a redness around his eyes told me he was forgetting to blink.

Prying myself away from Sue, I made my way to Samson. I knelt down next to him, giving him a pat on the shoulder. At first he put the mask back on, smiling at me and doing a ceremonial guy kind of handshake. But his smile stuck there, hanging on by a thread. The second I asked him if he was okay, he shook his head.

“I can’t do this,” he said, still smiling. “I can’t fucking do this.”

We stepped outside and found a quiet spot on the corner of the house. I made sure no one was around when Samson finally let his guard down and the words poured out.

“I can’t stop saying it. I can’t stop thinking it. I write it in a dozen different fonts, and it’s like it has a look. It feels like it’s supposed to not just sound a certain way, but look a certain way. What fucking word has a look?”

“So we can’t stop saying it,” I concede. “What do we do? We sit here and say it until we drop dead?”

“What if I say it to you?” he asks. “You think that’ll work?”

“Work how, as in killing me?”

“I don’t fucking know!”

We paced back and forth. He chucked his empty beer bottle over a fence and buried his fingers in his hair. He was so frustrated he could cry. There was a sob beneath every word he spoke.

“I want it out of my goddamn head. I don’t want to say it anymore.”

“So let’s figure it out. We can do that. We can figure. Shit. Out.”

“We figure shit out,” he agreed. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s figure shit out.”

 

We tried a bunch of things. We tried recording it and playing it back, both to ourselves and others. We tried whispering it. Samson tried yelling it late at night. We tried getting people to read it. Then we tried getting people to read it while looking at us. We even tried it phonetically. Nothing seemed to work. We made lists of possible factors and it all boiled down to a couple of things; intent, and knowledge. You had to intend the word you were saying, and you had to have the knowledge behind that intent.

We had to test our hypothesis. The only way to do that was for Samson to say it back to me. He had the knowledge now, having learned the word through me. He could muster the intent.

This time, we prepared ourselves properly. Crystal Sue was a med student, and she let us use one of the diagnostic rooms as long as we promised not to touch anything expensive. I’d insisted on keeping a valve mask nearby. It’s one of those masks with a pump you can use to push air; it’s the one thing I’d seen help both Samson and the coffee shop guy.

We got there and I sat down on one of the chairs. Samson had the mask ready, and a phone for emergency services. We waited until no one was around and reviewed.

“Intent and knowledge,” I said. “You intend to say it, with me as the recipient. You have knowledge of the word. You know how to say it in the way it’s intended to be said.”

“We’re confirming two things,” Samson added. “We’re proving the components necessary, and that knowing the word does not provide immunity.”

“Maybe it does?”

“Maybe.”

He leaned down in front of me, meeting my eye level.

“You ready?”

I nodded.

 

When he spoke the word, I barely registered it. It wasn’t so much the word itself, but the reverberation of it. It’s like I saw it before I heard it, having it pierce through my eyes and prop up my eyelids from inside. By the time I understood I’d heard it, I was halfway through inhaling, trying to get enough air in to speak.

But I couldn’t speak. All I could do was to keep sucking in air, hoping it’d somehow be enough for something I wanted to say. I kept inhaling more, and more, and more, and even though my lungs ached at the edge of capacity, I tried to take in more.

I wanted to scream and shout, but there wasn’t enough oxygen in the word to get the sensation out of me.

As my vision blurred with black spots, I heard that icy wind in the back of my mind. That shriek of air passing above. The weight of the world pushing me to the ground, and if I gave it an inch it would crush me like a bug.

 

At some point, I was breathing again. I was lying on the floor of the diagnostics room, looking up at Samson. I felt the silicone surrounding my face. He’d brought me back with that air pump thing. Maybe the sensation of moving air snapped me out of something, bringing me back to the moment. My stomach rolled as I leaned over and threw up into a wastepaper basket.

“You alright?!”

“…I’m alright.”

“Jesus H Christ, what the hell was that?!”

“…I dunno. But I’m alright.”

I threw up two more times before I could really say I was really okay. I sprayed my face with some water and stayed on the floor for a while, waiting for my body to settle into itself. It took me a good fifteen minutes before the spots disappeared from my vision and my pulse settled into a steady rhythm. I coughed a little, and looked up at Samson.

“Intent,” I said, nodding at his notebook. “And knowledge. And we’re not immune.”

 

No matter what we wanted, we couldn’t let it go. We couldn’t walk away from this one thing that kept popping into our minds. I would mumble it to myself in the shower. Samson told me he almost ran a red light. This one time when I was trying on a shirt, I ended up standing in the changing room for twenty minutes, staring at my reflection and saying that damned word over and over.

Samson and I had dozens of talks. Talks that ran late into the night, where we plastered my kitchen table in notes and speculation.

“It’s not an English word.”

“Not a word at all,” I added. “There are things that sound similar, but… yeah. Not a word.”

“Not a word,” Samson agreed, underlining a line on a note with a marker. “It’s not a disease. Not a disorder. Not a-“

“We can’t just keep making lists of things it ain’t,” I said. “We gotta… you know. Flip it around. Like…”

I took a piece of paper and wrote down ‘cold’. Samson picked it up and looked at it. His brow furrowed, but he agreed. The word was cold. We both knew that. We’d felt that.

 

We twisted and turned the word over a couple of times, but that got us nowhere. We ended up on the couch, finishing whatever beer I had left in the fridge. Turns out, it was more than enough to get us tipsy. For a short moment, it’s like that word took the back seat to how things were supposed to be. Friends saying dumb things, making each other laugh.

I was sitting with my notebook, writing the word down over and over in increasingly absurd ways. After a while, I was just drawing. The word as a spiral. The word as a box. The word as a sunflower, albeit blue from the ink pen I was using. None of it looked right, despite all being the same word.

“I can’t believe Sue is a med student,” Samson snorted. “How does a med student believe in healing?”

“How does an engineering student believe in magic words?”

“That’s different,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s real. And why’re you defending her anyway?”

“I dunno, she kinda cute.”

“You fucking…”

He put another beer in front of me. I wasn’t entirely lying, Sue and I had been sending each other a lot of messages. Weird or not, she was surprisingly fun to be around. As I picked up my phone to send her another message, I noticed Samson spacing out for a bit. I sent my message and looked at him as his eyes drifted off.

“What if it’s not a word?”

He turned to me, looking me in the eye.

“What if it’s a name?”

 

It was an interesting thought. There were plenty of references to things and Gods trapped in ice. We looked at different names throughout history and myth to see if we could find anything that resembled what we’d experienced. It was hours of scrolling and comparing notes. Anything from stories about the Ginnungagap of Norse mythology, to the ice spirit Agloolik of the Inuit people. I remember us sitting there in the middle of the night, having exchanged our beers for caffeine.

“There’s a word in Inuktitut that’s sort of spelled ‘Tra’. It means ‘between’.”

I shook my head.

“We’re working on the premise that it’s a name.”

“What if the word comes from a name?”

“That’s a separate premise. How are we supposed to prove that?”

“I’m just saying, it’s the same.”

“Does it look right?”

Samson peered at the word on his screen, turning it over, and zooming in. After a couple of seconds, he shook his head.

“No.”

“So then that ain’t it.”

“How do we know that? How can we feel that it’s wrong?”

I didn’t have an answer. I settled for falling down a separate rabbit hole on another site.

 

It was about an hour before dawn when we ended up at the kitchen table, our options exhausted. We’d been up all night. Samson was nodding on and off. We’d wanted to figure this out so badly, but all we’d ended up doing was write down more questions. You can’t figure out something of this magnitude overnight. It was all speculation and presumption. Samson spoke up, his head resting against the table.

“What if we just keep saying it? Like an immunization thing.”

“That’s like… shooting yourself in the foot to build up immunity to bigger bullets.”

“No, it’s like getting snakebites,” he insisted. “That’s how you build immunity. To snakebites.”

“But what if it doesn’t work like that? We’ll just be killing ourselves.”

“But what if it does? Are you going to disprove my hypothesis, or are you gonna let an option dangle in the wind?”

I was tired, and frustrated, and bored. I’d gotten my own valve mask a couple days prior. I went to my bedroom, picked it up, and slammed it on the table. Samson had almost fallen asleep.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s disprove it. Let’s go.”

In that moment, we both made an assumption. I assumed that, since Samson suggested it, he was willing to be the test subject. He assumed, since I agreed and had the equipment, that I was the willing test subject. We made the same assumption, and before we knew it, we looked one another in the eye and said it at the same time.

Tra.

 

Time stopped for a second as we realized what we’d done. If both of us were affected, neither could help the other. We’d gasp for air until we suffocated on the floor. Our eyes locked, and I felt that familiar tingle in my eye. The word entering, propping up my eyelids from within. My pulse was hammering in my head. Samson’s eyes grew wide.

It felt like something was looking at me. Paying attention. Like I’d called out, and it noticed me in return. This wasn’t just cold I was experiencing; it was that feeling of being watched.

There was a lull. The attention wasn’t absolute; it was split between us, allowing me to force a little air out of my lungs. Samson and I both exhaled a little, taking tiny sips of air.

“…again,” I gasped. “…we do it again.”

He nodded and used his fingers to count down from three. Then, we said it again.

Saying the word was the only way to reliably breathe out. It allowed us this strange rhythm of exhaling, and inhaling, in an almost ritualistic pattern. We sat there frozen in our seats around my kitchen table, an hour before dawn, chanting that same word over, and over, and over.

No, not a word. A name.

And little by little, I started seeing things.

 

My mind felt like it was filling up with every breath of the word, expanding like a balloon. An image became clearer. The unbreaking ice, encapsulating me in knife-edged crystal structures. My eyes moving, but no light to capture. The arctic winds tearing at the surface. But now, I turn. I look a different way.

There’s a glimpse. Not just from eyes, but from a sense I didn’t know I had. There’s a membrane flaring, accepting my intrusion. It sees me, and it sees that I’m seeing. It turns its head at an impossible angle, thrusting viscous flesh through corridor, like pressing peanut butter through a straw.

A glimpse of light reaches me, and I see a reflection, like I’d seen my reflection a thousand times before. I see the sharp edges, and the contour, and the dark eyes.

And it’s nothing human.

It’s nothing human.

 

I’m looking at Samson across the table. We’re barely breathing. Puffs of smoke escape our breaths, and our lips are turning blue. We can’t keep saying the word as our tongues freeze in our skulls. The syllables grow sluggish and dry. Then we just… stop.

My teeth are chattering, making my skull rattle. Samson’s left eye has frozen shut. We sit there, waiting for the world to make sense.

“Did you see it?” Samson stammered.

I couldn’t get the words out, so I nodded at him.

“It’s killing us,” he says. “It’s killing us.”

I keep nodding. I try moving my arm, but I can’t feel it. I can swing my leg just enough to push myself out of balance, forcing my body to topple over. I crash to the floor, feeling nothing as I bruise my shoulder. Samson looks my way with his one healthy eye.

“Can’t fight it,” he says. “Can’t fight it.”

I don’t want to, but I can’t help but keep nodding. He’s right. We can’t fight it. We’re too damaged to get help, and we’re freezing to death in an air-conditioned apartment. We have to do something. Our eyes meet as we force the chant anew.

Tra. Tra. Tra.

 

Somewhere in the middle of a breath, I forget what I’m doing and saying. It becomes this thing your body does on its own, like your beating heart. An automatic function of necessity. The word, the name, becoming a background pulse as my world fades away. It takes me far away from the kitchen table, and deep into the ice.

It puts my mind to rest in the dark of its construction. As I step away, it steps forward, its many reflections basking in its glory.

And I sleep. I sleep in a way I’ve only slept once before. Far beneath the ice, as the screeching winds cry.

 

I woke up on the bathroom floor, my legs in the shower. It was running. Medium temperature. Half my face was covered in this black, foul-smelling liquid. I could taste it on the back of my teeth. The wall was covered in smudges, like I’d written something in black and smeared it out. My hands were a mess.

I tried calling out for Samson, but my voice was too hoarse. I got up on my knees and looked out, only to see him in the kitchen. He’d thrown out everything from my fridge and crawled in, leaving the door half-open. The warning buzzer was going crazy. Forcing myself to my feet, I leaned against the doorframe and pushed a noise past my tongue.

“Samson.”

There was no movement. I took a step out, leaned too hard to the left, and collapsed over an accent table. Crashing to the floor, I got a better view. He was sitting in the fridge, knees up to his chin, hugging himself.

“Samson!”

He blinked. A black liquid poured out between his teeth as he opened his mouth, trying to say the only word that came to his boxed-in mind. The syllables betrayed him as he sputtered again and again. He couldn’t get it right. Thank God, he couldn’t get it right.

 

We eventually figured we’d been out of it for 16 hours straight. We had no recollection of what we’d done in that time. There’d been noise complaints about someone screaming in the shower and flushing the toilet over and over. Someone had smashed the living room window, and the apartment looked like a bomb had gone off. I had to hand-scrub the black stains with lemon juice and chlorine, and even then, I couldn’t get it out of the textiles. Samson tried helping me.

In some absurd way, that night helped us deal with the word. While I still thought about it, I no longer obsessed about it. It wasn’t the kind of thing I had to mutter in line at the supermarket, or while looking in the bathroom mirror. The mystery had been delegated to an itching spot in the back of my memory. Something I could poke at without feeling the need to break the scab wide open. Maybe there’s something to be said about Samson’s immunization theory after all.

Samson and I agreed, unanimously, not to speak of it again. This was the kind of thing that we weren’t meant to look closer at. We could kill someone, least of all ourselves.

 

My college years are behind me now. It was a crazy time, but not for the reasons my classmates talk about. While I remember the parties, and the late nights, it’s that first gasp of a man at the coffee shop that keeps me awake at night. Someone feeling a cold that isn’t meant to be felt.

I still keep in touch with Samson, but we talk about other things. But we do so from a place of understanding. We acknowledge that whatever world view we had once defined, we had to reconsider. Even if we don’t openly talk about it, it’s comforting to know that there is someone out there who truly knows.

I don’t like to think of those times, but it’s even worse to misremember it. If I never write it down, I’ll always second-guess myself. I have to put it into words, because words have meaning. They have intent, and knowledge.

 

But there are times when I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, and I think of that moment. That moment, far beneath the ice, where something impossible turns to a glimpse of light. And as I see my mirror, I picture another reflection. One that I shouldn’t have seen. One that should have been impossible to see.

In that moment, I want to look a little longer. A little closer. And when I get this intense need to know, I whisper two syllables, hoping to get a glimpse of something I shouldn’t.

It’s nothing human.

Tra.

A couple of years ago, I was a name in the art scene. Not as an artist per se, but as a photographer. I had a collection of prints that were starting to make a name for themselves. As local celebrities and would-be actors stopped by my studio for their headshots, that reputation slowly built up. I was waiting for my big break; and paying the bills along the way.

I’m not gonna share all my personal details, for obvious reasons, but I lived in quite a big city. Not quite Big Apple kind of big, but respectable in its own right. I’d lived there for eight years, jumping from job to job. Sometimes I’d get to work on something more commercial, and I’d slowly eat my way through that check until my toes dipped back into my savings account. It was a vicious cycle, but it was wonderful. Intense. Just like the city itself.

Things took a turn when I heard I was being considered for an exhibition at a local gallery. Nothing was official yet, but I was excited enough to make some commercial prints. I had already figured out my centerpiece. It was this enormous floor-to-ceiling portrait of my most beloved model.

She was wearing a feathery custom-sewn wedding dress where the veil had been tied over the eyes like a blindfold, with blood-strewn white feathers adorning her head like a crown. The photo was taken from a low perspective looking up at her, giving her the look of a towering statue.

I spent days on that perfect print. I had a custom-made frame, and I prepared the text for the accompanying plaque. I tried telling myself that even if this whole thing fell through, this was something to be proud of.

And yeah, the whole thing fell through. Someone else got the exhibit.

 

I still got a call from the gallery. While they couldn’t host my work, they had heard interesting things about my experimental photography. They asked if I was willing to provide an art installation instead. I didn’t have any ideas off the bat, but I said I did. I could figure something out. An installation was better than nothing. I tried talking them into accepting my masterpiece portrait, but I kept running into walls.

“There simply isn’t space,” the director explained. “But we are rotating exhibits once every four months. I’m sure we’ll have something for you in due time.”

It wasn’t much of a promise, but I’d survived longer with less. Like a squirrel trying to make it through the winter, I had set aside a lot of hope for times like this.

I tried a couple of ideas, but I kept tripping over my own obsessions. Every time I thought I had something good, it turned out to be derivative of something I’d already made. I wanted to make an installation that wasn’t just interesting, but interactive. I wanted to show the visitors something outspoken and personal. Not just to me, but to them. I thought about making something with literal mirrors, but it came off as preachy. You can only hold up so many mirrors to society. After a while they get obsessed with their looks.

I finally came up with a concept I liked. The idea was to take a camera and hook it up to a motion sensor. Once you sit down in front of it, it takes a picture. It analyzes the photo and prints out a paper with a message based on what’s seen. I figured it was a fun counter-position to the art in the exhibition; instead of you looking for meaning in the art, the art looks for meaning in you. It translated you to words. But I didn’t want to incorporate machine learning or language models, so I had to come up with something else.

I got in touch with the gallery’s resident poet, a man called Theo. He wrote messages and descriptions about all works of art posted in the gallery, and he had a permanent corner in one of the exhibits. It was almost funny, you couldn’t go through a single room without seeing something he’d made, but it was the kind of invisible work that rarely gets a nametag. I had this idea of using all the descriptions Theo had written in the gallery and compiling them all into a database. That way the printed text wouldn’t feel out of place to the aesthetics of the gallery at large.

I ran the installation idea by the director, and he was ecstatic. I got the go-ahead to make a database. Theo sent over years of files, showing nearly everything he’d written during his years working at the gallery. After that it was a matter of listing keywords, cataloging, tagging, and handling errors. It took me a lot longer than I’d like to admit, but I managed to automate it a bit.

After a couple of testing sessions, I was ready to go live. I took my installation down to the gallery to show it off in person.

 

It was a late Wednesday evening. I could tell some kind of game was playing based on the many people in matching jerseys. April rain was coming down. I carried my equipment under my arm, apologizing as I bumped into the occasional group that refused to move out of the way.

A security guard let me in and closed the doors behind me, locking them. All the lights were on, but it was eerily quiet. Just a vague echo coming from the far-left corridor, short of the entrance hallway. The security guard tapped my shoulder and pointed that way, quietly letting me know where to go.

There were some people already there. There was the director, his adult son, two elderly women, a tall man, and a young woman. I recognized the tall man as Theo, the resident poet. It didn’t take me long to recognize the young woman as Eliza; the one who’d gotten the exhibition spot in my stead.

That’s when I realized why they were all there. It wasn’t to check out my installation; they were setting up her exhibit. It took them a full minute to realize I was even there. When they finally did, their mouths curled up into smiles, but their eyes didn’t move. They were putting on a show.

 

Eliza was trying to convince the director that one of her paintings would be a better centerpiece than the one he’d argued for, and the two elderly women seemed to be debating what even constituted a painting to begin with. As I began unpacking my equipment, Theo came up to me.

“Hope my work didn’t give you too much trouble,” he said. “Did you get what you need?”

“We can update the database later if we want, it’s fine. Consider this a prototype.”

I set up the tripod and screwed down a metal square on the top. Then I wrapped it in black cloth, giving it the impression of a tall rectangular box. I clicked in the camera up top, with a laptop on the floor underneath. I hooked up a small receipt printer on the side, pulled up a couple of cords, and connected it. It took me a while to get access to the wi-fi, but after that, I was good to go.

“You mind grabbing a chair?” I asked.

Theo nodded and came back with a stool. He placed it a couple of feet ahead of the camera according to my directions. After a couple of seconds, an audio message chimed, telling me the motion sensor was primed and ready. I pointed at the stool and had Theo sit down, adjusting his round glasses.

Then, the camera flashed.

 

The whole thing worked beautifully, and the flash caught the attention of the others. The flash wasn’t strictly necessary, but I had to clearly show the visitors when their picture had been taken. The whole thing was automated, and thanks to using a small receipt printer, I could have it make literally hundreds of texts per day. The machine ran the algorithm and buzzed to life, printing out a roughly thousand-word description of Theo, using a database of his own poems and descriptions from around the gallery.

He took the printout and read it, his eyes going wide.

“This is amazing,” he said, pointing at the slip of paper. “Can I keep this?”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “About a thousand words, your words, from all over.”

“Can I try again?”

“It’s gonna say the same thing. It’s based on your features.”

“What if I make a face?”

“It’s not that advanced.”

Theo laughed at that. From the other side of the room, Eliza cleared her throat. We all turned to her, the director included. She pointed at me like she was trying to shoot me with an invisible gun.

“We’re keeping that camera thing outside the exhibit, yes?”

“We have an assigned a space for it here by the entrance,” the director said, showing a square outlined by tape. “It doesn’t take up any wallspace.”

“We’re not using the folding screens? We decided against that?”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

“I would love to hear about what else you decided on when you ruled against the folding screens,” Eliza smiled. “I would love that.”

 

I ended up working with Theo in the adjacent room. The director was busy trying to reel Eliza back in, but it was clear there was some kind of disagreement. She’d gained some success online in the past year or so thanks to her classical Kahlo-inspired portrait style, but it was clear she was seeing this whole thing as her doing the gallery a favor rather than the other way around. I ignored them, focusing on calibrating the auto-focus while Theo brainstormed a description.

“We’re gonna need a sign,” he said. “And a name. Does it have a name?”

“Does it need one?”

“We need to refer to it somehow. How about…”

He showed me his notebook. At the very top was the phrase “I will draw you with a thousand words”. Underneath was about half a dozen variations of that phrase. I pointed at the top.

“We should use that one. That’s good.”

“It is?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Tells you everything you need to know. Good one.”

He smiled at that. And this time, the smile reached his eyes.

 

It took a couple of days to get Eliza to budge on sharing the space. They bribed her a little by extending her minimum time to six months, with a possible extension. Once she agreed, there wasn’t much time to set up. Theo made a sign for me and tried to keep the instructions simple. He had impeccable handwriting.

“Sit down. Wait for the beep. Keep the print.

I will draw you with a thousand words.”

We had to turn off the camera flash on the first day as it bothered the other guests. Eliza argued that we ought to turn off the sound as well, but I couldn’t figure it out. I could probably put some tape over the speaker, but frankly, she could go to hell. She could afford it. She made more in a week than I made in a month.

Despite the drama, the “Thousand Words” installation was quite the hit. I got a message from the director about people lining up to try it, and they loved getting a little piece they could take home. There was a slight issue with some words becoming repetitive (there are only so many ways you can describe brown hair), but Theo offered to help me update the database. He had a private collection of poems and prose that he was willing to share.

 

All in all, it was going pretty well. I got paid for my work and the installation could keep going as long as there was someone around to change the printing paper.

I dropped in to check on Eliza’s work too. For all her issues, she was talented, there was no denying that. She had this diamond-in-the-rough kind of quality that made all her work extraordinarily human. You could get a sense of who she was just by her brush strokes.

A lot of people enjoyed the Thousand Words installation too. It felt a bit cheap in comparison to Eliza’s work, but even the gaudiest of visitors couldn’t stop their curiosity. We ended up having to get more paper, and the only major complaint I heard was that a couple of people had gotten unfavorable descriptions. We had to trim the database a bit. The recognition software got confused when people wore unusually large shawls.

I still had to come home to my centerpiece resting against the wall, with no space to be hung. I loved that photo; it evoked something primal in me. I had plenty of other things to show, but that one cut straight to my heart. Not being able to share it with the world never stopped hurting. The composition. The frame. The towering angel.

 

Once the installation had been up and running for about two weeks, I had to come in for maintenance. The laptop kept overheating under the black cloth, so I had to improve the cooling. Worst-case scenario, I had to remove the cloth entirely. I decided it was best to work on-site, so I got there later in the evening. The security guard let me in; the director had phoned ahead.

It’s eerie to walk through that kind of space on your own. Your footsteps echo against every tile. Even the lighting feels different. They have these bright overhead lights that they only use during off-hours, making the whole building feel like a hospital.

I walked into Eliza’s exhibit, watching her creations under a harsh light. It was bright enough for the brushstrokes to cast a shadow. Meanwhile, my installation had been delegated to the side, so as to not take up the center space. No one had told me they’d moved it, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I peeked my head under the black cloth and checked the computer. The thing was still running. Then I heard a click.

 

Looking up, there was no one else there. But the motion sensor had reacted to something. Something was being printed.

It wasn’t a thousand words. Nowhere near. It was just one sentence, followed by a whitespace.

“A radiant exterior masks your demented machinations.”

That’s all it had to say.

I tried the installation myself, and it worked just fine. The guard was on the other side of the building, I could hear his echoing footsteps. It was just me and the paintings. I read the line again.

I’d cataloged a lot of Theo’s work, and I couldn’t remember that one particular passage. The photos auto-delete for privacy reasons, so I couldn’t tell what the camera had actually seen. I kept that paper slip, chalking it up to some kind of algorithmic hiccup. Maybe a fly passed by the lens, tricking it.

And yet…

 

Asking around the gallery, I heard that this wasn’t the first time they’d noticed something unusual. Sometimes they found my installation running in the morning, but attendants swore they’d turned it off the night before. They figured it was human error. It’s easy to forget a laptop.

But that one phrase wasn’t an isolated incident. Sometimes the attendants would notice a printout or two waiting by the machine. Sometimes it was nothing, but other times, it was that same message.

“A radiant exterior masks your demented machinations.”

They’d saved the printouts for me. There were at least six of them. It wasn’t really a problem, but if it was a bug it was better to fix it now rather than later. I wasn’t sure it was worth fixing, but I decided it couldn’t hurt to try. I didn’t really have much going anyway, and being on good terms with the gallery might bump my chances of getting an exhibit of my own.

 

I talked to Theo about it. We sent about 20 e-mails back and forth, trying to figure out exactly where this one phrase originated. He wasn’t sure himself. Some of the stuff he’d sent me was from exhibits that weren’t even around anymore; it was a sort of collected archive of poems and descriptions he’d accumulated over the past few years.

I got a call from him one evening as I was out grocery shopping. I had my headphones on, browsing through the produce section. The owner knew me by name, I shopped there all the time.

“I think I found where it’s from,” Theo said. “Partly, at least.”

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

“It’s quite old,” he admitted. “When I first started at the gallery I used a more abstract style. I liked it, but the director thought it ‘imposed unnecessary weight’ to the pieces, so we settled for more… generic descriptions.”

“What did it describe?”

“See, that’s the thing. It doesn’t describe a single art piece; it describes the gallery itself. It was a phrase I wrote for a sign during one of our renovations. The full quote is…”

I could hear papers shuffling in the background. There were a lot of papers turning; I could tell Theo had been at this for a while.

“The full quote is ‘Pardon the interruption faithful observer, as our radiant exterior will soon come to house new demented machinations’.”

It wasn’t much, but at least I had a source. When I’d imported Theo’s texts, it had all been these random text files. I hadn’t even checked the dates. Some of the text I’d imported lacked descriptive tags to latch onto, so there was no reason for this one phrase to pop up again and again. If it was an old one, I figured it might be some kind of database error. It might have accidentally ended up as the first or last entry, and it just defaulted to it.

It was a start, but far from over.

 

A couple of days later, the director called me. This wasn’t unusual in and of itself, but he insisted we speak in person. I came down at closing time, watching the visitors leave through the gift shop. The director waved me over, leading me into a more private space through the storage in the back.

“It’s about the installation,” he said as he absent-mindedly browsed one of the shelves. “It’s quite the hit. We’re considering buying it permanently.”

“That’s wonderful news.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But it comes with a few stipulations. It’s a similar deal to what we’ve offered our dear Theo.”

“Would you care to elaborate?”

He removed an empty plaque from a shelf, looked it over, and put it back.

“It means you can’t be featured for your own exhibit. It’s a policy we had to agree to when signing off on funding, none of those who work here can be part of the exhibitions. It’s to make sure we don’t just sit around patting one another on the back.”

“But I don’t work here. I’ll just have a-“

“A permanent installation, yes. I’m afraid our standardized contract doesn’t take that into account.”

I thought about it. It would close a door, but it’d probably earn me a fair paycheck. I thought about Theo and his work, and remembered a detail.

“Does that mean I get a permanent display space? Theo has one.”

“You would,” he agreed. “It’s not much, but it’s yours. Within reason, of course.”

He showed me a space not far from the exit. It was barely enough to hang a painting, much less my centerpiece. I would have to settle for something smaller, or do something entirely different. Either way, it wasn’t a done deal. I excused myself from the director, telling him I had to think about it.

 

That evening, as the gallery closed, I was left sitting in Eliza’s exhibit. My installation was still running, and the dim visitor lights were still on. Most had gone home, leaving me alone with the security guard and a couple attendants cleaning up the gift shop. I’d settled on a bench overlooking the room. Real fancy bench, too. Hardwood.

I was so stuck in my own thoughts that I barely noticed Theo joining me. He sat down next to me with a sigh. Before I could ask, he answered.

“The director wanted me to talk to you,” he said. “Try and get you to take the deal.”

“Figures.”

We sat there for a while, looking over the exhibit. In the warm light, the portraits almost looked like windows, showing different worlds on the other side of thin walls.

“It’s not bad,” I admit. “She’s talented.”

“Yeah,” Theo agreed. “Nothing half-assed here.”

“Half-assed?” I snorted. “I thought you writer types were supposed to be more… verbose.”

“I word my best, thank you much.”

That got a laugh out of me.

Then, the camera clicked.

 

We both looked up, stifling our laughs. A white slip of paper rolled out of the printer, and even from a distance, I could tell it only had a single line written. I could guess which one. Theo squinted at the camera.

“Why’s it keep doing that?”

“No idea.”

He got up, looked a little closer, and then turned his attention forward. I could see him looking over the exhibit. Portraits lining the far walls in an otherwise empty room. He scratched his head as he checked the note. He shrugged.

“The same one,” he said. “It’s the same damn one.”

“I gotta fix that if I’m gonna accept the offer.”

“Are you though?”

 

Before I could answer, I heard a crack. It reminded me of wood snapping from cold. I couldn’t place the source. There was another sound, like breaking plastic. Then, crackling glass. Theo looked around the room, but neither of us could find a source.

Something popped right above me, and I jumped off the bench. Joining Theo in the center of the room, one of the paintings that’d sat right above me fell from the wall. The frame shattered against the stone tiles.

One by one, Eliza’s paintings fell from the walls. Their frames were breaking at the seams, leaving the canvases exposed. It only took a couple of seconds, but it was like the exhibit was self-destructing. Theo ponted at one of the paintings.

“It moved!”

As the final painting fell and its frame collapsed, I heard the receipt printer roll out another description. Before I could turn to check it, an eerie sound dragged itself along my spine; like someone pressing a jagged knife over glass. As it reached its peak, I felt a thump reverberating through the room, knocking the wind out of my lungs.

The canvases disintegrated. Every. Single. One. Some were so violently shredded that pieces were flung across the room. In a heartbeat, it didn’t look like an exhibit anymore. It looked like a room covered in dead leaves.

 

It didn’t take long for the security guard to rush in. He sees me and Theo standing in a ruined exhibit and freaks out. I could see his eyes go wide from across the room. He pulls out his gun, screaming at us to sit down, and my mind just keeps spinning. My legs give out and I sit down flat on the ground, accidentally crushing another piece of canvas.

“It moved,” Theo whispered. “The painting. It moved.”

I didn’t know what to think. My tongue twisted into a stone, forcing me to be quiet. The guard was screaming into a radio, and it didn’t take long for chaos to unfold. The police arrived. The director arrived. And not long after, Eliza arrived.

 

Theo and I sat on one of the benches when she got there. She didn’t seem upset, she just kicked some of the remains around. The director was trying to get hold of the security footage, but they were having trouble rewinding. Meanwhile, Eliza just turned to me and Theo, her eyes glossy. The officer next to us tensed up.

“Where did you put my paintings?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t untie my thoughts. My heart was beating out of my chest.

“Where are they?” she repeated.

Theo tried to answer but ended up silently waving his hands around. Eliza cocked her head and picked up one of the canvas pieces. Unfolding it, she ran her fingers across the texture of what had once been a portrait of a woman with a vase, holding a blue sunflower. You could still see the corner of the petals.

She looked around the room, and I could see realization dawn on her. Her fingers began to shake. I saw this deeply composed professional breaking at the seams, and it’s like she couldn’t contain herself. She broke down crying. Ugly crying. But as she turned her attention back to me and Theo, I didn’t see sadness. I saw rage.

“I’ll kill you.”

The officer next to us took a step forward, holding up a hand.

“I’ll kill you!”

She burst into a sprint, her mid-length heels be damned. Her hair untangled as this unblinking, unbridled fury scrunched across her face. Another officer had to help tackle her to the ground and drag her out of the gallery, kicking and screaming with every step.

And like my installation, she repeated herself. She was going to kill me. She made that perfectly clear.

 

Theo and I tried to explain that we didn’t touch those paintings, but we couldn’t explain what’d happened. The footage seemed corrupted, only capturing a couple of still images. You could manually click frame by frame and sort of get an idea, but it would take hours to piece together. They didn’t have enough to arrest me, so I was to be sent home with a warning not to leave town.

Before I reached the exit, the director caught up with me. Without another word, he thrust my entire installation into my arms, pushing me out the door. The laptop hung out underneath, the cord struggling to stay attached. He’d just ripped it out.

I was left standing on the street with the Thousand Words installation hastily disassembled. And from the receipt printer, I could see the most recent printout still dangling.

“A radiant exterior masks your demented machinations.”

I dragged myself home and threw it all in a pile. I collapsed on my couch, sobbing until sleep took me away.

 

I stayed home for days, living off whatever I had in the freezer. At one point I was just sitting on my couch, eating defrosted sugar peas. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but I couldn’t figure out if it was the cold or the nerves. I’d keep reruns going in the background just to fill the screaming silence of my mind with something other than stomach acid and fear.

I checked in with Theo a couple of times, but he didn’t have much to say. No news. No clarity. The gallery couldn’t get any footage of us actually destroying the exhibition, so the investigation stalled. There was no explanation, but they couldn’t pin it on me or Theo. Not that they didn’t try.

I didn’t know what to do. If even the rumor of me destroying Eliza’s collection got out, I’d be done. I might as well leave town. And just by looking at her, I could tell she was going to do everything in her power to destroy me.

 

About four days after the event at the gallery, I got a knock on the door. It was getting late, so I wasn’t expecting company. I braced myself for the worst. Looking out the peephole, I could see it was one of my neighbors. She lived just down the hall, I’d seen her plenty of times. I’d never had her knock on my door though. I flipped the lock and opened.

“Yes?”

She turned her head to the right. I followed her look, only to see Eliza standing off to the side.

“Here it is,” my neighbor said.

“Thank you, I was so lost,” Eliza smiled. “Have a pleasant evening.”

As my neighbor walked away, I thought about slamming the door shut. Then I noticed the revolver. A small snub nosed one with a silver handle. Eliza’s smile was empty, never quite reaching her eyes.

The rage was still there.

 

I had no choice but to let her in. She closed the door behind her and locked it. She took a moment to collect herself, letting the revolver rest in the palm of her hand. She ushered me into the living room, where all my gear was still left on the floor.

She pointed me at the couch, and I sat down. I remember not knowing what to do with my hands. Putting them on my knees made it look like I was getting up. Crossing my arms made me feel like a child. I ended up leaving them hanging to the sides, like a puppet.

“She saw you come in here,” I muttered. “There’s a witness.”

“I don’t care.”

She shrugged as her lower lip trembled. She raised her gun so fast that her arm whipped a little, and she squeezed the handle so hard that if she hadn’t kept the finger off the trigger, I wouldn’t be writing this. I could see her knuckles turn white.

“Thirteen originals,” she spat. “Twenty-eight prints, and thirteen originals.”

I wanted to tell her I didn’t do it, but saying anything could set her off. Her finger was off the trigger, but not by much.

“You don’t think I worked for this?” she continued. “You think it’s all Instagram posts and back scratching? I didn’t take a single sponsorship for four and a half years, because I have some goddamn integrity!”

She squeezed the trigger. The revolver boomed, and a cloud of concrete dust settled on my shoulder, inches from my neck.

“You have killed years of work. You have taken literal years of my life, and for what? Jealousy? Is that all it is? You’re jealous?”

I tried shaking my head, but I couldn’t get my body to listen. It knew what could happen if I moved inches to the side. That could be enough for the next bullet not to miss.

 

Eliza didn’t want me to talk. She rambled about how she’d paid for her own art supplies by working extra at a pet shop. How she’d worked dozens of canvases trying to paint the right thing over and over, only stopping after she finally got it just the way she wanted. How she’d obsessed over her work. Dreamt about it. Lived it. And in her world, I’d taken that all away.

And now, she wanted me to answer for it.

“Give me one good reason,” she said. “Just one.”

She moved her finger to the trigger. I thought about every word I could come up with. There had to be some combination that would get her to put that thing down and step away, but I couldn’t find them. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything but the truth.

“It wasn’t me.”

Her face scrunched up as she raised the revolver.

Then she stopped.

 

We looked at one another as we heard a strange noise. It was coming from my art installation. Turns out it’d been in standby mode, keeping the battery from getting drained. It must’ve been on its last percentage, running on fumes.

The camera wasn’t pointed toward either of us. It was on the floor, looking in a random direction. The receipt printer was chugging along, making a printout.

I followed the direction of the camera and looked at my masterfully framed centerpiece resting against the wall across the room. And as I looked a little closer, I noticed something.

It was moving.

Not the frame, or the print. The model in the picture.

 

I jumped as the frame toppled over, smacking into the floor with a bang. Eliza turned her attention to it, swinging the gun around.

“It wasn’t me,” I repeated under my breath. “It wasn’t me.”

Looking at me, and then back at the frame, Eliza stepped forward. She raised her foot and brought it down as hard as she could, attempting to assert whatever vengeance she could against my work.

But as her foot came down, something moved. It moved suddenly and with enough force to knock her off balance; sending her reeling to the floor.

 

The frame slowly lifted itself upward as something pushed itself out from underneath. An impossibly long arm reached out and dug its fingers into the floor, trying to get enough grip to pull itself forward. Little by little, this enormous figure pulled itself free from my print.

It was easily eight feet tall. A custom-sewn wedding dress, with a veil tied as a blindfold, and a crown of bloodied white feathers. But it looked nothing like the model I’d photographed years earlier; it was the literal picture. It retained the inhuman proportions brought by the perspective of the photo, its arms bigger and longer than what ought to be possible. A long, outstretched head like the flame of a candle.

The camera clicked again. Another printout. Eliza was in shock, having crawled up against the wall. She held her gun out like a crucifix. I crawled off the couch, across the floor, and read the printout. The first one was exactly the one I expected, but the second one was different.

“How I wish to kiss your brilliance with but a thousand tears of joy.”

 

Its hand flung out across the room. I hadn’t realized how large it was. It grasped Eliza and pushed her up against the wall, knocking the air out of her lungs. I could hear her gasping for air from across the room. There was another printout.

“The character of a debased gorgon.”

It was pressing her harder, moving closer. It was going to crush her. She lost control of her arm and dropped the gun, letting it fall to the floor. She was well over a foot off the ground.

“A sacrosanct talent. Golden, yet miserable.”

The camera wasn’t even clicking anymore. This was no longer descriptions of what I was seeing, it was communication. It was whatever words this thing wanted to convey. And as its long head swayed like a cobra, my tongue loosened. Before it snapped Eliza’s ribs, I spoke up.

“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t kill us.”

 

It dropped her like a sack. She collapsed to the floor, gasping for air. This enormous creation turned towards me, and the printouts continued. I read it out loud, giving it a voice.

“A House that longs for a blessing. A Soul demanding of beauty.”

I read it again, looking up. This thing could barely stay upright. It wasn’t natural.

“A house,” I continued. “The gallery?”

A finger reached out, stroking my chin. The texture of warm, wet, paper. The closest thing to a ‘yes’ I could get.

“You’re from the gallery. You want something. From me.”

It almost knocked itself over. I could see it now. I could understand.

 

This thing had been in the gallery. It had wanted me to exhibit my work. It hadn’t wanted Eliza’s. It tried to show me its disdain through my installation. When nothing seemed to work, and I was on the verge of signing away any chance for a future exhibit, it stepped in. Theo saw it move in the portraits. That’s what must’ve triggered the camera; movement in a place we didn’t look.

It had stopped me from signing away the possibility of an exhibit. And now that my life was on the line, it intervened again.

“Okay,” I whispered. “If you want it, I’ll… do something.”

It stroked my chin again. I’d seen that photo a thousand times. I knew every inch of it. Every contour, every contrast. And with the blink of an eye, the model rested back in its frame like nothing had happened.

 

We sat there in the dark, letting the realization settle. We’d been approached by something inhuman.

Eliza and I just… moved on. This whole thing was beyond us, and there was no point in looking at this like rational human beings. She didn’t press charges about the gallery. I didn’t press charges about my home. We just looked the other way and silently decided that we’d never look back, or talk about this, ever.

The next day, I got a call from the director. He was clearly shaken, but his message was simple. If I wanted it, I’d have an exhibit at the gallery. Permanently. I accepted, and the moment I did, he hung up the phone. He handed in his resignation later that same day.

 

This was all a couple of years ago. While I moved out of town to get some space, my exhibit is still up. Attempts at changing it or taking it down have failed, for one reason or another. I still get the occasional check in the mail.

It’s not the most popular exhibit. Since it never changes, most visitors have grown tired of it. I hate thinking about it. People who still go to that gallery hurry through my exhibit to get to whatever’s new. They roll their eyes at my work, asking themselves how the hell it could still be up after all these years.

My centerpiece hangs in the center hall, with a spotlight firmly attached. It has a couple of fans, I suppose, but there’s this sense of unease that hangs over the entire room. The guides don’t like to linger too long. The security guard hurries past it at night. It feels like that space isn’t meant for visitors; it’s meant for whatever wants it to stay like it is.

 

I’m not a photographer anymore. I work in documentary filmmaking. I’m afraid that if I were to pick up a camera, something might reach out to me. I don’t want to create something for that thing to return. That’s not the world I wanted, and it’s not one I intend to return to.

Theo still works there. Not because he necessarily wants to, but because every time he has tried to quit, something has made him come back. I’ve only talked to him briefly about it, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“It can reach so far,” he told me once. “There’re always pictures. It can always move.”

Eliza still makes things. She moved to another state and changed much of her brand. She’s quieter nowadays. Different. I still get her Instagram reels, but they’re not as vibrant. I guess somber is a better description.

 

Looking back at this, I think that sometimes our work runs away from us. Be it art, or prose, or craft. It takes on a life of its own and leaves us in the dust, gasping for air. It loves us for what we do in the most destructive way it can, and nothing is safe from its wants.

And to this day there is an art installation running at a gallery in a big city, far away from here. There is a sign next to it, waiting to be read.

Sit down. Wait for the beep. Keep the print.

I will draw you with a thousand words.

My mom used to call me her little gremlin. For whatever reason, I was really bad with electronics. I couldn’t sit in the front seat of the car because the stereo would get this annoying interference. Back when we used an antenna to watch TV I had to sit further back, or we’d get these dots on the screen. Hell, the baby monitor would act up when I was still in the crib. It was harmless, but annoying.

My parents weren’t very technical, to say the least. It was my uncle who decided to go against the grain and teach me a thing or two about home appliances and electronics. Just small stuff, like how to replace faulty diodes or test battery charge. That, and using a computer. That was a big one.

I remember that summer when I was 11. Sweltering South Dakota heat and not a single cloud in the sky. We were sitting in his living room, where he’d put an old computer on a dresser. The screen was too high up and my knees would bump against the drawers. But I was seeing a new world on that dresser.

We were signing up for my first e-mail. I’d just put in my name, and we were considering the password.

“A good password is something only you know,” he said.

“How do I know if it’s a good one?”

“Well, if I can guess it, it’s not a very good one.”

“What if I just tell you, can you tell me if it’s any good?”

“You’d trust me with that? You don’t think I’d log in and read your e-mail?”

“Nah,” I smiled. “You wouldn’t.”

 

My uncle passed away the year I turned 26. He’d never really been a beacon of health, but he took a downturn in those last couple of years. I checked in on him about once a week to help out with cleaning and grocery shopping, but I had tons of my own problems piling up. After a while, I asked if someone else could help. He didn’t mind. He said it was fine and that he’d deal with it.

One month later, he died of an embolism. Me telling him I wasn’t gonna help anymore was the last time we spoke.

After his funeral, we all decided to get checked out. My uncle was the second in my family to die of an embolism, along with my grandfather. It’s one of those things that can be hereditary, and we wanted to get ahead of it. My dad and two brothers decided to get checked, just to make sure we’d minimize the chance of this happening again.

It was a strange time in my life. I had a new job and was fresh out of a breakup. And for some reason, the thing that hit me hardest was my uncle. Having seen his health decline, I’d been preparing for his passing for years. But now that it actually happened, I was a mess.

 

I went in for a couple of rounds of testing at the local university hospital. We know some people who worked there and were able to get in touch with a great doctor. I’d go there after work, they’d take some tests, and I’d have to sit in the waiting room for a couple of hours. I had to redo a couple of tests because the equipment kept messing up.

The second time I went in for testing, there was a med student sitting in the waiting room with me. She had curly brown hair tussled into a bun and these thin eyes that looked a bit off through her big glasses. I’d seen her in that hallway before; often in the presence of other med students.

“Excuse me,” she said as I sat down. “You’re here about the hereditary thrombophilia, yes?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be private?”

“Sorry!” she blurted out, holding up a hand as if to shield herself from the accusation. “Yes, of course, sorry! I just had a question, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, shoot.”

“They reported an equipment failure during your testing, but we couldn’t find a problem with the machine. Would you mind if I checked something?”

“What do you mean check something?”

“One moment.”

 

She had a small device that fit in the palm of her hand. She showed it to me, pressed a button, and swayed it left to right as if scanning me. The device kept throwing out static noise whenever it passed me, getting stronger the closer she got.

“This is gonna sound strange,” she said. “Do you have trouble with radios?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“You ever get noise on phone calls, even if you have five bars?”

“Yeah? Why?”

“It’s a long shot, but we’d love to do some further testing,” she continued, looking at her gadget again. “If you’d like, we could do a quick check once you’re done here. Free of charge, of course, it’s something we’re studying.”

“What exactly are you studying?”

“I think Doctor Barlin could give you a better explanation,” she smiled. “I’m Melody, by the way.”

I shook her hand, introduced myself, and got a small slip of paper with directions to one of their testing labs on the other end of the building. I watched her run off with her phone glued to her ear. She kept looking over her shoulder, talking excitedly. Once my tests were done, I was ready to go home, but that little slip of paper bothered me. It was an answer to a question I’d stopped asking myself years ago. I had to know.

 

I followed the directions, leading me out of the main building and to a secondary location. A small one-story addon once used for blood donations. It was a nice enough place with a little stream running nearby. You could hear ducks quacking from the entrance.

Melody was talking to a receptionist when I walked in. She hurried over, shook my hand, and led me by the shoulder deeper into the building.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just excited. If this is what I think it is… you don’t understand. It’s a huge deal.”

We walked past a couple of offices and two testing rooms. They had equipment like the rest of the hospital, but a few machines stood out as a bit different. A lot of radio and recording equipment, along with a sound-proof recording room. They were working with acoustics.

I walked into a small, shared office space with four med students sitting at their computers. Most of them were proof-reading a research paper, while one was off in the corner playing a card game. Melody waved over a middle-aged woman across the room. She had flat black hair, like she’d been licked by a cat. She had this very plain expression that never wavered. Melody introduced us.

“This is Doctor Barlin,” she said. “She’ll take it from here.”

We shook hands. Barlin was thin to the point of malnourishment, and I was scared to accidentally crush her hand.

“I imagine you have questions,” said Doctor Barlin. “I’ll do my best to answer them.”

 

I was asked to provide a blood, skin, and hair sample. They also checked me with a metal detector to make sure I wasn’t wearing anything that interfered with their equipment. As we waited for the test results, I got a chance to sit down with Doctor Barlin in her private office. She was having her fourth cup of black coffee.

“So what exactly are you studying?” I asked.

“It’s called ossophonia congenita,” she said, not taking her eyes off her computer. “Most of us call it singing bone disorder.”

“Singing bone? Like a deficiency?”

“It’s more of a peculiar cell construct, along with a particular combination of mineral subsets.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Neither do the radios.”

She looked at me with that same neutral expression, then turned her attention back to the screen. Without cracking a smile, she finished her statement.

“That was a joke.”

 

I got a short explanation about singing bone disorder. It’d first been recorded during the Second World War, but there was no official diagnosis. It is apparently very rare, to the point where most conventional doctors doubt its existence. There had been attempts to study it in the 70’s, but most projects were either shut down or ran out of subjects to study. The disorder itself was harmless.

“Your bones produce a sort of signal,” she explained. “A mild radio-like transmission. Hence the name of singing bone. Your bones make noise.”

“How’s that possible?”

“That’s one of the things we’d like to understand, and I hope you’ll help us. Up until now we’ve only had deceased subjects.”

The computer beeped as a final report came in from the blood lab. Doctor Barlin nodded and leaned back in her chair. She raised her half-empty coffee cup in my direction, as if proposing a toast.

“It’s confirmed,” she said. “You’re my first confirmed living subject with ossophonia congenita.”

 

While Barlin didn’t crack as much as a smile, the whole building lit up almost immediately. Med students were poking their heads out to look at me, and I’m pretty sure I heard someone cheering from the break room. I was asked to sign in at the reception to get an ID card. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to help them, but they were already treating me like I’d signed away my life.

I gave them my number and e-mail, and I was asked to come in for further tests at a later date. They would have to check some things with the ethics committee, but it was an exciting time for Barlin and her team. I wasn’t sure though. Not sure at all.

As I was about to leave, I ran into Melody again. She was clearly excited, but she could tell something was off. She tilted her head and gave me an inquisitive look.

“You alright there?”

“I dunno,” I admitted. “This whole thing is a bit much.”

“I’m sorry, we’re all just a bit excited. We’ve been looking forward to studying someone like you.”

“I can tell, yeah.”

“Aren’t you excited?”

“I’m not sure what there is to be excited about.”

“She didn’t show you?”

Melody’s jaw dropped as she took me by the arm. There was no discussion.

 

She showed me to one of the workshops. It wasn’t much, just two tables full of electronics and tools next to a wide-open window. I could hear the stream outside. Having the window open almost made it warmer.

On one of the tables, there were these white discs encased in hardened plastic. They were each carefully labeled and sorted in a particular order. There was a name on the back. A person’s name.

“This is from one of the other subjects,” Melody explained. “It’s samples from the spinal column. That’s what causes the most interference.”

She showed me the palm-sized gadget she’d used on me in the waiting room, pointing to the buttons.

“It’s a small receiver and transmitter. We use it to test where the localized interference is strongest. That’s how we found it’s mostly centered around the spine. Here.”

She ran the gadget over the samples while holding a button, making the speakers crackle. Then she ran it over me again. Every time it passed my spine, the crackle intensified.

“Neat, huh?”

“So what does it mean?” I asked. “Is it just noise?”

“It’s interference, it doesn’t really say anything. Like TV static.”

“Weird.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. I tried to hold back a smile, but her narrow eyes made her look like a cartoon. I threw my hands up in surrender.

“Sorry, I don’t know how else to say it.”

“But you’ll help us, right?”

I looked down at the bone discs. The yellow tape with an ink-written name, date, and serial number. The thought that this could have been me made my skin itch.

“Sure. I’ll help.”

 

It took Barlin weeks to get the first official confirmation tests off the ground with the ethics committee. I was called in two more times to provide more samples. At one point they illustrated the interference in front of an audience of med students. I wasn’t comfortable standing shirtless in front of a crowd, but it was a matter of medical science. These people were looking to understand.

Most of the tests after that were audio based. They wanted to see if I reacted to certain hertz frequencies, and if it could be used to affect the transmission pattern. It was mostly just sitting in that sound-proof room with a big pair of headphones. I didn’t really have to do anything; it was all done through passive readings of something my body did by itself.

I also got to hear my own transmission pattern a couple of times. Doctor Barlin seemed excited about it.

“It’s different from the signals we get from deceased subjects,” she explained. “Their patterns are identical, but yours is different.”

She tapped me on the shoulder with a bony finger, like a singer tapping her microphone before a performance. Then she stopped. I could see the wheels turning in her head.

“Maybe if you can transmit, you can receive?”

 

That sparked an idea, and about a week later, Barlin was excited to set up our first proper experiment. The ethics committee didn’t have a problem with it; it was just a matter of playing sounds to me and recording my readings. Nothing we hadn’t done before, but we had to change some of the equipment. Instead of putting me in a sound-proof recording room, they rearranged one of the offices. They needed plenty of table space. They brought in 50 of their samples, lined them up, and connected each one to a machine. There were hundreds of cables, making the floor look like someone had spilled a plate of black spaghetti.

By the time I got there, the med students had been working around the clock to set it up. It was just after 6pm on a Friday, so most people had gone home for the weekend. I’d just got off work, but I’d been told it wouldn’t take more than an hour. There were only a handful of people left, two of which were Barlin and Melody. They had to stay in the other room and look at the whole thing through a camera so as to not accidentally tamper with anything.

I sat down in a comfortable chair as they placed electrodes along my spine, neck, and head. More cables running across the floor. Melody was bouncing with glee, discussing the details of the experiment with Doctor Barlin as they left the room and closed the doors. Minutes later, I could hear the doctor’s voice through a speaker on the wall.

“We’ll be tuning the frequencies and increasing the volume gradually. If at any point you feel discomfort, press the red button on the controller to your right. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded.

“Engaging phase one.”

 

They started playing sounds through a sequence of speakers. It didn’t really sound like anything; just a series of beeps and boops, like someone playing Pong. I sat there for about half a minute, waiting for something to happen. Doctor Barlin’s voice came through again.

“Phase two, tuning playback frequency zero point zero five negative.”

The sounds intensified. One of the beeps turned into a low droning noise that kept running in the background while one of the beeps intensified into a rhythmic drum-like cadence. It felt strange to listen to, like it was matching the beat of my heart.

“Phase three, tuning playback frequency zero point zero eight negative.”

The sounds got louder, and the variety of noises changed. Instead of just two types of sounds I could hear five, maybe six. All different rhythms and sequences, intermingling into a cohesive pattern. But the more I listened, the more I felt something. I didn’t know if it was the heat coming off the electronics or if it was me, but I was sweating profusely. The sound resonated in me, making me feel like a cup being slowly filled.

“Phase four, tuning playback frequency zero point one one negative.”

My eyes immediately started vibrating. I lost my focus as my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. My left hand dug into the armrest, breaking the leather. It wasn’t a voluntary action; it’s like the room turned into a blur. It looked like everything was covered in frosted glass.

I wanted to say enough was enough, but I couldn’t get the word out. Instead my eyes rolled upward. I could barely make out the plain white tiles of the ceiling, as these black dots would cluster at the edge of my vision. They floated through my straining eyes, making it look like conscious movement. Something black pushing itself through ceiling, like raw oil through a pasta strainer.

I managed to find the red button with my right hand, and I pressed it as hard as I could.

 

The moment the sound cut out, I threw up. It was this immediate movement and I didn’t have the slightest time to react to it – it just happened. I fell out of the chair as Barlin and her students came rushing into the room.

“Kill the power!” Melody yelled. “All of it!”

Barlin held my head up and checked my eyes with a pen light.

“Can you tell me what day it is?”

I tried to say Friday, but some other words came out. I couldn’t hear myself say it. Barlin stepped back, and for the first time, her face changed. Her neutral expression shattered as her eyes went wide. She backed out of the room, covering her mouth with her hand. Melody ran over to me, helping me sit. Glancing up, the ceiling was clear.

It took me a couple of minutes to regain my senses. I got to borrow a shirt from one of the med students, and as soon as I was cleared to go, I was out the door. I could hear Melody protesting in the background, but it might as well have been the ducks quacking down the stream. I wasn’t hearing any of it. I wanted to get away.

 

I got countless texts from her over the next couple of days. She wanted to see if I was okay. She wanted to apologize. She offered to pay for the dry cleaning. I didn’t respond to any of it – I kept my head down and tried not to think about it. I’d never had a cramp like that before, and having my eyes move by their own volition was uncomfortable to say the least.

Over the course of having my ossophonia studied, I’d grown more aware of the effect I had on my surroundings. It’s like when you get a wound that you can’t stop poking, it irritates you and you can’t stop yourself. That’s what it felt like. I’d put the car stereo on and listen to the crackling noise get louder the closer I leaned.

A couple of days passed before I got back the test results from my embolism check-up. It was good news; they couldn’t find any signs of hereditary issues. I called my mom and told her all about it. She could use the good news.

As I was about to hang up, she stopped me.

“I heard you’re helping out at the hospital.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“One of my friends works extra in the cafeteria. They told me you were there the other day.”

“Yeah, it’s the… gremlin thing.”

“Really?” she snorted. “That’s still a thing?”

“Yeah, it’s a whole deal. They’re writing a paper about it.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. Your uncle would be proud.”

“He would?”

“He would,” she insisted. “He donated blood all these years and gave his body to science.”

“Really?”

“You didn’t know?”

As we ended the call, I was left sitting there with my phone in my hand, scrolling through Melody’s apologetic texts. I couldn’t help but feel this emptiness in my chest, like I’d done something wrong. Finally, as I was about to put my phone down, I got one final text.

“Would you mind if we talked for a bit?” it read. “Just you and me. Clear the air.”

I sighed and thought about my uncle. He’d been uncomfortable most of his life, but he’d walked the walk. I rolled my eyes, bit my lip, and responded.

 

I met Melody for a drink later that night. She’d initially recommended a student bar, but I suggested a place downtown. It was a workday, so there wouldn’t be too many people. I got there around 8pm, and Melody was already there. Her expression broke my heart; it looked like she was on the verge of crying.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Please, have a seat.”

We ordered a snack plate as she exploded into an explanation. She told me about the impromptu tuning tech, and the measuring equipment. Most of it went way over my head, but the main takeaway was that they’d been reckless in assuming there would be little to no reaction at all. They could never have expected me to be so violently affected.

“Doctor Barlin was beside herself” she continued. “I’ve never seen her like that.”

“I was out of it,” I admitted. “I have no idea what I said to her.”

“It was weird. You kept saying ‘sister-sister’, like a song title or something.”

“Then why’d she react like that?”

“Like what?”

“She looked scared, Melody.”

She considered the question but shook her head. As we got our snack plate, she unashamedly dove into the cheese cubes.

 

After having talked for about an hour, Melody leaned in and lowered her voice.

“You know why I got into medicine?” she asked.

I shook my head, sipping my drink.

“I was a camp counselor,” she continued. “And we had this kid, Stephen. He had awful asthma, and we’d gotten a whole bunch of instructions on how to help him if things went bad. Pills, inhalers, all that stuff.”

She took a sip of her drink, inhaled another cheese cube, and took a deep breath.

“He had a bad attack one day. Real bad. So bad he couldn’t use his inhaler. He was lying on the ground clawing at his throat, and his little face was just…”

Melody leaned back a little, wiping something from her eye as she crossed her arms.

“I didn’t know what to do. He kept apologizing, like this was an inconvenience to me. And you know, I’d sat through a video on how to perform a tracheotomy, but I couldn’t bring myself to try. In the end, one of the other counselors did it. If it hadn’t been for them and some CPR, he would’ve died right there on the floor, his last words being an apology for dying.”

She looked me in the eyes. I could see a quiver on her lip.

“I live with that every day, and I’ve promised myself to do better. I don’t have a lot of regrets, but that one thing is gonna haunt me.”

“But he made it,” I said. “He’s fine, right?”

She nodded and finished her drink.

“No thanks to me.”

 

I guess that talk worked. Melody convinced me to give them another shot. They would rework the experiment and try again with new and improved equipment. That was all fine and dandy, but what I really wanted was a chance to speak to Doctor Barlin. Something about her expression stuck with me. She’d been terrified.

I was scheduled for a second experiment later that month. I went to their office a couple of times ahead of that, using my guest pass to walk straight through, but Barlin wasn’t there. She was always off at a lecture, or talking to the ethics committee, or just out and about. Seeing her behind her desk was, apparently, rare.

I managed to catch her one lazy afternoon after work. She’d been staying late reworking the parameters of the experiment. It was still a few days off, but the med students were already in the process of setting things up. I knocked on her door and leaned my head in.

“Mind if I come in?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

I sat down across from her, catching a glimpse of her screen. Hundreds of columns full of measurements arranged and calculated.

“I wanted to know about sister-sister,” I continued. “And why that bothered you.”

For a split second, something crossed her face. She looked back at her screen.

“I’d rather not.”

“I think you owe me that much.”

“One uncomfortable experience does not negate another.”

“Why was it an uncomfortable experience for you?”

“That doesn’t-“

She stopped herself. She closed her eyes as her fingers curled around her keyboard like a bird of prey holding a struggling meal.

“You said something I haven’t heard in a long time,” she continued. “It caught me by surprise.”

“Sister-sister.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “That.”

I didn’t get much clarity about why that particular thing bothered her so much, but I didn’t feel like pushing the topic.

 

Once the second experiment was set up and ready to go, I was asked to come back. I had to sign a release statement, but I could tell they were more careful this time. I had to switch to a hospital gown, and I was scrubbed down with disinfectants along my shoulders and spine. There were more people this time; all of them watching carefully and taking notes along the way.

Melody was trying her best to be supportive. She was telling me about the updated equipment, the safety precautions, and the improved audio. They’d upgraded from 50 bone samples to about 200, and they were all hooked up and ready to transmit. The tuning machines had been improved to be more gradual, allowing them to increase in the ten thousandth of a percentile. It didn’t say much in and of itself, but it was clear they were taking this seriously. It didn’t exactly ease my nerves, but at least they wouldn’t let me convulse to death. Melody least of all.

I had electrodes attached to me again. It was probably close to a hundred, most of which were positioned along my spine. They’d made a hole in the back of the chair to make sure the cables could run unimpeded. There were red buttons on both armrests now, and a sturdier headrest.

As they all filtered out of the room one by one, Melody was the last to leave, giving me a thumbs up and a silently mouthed ‘good luck’.

 

Once it was just me, I could feel my heartbeat. Whatever happened last time was fresh on my mind. I glanced at the white ceiling tiles, making sure they were as square and plain as ever. Nothing seeping through the cracks. A voice came through the speaker.

“Once you’re ready, raise your left hand.”

I took a deep breath and raised my left hand. There was a beep – some kind of acknowledgement sound.

“Proceeding to initial playback, rolling on three.”

There was a countdown as the machines powered up. I could feel the hair on my arm stand as static filled the air. Two beeps began at a steady pace, one low, one high. Different rhythms.

“All signs green, aperture check clearing in five. Tuning frequency positive zero point zero zero two, rolling on three.”

The beeping slowly changed as a third tune was introduced. The rhythm increased and steadied as one note turned into background noise. I closed my eyes, mumbling to myself for this to please be painless. As I did, something shifted. One of the notes changed.

“Yellow aperture check, clearing within parameters. Tuning frequency positive zero point zero four and rising, rolling on three.”

 

It was a much slower process this time, allowing me to adjust. Whenever the sound changed, I could feel something shift in me. I would get warmer, but the warmth would subside. We got to the point where I’d lost control of myself during the previous experiment, but this time I was barely feeling a tingle. I was asked to visually confirm that I was okay by raising my left hand. I did.

The slow changes continued as more tunes joined in. Up from five, to eleven, to twenty. At some point I lost count. It was less like a rhythm and more like a system. It felt responsive, like it was listening to me. Whenever I got too excited, some notes would change. When I closed my eyes, they would slow down. We were having a conversation, increasing and decreasing without the input of Barlin and her crew. Something in those bones was singing to me, and mine were singing back.

“Aperture check back in the green. Tuning frequency positive zero point one eight and rising, rolling on three.”

My eyes twitched a little. I felt something humming in the back of my head, and as the notes rang the vibrations revealed something to me. If you just listened to the raw noise, it was all a soup of impressions. But if you relaxed and leaned back, there was something else. It’s like when you unfocus your eyes and let your vision turn to vague shapes and colors.

I leaned into the headrest and let my mind travel where it may.

 

My heart skipped a beat.

I could feel a pounding in my chest, like I’d been hit with a hammer. I jerked forward, feeling an electrode popping loose.

I couldn’t un-hear it. The noise behind the sounds. It was organic. Breathing. Living.

The speaker was yelling something, but I couldn’t understand it. My ears were tuned to the noise coming from the singing bones positioned along the walls. They weren’t singing. They were speaking. Telling a story. Showing me something.

As my eyes rolled up, I saw the space between the ceiling tiles filling with black, as liquid black hands dripped downward.

 

I pulled my arms loose and covered my ears, but the sound was already inside of me. It was resonating within my bones, bouncing in the chambers of my heart like an echo.

The room was changing color. The eggshell walls looked winter green, and the sunflower sticker on the speaker turned a sickly blue. I got out of the chair, vaguely aware of the noises coming from outside. I was looking at my hands like they were lagging behind my thoughts, trying to catch up with impulses I’d had seconds ago.

By the time they slammed the doors open, I didn’t even see Melody and Barlin. I saw the hallway full of people standing behind them.

People with empty eyes and toothless mouths. No nails, or hair, or noses. They rolled like bags of air wearing skins, lurching this way and that as if pushed by an invisible tide.

The ceiling turned black. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but I couldn’t hear it – I just felt it. The burn in my throat felt distant as a syringe pierced my neck, and my world collapsed on itself.

 

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a couch, looking up. Something black was dripping from the ceiling, gently poking me awake as little drops touched my forehead. My eyes ached as I looked around, realizing they’d dragged me into the control room. I was alone.

A voice spoke from the dark corner of the room. It was speaking from that muddled soundscape that still echoed in my body. It wasn’t a real sound, but it was there. And it was unmistakable.

The words were nonsensical. Collections of consonants arranged at random, some of which I’d never heard before. But as I listened, they began to shift. What sounded like ‘grk’ registered in my mind like ‘hello’.

As I raised a hand towards the dark in response, it all clicked into place.

 

It wasn’t a person. It was wearing the anonymous remains of a person like a kid wearing a ghost costume for Halloween; a loose sheet hiding a shape underneath. I could see the rolling mass behind its empty sockets as its pale face morphed and stretched.

“You sing better than last time.”

The voice was feminine and high-pitched, but with a sudden downward turn at the end.

“You closed your palace to spite our invitation.”

“I don’t… understand,” I murmured. “I don’t. Don’t understand.”

“You don’t know the words!” it exclaimed. “It bothers. It bothers so!”

An arm stretched out of the dark with impossibly long fingers. Its joints bent and broke as I pushed my head back. Then, its index finger touched my forehead. It burned like ice.

“Where are the words?” it asked. “What are your sanctions?”

“I don’t know what you want,” I gasp. “What you are.”

“Be home.”

Something cold forces itself through and under my eyes, linking up with the thoughts in the back of my head. Then it pulls.

 

In the next breath, I’m 11 years old. The sweltering South Dakota heat burns through a cloudless sky. I’m sitting next to my uncle at his old computer, my knees bumping against the drawers. But I don’t look at him. I know not to look at him.

“Do you understand me now?” he asks.

I nod. It sounds like him, but his lips don’t move. My fingers tremble.

My hands shake as they hover over the keyboard with my index fingers outstretched. We’re picking a password, but I know it’s not real. Instead I look straight ahead, catching a glimpse of him in the reflection of the screen. His face looks wrong; like someone wrapped a plastic bag over a pile of branches.

“You’re dead,” I mumble. “You died.”

“I did.”

I lose my train of thought. We sit there for a couple of seconds. I swallow hard as I look down from the screen. I’d forgotten about those shoes I used to wear. He pats me on the shoulder.

“It happens,” he says.

 

“Death’s not that bad,” he continues. “It’s like logging out of your e-mail and forgetting the password. You can’t get back in, and you can only try so many times.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s the best way I can explain it.”

I peek over at his feet. They look pallid, and he has no toenails. Something moves under the surface of his skin.

“Some try to remember their password for a very long time,” he explains. “Some log back in. Most don’t.”

“Did you?” I ask.

“I don’t bother with passwords anymore,” he says. “I stepped away from the computer. There’s so much else to do.”

 

He got up from his chair and walked around the room. I could hear his uneven steps echo against the hardwood floor of his old house.

“Your password has gotten a lot better,” he said. “Some have very weak ones. They’re stuck trying to change something they can’t, and they forget to improve.”

“Is that bad?”

“It can be.”

I stood up too, looking away from the computer screen. Keeping my eyes away from him, I ask:

“Is there really something else to do? Can you just step away like that?”

He stops and turns. I don’t turn to look, but I can feel him smiling.

“It’s a beautiful day outside.”

 

I wake up with a gasp. I’ve fallen face first off the couch and bruised my nose. There’s commotion as someone tries to wake me, rolling me onto my back. I look up at Melody. She looks different. The light is dim, but I can tell. The noise has stopped echoing in my head, leaving me with a violent headache.

“We thought you’d be more vulnerable,” she whispers.

“What?”

“We were looking at you, and she was right there.”

I squint at her. One of her eyes is looking off in the distance. The other is looking at me. Her fingers keep moving like kelp in an ocean current.

It’s not Melody. Whatever I’m looking at, it’s not Melody.

“She’s so weak,” she says. “We’ll save you for later.”

She pokes my nose with a ‘boop’ and grins, but it’s not a smile I’ve seen before. As she gets up, I notice the bloody scissors in her hands.

There are bleeding people in the corridor. Melody strides down the hall with an inhuman confidence, twirling the scissors round and round like a butterfly knife. As she disappears around the corner, I can hear police sirens.

And then, things go dark.

 

Most of what happened afterward is something I’ve heard from third parties.

Melody was taken into custody and tried for attempted murder. Doctor Barlin escaped with a few cuts and bruises on her hand. One of the med students got the worst of it, getting his throat pierced. Witnesses would describe it as someone attempting an amateur tracheotomy. He survived, but some of the damage to his vocal cords was permanent.

The study was shut down. The ethics committee couldn’t let Doctor Barlin use the results of the experiment. I’m not sure what came of the subsequent investigation, but the doctor and her students were pushed to a different project. They still use the same building though.

I caught up with Barlin a couple of months later. It wasn’t planned; I just ran into her while I was out and about. We were in the same waiting room at the bank. I was a bit hesitant about talking to her, but I decided it was more awkward to pretend like we didn’t know each other. I sat down next to her, sparked up a conversation, and we ended up on a familiar topic.

“Why was sister-sister such a big deal to you?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“It was our secret password,” she said. “Something my sister and I said to mean we were serious about something. It’s like when you say… cross your heart and hope to die.”

“It must mean a lot to you.”

“Sort of,” she smiled. “I just haven’t thought of it in a while. She’s been gone for over a decade.”

 

Years later, I still have singing bone disorder. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it, and I don’t think there’ll ever be a study like that again. I can’t imagine an ethics committee signing off on it. Looking back at it, I feel like I’ve gotten a better understanding of things. Not just about the disorder, but about myself.

Sometimes after work, I turn the car stereo on. I tune the noise between stations, close my eyes, and listen. And in those moments between one obligation and another, I feel like I can almost remember that sound. That voice.

And I feel like there’s so much left to see.

Everyone has a first memory. For me, it was chewing on a crayon and looking down at a paper. Someone was screaming at me to do something, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was confused, scared, and a bit sick. Next thing I know, I’m being carried to a car and driven to a hospital. I remember the world spinning.

I’d been poisoned, and I had a long list of severe reactions to it. I don’t remember much from that time; I was happy eating ice cream and getting to play Alex Kidd on the Mega Drive. Meanwhile, I was subjected to daily tests and taking four kinds of medication.

Behind the scenes, things were different. The crayons were part of a promotional deal handed out at a nationwide grocery chain when you signed up for a membership card. You also got a fruit basket and a coupon. Turns out, some of the crayons had been tampered with to include one that smelled and tasted like caramel. That’s pretty much my first memory – my teeth covered in wax, the taste of caramel on my tongue, and looking down at a picture I can’t remember drawing.

 

My family was one of about a dozen who went to court, but we were offered a substantial settlement to keep it quiet. I don’t have the exact number, but my family agreed. After all, no one died. By the time we got the payout, I was already back on my feet. All the kids were.

There were a few lingering effects of the poison. For example, I couldn’t really taste anything sour anymore. Kids could hand me the most eye-watering sour candy and I didn’t even flinch. To me it was no worse than a cough drop. I would also have trouble going to bed at a regular time, almost as if my circadian rhythm was broken. I can easily stay up for about 30-36 hours without cracking a yawn.

By the time I got to high school, things looked different. I was a math wiz studying at a university level. I played four instruments, and I could speak three languages fluently. My mom hated when I pulled an all-nighter, but once I got to move into the garage I got into the habit of sleeping every other day in secret. It worked out fine. It’s crazy how much more time you have on your hands when you function on a different level. I can’t imagine finishing high school on a regular schedule.

 

I went to college on a scholarship and finished with a doctorate in applied mathematics and statistics. Honestly, it felt a bit like cheating. I would zoom past the other students since I could spend more hours of the day focused on one thing without the need to interrupt myself with sleep. I’d get these cheap meal packs that were more or less a TV dinner with a chocolate bar. I ended up skipping the dinners and just getting the bars. I would go days on end just devouring sugar and caffeine on these high-caloric benders that would send my mood up and down like a roller coaster, but I’d get crazy amounts of work done.

I was working on a paper and teaching a college class when I met Kayla. We just clicked. What happened between is us what I hope happens to everyone at some point – that everything just gets easy. There was no doubt about us moving in together. About me proposing. About getting a shared bank account, a townhouse, and a car big enough for a family. And once the wedding bells had faded far behind us, we welcomed our first child.

My daughter, Erica.

 

Erica was born six weeks prematurely and had critical respiratory issues. She required round-the-clock care and things were a bit touch-and-go for a while. There was a severe chance of bacterial infection, so Kayla and I had to watch her day and night through a pane of glass. I would be there for days on end, once again subsisting on candy from the vending machine and the occasional lukewarm coffee.

But things turned out alright. Erica pulled through, and we took her home. I think the whole thing scarred Kayla a bit; turning her more overprotective than she’d want to be. Not saying I was completely unaffected, but she definitely had a shift in perspective. She’d stay up at night holding a mirror in front of Erica just to make sure she was breathing.

But as with most things, we found a new normalcy, and days turned to weeks, to months, to years.

 

By the time Erica started going to preschool, we noticed some behavioral patterns. She avoided other kids and kept to herself. She had trouble following instructions, and she’d sometimes act in a way that made her seem cold. She’d snap at teachers and stay in her corner, drawing with crayons or playing with her favorite stuffed bunny.

I figured it was a quirk of her personality, but Kayla wasn’t convinced. We had a lot of fights about it, and at one point, her patience ran out. We’d been sitting in the kitchen talking for well over an hour. She was having a cigarette, blowing smoke out the window. She only smokes when she’s stressed.

“Maybe it’s that shit in your system,” she snapped at me. “That poison. Maybe it can affect our kids.”

“You suggesting it’s my fault she can’t make friends?”

“You even know what you have? They ever tell you that?”

The fight eventually ended as they all do – with quiet resignation, and Kayla going upstairs to check on Erica.

That argument made me take a step back and poke around a bit. It didn’t take long for me to find the contact info for some of the other families. Some of them had kept in touch with my parents for years after they went to court. Hell, our family still had some of that settlement money left. I double-checked a couple of names with my parents and sent out some e-mails.

 

After a couple of days, I got a response from a man named Howard. He was about my age and introduced himself as one of the kids affected by the same thing when we were younger – he’d just changed his name for unrelated reasons. He’d been in touch with a couple of the others and wanted to bring us all together to see how we were doing. It was a fun idea, sort of like a class reunion for people who had something very specific in common. I agreed, since it wasn’t a long drive.

I drove out to a café on a lazy Thursday in July after a long day of grading papers. I didn’t really know what to expect when I pulled into the parking lot, but it wasn’t hard to spot the crowd I was looking for. Seven people showed up, from all walks of life. All of them around my age, skinny, and well-dressed. None of us wore glasses.

I walked up and introduced myself. There were a bunch of names and people wanting to introduce themselves. We didn’t get much time before one of the guys up front called for attention and waved us over.

“Thanks for coming everyone,” he said. “I’m Howard. I set this shindig up – figured it was a good a time as any to figure some stuff out.”

 

Howard’s long hair was tied up in a ponytail. He had a well-kempt beard, and a Hawaii shirt. We all settled into a big booth on the top floor of the café. Everyone ordered something. Coffee with extra sugars. An energy drink. Classic coke. Snacks, cookies, sandwiches. I wasn’t the only one with an appetite, but to be fair, that place had an amazing carrot cake. While we were chowing down, Howard spoke up.

“I figured we could go around the table and introduce ourselves,” he said. “Something about you. Your job, where you live, something like that.”

We all agreed. One by one we said our names and a little tidbit about ourselves. I shared a bit about my work, my wife, and my daughter. There was one who was a cryptographer working with the defense industry. Another was a city planner, working to stop congestion through simulated models in inner cities. We had an art critic, a structural engineer, a professional musician, and a surgeon. Howard worked with cybersecurity.

It didn’t take us long to realize we had a lot in common. We all had a college education, and many of us were on the same academic level. We had complex roles that required years of specialized experience. As we compared notes, I had a slice of cheesecake and noticed Howard looking at me. He tilted his head and asked an open question.

“What else do we all have in common?”

Turns out, quite a lot.

 

On top of being well-educated, we all had a sweet tooth. We all had a complicated relationship with sleep, and we had great short-term memory. All in all, we were doing pretty good. The surgeon chimed in;

“We don’t really know what was in those crayons”, he said. “They never released a toxicology report, and most of the documents were sealed as part of the court settlement. It’d be impossible to find anything about it at this point.”

There wasn’t anything that different about any of us. We’d all been x-rayed and had our blood drawn at one point or another, and no one had ever noticed anything strange. On paper, there was nothing unusual about us. We just had the caramel crayon in common, and that had changed the trajectory of our lives.

Then the structural engineer spoke up.

“Frankly, if whatever was in those crayons made us end up like we are today, can we really say it was such a bad thing?”

We could disagree on principle, but the facts spoke for themselves. Another added;

“If I had a kid, I’d want them to get the same opportunities that I did. I wouldn’t mind giving them a caramel crayon.”

The others agreed. At the very least, they wanted to get a closer look at what it contained. Thinking back on Erica, I could see where they were coming from. Erica had so many issues, and if giving her this one thing could help, I wouldn’t hesitate to give her one.

 

Coming home that night, I put Erica to bed. She was having another stomachache, so I already knew what Kayla was doing. Whenever Erica had stomach issues, Kayla reviewed everything she’d eaten to see if there was a common denominator – some kind of allergen. So far we’d found nothing. I read Erica a story, tucked her in, and joined Kayla in the kitchen. As she reviewed the list, I told her about the group and our meeting.

“If we got the option, do you think Erica would be better off being a bit more like me?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, mentally. If she was a bit less tired, and a bit more attentive, you know?”

“How can you say that?”

“I don’t mean it like that.”

I sat down and held her hand, looking her in the eyes. Without using a word, I tried to tell her I wasn’t asking this to be mean, or to imply anything bad. I was concerned.

“I think Erica would do better, long-term, if she had the option to be a bit more like me. Do you agree?”

Kayla looked me deep in the eyes. I could feel the easing tension in her hand as she twirled an unlit cigarette between her fingers. She thought about it, then released a drawn-out breath.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I think she’d do better.”

 

Me and the others created an e-mail group and got to work looking into what we could about the crayons. As the case never went to court, the news articles that covered it were sparse. Luckily, some of the families involved kept meticulous notes. I talked to my parents and made copies of all contracts and tests they had and uploaded them all to our communal group. Others did the same.

There wasn’t much to go on, but the surgeon went through what he could and confirmed that we’d all had symptoms reminiscent of anaphylaxis; allergic reactions. Some of us experienced sudden weight loss, while others had inflammation of the gut lining. Most of us had experienced balance issues, while others had severe eczema spanning the entire length of the spine.

A part of the settlement had been the company reassuring our parents that they would either stop production entirely or change their safety standards. The structural engineer suggested that the tampering was probably done in-house when the product moved from packaging to warehouse, meaning the culprit was probably someone who worked at the central warehouse unit.

We all pitched in with what we could. It was a lot of fun to dig into something like this, and everyone seemed on board. It was a puzzle to solve, and we were all in.

 

One weekend, I couldn’t put the work down. I usually forced myself asleep every night, but that particular day I was too fired up to get any rest. Kayla was worried, leaning on the door frame to check in on me. I was chatting with Howard, who was taking on an organizational role to keep things centralized. I’d just finished updating my contact info.

“Her stomach’s getting better” Kayla said.

“Hmm?”

“Your daughter,” she grinned. “Her stomach’s getting better.”

“Right, of course.”

“She likes it better when you read to her.”

Kayla sat down next to me, checking what Howard had written. We’d been breaking down our symptoms, trying to come up with a list of possible substances that could reproduce them, and looking at their effects on consumption. It was a lot of gobbledygook.

“Sometimes I forget you’re genius,” she snorted. “Then you show me stuff like this.”

“You really think she likes it better when I read?”

“Changing the subject,” she said, tapping her nose. “Smart. And yeah, she’s pretty open about it.”

“She doesn’t hold back, that’s for sure.”

“You seen what she drew today?”

Kayla unfolded a piece of paper, showing me what looked like brown, hollow, blob. I couldn’t make sense of it.

“She says it’s Mister Rabbit,” Kayla snorted. “I’ll be honest, I don’t see the resemblance.”

“She’s gonna keep that thing until she goes to college, I swear to God.”

“You think she’ll go to college?”

“Well,” I said, turning the paper over in my hands. “Maybe not for an art degree.”

Kayla smacked me on the shoulder playfully, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“She’s beautiful, and makes beautiful things, and you’re an idiot.”

“Of course, dear. You’re right, dear.”

“Smart man.”

 

It took us a couple of days to piece together what we could find. The crayon had most probably been packaged as a sort of compact caramel fudge, dipped in a fragrant sugar solution. Whatever the chemical mixture we’d been given actually was, it had to be potent enough not to dilute or be rendered ineffective when exposed to heat or room temperature for prolonged periods of time. That sort of narrowed it down, but we were far from an answer.

Then, a breakthrough.

It was our art critic, Shannon, who found something. She was used to scouring online auction houses and collectibles, and there were a number of people who hoarded strange 90’s nostalgia. That included crayons and promotional material – even niche ones.

“I found a seller in Omaha who’s got an actual caramel crayon,” she wrote in the group chat. “It should be here in a couple of days.”

This was a game changer. If this was the real thing, we could finally get a sample. And with that, answers.

 

As a couple of days passed, I couldn’t help but pay a bit more attention to Erica. Not only was she struggling socially, but she was having trouble with shapes and colors. She could spend all day drawing, but it would always come out as some kind of immaterial blob. Even squinting at a distance, I couldn’t make it out to look like anything. It was clear she was struggling with spatial dimensions, often going too fast and tripping over herself. I started thinking she might need glasses.

It was a difficult question to answer; should I give her a caramel crayon if given the opportunity? I wouldn’t without knowing what was in it, but did it really matter if I considered the results? I’d been given one without my consent, and I turned out fine. We all had. The question of whether or not it’d been good for us was already answered.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what would change if she ate one. What would she be like in, say, a year? And later in life, would she be thankful for the opportunity, or angry that I took something away?

 

Shannon updated us that there’d been trouble with the shipment. She wasn’t sure if it was a case of porch pirates or a failed delivery, but the package never reached her home. After getting access to a street camera (don’t ask how, I have no idea how he did it), one of the members confirmed that no delivery truck had even passed by her house that day, meaning the package had most probably either been sent to the wrong address or never reached the sorting station to begin with. Given how rare the crayon was, we set to tracking it down.

Howard was ready to call the whole thing off, but we turned things around surprisingly fast. One guy managed to get access to the warehouse delivery manifest (again, don’t ask). Cross-referencing the weight of the packages with the order receipt that Shannon had, we managed to find a confirmed delivery to an address not too far from there that matched. And, strangely enough, it was delivered to someone with a fake name.

While some of them debated back and forth on the topic of whether this was deliberate or not, I offered to simply go check. It wasn’t a long drive, and I could bring someone from the group along just in case. It was just an inquiry. Howard suggested we talk about it first, but Shannon was all-in. She was just as curious as I was.

 

We ended up taking a trip out there later the same day. It wasn’t that far, and I picked her up after dinner. Shannon was about two years younger than me. Color coordinated in white and winter green, with her black hair in a complex braid. She had these razor thin glasses that were purely cosmetic.

The address we’d found was technically on public property. It wasn’t a house as much as it was a mobile home at the end of a long road. It wasn’t a bad part of town, but it was somewhere people didn’t go if they didn’t have a good reason to. If our package ended up there, it was a good chance that foul play was involved.

We followed a dirt road to the very end, finding a white camper van tucked away between the sparse vegetation. The lights were out, but we could tell someone had been there recently. The windows were covered up with cardboard. Shannon and I just kinda looked at one another, thinking we ought to call the whole thing off. Just as I was about to turn the car back on, she got out. I hurried after her.

 

We walked around for a good minute or so, checking the camper van from other angles. I couldn’t see a thing. She had an eye for details though, so maybe I was missing something.

“It’s in there,” she said. “And there’s something else.”

“You sure?”

She pointed to the tires. You could tell they’d been standing there for quite a while, as grass had grown around them. Then she tapped her nose. Taking a whiff, I could smell something faint and sugary. There was an air vent on the back of the camper van, and the smell got stronger the closer you got.

“Alright,” I said. “If you’re sure, we’ll call the police.”

“For a crayon? You think they care?”

“It’s a collectible.”

“Still a crayon.”

 Then she cracked a window with a rock.

 

After my initial panic faded, and Shannon stepped inside, I couldn’t help but to be intrigued. The smell got stronger when she opened the door, and I followed her inside.

The camper van was more of a lab than a domicile. On the immediate right there was a table full of small terrariums, housing about half a dozen centipedes. There was a portable stove with several kinds of pots and pans full of melted sugar. And there, on a small cutting board, was a caramel crayon. Someone had carefully removed the wrapping paper and cut off a piece with a scalpel, using a testing kit to get a closer look. Shannon checked the notes while I looked around a bit more. We were already in – might as well snoop a bit.

I noticed this one paper that had an ink drawing on it. A detailed handmade diagram of what looked like a human spine, next to an identically shaped centipede. Some of its legs were longer, and its body shape looked more like that of a linked sausage. Still, the shape of it matched the spine perfectly.

There were also a couple of folders with newspaper clippings, test results, and transcripts. Some went all the way back to the 90’s. A couple of words and sentences were highlighted in yellow marker pen.

‘Sense of taste affected.’

‘Irregular sleep schedule.’

‘Excessive caloric intake.’

‘Memory loss.’

The last thing was crossed out, with a handwritten node added to the side. ‘It’s not memory loss’.

Looking up at Shannon, she was already taking pictures and sharing with the group chat. It was clear that this was no coincidence; whoever had diverted the package had done so with intent.

 

“It says something about memory loss,” I said. “You know anything about that?”

“Not really,” Shannon said. “We’ll have to ask the others. Do you have memory problems?”

 “I can remember everything from my very first memory.”

“What was it?”

“Eating the crayon,” I said, turning a page.

Shannon turned to me with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s my first memory too.”

Taking a couple more pictures, we heard something outside. A car coming down the street. Shannon snatched what remained of the crayon. As we turned to leave, we noticed a shotgun tucked away just above the door. Whoever lived here was prepared for something.

Hurrying outside and closing the door behind us, Shannon raised a hand at me to stop. As a car came down, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Howard. He stopped, got out, and waved at us.

“We gotta go!” he said. “We don’t have much time!”

 

We followed him for a bit until we got to a gas station. I stopped for gas while Shannon checked her phone. Howard met up with me at the pump. He was consistent in his fashion choices, still wearing a Hawaii shirt – just with different colors. Blue sunflowers instead of tropical birds, but the same tacky style.

“I heard some radio chatter,” Howard said. “I think they called the cops.”

“But we should be good, right?”

“Right,” he nodded. “I’m a goddamn guardian angel. You got anything?”

“Turns out we have another thing in common,” I said. “We all have the same first memory. Eating that crayon.”

“What’s that mean, you think?”

“Well, we were all different ages, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence. But I can’t put my finger on why that bothers me.”

And it really did. There was a part of me that itched at the thought, like I was missing something obvious. I snapped my fingers a couple of times and said my thoughts out loud.

“Like, what happened to whatever we experienced before that point? What happened to all those years before I ate the crayon?”

Neither Shannon nor Howard had an answer, leaving the question looming over us as we called it a night. Howard gave Shannon a ride home as I checked the group chat, watching everyone confirm that none of us had any memory prior to eating that crayon.

 

As I checked on Erica before heading to bed, I couldn’t help but wonder if the same thing would happen to her if we gave her a crayon. Would she forget everything we’d done up to that point? Would she still prefer me reading to her over her mom?

Pushing the hair from her chin, I couldn’t help but wonder. It really bordered on a much larger question. How much was I prepared to give up of my child in order for her to reach her full potential? I wanted what was best for her, but there is no objective way to say what that is. No parent is a fortune teller. Being quick on your feet or good at school is no guarantee for a successful life. What even is success anyway?

Closing her door behind her, I met Kayla in the hallway. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and lowered her voice.

“You find anything?”

“Someone’s been looking into this,” I whispered. “It’s… strange.”

“You know what’s in the crayon yet?”

“No idea, but it made us forget things.”

“What things?”

I peeked back at Erica, making sure she was sound asleep.

“Everything. Made us forget everything before we ate that thing.”

“So you don’t remember what you were like before?”

“Not really, no. But I was just six.”

“Nothing?”

I shook my head. Kayla frowned a little, growing increasingly concerned.

“So it turned you into a new person?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If you don’t remember a single thing from before you ate it, how do you know you weren’t completely different?”

It was a good question.

 

I talked to my parents about it the next day. Turns out, they’d thought about that too. Prior to eating that crayon, I’d been a much louder kid. Angrier, even. I’d been energetic, kinda pushy, and very affectionate. After eating it, it was like I’d hit a hard reset.

“You talked less,” Mom shared over the phone. “You didn’t care much for TV, and your whole sense of taste changed. We had to get new cereal.”

“Would you say I was a new person?”

“In a way, I suppose. But we raised you all the same. You can only get so different in the company of the same people.”

“But I was different.”

“I suppose you were.”

The group chat had similar conversations. According to one guy, he’d gone from right-handed to left-handed after eating the crayon. Another had a completely different posture. One changed their entire pattern of speaking. All of us had gone through a sort of transformation, changing us on a fundamental personal level.

We waited for Shannon to weigh in, but nothing happened. Hours later, as the sun began to set, she still wasn’t answering. She’d been one of the most active in the chat up until that point. She wasn’t answering her calls either. We were getting worried.

“She was fine when I dropped her off,” Howard wrote. “Want me to go check on her?”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Be back in a bit.”

 

Kayla wanted to come along and meet one of the group, but Erica wasn’t feeling well and we couldn’t bring her along. Someone had to stay home with her. I said I’d ask Shannon to come by some time to meet the family. You don’t get a lot of chances to make new friends as a first-time parent.

I drove out to Shannon’s place. She lived in an apartment complex downtown, top floor. One of those expensive places where you have to take an elevator up. She’d already shared the door code in case we had to come by and say hi. This wasn’t the first time she’d gotten a visit from one of her crayon buddies.

I went inside the building, stepped into the elevator, and typed out her four-digit code. As the doors closed, I double-checked my phone. Still, nothing.

When the doors opened, I almost swallowed my tongue.

 

There was only one apartment on the top floor, and the elevator opened right next to the front door.

The door was wide open, revealing the coconut white interior.

The one thing that stood out was a contrasting pool of red, covering the back of her sectional white leather couch. Right next to it was Shannon’s lifeless body, having dropped face first onto her minimalist glass coffee table. Strings of black hair cast a bloody contrast on her white carpet, as part of her head had been smeared across the room from a shotgun blast.

She still wore her cosmetic glasses from the previous night. The blood had been dry for hours, and the flies were already feasting.

 

All sounds faded as my eyes fixated on that shade of red. It looked almost cartoonish. Fake. I could smell the iron of her blood, but it didn’t make sense to me. It was the last thing I’d expected to see, and now I couldn’t see anything but that. I couldn’t see anything but the red. As my heart began to race, I realized there was a sound. It’s distant, like from behind a pane of glass.

I look down at my phone that I’ve been holding, only to see that it’s ringing. An unknown number. I press to accept and raise it to my ear. I can barely hear through my own pulse as my mouth runs dry.

“Step back in the elevator, and go home,” a voice says.

I say the first word that comes to mind.

“Howard?”

“Go home. Call anyone, and I’ll know.”

“What are you doing?”

“Do as I say, and no one else gets hurt.”

The call ends, and I leave. I don’t touch the door. I don’t touch anything.

 

I feel cold as I sit back down in my car. Like a block of ice has settled in my stomach. I carefully adjust the rear-view mirror, force my shoulders to relax, and check the speed every 50 feet or so. I don’t just drive home; I’m exemplary. I’m collected. Professional. Panicking.

As I park the car on my driveway, I don’t know what to do. I keep my phone ready. I’ve already typed in the emergency number, ready to push the call button. I place my hand on my door, and something in me seizes. What if I were to open the door to another splatter of red? As long as I stay outside, and that door is closed, I can pretend a little longer.

But I have to know.

I step through the door. The lights are dimmed, and the TV is running on low volume in the living room. There’s no one there. A light is coming from the adjacent kitchen. I keep my shoes on as I round the corner, only to see Howard sitting on a chair by our kitchen island. He has a shotgun trained on me. It has a tube added on the top; some kind of silencer. It’s the shotgun from the camper van.

There’s a small glass on the kitchen island, and he invites me to sit down with the wave of a hand. I stay on my feet, finger on the phone, ready to make the call.

“They’re fine,” he says. “They’re upstairs.”

“What do you want?”

“Have a drink, and I’ll leave.”

“What is it?”

“Does it matter?”

I step forward and sit down across from him. The glass has a clear liquid, and a powerful chemical smell. Howard sighs as he leans back, keeping the shotgun pointed at me.

 

“I couldn’t let you give it to that little girl,” he mumbles. “Or anyone.”

“You know what the crayon is?”

“You haven’t figured it out?” he scoffed. “I thought you were supposed to be geniuses.”

“It made us forget things,” I said. “Early memories.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It ate them.”

“What?”

“It ate them,” he spat. “The damn thing they got into you ate the kid you were and left you behind.”

He poked the glass with the barrel of the gun, inching it closer to me.

“It’s an anti-parasitic cocktail,” he says. “Tried to give one to Shannon, but… yeah. It should kill whatever’s in control. I have no idea what kind of person will be left behind, but at least it’ll be human.”

“I am human.”

“No, you were human,” he hissed. “Before some sadist tricked you into eating a kind of centipede or tapeworm hybrid. The kind of thing you considered infecting your girl with.”

“I wouldn’t unless I knew what it was! Now, I’d never-“

“Bull! Shit!”

He got up and kicked away the chair, making the cheap wood clatter against the kitchen tiles. Sweat is running down my face, making my eyes itch as I blink it all away. He keeps a distance to make sure I can’t reach for the gun, but he doesn’t let up. He never looks away.

 

“I was gonna save all of you!” Howard yelled. “I just needed more time to test it! That’s all I needed, time! I’d fix you and you could come back to your family a real man!”

“How do I know it won’t just kill me?” I say. “What if it just kills all my memories a second time?”

I tap my chest, making a point as I desperately continue.

“Who is this? Who is speaking to you? Is it the real me, or whatever the crayon put in me?”

“One gulp, and we’ll find out.”

“I don’t wanna leave them. I can’t risk it. I won’t.”

“You’ll be real, or you’ll be dead. Take a pick. Shannon made her choice.”

My mind spins. My breaths grow shallow as my hand shakes. I pick up the glass. There’s this warmth crawling up the length of my spine. I close my eyes, letting my mind drift. I can almost feel it. Little legs poking at my nerve endings, hijacking one process and replacing it with another. Maybe it’s been there all these years. Maybe I’m just imagining it.

I raise the glass to my lips as the chemicals crinkle my nose.

Then I stop. I hear a voice from the corridor.

“My tummy hurts.”

 

Howard and I turn to see Erica standing in the doorway. Howard lowers the weapon, giving me a knowing look. She must have slipped out while Kayla was locked in the bedroom. Maybe he thought she was asleep.

“Daddy’s just having a drink,” Howard says. “He’ll be with you in a bit.”

“Can I hold your hand?” she asks.

“Sure,” Howard smiles. “We can go upstairs while daddy finishes his drink.”

He reaches out a hand toward her, and I see something shift. Her eyes reflect in a matte sheen. It looks like she’s yawning, but her mouth just keeps going wider and wider. By the time Howard notices, I see something unfolding from under her tongue, as she bites down on his hand.

Howard screams out and presses the trigger, blasting a hole through our kitchen window in a deafening boom. He collapses to the ground in a seizure as his eyes roll back in his skull. I rush over to pick up Erica as Kayla is screaming from the bedroom. I rush to call for help as Erica curls into my arms and leans in next to my ear.

“I feel a lot better now.”

Howard reminds me of a dying spider, curling in on himself, struggling to breathe. Something black spreads from the bite mark on his hand.

 

It doesn’t take long for police to get there. Howard was taken to the hospital, and it took him four days to regain consciousness. They had to amputate his arm, as it had been infected with a powerful toxin. They weren’t sure what kind of toxin it was.

I never drank from that glass, and neither did anyone else. Some rejected the idea that we’d been infected with parasites completely. The surgeon avoided the topic altogether, but his silence was telling. He mentioned finding something on our x-rays, but he never shared exactly what.

Erica has a small fold under her tongue. If she presses on it just right, it produces this foul-smelling liquid from a leather-like membrane. If she presses enough and spits it out, her stomach stops hurting. Once we figured that out, she started feeling a lot better.

 

Kayla and I have been looking a little closer at Erica. It’s clear she’s not like other kids. She has started to feel more comfortable in herself. Turns out one reason she can seem distracted and clumsy at times is because she hasn’t been sleeping all that well. Most nights she was just lying there, faking it. Her circadian rhythm has been all over the place. She also can’t taste very sour things, just like her dad.

The strangest thing is her drawings. We looked at them like random scribbles, but if you put them in a pile, you realize something; they’re a cross-section. It’s similar to how you would render a 3D-printed object. She really was drawing her favorite Mister Bunny; she was just doing it from a different perspective.

Now that we’ve started to figure her out, she has been opening up a lot more. She used to be scared of accidentally biting people, or them smelling her bad breath. Now that she can deal with that, she has a bit more confidence.

 

At the end of the day, I don’t know for sure what I am. I don’t know if I’m a parasite or the remnants of a dying mind. I don’t know these things, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever I am, I have a wife that loves me, and a child that’s just like me. The real me. She’ll be and do things that I never can, and her view of the world will be unique in so many ways. That’ll never go away.

I won’t feed her a caramel crayon. She is perfect the way she is. She’s just a kid. My kid. And whatever she becomes is hers alone.

To this day, I don’t have an answer as to who did this to me. I don’t know the purpose, or why we ended up the way we did. Maybe in our natural habitat, our days are longer. Maybe our diet is sour. It doesn’t matter.

At the end of the day, we’re reading from the same picture book.

I’ve always wanted to be a homeowner. I grew up in this nice house with my mom, dad, and older brother. We had a yard with a swing and a sandbox, and a big grill where my dad used to make hot dogs. Then recession hit. We had to sell the house and get an apartment. It wasn’t bad, but it was weird having to go from having my own room to sharing with my brother.

I decided I would live the kind of life that allowed me to have a place like that of my own. I tried to get a good job, but something always killed the momentum. The housing crisis, the pandemic, and this endless parade of things I couldn’t control. Even if I handled my job well, I had to start over again and again. Cutbacks, layoffs, restructuring, whatever you call it.

I got a remote job some years ago and decided to go for it. I found a cheap house in the town of Hilltop. Not the biggest place, but it was my own, and I could work remotely. Hilltop is not a big city, and not the most exciting area, but if you’re ever gonna be a homeowner you have to make some concessions.

 

It was a one-story building that had been empty for years. Four rooms, a large bathroom, and a refurbished kitchen. A garage that wasn’t connected to the main building. There was a storm cellar too.

I’ll be honest, my first thought was ‘I messed up’. When I got there with all my furniture and boxes, I didn’t know what to do. The floors were a mess. The bathroom didn’t have warm water. I barely had any reception, and I couldn’t get the wi-fi working. But what’s done is done, and day by day, I made it a little better. New doors for the garage. New floors. Fixed the bathroom tiling and redid some of the plumbing. I hired some guys to trim the yard, plant some bushes, and add some stepstones out front. The place gradually transformed, even if there were some strange groans and creeks when it got windy.

I was proud to call that place a home. I had my own yard, my wallpaper, and my furniture. Kitchen table, two chairs. Vintage leather couch. Not too shabby.

 

I was happy with that place. I’d work from about 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening, with a one and a half-hour lunch break. Sometimes I had to take client calls later in the day; then I could compensate by sleeping in and starting later the day after. I do a lot of technical illustrations for guidebooks and also act as a reviewing consultant. I get handed something that’s been worked through a dozen times when they need someone with a nice title to put a final stamp of approval. Pays well, but if you don’t pay attention you can screw yourself out of a job.

I’d lived in Hilltop for about a year and a half. It was summer, not that long after fourth of July. You could still see remnants of red, white, and blue balloons downtown. It was closing in on the weekend, but I had gotten a bunch of last-minute things to chug through because of a scheduling error. They’d accidentally written the wrong date, and something I thought was due in August was, in fact, due in a couple of days.

I had to pull a series of all-nighters. I was living on these cheap boxes of Chinese food that I’d saved up in the freezer, along with a big box of cheap energy drinks. Not my usual forte, but I was working 16-18 hours a day and barely looking up from my screen. I had a pillow next to my workstation for micro-naps. I usually read a lot of my work on a tablet, but I had to sit uncomfortably in order to stay awake. Even then I had a guy calling me once every six hours to get a status update. I had this default ringtone that had seared into my brain like a tattoo.

 

I was on day three. I’d had about four hours of sleep the night prior, and I was just over halfway done overall. It looked like I was going to meet my deadline in a couple of days, if only by a hair. At one point I got up to have my third energy drink of the day and splashed some cold water on my face. My hands were shaking, but I was so into my work that I wasn’t really paying attention. If I had, I would’ve looked out the window. I would’ve noticed the man walking up my driveway.

Just as the sun began to set, there was a knock on my door. I nearly choked on my drink. I’d only ever had delivery guys knock on my door – no visitors. Didn’t know enough people in the area yet. Looking out the kitchen window, I could see there was someone standing at the front door. I hadn’t put in a peephole yet, so I wasn’t sure about letting him in. Walking up to the door, I called out.

“Excuse me, who is it?”

“Lars, I used to live here.”

“Alright.”

“Can I come in?”

I looked around. The place wasn’t a mess per se, but I wasn’t ready for company. I had things to do.

“Sorry, I’m a bit busy at the moment. How about next weekend?”

“I won’t be long,” he interrupted. “Please, it’s serious.”

“You need help? Should I call someone?”

“Look, I don’t have much- never mind.”

Seconds later, the lock clicked and the door swung open. The front door was one of few things I hadn’t replaced yet, and apparently, this man had an old key.

 

Lars was a man in his early 60’s. Long white hair, slim and tall build. Messy beard that could use a trim. The moment he stepped in, he slammed the door shut and locked it. I was already taking a step back towards the bathroom, getting ready to call the cops. He held up a hand, showing he wasn’t armed.

“I need something from the bedroom,” he said “It’ll take five seconds. Five seconds, and I’m out, please.”

I was scrambling to find the right words. I got in the way, I yelled, I pointed, but I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t prepared. I could pull a knife on the guy, but was I ready to stab him? I didn’t know, so I didn’t do it. I just followed him, holding my phone up as a threat. He didn’t seem to mind.

He jogged into the bedroom, only to notice I’d put in a wardrobe that covered one of the walls. The thing was nailed to the floor, and he wasn’t about to move it anytime soon. He threw the doors open and crawled in, smacking the back of the wardrobe with his open fist.

“Damnit!” he called out. “A wardrobe. They never put in wardrobes. Why now?”

He got back out and looked me in the eye. He thought about what to say for a couple of seconds, then spoke in a low voice.

“I know this is weird. I know. But do you have an axe, or some kind of power tool?”

“I’m not helping you mess up my wall.”

“It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Then we need to call the police.”

“It’s not that simple.”

As he raised his voice, we stopped and turned. There was another knock on the front door. Lars looked at me, as if silently asking if I was expecting company. I shook my head. Someone knocked for a second time.

 

I stepped back into the main hall. I could hear muffled voices coming from outside.

“Sir, would you kindly open the door? It’s an urgent matter, if you please.”

Lars looked at me with these wide eyes, shaking his head.

“I can hears y’all walking around in there,” the muffled voice continued. “Don’t make me wait now.”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“You got our buddy in there, right? Long hair, looks like shit?”

“Yeah?”

Lars swore under his breath and bolted for the back door – the one that opened into my beautifully trimmed yard. He pulled the door open and sprinted for the woods. Some of the voices on the other side of the door stepped away to speak into some kind of radio, and seconds later I heard a barking dog.

It didn’t take them long to come around the back of the house. I saw a German Shepherd bring Lars to the ground as two men with assault rifles zip tied his hands behind his back. I’ve never heard that kind of pained scream before, but it was only a prelude. My heart was beating out of my chest. The energy drinks weren’t helping.

“You don’t open this door in six seconds, it’s coming down. You want me to start countin’?”

“I’m not part of this,” I said. “I’m not part of any of this.”

“Then you’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Nothin’ but sunshine and rainbows.”

I opened the door.

 

There were six men outside, making them eight in total with the two out the back. Eight men and a German Shepherd. The two up front were about Lars’ age, with trimmed white hair and beards. Military, maybe law enforcement. Both had assault rifles resting on their stomachs with their arms crossed. Nondescript black baseball caps, blue fatigues and bulletproof vests. Handcuffs, stun guns, pepper spray, two sidearms. One on the hip, one across the chest.

As they dragged Lars back into the house, kicking and screaming, the man at the door gave me a big smile.

“Thank you kindly,” he said. “Name’s Jerome, this here’s Marcus. Mind if we come in?”

I didn’t say anything, I just stepped aside. Even if I managed to call for help, I’d be dead in five seconds if I made any sudden moves. These people weren’t messing around. Jerome walked right past me, but the second guy, Marcus, stopped and held out his hand.

“Phone,” he said. “Please.”

I handed it to him. He nodded, putting it in his breast pocket.

“I got one of these too,” he nodded. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

One by one, a full squad of what looked like an armed militia crowded into my house. They closed and locked the front door as someone bandaged Lars’ leg. There was a big splotch of blood on the hallway carpet. It was enough that I could smell it, but it was quickly getting overpowered by sweat and gun oil.

 

They had to keep an eye on me without diverting their attention from Lars. They settled on sitting me down in the living room. I’d been compliant enough that they didn’t handcuff me, but they zip tied my feet just so I wouldn’t get any ideas. That, and one of the younger of the group had his attention completely on me.

They took one of my two chairs and strapped Lars to it. As they did, Jerome leaned back with a cigarette. Before he lit it, he looked over at me.

“You mind?”

I wanted to say yes, but the words caught in my throat. I ended up coughing. Jerome nodded, putting the cigarette away.

“Fair’s fair. We’re gonna have a chat with our buddy here and we’ll be gone in no-time. Sound good to you?”

“Great,” I nodded. “Yeah, great.”

“Fantastic.”

He slapped his hands together as they tightened Lars’ straps and pulled up my second kitchen chair. He turned it around and leaned on the back rest. He seemed comfortable with this. Not a drop of sweat.

 

They asked him a couple of basic questions just to get him talking. They asked for his full name, date of birth, and where he was born. When they asked what year it was, and what day, and who’s the President – that’s when things got complicated. Lars didn’t seem to know. Jerome didn’t seem to like that. Not one bit.

“You know why we ask those questions?” he asked. “It’s to measure cognition and function. And if I’m to believe any shit that crawls outta your mouth, you better get that cognition and function tip fucking top, my friend. So I ask again, who’s President?”

“I haven’t been keeping up, I-“

“You don’t know our commander-in-chief?”

“I don’t.”

“You been living under a rock or somethin’?”

They laughed at that. Some of them laughed a little too hard. For a moment, Lars looked up and met my eyes across the room. There was something he was trying to say, but I couldn’t tell what. Maybe he was asking me not to get involved. Jerome shook his head and patted the German Shepherd. It wagged its tail so hard it almost knocked over a lamp.

“Twenty-six years and counting. We’ve had one hell of a time planning your welcome home party. And here you are, stepping out of the dark and back into the light. Like a… what’s it called?”

“Lazarus”, Marcus added. “Like Lazarus of Bethany.”

“Like Lazarus of goddamn Bethany!”

Jerome smacked his knee as he punctuated each word. Then he pointed at me with his full hand.

“You read your bible, sir?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Don’t get more American than that!” he laughed. “True blue! An honest sinner! Pay attention, Lazarus. You’re gonna need a role model.”

Then he closed his fist, leaned back, and crushed Lars’ nose in a strike so violent that it knocked the chair over. The dog started barking but was held back by his handler as the zip ties stopped me from jumping out of my seat. The man keeping an eye on me held up a hand, silently asking me to settle down.

 

They got him back and straightened him out. Lars gasped for air, wheezing through a broken nose. There was already swelling on his face making one eye halfway closed.

“Word association time,” Jerome said. “Car.”

“What?”

Jerome slapped him across the face. It wasn’t hard, but anything stings with a broken nose. Lars flinched and closed his eyes. Jerome tried again.

“Car.”

“Loan.”

“Home.”

“House.”

“Box.”

Lars hesitated. Jerome raised his hand and grinned, but didn’t strike a second time. He turned to the others, as if acknowledging he was on to something.

“Box,” he repeated. “Your turn, Lazzy-boy.”

“Distant.”

“Now you’re lying. That’s not how people do this. See, I said one-syllable words. It’s in the nature of people to match that, so when you don’t, I know you’re considering your words. You’re lying. Now if you’d said ‘gone’, that’d be different. But you said ‘distant’. That’s not what it is, is it?”

He leaned a little closer, teasing the stun gun on his belt. He continued, quieter, almost whispering.

“It’s not distant at all, is it?”

 

The line of questioning continued. A lot of them implied that Lars had been somewhere far away for a prolonged period of time. They asked him things like the name of the ‘port of entry’, and the name of his sponsor. Lars tried his best to answer, but sometimes his words would get a bit muddled up because of the blood. Jerome could explode into violence at the drop of a hat, and he did.

They’d been there for about half an hour when he got into something I remember in detail. They’d wiped Lars’ nose with a paper towel, and two of the guys had started walking around the house looking for something. I figured it was whatever was in the bedroom, but I didn’t want to say anything.

“You know what’s funny?” Jerome asked. “I thought you’d stop aging by now. I thought you’d be a spring chicken once you got back.”

“Don’t work like that.”

“I can tell, you look like shit.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Got jokes,” Jerome smiled. “Man’s got jokes. Wanna hear one of mine?”

Lars didn’t answer. He just looked down and shook his head.

“A gun sits down at a bar and asks the bartender who the pretty girl at table one is. The bartender says ‘I don’t know’. Then the gun asks who the handsome guy at table two is. Bartender says ‘I don’t know’. Then the gun asks who the cute old lady sitting at table three is. Again, the bartender says ‘I don’t know’.”

Jerome removes his pistol from its holster and undoes the safety. He continues the story, looking down at his gun.

“Then the bartender asks, why do you wanna know? Why you asking about these people? And you know what the gun says?”

He slowly lifts the pistol and rests it in the flat space of Lars’ forehead.

“I just wanna bang, man.”

 

For a moment, I think he’s gonna pull the trigger. Not from his face, but the face of the others. People behind Lars step away. One of the guys shields his face, expecting blood. Jerome doesn’t give anything away, but I can tell they’re waiting for something to happen. Lars looks at me one more time, as if asking me a silent question. I don’t know if he’s begging me to speak, or to shut the hell up. I can’t tell, but I don’t want a man dying in my house.

“The bedroom,” I say, my mouth dry like powder. “He was looking for something in the bedroom.”

Jerome tilted his head up, pulling his gun back.

“In the wall, behind the wardrobe. He asked if I had an axe,” I continue.

“No shit?”

I shook my head. Jerome put away his gun and got out of his chair, patting Lars on the head like an obedient dog.

“Look at that!” Jerome exclaimed. “Look. At. That! Lazarus won’t have to come back twice after all. He got his own Lord and Savior right there, with zip tied feet. Ain’t that something?”

Jerome’s right-hand man, Marcus, pulled out a combat knife and hurried into the bedroom. Within seconds, I could hear pounding on the wall. I tried to meet Lars’ eyes, but he didn’t move. I got the impression that maybe I chose wrong.

 

As the pounding continued, I got a couple more snippets of context. Lars had been gone for twenty-six years, and these people knew each other at some point. Lars would mention names of friends they had in common and used to know – some of whom had passed. Jerome didn’t bat an eye.

There was also the issue of where he’d been. They kept talking about him as if he’d been dead, but he’d clearly done something. Lars had been somewhere that Jerome was eager to know more about, but it was spoken about more as something abstract than a physical place. When asked how far he ‘delved’, Lars didn’t answer with a measurement of feet or meters – he answered in ‘levels’. Apparently, he’d been down twelve levels, whatever that meant.

When asked about other people, Lars acknowledged that he’d seen others. There was a city. There were businesses, and infrastructure, and strange inventions based on flora and fauna that didn’t exist.

“They got those blue sunflowers all the way down in Adventureland?” Jerome asked.

“Yeah,” Lars nodded. “Sure they do.”

“They kill people over there?”

Lars hesitated, then nodded. Jerome smiled at that.

“You ever see one come back?”

Lars nodded again.

 

He answered questions like how big the sun was, or how many hours of the day there were. There was also this one date that kept coming back up, 2030. That seemed to confirm something Jerome was suspecting. Some of the people in the room looked genuinely unnerved, looking back and forth. One of them had to sit down, wipe a tear, and blow his nose.

After a while, the pounding on the bedroom wall stopped. I heard wood break, and something plastic getting dragged out. Marcus returned with what looked like a small box wrapped in a dozen plastic shopping bags and secured with duct tape.

“It’s not gonna help,” Lars said. “You gotta stop this, it won’t help.”

“You’re a goddamn devil and don’t even know it,” Jerome spat. “Been spittin’ so much poison my ears gon’ turn green. Get the bag open.”

Marcus slammed the box onto my kitchen table and cut it open with his combat knife. Jerome motioned towards me.

“Secure him. We gotta find out how much he knows.”

 

The guy who’d shed a tear stepped up and zip tied my hands. He mumbled a quiet ‘sorry’ as he did, making sure they weren’t too tight. As he stepped away, he gave me a pat on the shoulder before returning to watching me with his hands on an assault rifle. He gave Jerome a nod as Marcus unwrapped the package.

The box was this completely black cube, about ten inches on each side. It didn’t have any visible ports or holes, but it was hard to see from where I was sitting. Marcus held it up over the table, dropped it, and it didn’t make a sound as it touched the table. He did it again, and we all just watched in awed silence. I’d never seen anything like that. It was just silence. It even fell slow, like it was light as a feather.

“Holy shit, you actually kept the damn thing,” Jerome mumbled. “But I guess you gotta leave a door open when you walk away, huh?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know I ain’t dumping shit in a river and hoping God sorts it out for me, how about that?”

Jerome raised his voice with every word, sparking a barrage of barking from the German Shepherd matching his energy. The handler had to struggle to hold it back as it gnashed its teeth, straining to get loose. It was only after Jerome sat back down that the dog calmed.

“You think I’m unfair?” Jerome asked. “You think it’s just me?”

Lars didn’t answer, so Jerome turned to me. He pointed with his full hand.

“Sir, I’m gonna need you to answer a hypothetical.”

 

He got up and picked up the cube. It seemed so light in his hands. He could spin it around with the flick of a thumb.

“Imagine you’re in Heaven,” Jerome said. “Angels, cloud nine, movie stars givin’ lap dances on apple pie lane. You’re livin’ it up, thanking the Good Lord for a life well spent. You with me?”

“Yeah?”

“Now, one day someone comes up to you and whispers in your ear. And he says, you know what? This ain’t Heaven. This is Hell. And one day all these Angels are gonna look your way, and they’re gonna show their real teeth. And those teeth are gonna be soft rotten black. It’s gonna happen. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. And then, you’ll be in a world of shit. Forever.”

I swallowed hard as he stepped over to look me in the eye. He bent down, flinching as his knees cracked a little.

“Now, would you want that man to tell you that? Would you want to know what’s gonna happen, or would you like to stick to a life of blow jobs and Christmas mornings? For all you know, that day ain’t ever gonna come! And if it does, wouldn’t you want to spend every waking moment up until that point living what little life you have?”

He looked at me expectantly. I opened my mouth, shut it again, and then nodded.

“I’d want to be happy,” I said. “If it’s already too late, I’d want to be happy.”

“He’d want to be happy,” Jerome nodded solemnly. “That’s a wise man right there. Happiness is a fleeting thing, and we gotta treasure it. Don’t we?”

I nodded. Lars kept looking down at the floor, staying quiet.

 

My phone rang. I heard it coming from Marcus’ pocket. I had this default ring tone to recognize job calls. I was late for my six-hour check-in, and someone was making sure I hadn’t fallen asleep on the keyboard. Marcus picked up my phone and, surprisingly, answered.

“Go for two.”

Then he looked confused. Looking down at the phone, I could see this realization come over him. The others turned to him, looking horrified, as he dropped the phone on the ground and stepped on it. For a couple of seconds, this silence settled on the house – undercut only by Lars’ wheezing breaths.

“It had the same damn ring tone.” Marcus said, picking up his own phone from another pocket. “It sounds the same!”

“You answered the wrong phone?!”

Jerome got up so fast he knocked over his chair. He stepped over, readied his pistol, and shot my phone three times. The bangs were so loud that they bounced against the walls, making my ears screech and crackle. He was yelling something about ‘doing it right’ and looking ready to pistol whip someone. Meanwhile, Lars is giving me a look. With his eyes, he’s looking over at me like he’s trying to hint at something. I follow his eyes to the side of the couch I’m sitting on.

It’s an older model. Leather, with sown-in buttons on the armrests. Probably something from Lars’ era. Looking a little closer, I realize the buttons are held in place with a sharp metal wire. Sharp enough to cut through a zip tie.

 

As the armed men kept arguing back and forth, I managed to snap one side of the zip ties. It was surprisingly easy, only needing a couple of twists and a pop. They didn’t seem to notice, they were too busy discussing something. My ears were still ringing, but Jerome was yelling something about interference, while another man was doing a countdown. Finally, Jerome picked up his own phone and checked something.

“Signal’s out,” Jerome spat. “Time’s up. Take this piece of shit outside, I don’t wanna sully this man’s floor.”

One of them grabbed Lars’ chair and started dragging him out into the yard. I was still pretending to keep my hands together, as if the zip ties were still in one piece. Marcus kept getting pushed around; it was clear he’d done something bad by answering some kind of “unsanctioned phone”.

As Lars disappeared around the corner, he gave me one last look. A terrified, genuine, look. And this one I understood perfectly.

I was in danger.

 

Jerome walked over to me and leaned down. I held my hands together, pretending to be stuck.

“We’ll deal with this and be out of your hair,” he said. “But we have to check something on you too. It’s protocol. And I know you’ve seen some things, but I feel I can trust you. So once we’re done, we’re gonna let you go. But you gotta work with us a little longer.”

“So I’m safe?”

“Yeah, you’re safe.”

“For sure?”

“For sure.”

“Really?”

He looked me in the eye, squinted a little, then smiled.

“Yes, really.”

Maybe he didn’t realize I was using his own trick against him. Maybe he didn’t care. It was the same interrogation thing he’d done to Lars. If that trick was the real deal, he was lying to me. Too many syllables.

 

Jerome picked up the cube and joined the others out back. One man stayed behind to watch me, while another checked out my bathroom.

“Got a tub,” someone called out.

I wasn’t safe. I don’t know how I know, but I knew. For a brief moment, I’m alone with the one man watching me. But he’s looking out the back door, only keeping me in his peripheral view. There’s no way I can go toe to toe with these guys, so I have to try something else. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I had to be slow and methodical. I waited for him to look back at me one more time, then I burst into action as he turned away.

I leaned back and opened the window behind me. It’s quiet, they’re new. Then I get up and slowly shimmy forward. There’s a small storage space right ahead, across the room.  I didn’t have time to fill it with anything, so I could probably fit in there. It is surprisingly fast, and the guy seems distracted. My entire body jerks as another gunshot goes off in the distance.

I manage to get inside the storage space the second he turns around to look. All he sees is an open window, and an empty couch. He screams at the others and rushes outside. I don’t think he even knew there was a storage space.

 

I take a moment to snap the zip ties around my ankles. I don’t have any weapons, and I can’t stay there indefinitely. They’d find me. If they wanted to deal with me, they’d pick the house apart. They seemed to be in a hurry.

I’d never actually been in that storage space fully before. There’s a small hatch at the bottom of the back wall. It’s been painted over, but it’s literally just a piece of plywood. Knowing the layout, I figured it lead straight into the guest bedroom. I hadn’t done much in there yet, seeing as I wasn’t expecting guests. Leaning down, I put pressure on the plate, and it popped out; ripping a piece of the wallpaper on the other side.

None of them were in the guest bedroom. They were rushing out of the yard, heading for the front. I could climb out a window into the back and disappear into the woods. It was my best shot. I put the plywood plate back, locked the guest bedroom door, and climbed out a window.

That’s when I saw Lars.

 

Still tied to a chair, he was lying in the middle of the yard. Shot in the back, just above the heart. There was so much blood.

My socks touched the wet grass as the evening air slipped into my lungs. I stepped forward, keeping my head low. There was no one around. As I got closer, I noticed Lars was still breathing, albeit faintly. I bent down next to him. He tightened his fist and looked me in the eye.

“Wait,” he wheezed. “Wait. Here.”

He smacked the grass with his hands. And, still looking me in the eye, he stopped breathing. I touched his shoulder, but there was no life there. Just more blood pooling in the grass, soaking into my wet socks.

As I straightened my back and considered the woods, a low noise snapped me to attention. The sound of a growling German Shepherd, rounding the corner of my house.

 

If I hadn’t stopped, I would’ve run straight into the woods. I would’ve run, and I would’ve kept going. But I didn’t. I stopped for a few seconds, and that was all it took for that dog to catch my scent. The handler rounded the corner, whistling. Seconds later, people were coming out of every door of the house. Jerome was first; holding his cube.

“What’re you doing out here?” he chuckled. “I thought I told you to cooperate.”

“You were gonna shoot me.”

“Now how can you possibly know that?”

“You were, weren’t you?”

Jerome pondered the question, tasting his answer before he spit it out.

“I was,” he nodded. “And I am.”

He raised his pistol, giving me a shrug.

“I was gonna let you go, but you seen too much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, genuinely.”

 

For a moment, life slows down. I feel my heart beating out of my chest. I try to think in a thousand directions at once, as if there is a secret third option I’m not considering. I look at Jerome. At Marcus. At Lars, and the dog. Someone, something, somewhere – anything. The cube is so black that I can barely see the edges of it. But the gun doesn’t move. It doesn’t look away.

The moment Jerome pulls the trigger, he slips. Not much, but just enough for the bullet to graze my ear instead of piercing my cerebellum. My face feels like it’s on fire as a scorching liquid rolls down the side of my neck.

I look over at Jerome as I see the ground under him moving. Something has wrapped itself around his leg.

A hand. A pale, thin, hand.

 

I don’t stop to think. I turn and run, and as I do, gunfire goes off. Even in my panicked state, I notice one thing – they’re not shooting at me.

Someone is screaming. Then another. As I get to the edge of the forest, I can hear Lars’ voice. It’s hoarse and dry, but it’s unmistakably his. Albeit… different. He yells, but I can barely hear it over the gunfire.

“I’ve been back so many times!” he yells. “So many times! So many times!”

I look over my shoulder.

 

The yard is a massacre. There are people coming out of the ground. Men in their 60’s, all with white hair and messy beards. Some are almost completely skeletal; others looked like they’ve barely begun decomposing. One of them is almost eight feet tall, with gangly looking limbs that reach all the way to the ground.

Jerome backs away, holding up the cube like a shield as he makes a retreat. Others are being dragged to the ground and torn to pieces. Gunfire ceased to the sound of cackling laughter and snapping joints as Lars’ voice echoes in a dozen different mouths.

“I knew you’d be coming!” one laughs. “Not a surprise to me! Not a welcome home party!”

“Home! Ground! Home! Ground!”

The laughter echoes as identical voices join in a ceaseless shriek, repeating the same words over and over.

 

I’m just standing there for a couple of seconds, but it feels like minutes. Hours. More hands reach out of the ground as the entire yard dissolves into mud and gore. A couple of them run for it. The handler with the dog backs away, firing indiscriminately. Someone is already at a car out front, and I can hear an engine starting. Jerome is already gone.

Marcus makes it to the back door, but doesn’t get the chance to step through. The upper half of a decomposed torso grabs his leg, pulling his pants halfway down his knees. As Marcus topples over, something in his leg snaps. Seconds later, two figures loom over him. One grabbing his arm, the other holding him down. He starts screaming as they bend and break him.

Others go out faster. People are disassembled like broken toys. Up until that point, I wanted to run from the guns, and the death. Now I didn’t know why I wanted to run. It wasn’t because of the danger. It’s because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want this image burned into my mind.

And before I can finally step away, I see Lars’ body, still tied to that chair. Still not breathing.

But his eyes are still moving. Still looking my way.

 

I ran until I reached a road. I think I followed it for about three hours before I ran into a car. From there, it wasn’t hard to call for help. I looked like a train wreck before all this, but by the time a passer-by saw me I looked like I was having an episode of something. They could’ve just called the police and moved on, but they stopped to make sure I was okay.

Once the police got involved, things moved fast. They didn’t take the idea of multiple men armed with assault rifles lightly. I wasn’t there when they swept through my house and yard, but it was clear it didn’t go smoothly. There were multiple bodies. Some were very old. Too old for me to be a suspect.

They had to dig up the entire yard. They confirmed over a dozen bodies, and some recent. I gave the description of Jerome as best I could; they even made a phantom sketch. I don’t know how many others made it out.

 

It’s been a couple of years, and I’ve moved since. I couldn’t stay in a house where there’d been bodies buried in the yard. I kept waking up to imagined knocks on the door. Now I got a nice townhouse. Much smaller, but new. Same town, lower price point, and no complicated history to consider.

Looking back on those days, I feel kind of stupid. Not just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but for putting so much time and effort into a place. A place is just something that holds people, it’s not a destination in and of itself. If I have to work myself to death just to keep living there, what’s the point? Can you really live if you can’t enjoy yourself?

For all of Jerome’s strangeness, I think the one point he made that stuck with me was that it’s okay to choose joy. It’s okay for me to acknowledge that this happened, and to move on. It’s okay to change what I want. I don’t want a house; I don’t need one. I don’t need the most well-paying job. I don’t need a life that looks like Heaven.

After all, with the twist of a soft rotten smile, it can turn out to be something different.

Something different entirely.

A lot of people wonder why I don’t carry around a smartphone. It’s a strange thing not to have. I still have a phone, it’s just that it’s a very basic model and I only use if for calls or texts. I’m not even that old. Most figure I’m some kind of technophobe, but it’s something different. My wife rolls her eyes every time she sees me making a call with it. She calls it my ‘comfort brick’. Meanwhile, she’s checking out life hacks on TikTok.

I’ve tried telling her about why I am this way a couple of times, but it’s been hard to put into words. So, in an effort to collect my thoughts, I’d like to tell the world about what happened to me a couple of years ago. And, to an extent, what is happening still.

 

I was working on my master’s degree, but I was having a hard time finding something to write a paper about. I couldn’t come up with a good subject, and time was running out. I managed to get a deadline extension, but only if I could present a suitable subject. I was about to give up when one of my professors suggested I talked to a man working in the private sector. He was a licensed physician who’d gone into private enterprise, but he was sure to have something interesting going on. I got in touch with him, and he asked me to come in the same day. Let’s call him Solomon.

Solomon and his team were working out of an honest to God laboratory. Most of their work revolved around medical hardware, so they had sterile white rooms to protect sensitive electronics.

Solomon was about 6’6 and balder than a bowling ball. He towered over his workers and had a very soft demeanor. He would calmly shake my hand and nod as I presented myself. I got the impression that he was a kind man. You notice that sort of thing.

As I explained my situation, he made a suggestion.

“I’m working on a project called LIS. I can’t share all the production details, but we collect a lot of data related to sleep. I could share that data for your paper.”

That was amazing news. I could easily do a study with that kind of data to back me up.

 

I was scheduled to help Solomon and his team to collect test subject for his LIS project. It was simple enough; people were supposed to take a supplement before they went to sleep and use a headband to record their experience. Didn’t matter if they slept long, short, or barely anything at all; data was data. This was bulk collection. They’d already gone through about 20 iterations of the project, so this would be the 21^(st) generation. I wasn’t allowed to take part in the earlier versions, but I was going to get full access to the generation 21 bulk data. That would be more than enough to cover a master’s study on a related subject.

I put up some posters around campus, and it didn’t take long for people to sign up. A lot of folks wanted to get their foot in the door of the private sector. Having Solomon’s name on a CV could be more valuable than a quick payout, but they still got a symbolic sum as compensation for their trouble. As submissions started to roll in, Solomon brought something up;

“Why don’t you participate?” he said. “You could critique our methodology. We could separate your data if you think it would invalidate overall results, but I think it’d grant some valuable insight.”

“You sure that’d be appropriate?”

“Of course,” he smiled. “You’re already part of this, might as well get your hands dirty.”

I had a hard time saying no. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. So yeah, I signed up too.

 

We ended up with 14 people in total. Some were medical students, others were dentists. There were even a couple of veterinarians. They were all invited in for a short presentation about the study and the various items they would be using. We were pressed into a cramped meeting room around an oval table with a projector showing an out-of-focus presentation on a sun-stained canvas.

“Collection takes place over two weeks,” Solomon explained, pointing to a calendar on the screen. “This allows us to account for irregularities. No worries if you miss a day or two, we’ve taken that into account.”

He showed us the items again. There was a headband that was used to record our sleep. It looked like something an 80’s tennis player might use. There was a cable to charge it during the day. The other item was a small bottle of gel capsules.

“This is a supplement to help us better record your experience. It does little to affect your sleep. We must insist that you take one about ten minutes before you go to bed. Twenty minutes if you had a big meal. Don’t bite down on it, or your mouth will taste like really crunchy salt. If you don’t take it, don’t bother with the headband, the data will be useless.”

It was a nondescript bottle, CMP5. It had a printed list of known side effects, but they were so generic that it might as well have been ibuprofen. There wasn’t much more to it. We all got our kits, headed home, and that was that. I started working on my paper, charged the headband, and went on as usual.

 

When it was time to go to bed, I did as instructed. I took a capsule, I put the headband on, and set my alarm. The headband was surprisingly comfortable. It even had a massage and heat setting. It had a thicker side, meaning you could turn it slightly and use it as a sleep mask. That suited me perfectly, as I’d wanted one for a long time. I figured I’d ask Solomon if I could keep it when the study was over. Maybe in lieu of pay. The damn thing probably had Bluetooth speakers for white noise if I bothered to check.

Going to sleep was surprisingly easy. I felt at peace, I had my alarm set, and there was no disruption. No loud noises, no background hum. Just the slight saltiness of the capsule on my tongue.

What’s stayed with me all these years is what I dreamt on that first night. It was one of the clearest, most memorable dreams I’ve ever had. Not because it was amazing, but because it seemed so real. It was the first time I ever had a lucid dream – as in knowing I was sleeping.

 

I dreamt I was at my old middle school, back in South Dakota. I walked down the hallway, looking at all the pictures we’d put up. Most of the drawings just looked like mad scribbles, but every now and then you’d see something you recognized. A happy farmer. Someone’s dog. A sunflower, but the wrong color. Mostly blue.

It was all so real. The slate stone texture of the floor. The sound-proofed ceiling tiles that you could stick pens in if you flicked them hard enough. The wide hallways, allowing students to run up and down while leaving a lane for teachers don the middle. The welcome mat outside our homeroom. I remembered the font.

I dreamt about some people I hadn’t thought about in years. I could see my teacher at her desk, grading papers. There was a globe in the window, with plenty of grubby hand marks surrounding the continental US. Whenever someone went on a holiday trip, they were allowed to put a pin on the globe to show where they were going.

I ran a hand across my old desk, feeling the notches bump against my nails. Then the speaker system crackled. I turned to see my teacher sit up straight. She looked at me and spoke in unison with the announcer.

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

I took a few steps closer. She kept eye contact with me. She was still grading papers with her right hand, turning the pages without looking away.

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

Someone walked past in the hallway. I could hear chatter in the background of the PA system. Some of the pictures on the wall looked funny – one of the drawings had the number 21 on it.

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

She turned her attention back to the papers, and I could feel my blood run cold. Something was wrong. Something has irreversibly changed.

I turn around, and I see something. Someone. And in a heartbeat, I woke up screaming.

 

I threw the headband across the room, jumped out of bed, and I was wide awake. I'd only slept for three hours, but my heart was pounding out of my chest. I sprinted into the bathroom, washing my face with cold water. I looked at myself in the mirror, only to see that I’d been crying – my face was red and puffy.

I had to sit on my bed for a while, holding the headband. I was shaking with adrenaline, waiting to find the peace to go back to sleep. It took me the better part of an hour. I didn’t use the headband as a sleep mask after that, I just wore it as intended. I got a couple more hours, but it was a dreamless sleep.

I scheduled a call with Solomon the next morning. I was halfway through a cheese and ham sandwich when he called me. I still had a stubborn cowlick that wouldn’t go away, making me look like something out of a cartoon on a video call.

“First night,” Solomon said. “How’d it go?”

“I’m gonna be honest – not so great.”

“Nightmares, huh?”

I wasn’t prepared for him to admit it so openly. Before I could say anything, he cut me off.

“It’s not uncommon. In fact, it’s very helpful. We have more data than we need of people just sleeping, but nightmares… we don’t have a lot of that. They’re much more valuable to us.”

“How did you know I had one?”

“It’s very common,” he continued. “Some get nightmares, some get a sense of claustrophobia. Others just don’t use the headband at all and call it quits after a couple of nights.”

“If this is what it feels like, I get it. It was awful.”

“Do you wanna quit the study?”

I thought about it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t afford to step off now. I had a paper to write, and I hadn’t gotten access to the data yet. Chances were, if I were to abandon the project, I’d be shit out of luck. I swallowed my fears and shook my head.

“No, I’m okay,” I said. “But I got a question. What’s Lima, India, Sierra?”

“That’s just an activation phrase. LIS. It comes from the headband as a synchronization signal. Sort of like when you snap a clapperboard on a movie set.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Solomon chuckled a little.

“It’s just information.”

 

The next night, I was hesitant about going to bed. I drank some milk, got ready, and spent a full hour scrolling on my phone. I was hoping to get so tired that I didn’t care anymore, but it was difficult. I got the impression that if nightmares were valuable data, maybe Solomon induced them. Maybe that’s what the pill did.

When I finally went to sleep, I was so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open. And once again, I had one of the most vivid dreams of my life. My high school gymnasium, completely empty. Every footstep echoed. Walls were decorated with images of important milestones. Then, at some point, it started again. Not the PA system this time, but just this omnipresent voice; as if spoken by the walls themselves.

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

I remembered what happened last time I heard it. I spun around, looking for a solution. I was aware that I was in a dream, so I tried to think in terms of dream logic. Maybe I could hide?

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

I found this old speaker that was big enough for me to hide behind. I crawled in, closing my hiding space with a wooden panel.

“Lima. India Sierra.”

 

Quiet. The tension lifts, and I can feel myself getting lighter. Something gently tugs at my wooden panel. I resist, but I don’t have a good grip. It pulls, and I pull back. A moment of silence.

The panel is ripped from my hands. I see two feet dangling in the air in front of me, as something attacks.

I fall out of bed, coughing, and clutching my chest. I’m crying, and I’m having trouble breathing from the snot covering my face. I am a wreck, and I’ve only just woken up. I got about four hours of sleep that night.

 

This would go on for a couple of nights. I was a wreck, but I had studies to take care of. I still went to classes, I still worked on my paper, and I had a cheap cheese and ham sandwich in the cafeteria at lunch every day.

This one time, as I sat down for lunch, I noticed I wasn’t the only one yawning. Not that unusual, but I recognized a person across from me. It was one of the other people who’d signed up for Solomon’s study. She was about my age, but in a different field. I could tell she was struggling too - people don’t usually chug two Red Bulls for lunch. I got up and walked over to her.

“You’re in Solomon’s study, right?”

“Yeah?”

She put her half-drunk can of Red Bull up to her temple, cooling her head.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Knock yourself out.”

 

She introduced herself as Norma. Midwestern gal - started her studies later in life than most of us. She had the appearance of someone who could probably cook one hell of a chili.

“Trouble sleeping?” I asked, nodding to her energy drinks.

“Yeah. How about you?”

“Same.”

We sat there for a moment, exchanging a couple of pleasantries. I was doing my master’s thesis; she was about to start an internship.

“I hear this… phrase,” I said. “Whenever I hear it, I know it’s about to get bad.”

She looks up, nodding enthusiastically. We say it at the same time. ‘Lima. India. Sierra’. Her eyes light up.

“Yes!” she exclaims. “That’s it! I hear that one thing, and then he’s just… there!”

“Exactly!” I say, then pause. “Wait, who’s there?”

“You know, the person… thing. With the seam.”

“What?”

“It’s like a person, but with, like, a seam down the middle. Maybe it’s just me.”

 

The following night, I tried to look a little closer. I go into my dream with a mission; to gather information. Not only am I unusually aware of myself dreaming, but I also look closer at the environment. That time, I was at the beach. A childhood memory. I could see my sister and mother swimming in the shallows.

My father was there to, leaning back in a sunchair with a book. Then he turned to me, looking up over the pages. Without missing a beat, he turned a page, and spoke aloud;

“Lima. India. Sierra.”

And he repeated it, over and over. And while the others played, like I remembered, I was spinning around and looking for whatever Norma had been talking about. As I did, I noticed little details in the background. One of the billboards had changed text; ‘Initial contact: two hours, forty-one minutes, eighteen seconds’.

After dad repeated those same words for the third time, I felt a sense of calm. Then, terror. I spun around, looking every which way, only for something to change.

I got a glimpse of someone pale, floating in mid-air. Someone humanoid, but the head looked a bit too bulbous. It didn’t move its arms – just its vibrating chest.

Then I was awake. I didn’t notice the transition until I gasped for air.

 

I started having lunch with Norma regularly. We would share our experiences and discuss what we’d seen. For example, I shared the strange billboard text. She, on the other hand, had seen something similar.

“I dreamt about my high school graduation,” she said. “But my diploma looked like an e-mail.”

“An e-mail? What did it say?”

“I couldn’t read it all before it got me, but there was an address…”

She handed me a slip of paper. I almost choked on my sandwich. It was Solomon’s private e-mail; the one I’d been handed by a professor when I first reached out to him. He didn’t give this out to just anyone. I double-checked my phone and showed her it was the same.

“That don’t make sense,” she mumbled. “How can anything from a dream be real?”

 

There were more dreams, and every time, I would get little glimpses. I would be someplace familiar, and at some point, I would hear those damn words. It could be bird chirping in the window. A TV running in the background. A ring tone, an alarm clock, a passing car; there was always something.

Lima. India. Sierra.

Then, something would happen. Something would attack.

I usually saw it just before I woke up. For example, its fingers were tightly webbed – they couldn’t flex. Also it wasn’t just pale, it was a light touch of green, like dry grass. And in every way I saw it, its feet never touched the ground.

I would wake up screaming, crying, or falling out of bed. One time I was already standing up before I knew I was awake. I would feel so bad about going to bed that I’d end up staying up way too late, just making things worse. I tried to tell myself that this whole thing was on a timer, and that by the end I’d have secured a future, but it was hard to keep appearances up.

 

My lunches with Norma later extended to others in the same study. I guess Solomon hadn’t counted on us all going to the same cafeteria. There was Elmer, Candice, Joseph, Pat, and Misha. Everyone had a similar experience. Elmer swore that the thing didn’t have a face. Candice said it looked like it hung in the air, like a propped-up scarecrow. Joseph said it was bald, like Solomon. Pat said it never moved; it just appeared in mid-air. Misha, on the other hand, barely said anything at all. He hated just thinking about the damn thing.

Norma was adamant about what she’d seen. The thing had a seam down the middle, but you could only see it when it got really close. Kinda like the spine of a leaf. And we all knew that just before waking up, it did something. Something sudden, and dangerous – but we never remembered what.

I think it was Candice who came up with the name ‘Floating Man’. It was as good a description as any. But more than that, it was strangely consistent – we could all see the same thing, no matter the environment. How could a single image resonate through several people at once? How can you share a dream?

I remember us all sitting there, long after we’d finished our meals. No one knew what to say. What we’d experienced was unheard of. Even if one could induce a nightmare, it was unprecedented to have a single shared image. Especially one that was so clear.

 

“I think it’s the pills,” I said. “I don’t think they’re supplements. I think they’re causing this.”

“You think so?” Norma asked.

“Solomon kinda hinted at it. He said having nightmares is valuable data.”

Everyone at the table groaned. It made sense. A bunch of underpaid students being used as guinea pigs.

“Could be some kind of mild Parkinson drug,” Elmer suggested. “Dopamine agonists.”

“You really think they’d slip us something like that?” Joseph asked. “That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Unless it was in the fine print,” Candice added. “Or it’s something milder, like SSRI’s.”

“We should try something,” I suggested. “What if, for just one night, we skip the pill? If we still get nightmares, it’s the headband. If it’s the pill, we can have it tested.”

It was an experiment. We liked experiments. We exchanged numbers and started a group chat to keep each other updated on our progress.

 

I felt good going to bed that night. Either way, I was going to wake up the next day with some answers. I willfully picked up the bottle of capsules, rattled it, and wagged a finger.

“Not tonight, fuckers.”

I put on some music, crawled into bed, and put the headband on. I checked in with the others. Some had already gone to bed; others were still psyching themselves up. Norma was admittedly nervous. This whole thing would be a strange blip in the data, for sure, but Solomon had already said he’d accounted for that. One day here and there wasn’t all that bad. When I finally fell asleep that night, I felt confident.

I didn’t even realize I was asleep at first. It felt like closing my eyes and opening them again. But when I opened them, I was somewhere else. It was this shopping mall my mom and I used to go to when I was a kid. Most of the stores were still stocked with early 2000’s fashion, and a handful of passers-by mirrored that. I could see my mother on a bench, enjoying a soft serve.

I walked around a little, feeling my confidence fade. Something was different this time. It was still one of those vivid dreams, but something felt wrong.

 

A man in a stall turned his attention to me, looking across the hall.

“Lima.”

I sighed. It was going to happen, pill or not. It had to be the headband. I knew a comp sci guy; he could probably look into how the hell that thing worked. I sat down, resigning myself to another scare. A woman walking out of a clothing store turned her head towards me while still walking the other way, speaking in a conversational tone.

“India.”

Looking around, I could sense something was off. There were other conversations happening. There was this young couple sitting at a juice bar, for example. They were having a conversation, but it didn’t make any sense. They were lovingly looking into each other’s eyes, as one said;

“Induction stabilized, engagement in approximately 300 feet.”

The other kissed her hand and responded.

“Suppressor offline, residual effectiveness 65%.”

Then they both turned to me, their faces slack.

“Sierra.”

 

I looked around. They returned to the conversation. One of them would say a number, then the other would say a lower number. They would be counting down, but not like a clock. It took me a moment to realize they were talking about distance. 200 feet. 100 feet. 50 feet.

“Attention shoppers,” a speaker crackled. “All systems nominal.”

40 feet. 30 feet. I looked around, but I couldn’t see anything. Why was this feeling different? I stepped out of the open, pressing my back up against a store window. They were still speaking, and the number were going down, but there was nothing for me to see.

It had to be behind me.

I turned around, but there was only a store mannequin. A blank, featureless face. Slumped shoulders. And as I looked a little closer, it had a seam down the middle of its body.

 

Something smacked into my chest. I felt a piercing pain as I was flung backwards, knocking over the table the two lovers were using. They just stood back up, ignoring me completely. I touched my shoulder, only to feel real, physical, pain. There was blood on my hand.

I wasn’t waking up.

The Floating Man had something moving in his chest as the seam closed. It pushed through the glass of the store window, moving through it without breaking it. I could hear a rhythmic pitter-patter as something solid touched the tiled floor. This thing wasn’t just floating; it’s more like it was being held up.

And it was still coming for me.

 

I ran up the escalator, passing an old woman as I went. She looked at me, shaking her head.

“Damage assessment – moderate.”

I didn’t have time to think. Even then and there, my shoulder ached. I could feel the pain through my body. Looking back down, I could see the Floating Man coming closer. Always a couple of inches off the ground; not flying across the room.

I hurried past a hot dog stand. The text on the front made me pause.

Lima. India. Sierra.

I pushed the cart aside, hoping it would slow down whatever was coming my way. I passed a poster on the wall listing time stamps, along with initials. It sort of looked like the way we structured bulk data. Was information from the study leaking into my nightmare?

 

I hurried into the bathroom. There was another man there, washing his hands. I rushed into a stall, locked the door, and climbed up on the toilet. It took some effort to climb up, as it really felt like I’d been pierced through the shoulder. The nerve damage alone was enough to make my eyes water, and I had trouble staying quiet. I closed my eyes as hard as I could and bit my lip, hoping to distract myself from the pain.

I didn’t hear any doors open. Just the pitter-patter of something taking careful steps. Then, the man washing his hands stopped, and spoke.

“Cortisol spike. Engagement in 3, 2, 1…”

A blank face passed straight through the stall door. I screamed as it pressed its chest against me. The Floating Man was so close that it could almost be a hug, making me look over its shoulder and past it.

There was something behind it. Something holding it up, like a puppet.

The seam in its chest opened. I tried pushing it back, only to have my hand pierced by a bone-like protrusion. It went straight through the back of my hand, right below my left ring finger. It retracted and prodded again, lopping off the top of my middle finger entirely. It plopped against the floor tiles like I’d dropped a piece of sausage.

I’ve never felt anything like that. Never. It wasn’t just pain, it was a constant, throbbing, nerve-searing pain.

 

I braced against the back of the stall and kicked, pushing this thing out through the door. It gave me enough space to get out, turn a quick left, and run. I could feel it closing in as the pitter-patter followed.

I got out of the bathroom, but I was bleeding profusely. It was only then that it hit me; I was lightheaded. How the hell can you be lightheaded in a dream? What happens when you fall asleep in a dream? What if you pass out? What if you die?

I ran past the poster on the wall with time stamps. Some of the lines were crossed out.

Making my way back into the main hall, I stood in the middle of the crowded mall, doing the only thing I could bring myself to. I screamed for help. I’m standing there bleeding from my shoulder and hand, screaming for help, and all I see are these neutral faces turning my way.

“190 bpm”.

“Adrenaline spiking.”

I kept screaming, but no one did anything. And from around the corner, I see the Floating Man. I close my eyes, scream, and tear at my face – begging myself to just wake the fuck up.

 

For a brief moment, I managed to force my eyes open. I’m in my bed. I’m so sweaty that the sheets are sticking to me. I try to speak, but it just turns into a moan. My mouth is wide open and cottonlike, and I have no sense of control over my body. I’m not awake, but I’m not asleep. I flop my arm to the side, only to see blood on my hand. I try to force myself to move, to get out of bed, but nothing happens. I can hear myself snoring as my eyes start drifting downward.

My eyes close, and I’m back – but it’s somewhere new.

It’s a traffic jam on the highway. A late afternoon – probably a memory. Someone is honking, and we’re miles from the closest exit. As soon as I can move, I get out of my car and go on foot. I pass by car after car. Then I stop. Something tickles my mind. I look a little closer at one of the cars, only to see Candice.

She’s leaning back in her seat. Something has torn through her chest, breaking her rib cage wide open. There’s blood on the windshield.

I try to convince myself that it’s a dream. I say it loud. I say it like a mantra. And as I do, her body slumps to the side, her eyes fixed on me.

“Lima.”

I shake my head. I run. I run as fast as I can, and despite it all being a dream, I can feel my thumping chest. Why is there still pain in my hands? Why is my shoulder still bleeding?

I pass by a car with an open window. The driver fans themselves with a newspaper as a radio host speaks.

“India.”

I keep saying ‘no’, like there is someone there to listen. I put my hands over my ears, hoping it will stop if I just don’t hear it. I close my eyes as hard as I can, and when I open them, I see a license plate.

“Sierra.”

 

I dive under a car as something breaks a window behind me. I’m almost crushed as an immense weight step down on the car above me, but I manage to get out with just a sprained foot. I see the shadow of the Floating Man in the late afternoon sun. I pull on a door and get inside a random car, only for that blank face to pass straight through the passenger side window. Something grabs me by the chest and clothes and pull me through the door like it was made of paper.

A door is between me and the Floating Man, and something slams against it. I’m dropped on the asphalt like a wet towel. I try to get back on my feet, but I’m not fast enough. I pick the door up and wield it like a shield as something slams into it, over and over. I can see a sharp bone pierce through; just inches away from me.

I push back as the door is ripped from me. I’m wide open and this thing is just a couple of feet away. I’m bleeding, limping, and wheezing for air. I step back, but I can tell I won’t be fast enough. Not this time.

The seam of its body opens all the way from the top of its head to the crotch. The Floating Man separates into two separate pieces as something reveals itself. There’s a presence behind it, holding the two pieces up like a hand puppet. I can’t tell what I’m really looking at. Six, maybe eight legs. Two halves of what looks like a human body hanging from two front limbs. Mimicry to keep you looking where it wants to.

And there’s a head. A circular set of eyes, arranged in something resembling a mix of honeycomb and the seed pod of a flesh-like lotus.

It’s dripping, as dozens of bones poke in and out of would-be eyes.

And it descends on me. Unfolded, primal, and hungry.

 

I wake up, but I’m not breathing. I’ve fallen out of bed, accidentally losing my headband. I’m on the floor, having knocked the air out of my lungs.

I’m bleeding. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!

I try to get up, but I’m limping. How can my foot hurt from a dream?

I still can’t breathe. I count 20 seconds.

I get to the bathroom and topple over the sink. It cracks and falls, sending me to the ground. A piece of ceramic bumps against my chest, and something dislodges from my throat. I spit out a piece of cartilage; bloody and raw.

As I lay on the bathroom floor, I can hear my phone exploding with messages and missed calls. I knew it was bad. I knew it. But for a moment I just drew in breath and thanked whatever God may be to finally, truly, be awake.

 

I couldn’t speak, but I managed to call for help. Doctors would later explain that I had severe damage to my windpipe. I had several burst blood vessels, most of which were concentrated around my arm, stomach, and shoulder. They thought I’d fallen down a flight of stairs – they did not accept the explanation that it all happened in my sleep. It was impossible.

“The body can’t self-destruct like that.”

When I got a chance to catch up with my messages and calls, I realized I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten hurt. Norma was in surgery. Pat had a broken leg. Candice wasn’t even answering. We’d later find out she’d died in her sleep.

They couldn’t find any connection. The pills we took were just a mineral supplement. The headband was flashy lights, a speaker, some electrodes and a memory card. Nothing malicious.

 

I ended up staying in the hospital overnight. Before I left the next day, I had a surprising visitor. No one came to announce him, and no one prepared me. He walked right in.

Solomon.

I was still in bed, and he sat down next to me. He almost looked apologetic.

“You alright?” he asked.

I shook my head, pointing to my throat.

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Sorry. We’ve been adamant about people taking the suppressor pill, but we had no idea LIS was effective enough to-“

He paused himself, shook his head, and smiled. He looked excited.

“I mean, you had some residual effects. You were technically still protected. And it still managed to do all this? Can I see?”

He stepped closer and I held up an arm, shielding myself. With my other hand, I buzzed for a nurse.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just curious. This is a great development. We’ve got enough to get started on the next phase. I am more than thankful, and I want you to know that.”

Solomon got up, heading for the door before a nurse could get there. He looked back a final time.

“It really is just information. And information is so much cheaper than, say, a missile.”

 

Despite it all, Solomon was true to his word. I got a great recommendation, I finished my master’s paper, and I could put my work on his project on my CV. I don’t even know why but mentioning I worked on the Liminal Intrusion System (LIS) has opened all kinds of doors. Private sector. Government. I could take my pick.

Candice passed away in her sleep. Norma tried to look into it, but all signs pointed to a brain aneurysm. None of us who skipped out on the pill that night was spared. The study was called off. Not because it was deemed the cause, but because they got all the data they were looking for.

I’ve come a long way in my career since then. Solomon is still active, and his team have come a long way since they had to use headbands. I think they solved their visual transmission problems. Wouldn’t surprise me if all they need is lights now.

That’s why I don’t use a phone anymore. I know what they’re capable of doing. I know that if I step too far out of line, or say something I’m not supposed to, I could go to sleep one night and never wake up. And the worst thing is – I’d know it’s coming. I just need to hear those three words, and I know it’s happening.

Lima. India. Sierra.

Some years ago, I worked with a tunneling crew. A job like that draws all kinds of people. Sure, it boils down to one guy holding the figurative shovel, but another guy has to point where to dig and yet another gotta get the dirt out. On a larger scale, it can easily get out of hand without proper management.

Our crew was working on expanding a subway tunnel. It wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle, but my life was in a bit of a mess at the moment. My wife and I just had our first kid, and I was having trouble keeping up with the new lifestyle. My wife was a trooper, but no matter what I did I always felt like I was doing something wrong. That baby must’ve been the most patient one ever, as I fumbled with the most basic chores. I’d tuck her in too tight or get the temperature on the formula wrong. It was just one mess after another, and that’s after working a 10-hour shift.

The only thing I got right was putting her to sleep. I’d tuck my hand behind her little head, shush her, and sing – she’d go out like a light. Bam, down for the count. That one thing sort of made up for all my other mistakes. I have to thank my mom for the tip someday. It’s an old song; it goes a little something like…

Oh-ai-ai-ai-ai-fuff

my little, little one

 

Like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky, the subway tunnel gig was cancelled. We got to work and there was a big sign telling us to go home. I called my manager but didn’t get an answer. I called the guy at the top and the number was disconnected. I was standing there with a crew of eight other guys looking at me. Someone kept asking if we were getting paid, or what to do about our gear. Some of it was still locked away in the tunnels.

The hours passed and we didn’t know if we still had a job. When I finally got hold of my shift manager, he didn’t have a lot to say.

“They’re shutting us down. I’m sorry. Gotta start looking for a new job.”

Not the kind of thing you wanna hear when you just had your first kid. The whole crew was looking at me for answers, and I didn’t have anything comforting to say. Can’t sing those guys to sleep. I told them the truth; we were out of a job, and no one seemed to know what the hell was going on.

I kept calling management to demand some answers, but all numbers were either disconnected or put me on infinite hold. It wasn’t until I wormed my way into one of the numbers for my boss’ boss that I got anywhere. Some corporate big shot who had his name on a lot of papers and not a speck of dirt on his shoes. I was about to give him a piece of my mind when he suddenly changed tone.

“We’re looking for a crew. There’s another job in the area,” he said. “Not tunneling, but should be within your skillset.”

“And how do we know it won’t be shut down like the last one?”

“You don’t, but it’s the best you got. It pays well. Real well. I can bring all your guys in starting tomorrow. What do you say?”

I said the only thing I could. I said yes.

 

It was tough to come home that day. I’d been surrounded by this ceaseless vitriol all afternoon. One of the guys had been crying in the porta-potty. This was supposed to be a long-term gig, and now we were all on shaky ground. Whatever this new job entailed didn’t exactly calm us down, but at least we could keep our heads up a little longer.

I don’t think I did a single thing right that evening. I forgot to wash my hands when I picked up my baby girl, getting her wispy hair a little dirty. I changed her diaper but couldn’t get the thing to sit right, and I think I used too much powder. It was just one thing after another. It wasn’t until I sat down to watch the news that I finally got to do the one thing I was good at; singing her to sleep. One verse, and she was out.

Oh-ai-ai-ai-ai-fuff.

My wife joined me on the couch, speaking in a hushed voice. She was just as worried as me about the job, but I could tell she was trying to stay positive. She asked all kinds of questions, like what we were doing, and for how long, and with what people – and I didn’t have an answer for any of it. Not unlike the talking heads on the TV. All I could say is that we had a time, a place, and a generous paycheck.

“Just be careful,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Our girl can’t sleep without you.”

 

Doing tunnel work is rough for a number of reasons. In summer, you’re melting away in the heat. In the autumn, you’re knee-deep in rainwater. And winter, well… you don’t do a lot of digging in the winter. Ground gets frozen, can mess up the equipment. Depends on the job site, I guess.

We were nearing the end of the season. The last dig of the summer is the one you finish just before you go on vacation, and my guys had been robbed of theirs. I knew of at least one guy who had to cut his trip to Tallahassee; he wouldn’t shut up about it. It was better than having no job at all, but the disappointment was immeasurable. We’d been promised stable work for years to come, now we were fighting for scraps.

The location turned out to be a construction site. Not a dig site, mind you, there’s a difference. The place was roughly the size of a football field, lined with a chain-linked fence wrapped in yellow plastic. There were all kinds of construction tools lying around, seemingly abandoned. There was even a bulldozer.

 

We waited for about an hour before someone showed up. There was this one guy with protective glasses and a hardhat, our supposed “foreman”. He seemed friendly enough; probably someone a bit further down the career ladder. He came up to us and clapped his hands to get our attention.

“Everyone feeling okay?” he asked, throwing his arms out.

There was a murmur, but no one was particularly enthusiastic about the whole thing. We weren’t a construction crew. Then again, at that point we had no idea what kind of crew we were supposed to be.

“We’re gonna go through all the details in a bit,” he continued. “I just want to say, I know this is not ideal. We didn’t have a choice in the matter. That said, if this works out, we’re gonna have a lot more work for you going forward. So, let’s get started, yeah?”

That lifted our spirits a little. I saw a couple of nods and the hint of a smile. Maybe things would work out.

 

We walked into the site. He showed us this spot at the far end, right next to a jackhammer. There was a hole about three feet deep, six feet across. It looked like they’d dug it out with shovels, by hand. In the middle of the hole there was a rock formation, like a white spike poking out of the ground. It was roughly the length of my arm.

“This is what we’ve found,” the foreman said. “This particular mineral is uncommon in this part of the country. It’s mainly used in pharmaceuticals.”

“What’s it called?”

“Pilolith. It’s used in something called compound five. Life-saving stuff.”

He went on to explain the process. Essentially, this construction site was found to be littered with pilolith minerals. The entire site needed to be dug out, carefully, and the minerals had to be extracted as a whole. Two guys were on stand-by to measure, catalog, and mark down each extracted sample down to the milligram.

The tools were oddly specific. For example, we couldn’t use jackhammers; we had to slowly work the base of the mineral with a portable water jet cutter. We couldn’t touch the minerals without wearing rubber gloves, and we had to put out sprinklers near every active dig spot to suppress mineral dust. That, and there was a gas mask mandate.

“It’s important that we don’t breathe this stuff in,” he explained. “You don’t want that.”

By the end of our first day, we had dug up five of those spike things. They were all carefully placed in a vacuum container and sealed with silicone spray. All that work for what equates to a suitcase of rocks. At the end of our shift, one of the guys noticed something funny. Technically we were right next door to our abandoned subway gig.

“Out through one door, in through another.”

 

It took some time to get used to the new setup. We had to work with a lot of protective gear, and we kept getting soaked by the water jet and sprinklers. Working in that kind of environment gives you all kinds of uncomfortable aches; especially when you need to have a gas mask. The mix of heat and water kept fogging up the glass, sucking the salt from my skin and stinging my eyes.

It was exhausting. We usually managed to get somewhere around 6 to 10 piloliths a day, depending on the weather and how fast we could get to the base of the mineral. They were all roughly three feet down, but a few of them were a bit smaller, and some were a bit bigger. There was one of them that was so tall that it poked out of the ground, but it had turned a metallic gray. We sent a picture of it to the foreman, and he said it was a no-go.

“It’s gone bad,” he explained. “Cut it, leave it, don’t matter.”

Every night when I came home, I could barely stand. I fell asleep in the shower once, waking only when the water turned cold. I’d remember to eat just because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. It was a strange feeling, and my wife could tell I wasn’t doing alright. I felt bad not being able to keep up with the housework. But hey, at least I could sing my baby to sleep. That I could do.

 

The fact that the site was so close to our old tunnel job was really strange. It was literally a stone’s throw away, but cities can get like that sometimes; it might take 20-30 minutes in traffic to get from one street to another, but walking there at a brisk pace takes a couple of minutes. I hadn’t even thought about it until they pointed it out.

The job was gonna take weeks, maybe months, at the pace we were going. We got the go-ahead to bring in some more guys, but it was hard to find people for a temp job at short notice. I managed to get a hold of four more in total, but trying to bring them up to speed was a hassle. I kept getting all these questions that I couldn’t answer. For example, why couldn’t we just dig up the whole site and then filter out the pilolith later? We could have it all done in about a week, tops. And yeah, they were right, but we weren’t allowed to do that.

And what the hell is a pilolith anyway?

 

After a full week of working with the stuff we were getting into a sort of rhythm. We split up between surface testing, excavation, cutting, and transport. I was one of the cutters. I stood in a dirt pit with brown water up to my knees, trying not to get my fingers blown off as the drainage pump flopped around. Now, I’m good at what I do, but we were working without proper routine and oversight – it was the wild west.

First accident happened 8 days into the job. One of the guys, can’t remember his name, got his face dust-sprayed with pilolith. The sprinklers stopped working and he had to change his filter after a cut. All we saw was how he stepped away, took the mask off, and had a seizure. They had to carry him away and wash the dust off with a hose. He got back to work after a couple of days, but I don’t think he was ever the same. There was something off about him. Not quite a thousand-yard stare, but he would tilt his head up at strange angles every now and then like he was looking at something behind the clouds. That, and he stopped complaining about his cancelled Tallahassee trip.

Second accident was one of the other cutters. He’d just finished a smaller pilolith spike when I saw him dip one of his legs down. It looked like he’d just stepped wrong, but there was this look of genuine surprise on his face. Then we heard a pop, like something exploding, and the guy screamed like a wounded animal. This repetitive shriek, over and over, as he clutched his leg. When we got to him. I could see most of his foot and part of his leg had been crushed. Not just a sprain or something, but mangled. You could barely tell there was a foot at the end - it looked like cloth-covered meat.

When they carried him off, he was delirious. I heard him mumble as they shut the ambulance door.

“Breathing. Breathing. Breathing.”

 

If it had been any other job, we’d have called it quits long ago. One workplace accident - it happens. But two, and on such short notice? No, that doesn’t happen. Problem was, it felt like the big wigs were one step away from shutting us down all over again. They hounded us with that fact every chance they got. The foreman would slide in a comment about it when he could. Like, at the end of every shift I gave him an update on our progress. He always asked if things had gone smoothly, and whenever I said it did, he’d just respond;

“Good. Don’t know how we could afford keeping this afloat if it didn’t.”

Every. Damn. Time.

So yeah, we had to make do. It was dirty work, for dirty people, but what choice did we have? No one else was hiring, and getting the whole crew to another site on short notice was impossible. You don’t spend that kind of money on a whim, and there was no standing contract lurking around the corner. These kinds of jobs take months of planning and contract negotiation; you will be eating well into your savings long before you see a paycheck.

 

We kept having trouble with our gear. Not just because things bend and break, that’s normal. Wear and tear is part of the job. The problem was that we had no idea what kind of supports we were looking at, and most of our equipment was still at the tunnel site. We kept having trouble with the ground shifting. Sometimes when we dug out the piloliths, the dirt would collapse. It wasn’t bad enough to hurt anyone, but it was frustrating. We had a bunch of sandbags and supports on the old dig site, but we weren’t allowed to get them.

I kept hearing things around the site. The guy who’d inhaled pilolith dust complained about losing his sense of taste. The guy who had his foot crushed was admitted to psychiatric care. Another guy kept talking about how he found this black door at his apartment complex that he couldn’t remember having seen before. Just a whole set of strange rumors. Every day felt like walking into a ghost story – someone had something eerie to say.

My first unusual experience was nowhere near as dramatic. I was working the water jet cutter when I accidentally angled it downward. I left it on a little too long and cut into the rock surrounding the mineral. At first I thought I’d hit a sewer line, but that would mean it was inches from the surface. There was no way that was true. But the ground erupted with this foul, black, organ-like ichor. Like fish-guts and mineral oil.

I got out of there real quick, and the moment I stepped out of the hole the dirt collapsed around me. Almost like the ground shook a little.

 

On our third week, some people got sick. We thought it was a stomach bug going around, but we figured out the common denominator. Everyone who’d gotten sick had regularly eaten dairy products for lunch or breakfast. Turns out, on closer inspection, that a lot of dairy spoiled around the dig site. Like, to the point where we could track it just by looking at it. If we left a chocolate milk out in the open, the damn thing would be a solid white mold before the end of the day. So yeah, no dairy on the dig site.

I remember once in the break room. Six of us were sitting around, just chatting, and this one guy joins us with a yoghurt. He knows we’re not supposed to eat dairy, but he doesn’t care anymore. He’s staring straight ahead, shoveling spoonfuls into his mouth. I don’t need to look to see that it’s gone bad. I can smell it. We can all smell it. And he just sits there, chewing it down like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“You can’t eat that stuff,” someone mumbles. “You’ll get sick.”

The guy turns his head and licks the container clean. He doesn’t even blink.

“You don’t think what we’re doing is sick?” he asks. “You think this is okay?”

“It’s a job, calm down.”

“We’re all sick in the fucking head,” the guy says, clutching his head. “Fucking parasites.”

He didn’t stay long. After starting a third fight that same day, we had to let him go.

 

Coming home every day was like coming up for air after a long dive. Everything felt brighter, and I’d happily do whatever was asked of me. Changing diapers? No problem. Taking out the trash? Wonderful. Anything and everything was better than staying another damn minute at the site. Thinking about going back the next day made me feel like a rock in the pit of my stomach. I’d look in the bathroom mirror, trying to convince myself to get through one more day.

But while I might not be the best at being a homebody, my wife rightfully pointed out that I was doing worse than usual. She was right; I was. It wasn’t a conscious thing, but once I noticed it I couldn’t ignore it. For example, I would put all the dishes into a vertical pile instead of the dishwasher. There was just something hypnotic about arranging them in a pattern. I would sometimes stand in front of the open refrigerator, holding my hands out like I was warming them by a fire.

It got to the point where I was scared to be alone with my baby girl. What if I forgot her on the changing table? I couldn’t live with myself if she got hurt. And still – we needed the money. Rent was going up, expenses were going up, and we needed a new set of tires for the car. We’d already sold off our spare car, we couldn’t afford to go without one. It was bad enough that we had to share one.

 

I remember this one night, as I was standing by my baby’s crib. She was having trouble going back to sleep so I leaned in to sing. Problem is, I couldn’t remember the words. I’d never written them down or anything, so there was this sudden sense of loss in me. Like I’d forgotten something that was a part of me, instead of just a song.

And my girl, she could tell. She was screaming her little heart out, begging me to remember. And I stood there opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water, trying to explain that the words just weren’t there.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

When she fell asleep that night, it wasn’t because she felt safe and cared for. It was exhaustion. Just like me.

 

By that time, coming to the site felt like walking into purgatory. One guy is off in the corner, hurling his guts out. One guy is crying on a bench. One is lying flat on his back, looking up at the sky. Two guys don’t even show up for work.

We barely make progress. What little we get is mostly from what we’d started the previous shift. Around lunch, one guy was taking off his protective gear and going to town on a pilolith like he was a sick cow with a salt lick. We had to pry him off and send him home. He laughed the whole way.

By late afternoon I was the only one working on this one particular pilolith. The damn thing was big. Big enough that I’d have trouble lifting it by myself. I had to dig a little deeper than usual to get to the base, and I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should’ve. By the time I pulled down the water cutter, the cable dislodged something and the entire hole collapsed; with me in it.

I was buried under the dirt. Thank God for all that gear.

 

I was lying face down in the dirt. I could breathe a little thanks to my gas mask and the porous ground, but it was like sucking air through a straw. I barely knew what was up or down. No matter which direction I pushed, it felt like something was pushing back. It’s like the ground like was trying to absorb me.

I wasn’t down for long, but in that moment I felt this intense sense of dread. Not just a claustrophobic panic, but something else. I could imagine myself being stuck there, solidified as a relic in eternal stasis. Like watching myself fossilize. All sense of time and passage of the world melted away. I could imagine the years flying by, leaving me helpless. If I’d been down there a thousand years, would I even want to get back up?

By the time they pulled me out I was screaming. I don’t remember, but I was. Apparently, I was begging for them to put me back in the ground.

 

At the end of the day, I was sitting across from one of the machine operators. He was trying to have a glass of water, but he ended up throwing it out. It tasted funny.

“We gotta do something about the equipment,” he said. “We have tens of thousands of dollars still stuck in those tunnels. Hundreds of thousands, maybe. You think they’re happy to leave it there?”

“You honestly think they care?”

“I care. Hell, I’ll take it off their hands if they ain’t using it.”

“You’re not suggesting we steal from the company.”

“What company?” he laughed. “Do you even know who we’re working for? You know what we’re doing? You see any worker’s comp going out to the guy who’s saying everything taste like gasoline?”

I shook my head. I didn’t like it, but he was right. He took off his hard hat, dropping it on the table.

“I say we get our fair share. Split it right down the middle,” he said. “You in?”

“I’m in.”

 

I told my wife I’d be late the next day. Three guys volunteered to help pick things up after our shift. There was a fair chance that we wouldn’t get anything, but at that point we didn’t care. Some of us were desperate to just get a big enough paycheck to cash out and make a run for it. We didn’t want to be there anymore. None of us did.

We drove down to the old tunnels and prepared ourselves. One guy brought a two-wheeler, another brought flashlights, and one brought walkie-talkies. We were gonna turn the power on, but it was easy to get lost down there. Half the map wasn’t finished, and most of the rooms were dead ends. You could get lost on the best of days, and we were barely functional.

We made our way into the tunnels, keeping in touch as we went. It didn’t take long for us to find some personal items, but there was quite a bit more to it. We could tell others had been down there. There were a whole bunch of things we hadn’t seen before. Some of it I could barely understand. For example, there was this one drill that looked like an eight-foot-long syringe on a rail, leading to a hole in the wall. That’s not what we were there for, but I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrow at that.

 

While the others found some gear, I decided to look a little further in. There was this one space I’d been working in just before we got shut down that I knew had a backpack full of seismic measuring equipment. It didn’t take all that long for me to find my way back there, but the backpack was long gone. Figures. That thing alone was at least 25 grand.

As I was about to head back to the others, I swept my flashlight across a black door. I didn’t remember that ever being there. I checked in with the others over the walkie, and they were still trying to dislodge one of the backup drills. I had some time, so I decided to check it out.

I stepped inside just as the walkie crackled to life again.

“Got the power, hold on to something.”

Seconds later, there was a hum and a crackle. I swept my flashlight across the room, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was a small cube-shaped room with the furthermost wall being pale white dirt. I saw there was a light fixture overhead, so I searched the wall for a switch. I found it and turned it on, just to see if there was something I’d missed.

The moment the light came on felt like staring into the sun. I hadn’t realized how used I’d gotten to the dark. That, and the light seemed to be some kind of UV; it wasn’t just bright, it was warm.

The moment it turned on, I saw the wall shift. Not by much. Just a twitch.

Dirt don’t move like that.

 

The ground shook as people started calling out on the walkie. Someone was screaming about a burst water pipe. Another one kept going “What the fuck?” over and over. I could hear the sound of metal bending and breaking as supports snapped, making the tunnels outside crumble. I could hear these blocks of stone, each one heavy enough to crush my car, falling like rain drops.

The wall moved. The ground moved. I was standing still, watching solid concrete roll beneath me.

The light flickered. A whole section of wall roiled like liquid, only to reveal this enormous glass-like surface. I stepped closer, watching these whirling colors slosh from left to right, up and down, like an organic membrane suspended in gelatin. Blue lines spreading out like the petals of a sunflower. As I step back and take in the whole picture, my breath gets stuck in my throat.

The entire wall is the bottom half of an eye. A bright blue eye, adjusting to the sudden bright light.

 

I’ve never felt anything like in that moment. It’s like the sky keeps falling, over and over. Like you’re taking a step back, even though you’re standing still, making the world feel smaller with every breath. I could barely understand it. My legs felt so small that I couldn’t feel myself walking.

The power cut out. The bright blue pupil disappeared, leaving the outline of the shape lingering in my mind’s eye.

The sounds of the outside world faded away. I could hear the screaming in the walkie like a distant whisper. I could sense the rumble as the tunnels collapsed. I could feel the weight of the organic slosh as a mass of nerves far larger than me moved at breakneck speed, left to right, left to right, displacing the air.

“It’s coming down!” someone cried in the walkie. “Get the fuck out, it’s all coming down!”

But I couldn’t move. I looked straight ahead, into the darkness, and pushed my hand back towards the door. I couldn’t open it; there was a blockage on the outside. The concrete ceiling was starting to crack.

 

My mind pendulumed between sobering fear and a mind-gutting sense of hollowness. I was a father. I was nothing. I was being buried alive. I was pointless. All the while I hear this surreal sound of something beyond my comprehension of scale starting to move, and I realize I’m going to die down there. I’m going to be crushed or left to suffocate. And there’s this little voice in the back of my head whispering at me that there’s a very real chance I don’t come home tonight. That my baby girl isn’t going to sleep well ever again.

And I just break. I absolutely break. I slam my body against the door. I scream, and shout, and beat my fists on the metal sheeting. I step back and brace myself, throwing my weight at it – but it doesn’t even budge. The voices on the walkie aren’t even saying words any more, having devolved into a panicked screeching.

I step away from the door, towards the eye. I fumble in the dark, picking up a fistful of concrete to use as a weapon. I move closer, ready to plunge my fist into the surface of the eye, when I notice something.

I’m stepping in liquid. I didn’t hear a water pipe burst. Not in here.

I fumble for my flashlight. I barely manage to pick it up as my hands keep failing me, but as I turn it on I realize there’s a thin layer of water lining the floor. An oily kind of salt water.

 

Looking up at the eye, I see it leaking at the edges. Tears?

Something in me clicks. The rapid eye movement. The sudden sense of panic and collapse. It dawns on me that I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen it dozens of times.

It’s just like when my baby girl wakes up in the middle of the night, looking for her papa. That’s all it is. And I think about that moment when I was buried at the dig site with that sense of the world passing me by.

I wouldn’t want to wake from that. I wouldn’t want to know which of my friends were dead or alive. Which family members made it. I wouldn’t want to know just how alone I really was – I’d rather stay a fossil.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was it the whole time. Maybe we’d been cleaning the scalp of something having a really, really, bad dream.

 

I turned off my flashlight and stepped a little closer. I could feel this thrumming movement coming from the membrane as nerves contracted, pushing out bucket after bucket of liquid. Meanwhile, I’m closing my eyes, and thinking about an imaginary hand placed behind a tender head, fussing about going to sleep. Wispy hair getting caught between my fingers.

At that moment, the words return to me. The lullaby.

With a shaky voice, I sing them. A voice in the dark, hoping something impossible can hear me and find comfort.

Oh-ai-ai-ai-ai-fuff

my little, little one

Oh-ai-ai-ai-ai-fuff

my little, little one

 

I sing it again, and again, and again. I’m imagining that little bundle in my arms, and how it settles into a rhythm. How her breathing steadies with mine. A little hand, wrapping around my finger, then letting go as the dreams take hold.

And after a while, I realize the wall has stopped moving. It’s just white dirt. Nothing is moving, collapsing, or breaking. It’s just me, in a dark room, and my workmates trying to move a boulder outside the door.

Something’s gone back to sleep.

 

When we got out, things had gone completely to shit. Car alarms were going off. Streetlights had died. Fire hydrants were pouring into the street. Waiting for us just outside were two patrol vehicles, ready to ask us some serious and uncomfortable questions.

The whole ordeal was categorized as a localized seismic event. The company decided not to press any charges; they just had us trespassed. But even that would eventually be overturned.

See, they still needed someone to work the dig site. There was pilolith to cut, and there was no one around willing to do it. And honestly, who was more experienced working with this stuff than me and my crew? We had started to get the hang of it. We could make up our own rules. And now that I had an idea of what we were dealing with, I could do it in a way that wouldn’t get us all killed.

So yeah, we got back to work.

 

I’ve been doing pilolith digs for years now. We figured out a good routine and procedure, allowing us to rotate crew in a way that doesn’t get us sent to the hospital. I got about thirty guys working with me. There’s not a lot of demand for it, but what demand there is pays very well. I don’t think you’ll find any craigslist postings for pilolith diggers anytime soon, but we’re out there. Sometimes it just looks like a construction site. Sometimes they don’t bother trying to hide it. People see a jackhammer and roll their eyes, hoping we won’t stick around for long.

My girl isn’t a baby anymore, but in another sense of the word she absolutely is. I’ve managed to scrape together a pretty good life for her. I work weekdays, along with every second and third weekend of the month, but I get the full first week of the month completely off. Just two paid vacation weeks a year though, but the hourly rates are just… I’ll admit, I’m a bit spoiled. I could sign off on a new pool and it wouldn’t break our budget.

But I feel like I had to take a moment to look back at it all. Not just because it was a monumental day of my life, but because it changed something in me. I may be the smallest, most insignificant thing in whatever world this is – but I’m still here. I can still do something. And if I can do that one goddamn thing right, is that not enough reason to do it?

 

I’m thinking, whenever I’m gray and gone, is my girl gonna remember the fancy vacations and the new car-smell of our family Hyundai, or is she gonna remember the times I sung her to sleep?

I don’t need an answer. I know it. I feel it.

And somewhere deep underground, there is something that feels the same.

My husband Chris and I moved to South Dakota the year our oldest son turned 6. It wasn’t an easy decision; I had a career on the east coast, but we both had family in the Midwest. It was also part of a promise we’d made to one another when we got married – we wanted to raise our kids with the kind of small-town living that’d made the two of us who we were. Big cities are great for work, and studies, and fun, but not so much for quiet Saturday nights and affordable housing.

We tried to hit the ground running. We’d saved up for a cheap house on a really nice street. Our neighbors were mostly old folks, so they were easy to impress. I just had to show up with the kiddos running laps around my legs and I’d see face after face light up. It didn’t take much for us to feel welcome. Chris had a cousin in town that introduced him to all kinds of friends. Before I knew it, he was off playing pool after work or going magnet fishing.

I wasn’t mad at him going out, he does his fair share of work around the house and with the kids. I think I was mostly frustrated about how easy he made friends. He just had to cheer for the Vikings and someone would hand him a beer. For me, it was a bit more complicated. I had a part-time job at the DMV, but people didn’t really come there to socialize.

Then I met Mallory.

 

Mallory, or Mal, lived four houses down. I met her one day when I got home from work. She’d just rung the doorbell and wasn’t expecting someone to pull up the driveway behind her. She was short, a bit round, and had a braid that reached halfway down her back. She had this smile where she didn’t just move her mouth; her entire face scrunched up. It’s like she could smile with her whole body.

“Hey neighbor!” she called out, waving at me. “Heard some wild rumors about another mom moving in.”

“I’m afraid it’s all true.”

I shook her hand, and she helped me with my groceries. She had three kids of her own and was a stay-at-home mom. Her husband worked at the local school, so there was a good chance he’d have to educate my boys someday.

 

We ended up spending a lot of the day together talking about the neighborhood, our kids, and the careers we stepped away from. She’d worked in marketing for a brewery, mostly doing graphic design. She still did some as a work-from-home kind of deal, but it was mostly a side-gig. She couldn’t believe I had the time to hold down a proper job, but a lot of folks were struggling to make ends meet. Every bit helps.

“I think the worst of it is the boredom,” she confided in me. “I get bored out of my mind. The same walls, the same sounds, the same people. Sometimes I wish the old bag across the street would go belly up just so I could go say hi to the folks coming to pick her up.”

“You’re terrible,” I laughed. “It’s really that bad?”

“Yes! By God, yes! Let this be a lesson. Get out of the house. A job, a hobby, a lover, whatever you gotta do. Don’t let yourself get cabin fever.”

“I’m guessing grocery runs ain’t doing it for you.”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed. “I space my shopping out so I can get a little every day. Whatever gets me to stretch my legs.”

“No offense, but I hope I never get like that.”

“Oh, I hope so too. Now…”

She offered me her hand and a sincere look.

“…let’s be best friends so I can live vicariously through you.”

“Deal.”

We shook on it. We tried to keep a straight face, and neither of us let go until we burst out laughing. I’d finally made a friend.

 

Mal and I got along surprisingly well. My oldest son was about the same age as her youngest, and the two of them became best friends overnight. Within a couple of weeks, we had shared family dinners, sleepovers, and water balloon fights in the back yard. I got to meet Mal’s husband Oli. Nice enough fellow. Not quite the kind of guy my Chris hangs out with, but pleasant enough to be around. A bit pretentious, perhaps.

One night, the whole family was invited over. Mal and Oli wanted to host a proper dinner party. They’d set up this huge projector screen in the living room with a bunch of party games for the kids. It was an instant hit. Mal made her own spaghetti and meatballs; fancy enough to raise an eyebrow, good enough to get the kids on board.

While they played, Chris and Oli spent some time in the yard, discussing God knows what. As Mal and I finally got a chance to talk, we settled down with a glass of wine.

 

“You know, there are things going on around town,” she mumbled. “You into true crime?”

“I watched Making a Murderer,” I said with an honest shrug. “Not really my thing.”

“What about scary stuff? Hauntings, possessions, ghost hunters?”

“I mean, for a laugh, yeah.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, giving her a wry smile. “I don’t have time to think about that.”

“So you can honestly say you’ve never seen anything you can’t explain?”

“I mean…”

I both could, and couldn’t. We all have a couple of stories we can’t make sense of. A shadow outside the window, a strange sound being carried by the wind. A sunflower that turned blue when you picked it up. A truck driving past with no one in the driver’s seat.

As the kids sugar crashed, and the house quieted into a whisper, Mal and I ended up in the yard finishing our third glass of white wine – talking in hushed voices. Chris had taken our kids home to sleep, while Oli was making sure the others were getting ready for bed.

 

“There’s this one thing I keep hearing about,” Mal mumbled. “But it’s not a joke. You can’t think of it like that. Promise?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“It’s the fog,” she said, pointing at me knowingly. “There’s something dangerous in the fog.”

“What, like Bigfoot?”

“Not a joke,” she said, poking me on the cheek. “This isn’t just me telling you. There really is something in the fog.”

“What do you mean?”

“The fog here gets so thick in the morning that sometimes that people get lost, right? Mostly old folks, or drunks. But sometimes people just… disappear.”

“That usually happens when you can’t see anything.”

“Alright, just… do this one thing. Look up what happened on this street, July 18^(th), six years ago. Google it. You’ll see what I mean.”

I wasn’t expecting to go home with homework that night, but Mal made me promise. I have to admit; it was a bit exciting. It felt like I was playing detective, getting to the bottom of some mystery swept under the rug. I figured that was sort of the point.

 

Before I went to bed that night, I looked up the article. It was easy enough to find; there weren’t many articles written about anything even remotely near this street. It was an article about a woman going missing on the morning of July 18^(th), at the height of a nasty fog coming in from the east. What surprised me was the missing person herself. A young woman in her early 20’s who went that same route every morning. Not any of the old folks, or some random drunk. She was a runner.

There were no witnesses who’d seen her out and about that morning, but there were plenty who had seen and heard something else. One anonymous witness described;

“There was someone standing in the field. And they just kept screamin’. Screamin’ like their life depended on it.”

“You think it was her? The missing woman?”

“It was not a woman’s voice. Not a man’s voice either. Not a… I don’t know. Sounded like the fog’s voice.”

The article ended with a hand-drawn picture of what looked like a person walking through the fields with a trail of tendrils lagging behind. The text at the bottom read “artist’s rendition”.

 

Over the next couple of days, Mal and I texted back and forth about this. I kept asking her questions, like who the missing person was, and what people knew about what’d happened. She was surprisingly honest about it. The main theory was that she’d been attacked by one of her exes. After all, a lot of people knew about her morning jog – it wouldn’t be that hard to set up an ambush. Others weren’t so sure.

There’d been other instances where people had gone missing in the fog. There was one article about a car being left wide open on the road, with no one in it. The driver was presumed missing, and they’d opened a tip line for the public. Mal explained that she knew one of the guys working that tip line, and more than one person had called in about, quote unquote, “a strange man in the fog”.

There were only a couple of articles spanning ten years, but they were consistent. People going missing, and witnesses talking about something moving in the fog.

 

Mal explained that there were a couple of people from around town who kept an ear to the ground and shared interesting tips and sights. It was a sort of impromptu digital neighborhood watch, but with so little going on they mostly devolved into sharing memes and rumors. I was invited. I wasn’t sure about whether to accept or not, but I must admit; I was curious. And they had a lot to say.

There were about half a dozen people posting regularly. There was Mal, of course, and two retired women who lived on the other side of town. There was a younger girl who worked as a farmhand, and what looked like the town’s only two openly gay men in their 50’s. It didn’t take long to find the posts about the so-called Fog Men.

While there had only been a couple of articles, there were several rumors of the would-be Fog Men. There were sightings and, by the looks of it, even a couple of pictures. Most of them were just pictures of foggy fields, but if you looked closely enough you could imagine seeing something out there. Little black bumps in the distance. Could be a bush. Could be a person.

“They really do scream,” one of the commenters had posted. “But not like how people scream. It’s something different.”

 

A couple of days later, when I had a moment to myself, I gave Mal a call. We ended up talking for well over an hour. At some point we drifted in on the topic of the Fog Men.

“Some people really believe in this stuff, don’t they?” I asked.

“Yeah, don’t you?”

“It’s just stories and blurry pictures. Hard to believe in that.”

“A lot of things are just stories and blurry pictures. Don’t mean they don’t happen.”

“I mean, it’s kinda spooky. But come on, monsters in the fog?”

“Not monsters. Fog Men!”

“Sure, that.”

“Look, all I’m saying is, if you see something – say something.”

“See something? Like what?”

“Oh come on!” she laughed, exasperated. “Just keep an eye out when the fog rolls in.”

 

It was early morning in late July when I saw the fog for the first time. I was on my way to work, but it was hard to see the road. The fog got so thick that I could barely see what was right in front of me. After almost missing a turn, I decided to slow to a crawl.

There’s this big field on the right-hand side when I drive to work. You can usually see for miles, but now I couldn’t even see the edge of the road. Despite crawling along, I managed to dip the front wheel off the side, and something popped. I slammed my foot on the break and went out to check. Yeah – a flat tire. Great.

I didn’t have a jack, so I couldn’t fix the damn thing myself. I called Chris and asked him to come help me. He didn’t mind. If anything, I think it boosted his ego a little. While I waited, I decided to humor Mal. I took out my phone and scanned the fog for anything that looked even remotely human – hoping I could get a pole or something at a good angle.

While I didn’t see anything, I got this weird sensation in my chest. Like something growing cold inside me – a creeping pain reaching into my lungs. And as I looked up from my phone, I realized that while I wasn’t seeing anything, I was definitely hearing something.

Something in the field, making a kind of sound I’d never heard before. Something raspy and shrill, like the vibrating echo of a distant groan.

By the time Chris got there, the fog had cleared up. There was nothing in that field. If there had been, I would’ve seen it. As I said – it was empty for miles.

 

I had managed to record a video, but it didn’t pick up on that sound. I sent it to Mal anyway, hoping she might be able to get something out of it. She didn’t, but she was ecstatic about the prospect of me taking the infamous Fog Men a little more seriously. And while I was, her enthusiasm was a bit off-putting. She had the energy of someone waiting for an adventure to drop in her lap, and I wasn’t feeling it. What I’d heard out there wasn’t an adventure – it was danger. I didn’t like it.

Despite that, Mal was happy to share what I’d sent her in our social media group. All of a sudden my experience wasn’t just a conversation between friends, it became an open forum. She shared the video and forwarded what I’d said. It was a bit of an overreach, but I wasn’t about to get mad about it. She meant well and she was just excited. That’s a good problem to have.

“That’s where they found the car,” the farmhand wrote as a comment on my video.

“Anyone got Harriette’s socials? She lives nearby, maybe she saw something.”

“Harriette is down in Florida to see her sister,” someone responded. “Won’t see her for weeks.”

“New girl, did you hear anything? Like, really hear it?”

They were waiting for my reply. I wrote one, edited, re-wrote, and then just cancelled the whole post. After a back-and-forth with myself, I took the bull by the horn. I had to be honest. Not only with them, but myself.

“Yeah,” I wrote. “I definitely heard something.”

 

Over the next few days I was glued to my phone. Whenever I had a moment to myself, I was talking to the Fog Watch (our unofficial group name). The more we talked, the more I recognized myself in what they were saying. The sound that wasn’t really a scream, but sort of reminded me of one. Something in the fog, only to disappear along with it. The big thing now was to see if anyone was missing – someone always went missing when the Fog Men rolled around.

The following Friday night, as I was about to go to bed, I started getting notifications on my phone. When I read them, my hands started shaking. I rushed into the kitchen to show Chris, but he was barely paying attention.

There was an old man missing. Last they’d seen him, he’d been parked outside a gas station; about a ten-minute walk from where I’d stopped that morning.

The Fog Watch went into a frenzy. They were already coming up with theories about the origins of the thing out there. They were talking about weaknesses and strengths, ways to defend yourself, and getting equipment to capture it on film. Meanwhile, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

For all the excitement, and if you looked past the giddiness, there was really someone missing. And that person had gone missing minutes from where I’d stopped my car. Fog Men or not, that was terrifying.

 

As July crawled into August, the foggy mornings grew more common, but less dense. You could sometimes see the fog rolling in over the fields. I could see it just fine, and there was never any noise. Not that I didn’t stop to listen – I would stop to film it every time I saw it, just in case I caught something. Sometimes I’d pull over to the side of the road with the kids still in the car, asking them to wait a minute while mom filmed the fog. They didn’t mind, they thought it was cool. They’d stop to look as well, mistaking the occasional cow for a monster heading our way.

While I never caught anything on video or felt anything similar to like I had that one morning, I could see why people got so into it. The area had a lot of open spaces and the fog rolling in was straight out of a gothic horror novel. This white blanket swallowing up the green and turning the houses dark along the way. No wonder people looked for monsters – the countryside was practically built for hiding things in plain sight.

But life lulled on, and the Fog Watch got distracted by the next shiny thing. Rumors about someone poisoning the neighborhood cats and rumors about unruly teenagers busting up mailboxes.

 

Mal’s kids and my oldest got along great. They had a couple of sleepovers every now and then, staying up late and playing games. Oli was a trooper – he loved making up things for them to do. Anything to keep them from begging for more screen time.

One morning when I was going to pick up my boy, I stopped. It was just a couple of steps out the front door, but I couldn’t help myself. Something made me stop, and I didn’t even know why. I clutched a hand over my chest and got back in the house, peering out the window. I was cold. I could see my breath on the glass.

I could feel the fog rolling in. Not the usual fog. The unusual one.

I called Mal.

 

“It’s right here,” I said. “Look outside.”

“Aren’t you coming to pick your boy up?”

“Just look!”

I could hear laughter and little feet pitter-pattering in the background as she moved closer to one of the windows. I could almost guess which one, but she was just a little too far down the street for me to tell.

“It’s thicker,” I continued. “Like when I was out by the fields.”

“Doesn’t look that bad.”

“Just… wait a minute.”

“Alright, we’ll come to you.”

“No!”

I don’t know why I let that ‘no’ out as hard as I did, but something inside me was screaming for me to keep my kids indoors. I could feel my heart beating through my chest.

“Are you okay?” Mal asked. “You were the one who didn’t like this stuff, remember?”

“I know, it’s just… I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I don’t like it. Can you please just keep them inside a little longer?”

 

We sat there, keeping the line open as we sat by the windows. Me at my place, her just down the street. The kids could feel that something in the air was different. They grew quiet. Concerned. Didn’t matter that we said that everything was fine – they could tell it wasn’t. Once the fog had engulfed our street, I couldn’t even see my car on the driveway.

“You can’t tell me this is normal,” I said. “It’s less like fog, and more like a… cloud.”

“Yeah,” Mal agreed. “Can’t even see the chairs in the yard.”

“You hear anything?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

“Just someone asking if he can have another ham and cheese sandwich.”

“You know what I mean. Out there. Anything?”

There was a short pause as we both stopped to listen. I leaned my head against the window, letting my breath rest on the glass. I was shivering. Why was I shivering?

We sat there for a full minute, letting the air out of the conversation. Looking out, I could imagine all kinds of things just outside of reach. Maybe something resembling a person. Maybe something else. Something being trailed by tendrils and screaming in an alien lung. Once everything else goes quiet, your mind fills in the blanks.

“I think there’s something there,” I whispered. “I really do.”

 

Once the fog cleared, I stepped outside. I could see Mal and the kids coming down the street, but I took a moment to stop in the driveway. Looking down the road, I could see the tail-end of the fog dissipating. As it did, I could’ve sworn I heard something. Not as much heard as felt, but there was something. My heart was pounding through my chest, and my fingers were growing numb.

As I was overrun by a parade of eager children, most of my worries evaporated with immediate needs. As I ushered them inside, Mal stopped to check on me; her braid half-undone and her face curled into a frown.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Turning to face her, I considered just nodding and being done with it. But Mal was genuinely asking. This wasn’t a casual ‘you good?’; it was an open invitation.

“What if there’s really something out there?” I asked. “Not a boogieman. Not a bigfoot. What do you do?”

“I understand, you’re worried, but-“

“No, Mal, listen,” I said. “Just play along. What if there’s something out there? What do you do?”

She looked down, tapping her foot. Looking down the street, then back at me, she nodded.

“First, I’d need proof,” she said. “Not a group chat. Actual proof.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “Let’s get some proof.”

 

Mal and I decided we’d take it a bit more seriously, if only to make me feel a bit better about it. She had Oli bring home a camera from school. They had an older one they used for graduations and social media posts. I looked up a couple of tutorials on how to set up trail cameras. I wanted to see if I could get my hands on a thermal camera, but even renting those things was way out of our price range.

We got some things up and running. Mal had a camera set up in her yard facing the woods. Chris managed to borrow a couple of trail cameras from some of his newfound pool buddies. It took some time to set it up, but we managed to get a little makeshift surveillance system going. Next time that fog rolled in, if there was something in it, we’d catch it.

I could tell Mal’s heart wasn’t really in it, but she was a good sport about it. She didn’t complain or question it. If anything she was concerned, but that’s as about as far as she’d go. It’s strange how easily our roles had shifted. Now she was the grounded one, asking me to keep my head out of the clouds. Hadn’t this been her thing not that long ago? Wasn’t she the one who pulled me into it to begin with?

 

For two full months, we got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Diddly squat.

Two months of everyday life, like nothing was happening. Like nothing was scratching at the back of my mind, demanding that I consider the worst-case scenario. Like there wasn’t an outline of a threat – be it man, or otherwise.

That’s what the Fog Watch was considering – a man. Some kind of murderer, or kidnapper. They’d moved away from the idea of the mysterious cryptid Fog Man and moved to pointing fingers at strange loners who lived on the outskirts of town. Didn’t matter that they had no motive and plenty of alibis; these people were hard-coded to grasp at straws, and their grip was like a vice.

I didn’t bite, and neither did Mal. And, apparently, neither did our cameras.

 

Mal’s kids came over for a sleepover one night. Chris was trying to one-up Oli by putting on a Goosebumps movie night, complete with horror-themed snacks and games. I helped out here and there, but it was clear that this was his thing; he wasn’t about to let some pretentious wannabe-principal upstage the working man.

One of Mal’s kids had forgotten their glasses, so I decided to be kind enough to go get them while they settled on what episode to start with. I wrapped myself in a coat and put on my loafers, heading down the street.

The further I got from my house, the more I felt something. Looking down at my fingers, I could see the fingertips turning white. I was shaking a little. My teeth chattered. By the time I got to Mal’s place, my heart was already racing. I could feel it. When she finally opened the door, I rushed inside and closed the door behind me.

“It’s here,” I said. “It’s here. Right now. It’s here.”

“Slow down!” she said, grasping me by the shoulders. “What are you-“

She turned around, looking out into the yard.

“Oh.”

 

It was so sudden. The fog rolled in from nowhere. It was already covering the yard, but it was only a matter of time before it’d cover the entire street. The wind had been blowing just a moment ago, making the old branches crackle and creak. Now it was quiet. Still.

“Check the camera,” I said. “Just in case.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I’ll… do that.”

As she wandered off, her husband came wandering in from the other room. He gave me a casual wave and stopped to look out the window.

“Scary,” he admitted. “What’s up?”

“Glasses,” I said. “Your kid, he… yeah. Glasses.”

“Right,” Oli nodded. “He’s still getting used to them. Want me to get them?”

“Yeah, just gimme a minute.”

“I can run over with them, no problem.”

I shook my head, but he was already up and about.

 

Mal came back, showing me a screen she’d set up for remote viewing. Meanwhile, Oli was already halfway out the door. I asked him to wait, but he insisted that it wasn’t a problem. Meanwhile, Mal was trying to show me the screen. There was nothing on it, but I suspect that’s what she wanted me to see. Assurance.

“We’re good,” she said, giving me a pat on the shoulder. “See? Nothing.”

Oli waved at us as he held up the glasses.

“Back in a jiffy.”

I didn’t know where to look, but I could tell I didn’t like any of this. Part of me wanted to nod and go on with my evening, but another part of me wanted to scream and drag him back in the house. Mal’s assuring hand on my shoulder made me sit down at her kitchen island for a moment as she invited me to have a drink.

But the moment she got the bottle, she stopped. The corkscrew clinked against the counter as she looked up at me, her eyes wide.

“What is that?” she asked. “What’s… you feel that?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I do.”

We got up and walked up to the front door. We both looked out, watching Oli walk down the street with a pair of children’s glasses in hand. It didn’t take long for the fog to completely swallow him.

Seconds later, we hear it. This awful, shrill, death-shrieking scream. Like something gargling a word until it becomes a noise.

 

Mal was out the door in a flash with me trailing behind by a breath. She didn’t even bother to put shoes on. She was screaming for Oli, flailing with her hands forward, hoping to find the white picket fence lining the front of her house. If she could grab a hold of that, she could find her way around no matter how thick the fog was.

There it was, that scream again. Closer now. A broken voice trying to recall a baby’s babble, a-wa-wa.

I was right behind Mal, making sure not to let her fluttering kaftan out of sight. With every step into the fog, I could feel my fingers growing numb, and something in my chest aching. My lungs were growing cold, making my breath join the white of the fog.

 

Something moved up ahead.

From a distance it looked like a person, but when you got a little closer, you could tell something was wrong. All around the edges of their silhouette, there was this bubbling, roiling, motion. Bubbles growing and popping, letting out puffs of white smoke. Like the shape of a boiling man, the body making itself move while standing still. Skin hung from the sides like torn wallpaper, dangling in the open air.

It wasn’t just a scream – it was a death rattle. It wasn’t just random noise, it was a cry. The most basic cry that I would recognize anywhere, at any time.

“Mama. Mama. Mama.”

A pair of children’s glasses clattered to the ground as the shape in front of us dissolved, piece by piece.

 

I was trying to pull Mal off the ground when I realized I wasn’t breathing. I could feel my heart in my throat, but I couldn’t move my hands. There were no Fog Men. There was no monster. It was the fog itself, and there was something in us.

Mal’s hair was moving on its own, and I could see something rolling on her skin.

It was happening to me too.

That aching cold in my chest reached all the way to my heart, and I could feel this intense fear; like I was being stared down by a predator. Like something was hunting me, seconds away from biting down and severing my organs from one another. Something in me was tightening; getting ready to snap like a rubber band.

I grabbed Mal by the arms and pulled her back, away from the street. Away from whatever, to wherever. I didn’t care what we did, or where we went; I just cared that we didn’t stay put.

 

My vision was blurry, and I had trouble closing my eyes. Something on my left arm stretched the skin out, like a gas bubble. Mal had screamed out the air in her lungs – she was barely conscious. Looking around, I could only see the white of the fog. I could be ten feet from a door or a hundred feet into the middle of nowhere – I couldn’t tell.

I dragged her until I snagged my feet on a rock. I tipped over, collapsing to the ground with her right next to me. I couldn’t get my legs to move. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to stay right there, in the middle of someone’s lawn, and I was going to die from something I didn’t understand. Something that was dissolving me.

In that moment, as I saw smoke and bubbles rise from Mal’s hair and scalp, I heard a noise escape me too. A noise that I could, now, understand.

In that moment of fear. In that one moment where you stare mortality in the eye, and it stares back, you’re just begging for that one thing. You let your chattering teeth form the words for you.

Mama. Mama, help. Mama.

It doesn’t sound like a human noise. It’s the sound you make as your lungs boil, and your throat closes.

 

I remember hearing a door open. An old man yelling for someone. An old woman making a panicked phone call. Something grabbing a hold of me as I’m dragged into the warmth of a home. Mal is next, but she’s unconscious. I don’t know if she’s breathing. Someone’s trying to warm us, covering us in blankets and hot water.

My mouth is moving on its own, my teeth chattering. Even then, I can hear the words rolling out of me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Mama. Mama. Mama.

By the time the paramedics arrive, I’m catatonic. Someone is performing chest compressions on Mal. I see her lips move, just like mine.

We’re saying the same thing.

 

I fall in and out of consciousness as strange faces passed me by. Worried faces. Some apologetic and concerned, others disgusted. I’m rolled down a corridor and catch a glimpse of myself in a shiny plastic cover. My arm is a strange color. My one eye won’t close. It looks dark. There’s needles, and bags, and lights. Something stings my retina, then grows distant.

“You’re gonna be okay,” someone says. There’s a hand on my head.

And for a moment, I believe them. I really do. Enough to let go, and rest.

 

The damage was mostly concentrated on my arm. They called it an extreme reaction. You know how some people can choke just from the smell of a peanut? What happened to me, medically, was something similar. It also burst a blood vessel in my eye, but it was nowhere near as painful as the many stitches I had to get to keep my arm from breaking apart.

Mal made it through the night, but it was touch and go for a while. They had to shave her head; the worst settled in her scalp and the back of her neck. She would have to wear a neck brace to make sure the stitches didn’t pop; they were in a really bad spot. She never looked the same without her braid.

After the doctors ran their tests and explained what happened, they seemed just as clueless as me. Not only was this something they hadn’t seen before, it was something they couldn’t explain. Part of it was a kind of allergic reaction, causing a massive burst of histamines that resulted in both anaphylaxis and painful hives. But there was something else; something akin to a bacterial infection.

The working theory was that a colony of bacteria was traveling through the water droplets of the fog, causing massive allergic reactions in those sensitive to it.

But that didn’t explain what we’d seen. Allergies don’t dissolve someone into thin air, and no matter the explanation, no one could tell what really happened to Oli.

 

He was deemed a missing person. Not dead, or dissolved – missing. There was no world where they would accept someone disappearing into nothing.

Chris and I moved north as soon as I got out of the hospital. Mal moved west to be with her family. She couldn’t afford to be a stay-at-home mom anymore, and it could take a long time before Oli was presumed dead. There’d be no insurance payout until long after the damage was already done.

We kept in touch for a while, but I couldn’t bear to look at the Fog Watch anymore. I kept getting panic attacks whenever there was a notification, and Chris made the executive decision to pull me from social media altogether. Honestly, it was the right call.

 

It’s been some time now since that night when Oli disappeared, and I don’t know what frightens me more. That there are forces at work that can turn a person into nothing, or how stupid I was to be fascinated by it to begin with. There’s a reason we stay inside when the wind blows and the rain comes down. Even animals take shelter, so why are we the only ones to go looking in places we shouldn’t?

But I think what frightens me most is that gnawing feeling that remains. That at the end of my line, when that certain darkness comes to collect its toll, I know what I’ll say. I’ve said it before. It may have been the first thing I said, and it may be my last. What’s more natural than asking for help?

Mama. Mama, help.

Mama.

I was at an afterwork mixer not that long ago. Nothing big, just a gathering with some out-of-towners. We had a couple of drinks and got talking about the most unusual parts of our job. Nowadays I work in bookkeeping, but I’ve been doing evaluation and audits back in the day. At four drinks in, the conversation drifted to where it always goes; your weirdest job story.

Now, I told them this stupid anecdote about an old man who wanted to evaluate his vast collection of erotic art. It’s a funny story that never fails to get a laugh. But that’s not my weirdest job story. That story doesn’t do quite as well at parties.

But just this once, I’d like to tell it. I’d like to tell you about Flamingo.

 

Some time ago, I did evaluations for a firm specializing in liquidation of company assets. Basically, when something went bankrupt, we were called in to evaluate the worth of leftover inventory, assets, and whatever else was legally owned by the company in question. This is not exciting work; more often than not we got it all on paper on day one. We just had to make sure it was really there. Glorified fact-checkers.

It was a scorching hot summer. My allergies were acting up, and the news was flooded about this missing 10-year-old girl. She’d been gone for days, and the video of her family pleading to the public was on repeat. Not a lot happened in that one area of the world, so this would be the biggest story of the year by far.

I was practically melting through the floor when my boss dropped by my desk, fanning himself with a folder.

“You got the e-mail?” he asked.

“What? No.”

“Okay, good.”

He sat down next to me, dropping the folder on my desk.

“I was planning on sending you and Don on this, but Don has gotta take some time off.”

“I got it, it’s fine.”

“No, see, this is bigger than usual. I ain’t sure what to make of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a lot of questions here, and we don’t have a lot of answers. It’s not just gonna be checking some files. It’s a lot. That’s why I wanted to send Don too, but…”

He shrugged, giving me an apologetic smile. He tapped me on the shoulder and turned as he walked away.

“Just take your time with this one,” he said. “Do it right.”

 

Shortly after, I got an e-mail about a private company that was getting liquidated. It was a small privately owned tech company based out of South Dakota. The sole elderly owner had recently passed in a home invasion gone wrong, and the board had decided to liquidate the company in its entirety. We’d gotten a couple of years’ worth of documentation, but this company had been up and running since the 70’s. I was going to be standing literally neck deep in paperwork. No wonder my boss wanted Don to help out.

We got most of the paperwork sent to the office later that day. I had to sign off on box after box being dropped off at the door. I almost tore my back out carrying them all in, and the heat wasn’t helping. The boxes were immaculately labeled, but we were talking decades of work. Financing, projections, board meetings, budgeting, personnel files… it was all there.

By the time I had it all lined up, I had accidentally built myself a cubicle. I hadn’t played in a box fort for years, but this was a decent enough substitute. I didn’t know where to begin. Usually we got something to start with, but this was just dropped off and that was that. I had to start with the most recent reports and work my way back.

 

There wasn’t that much to be excited about. Those first few days I listed assets like a company car and a regional office. There was also a rented storage space. I found some receipts for office equipment and a couple of computers, but most of them were from the early 2000’s.

I think it was somewhere in the delivery receipts that I first noticed the word ‘Flamingo’. It snapped me back to attention for a moment. It’s not the kind of thing you expect to read in a budgeting report, but it was right there. Flamingo. It wasn’t a big cost, but big enough to be included in the yearly budget. No further explanation, no details – just ‘Flamingo’.

I put it aside for a while, but I noticed the word coming up every now and then as I looked through the files. Sometimes it’d show up in delivery receipts, other times in R&D or even storage. I could be reading about Microsoft Office subscriptions and then wham – Flamingo. It catches your attention. Especially when you have no idea what it means.

I was about one full week into mapping the company assets when my boss got a call. Apparently, while we were still working on processing inventory, someone had broken into the regional office. The police were asking for someone to come down and do inventory, asking if there was any way to know what’d been stolen. Someone had to go to South Dakota, and it wasn’t gonna be Don. He still had some time off.

 

I drove out on a Tuesday. Windows down, blasting cold air, having an iced tea in my cupholder. The radio was still going on and on about this missing girl, but the tone had turned somber. It was no longer about finding her alive; it was more about recovery and finding out what’d really happened to her. They were speculating, drawing parallels to other missing children, asking uncomfortable questions, and pointing fingers at those in power who hadn’t done enough. It was a nice distraction, even if the subject matter was morbid.

It was a long drive, but the one-story office building was easy to find. They’d taken down the signs, and it was the only parking space that was completely empty – save for a squad car. Two officers were ready to meet me up front. I had printed out a list of items that I suspected would be at the office according to the most recent receipts. Just the big stuff; I figured burglars wouldn’t be looking for staplers and reams of paper. If they just got away with some copiers and computers, we could probably get an insurance payout.

There were two officers out front. They waved me over and escorted me inside, keeping the small talk to a minimum. Just a couple of lines and a ‘how about this weather’. I couldn’t blame them. One of them was on the chubbier side, and he was melting through his uniform.

 

There was no doubt that the place had been robbed. The front door was smashed to pieces. I had to step over the glass as I made my way inside.

“You know what’s strange?” the chubby one said. “The door opens inward, but it’s been smashed the other way.”

“Why’s that strange?” I asked, glass crackling under my feet.

“I mean, if they could get in, they could get out. Why break the door? Hell, the lock’s still there, see?”

He used his flashlight for emphasis. I nodded at him, taking a closer look. He was right; the entire door had been smashed to pieces from inside the office. Torn straight from the hinges. And the lock was, seemingly, untouched.

 

The officers left me to do their job, asking me to call once I was finished so they could get a proper report about missing or damaged items. I was left on my own for a while as I went around taking pictures, double-checking with my list of confirmed assets.

Now, the place was admittedly a mess, but not as bad as one might imagine. The lights were working just fine, and most of the furniture was okay. A couple of things had been tipped over, and the drawers in one of the desks had been thrown to the floor, but all the electronics were still there. In fact, I couldn’t see that anything had been stolen. Not anything big, at least.

One thing stood out though. At the far end of the room there was a supply closet. The door was broken in two, and all the boxes inside were scattered on the floor. One of the boxes had been torn to shreds. An old, dust-caked box with a yellow note taped to the side.

‘Flamingo’.

 

After talking to the police, I decided to take some time to look closer at what exactly ‘Flamingo’ was supposed to be. There were a couple of notes here and there, but it was always separated by a degree of vagueness. For example, I noticed there were gas receipts about once per month when one of the employees went on a longer drive. That always coincided with a pattern of other receipts for things such as glycerin, antifreeze, and something described as “compound five, mix B”. Same pattern, over and over.

Now, I didn’t have a clear idea of what Flamingo was supposed to be, but there were some patterns emerging. It was something that had been ongoing since the 70’s, up to the point of the company’s liquidation. Some kind of ongoing thing that was only shut down once the company lost its funding. ‘Flamingo’ wasn’t that expensive, but it was definitely recurring.

There had to be something else to it. Some kind of documentation that showed what the hell we were dealing with. At the very least I needed some kind of description, so I could do my job. I can’t evaluate something if I don’t know what it is.

 

While in town, I decided I should check out the storage space. I had a pretty good idea of the kind of things they kept there, but I figured I might as well double-check. I’d had the keys delivered earlier that week, and it wasn’t a long drive. Might as well.

It was a private storage space as part of a larger warehouse location. Basically, a walled-off section lined with chain-linked fences. It was already late in the afternoon by the time I got there, but just getting out of the sun for a while was enough to energize me. I was drowsy from my antihistamines; something I kept chewing like candy to deal with my dust allergy. Did you know those things are basically sleeping pills?

Yawning, I got to the storage space. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. I was the only one there as I closed and locked the door behind me, turning on the lights.

 

The moment the light turned on, something moved.

I heard things getting knocked over and clattering to the floor as something crashed into the light overhead; breaking the glass and turning the room dark. My pulse exploded as I pressed myself back against the door, fumbling for the lock.

“I’m calling the police!” I yelled out. “You’re not supposed to be here! I’m calling the-“

I got the door open. As light flooded back into the room, I realized how quiet it was. I pulled up my phone, ready to call for help. As a couple of seconds stretched into a full minute, nothing happened. I started to doubt myself, thinking maybe something had just toppled over, or a raccoon was hiding inside. It would be silly to call for help over a wild animal, so I decided to take a closer look.

 

There was nothing in there apart from a strange black mark on the floor. There was this smell of ozone in the air, so I kept the door open to flush it out. The glass from the broken light littered the floor, along with a couple of open boxes. It didn’t surprise me to see that these were labeled ‘Flamingo’. A lot of other labeled boxes in that room were untouched.

Looking through the boxes, these seemed mostly untouched. There were tapes, camera equipment, folders, and a box of what looked like turkey basters made of stainless steel. All the boxes had been ripped open and looked through, but nothing had been removed. They were stuffed to the brim with a variety of items.

I picked one of the boxes at random, marked “Flamingo 1981”. It wasn’t a large, or even heavy box, but it was taped shut. I opened it, just to have a look.

First thing I saw was a children’s drawing, in crayon. It was kind of hard to tell what it was supposed to be, but it looked like a portrait. A child, two parents, and two doctors. On the bottom, a text.

‘tanks for snow gloab!!’

 

I loaded up my car with a couple more boxes and took some pictures of the more expensive items. I was surprised to see medical equipment; this was supposed to be a software company.

I returned to that crayon drawing a couple of times, taking a closer look. I couldn’t tell if the child was a boy or girl, they didn’t have any hair. They also had the outlines of their body drawn in a gray crayon, not a pink one like the parents or the doctors. The reference to a snow globe could be seen in the picture, as one of the doctor characters was holding one out like a present.

I decided to call it a night. I checked into a motel and closed the curtains. I’d have to wait to check the video tapes until I got back to the office; I didn’t want to plug anything into a motel TV. Instead I browsed whatever was left. Photos, reports, test results.

 

Once you got past the ‘Flamingo’ description, there were a couple of names that kept coming back. One of them was Christine, or Chrissie. It didn’t take a lot of digging to connect her to the crayon drawing. A lot of the reports were transcripts from her discussions with one of the doctors, as well as observations made by staff. Most of them were fairly short descriptions, like a kind of progress report. Something that was meant to be added to an ongoing file.

Other names were those of doctors and software developers. It seems they were using some kind of program to figure out a solution to a problem that affected Chrissie. Exactly what wasn’t clear, but they perfected something they called “compound five, mix B”. What exactly that entailed wasn’t clear. Something about seeds, an Echo Drive, and synthetic nutrition. There was a whole section written about the physical effects of consuming antifreeze related to this.

But what really stood out to me were the observations about Chrissie. She’d been part of ‘Flamingo’ since the 70’s, just after the founding of the company. Some of the observations about her were absurd.

“Day 465 – Still unable to enter REM-sleep”.

“Day 476 – Confirmed independent eye-movement and dual cognition, cross-report 8.”

“Day 877 – Procedural breach, found in parking lot(?)”

“Day 1022 – Tongue atrophy.”

 

The reports hinted at this girl in need of medical attention, but it wasn’t clear as to why. They were working on some kind of solution, and had been for a long time. Whatever it was, it resulted in some kind of compound that they had been producing until recently. Something that, even when written out, didn’t make sense to me. What the hell is a helianthus cerulea anyway?

It was almost 1 am when I turned off my lights and closed all the boxes. I crawled into bed, barely keeping my eyes open. I’ve never liked sleeping in unfamiliar places; there’s always noise that you’re not used to. Luckily, I was out like a light the moment my face hit the pillow.

In the morning, as I put on my jeans, I turned my head. My alarm didn’t go off. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, only to see that the boxes I’d checked were wide open.

I’m sure I closed them.

 

The boxes had a lot of old media, like cassettes and VHS tapes, but there were a couple of CDs that seemed a bit more recent. My car stereo was pretty old school, so I tried to put something on to listen to on the way back. It was gonna be a long drive, and I figured I might as well get acquainted with the material. Most of the CDs didn’t work, or had text files rather than audio, but a couple of them included what sounded like recorded conversations.

They all started the same. Reciting the date and the name of present staff members. Same names, over and over. They didn’t mention who they were talking to, but I had a sneaking suspicion. One of the recordings went something like this;

“Are you still experiencing issues with your vocal cords?”

There was a murmur in the background, then a clicking noise.

“I see. No effect from the inhaled sulfur?”

Two clicks.

“Sorry to hear that. Any other recent issues you’ve experienced in your new environment?”

There was one click. The person in the recording can be heard shuffling around with some equipment, only to spell out letters. A couple of things were brought to attention, such as ‘food’, ‘tired’ and finally – ‘broke’. That seemed to get the interviewer’s attention.

“Broke? What broke?” he asks.

They spell out the word ‘globe’.

“We’ll get you an extra one after your next session, how’s that?”

One click.

 

‘Flamingo’ seemed to be the collected name for all things related to Chrissie. Even later entries confirmed she was still around, alive, and active. Born in 1976, she’d come a long way from the crayon drawing she’d made in 1981. They still spoke about her like she was a child, promising toys and gadgets in exchange for cooperation and tests.

They never spelled anything out completely, all I learned about Chrissie came from context. The word ‘Flamingo’, for example. It seemed to come from some kind of digestion issue, keeping her from absorbing the kind of nutrients and vitamins a person needs to live. From the day she was born, she was given this “compound five, mix B” as a substitute. Whatever it was, it kept her alive. She’d be dead without it.

They would ask her really strange questions, like how well she could see with her eyes closed, or if she could open doors without using her hands. Or, in this one instance, if she was still experiencing growing pains in her arms and legs. She gave one click for yes.

They seemed to have a good relationship. They’d keep a good tone and even joke around. They sometimes talked about dosage and treatment, but it always had this tune of something pleasant. Almost like looking forward to a meal, or a spa day; it was something to be excited about.

And at the end of every session, they’d give her a snow globe – seemingly for no reason. I think she just liked them. She wanted one from each state.

 

I came back to the office late in the afternoon. Most of the others had already gone home. I’d got an e-mail about Don coming back to work in the morning, and we needed to get him up to date on our progress. I had to do some overtime to write up a summary, or I’d have him tailing me like a lost puppy all week.

I kept the lights on and barricaded myself in my makeshift box fort. Apart from the fluorescent lights, it was eerily quiet. I put the radio on just to have some noise in the air. I turned on my desk light and organized my papers, firing up my work computer as I settled in for a long night. I didn’t mind – it was paid overtime.

I checked out a couple of CDs that I couldn’t get to work in the car. More notes, audio snippets, records, and measurements. They never exclusively spelled out what they were measuring, but some of the numbers stood out.

380.2 pounds. 7 feet, 9 inches. 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Too dense to swim.

 

It was about 8 pm when I got up to have a coffee. I had my headphones on, listening to an audio recording as the machine sputtered. They were listing things they’d found in Chrissie’s room that hadn’t been there during their last checkup. For example, she’d gotten a hold of live piranhas which she kept in an aquarium. They were discussing how the hell she got them to begin with.

As I took a sip of coffee, I thought I heard something. Removing my headphones, I listened. I could hear the radio in the other room, but that was it. I called out.

“Hello?”

There was no response.

 

Thinking I was getting paranoid, I silently crept back to my workstation. There was nothing there, but I could’ve sworn I’d heard something. I lowered the volume on the radio and turned off my headphones, trying to pinpoint the noise I’d heard. It was strange enough just being there after hours – the place was usually littered with people talking over one another or tapping away at their keyboards. Now it was just me. Just to make sure, I double-checked the lock on the front door.

Getting back to my desk, I figured I ought to move the boxes a little. Right now I was literally boxed off, and I couldn’t see anything. Something could be standing right outside the door without me knowing. But as I moved the boxes a little, I got this chill down my neck. I kept thinking about that morning in the motel. I was sure I’d closed those boxes the night before.

Something wasn’t right.

I got back behind my desk and sat down. The moment I touched my keyboard, I heard a noise.

The front door, that I’d locked, was slowly opening.

 

I was about to look who it was, but something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t so much the door opening, but the way it’d opened. There was always that familiar click when you slot the key into it – I hadn’t heard that. I suppressed my instinct to call out and instead pulled my feet up off the floor, staying behind the boxes as still as I possibly could. Whoever came in hadn’t seen me yet.

The steps weren’t even. I could hear naked skin slap against the stone floor as someone limped inside. I heard some items getting knocked off desks as whatever was on the other side stumbled through the room.

It made this awkward gulping noise, like someone cold starting an engine. Finally, it coughed – and the lights went out. There was this cool wave of air rushing past me, sending the hairs on my neck straight up.

 

I watched as the box at the top of my would-be fort was effortlessly picked up. The box weighed at least 45 pounds, but it was taken down like it was nothing.

I was so quiet I forgot to breathe. I could see outlines in the dark. There was this shadow on the floor showing something tall and gangly. Every now and then it would make that uncomfortable gulping noise, then proceeded to opening another box.

It felt like hours, but it was probably just a couple of minutes. It was fast, as if looking for something very specific. It didn’t stop to read labels or reports.

Then I got a text message.

I think it was just Don checking if I had anything to send him to prep for the meeting the next morning, but I’d forgotten to put my phone on mute. This one loud ding echoed through the room, and I heard whatever was on the other side react accordingly.

 

It was such a sudden noise, and it was surprised. It stepped back, getting its foot snagged in one of the power cables. It pulled back too hard and dragged along my computer screen and keyboard, knocking over the box fort as it went. About a dozen boxes collapsed to the floor.

I was quick on my feet. The moment it all came down, I hid under my desk. I pressed my face against the ground. There was a small space between the desk and the tiled floor, giving me almost a full inch to view what was on the other side.

I didn’t see much. It was dark, and the only light I got were from the light posts outside. But I did get a clear view of this tall silhouette; almost like a stick figure. A far too small head for a far too long neck. No hair. Long arms with a strange number of fingers.

I couldn’t see it breathing. It was completely still.

 

It raised an arm, and I could see it shaking. It poked at one of the empty boxes, then looked closer at one that’d tipped over. It picked up something small and held it up, turning it over just inches from its face.

Then, something happened. Something flipped like a switch.

The radio burst into static, like the frequency shuffled on its own. The kitchen light came on and instantly popped. A flash of light revealed something gray with leather-like skin. I could hear the microwave running as I saw the shoulders on this thing rise and fall over and over.

It dropped whatever it held and tore the boxes apart. Years of documentation and reports thrown to the wind as it flailed its arms around. It stomped down so hard that one of the boxes popped like a balloon, spilling out folders and employee onboarding handbooks.

It put one of its legs on top of a desk and pressed down like a vice; breaking the cheap wooden furniture like a snapping twig. And as it raged and threw its weight around, sending boxes and desk lamps and screens flying across the room, it accidentally tipped my desk over; revealing me.

And it stopped.

 

Now, I can’t tell what I was looking at. Not exactly. I don’t recall seeing any eyes, or a mouth. But there was something strange about the space where a face ought to have been. I couldn’t see ears, or a chin, or a nose. But there was movement – a hundred little movements. Little things twisting and turning in the dark. A strange circular motion. A hole.

I don’t know why I figured it would attack me. Some animals stop moving when faced with a predator, as moving might trigger an instinct to chase. That’s what it felt like to me. I was curled up on the floor, looking up at something I didn’t understand.

So when it reached for me, I was ready. I ducked down, feeling two of its fingers brush against the top of my head, as I headed for the break room at full sprint.

 

The radio was going haywire. It had gone from playing a shock jockey, to police scanners, to static. There was a blip coming from the fridge as the electronics kept failing. I could see a light outside blinking through one of the windows, and I could hear a car alarm going off in the parking lot.

The emergency exit sign flickered as I ran towards it. Just as I was about to reach the handle, I took a hard right towards the bathroom. As I did, something slammed into the door behind me. I heard the hinges snap as the door flung open, triggering a deafening alarm.

I rushed into a bathroom stall, closed the door, and locked it. I covered my ears and curled up on the toilet, keeping my feet off the floor.

Seconds later, I see the latch on the door move up and to the right – and the bathroom door swung open effortlessly.

 

It’s just standing there, shielded by the dark. The crescendo of failing electronics reached higher and higher. It tilts its head slightly to the right, and suddenly - it’s all quiet. No alarms. Nothing.

It looks at me. It doesn’t move a muscle. It’s staring me down, as if looking for something in me. I’m plastered against the back of the stall, trying to make myself as small as possible; my head growing faint from lack of oxygen. I can’t breathe. Can’t think.

Without a sound, an arm reaches for me. Not menacingly, but determined.

I say the first thing that comes to mind. I don’t know why.

“Chrissie,” I say. “Chrissie, don’t.”

The arm stops.

“I don’t have anything,” I continue. “I don’t have what… you’re looking for.”

The arm falls down to its side, long enough to scrape the floor.

It makes a clicking noise, once, searching my face for the hint of a lie. I take rapid shallow breaths. It turns its head to the left, relaxing its shoulders.

Then it turns around, and leaves.

I watch as it walks out the back door. The moment it passes the threshold, the whole building comes alive. Alarms, radios, microwave, fridge, and every light came back in a wave of impressions that punched my senses dead. I blink as my eyes tear up, and I look outside.

But there’s nothing there. It’s just gone, with a faint smell of ozone.

 

I called the police, and my boss. The security cameras failed to capture anything. Most of the boxes that had been knocked over were fine, and even the reports seemed to be salvageable. There were only a couple of items that’d been broken. A couple of empty test tubes with age-yellowed labels, and what looked like a snow globe. Nothing fancy, just a little souvenir thing with a ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ label.

Just bad luck, I suppose.

It took us a few days before we got back to the office, leaving me some time to go through the last of the reports. It seemed the last of the compound five mixes had been delivered months ago, and that there were no more scheduled deliveries. If this was something Chrissie needed, she was running out – fast. I tried checking a couple of VHS tapes, but they’d been demagnetized.

But more so, I found something I’d been looking for. A shipping address.

 

I didn’t go alone. Not only did I bring Don, but we brought the police. It was company property, after all. The place was registered as part of an industrial warehouse, but it was sectioned off with layers of fences and barb wire. All the locks were long since rusted shut; we had to cut them open.

We followed two flights of stairs downward, leading to what looked like an abandoned bomb shelter. It took a lot of effort, but we got the door open. No one had touched it for ages.

The entire room was cylinder-shaped with a drain in the floor. There were no lights. We checked the walls with flashlights, sweeping over empty shelves and open drawers. Someone had been there recently, and they’d cleared the place out. I could tell the place had been packed.

There were hand-written labels taped to the walls. Some of them were simple enough. Labels for pictures, clothes, and tools. Then, a label for snow globes. Every single state labeled, but the shelves were empty. Someone had taken everything and just… left. Don took a closer look, sweeping over the labels with his flashlight.

“It’s missing Texas,” Don remarked. “How about that?”

The place was covered in dust, but a couple of spots were left clear. There’d been collections there until recently. On the far end of the wall, there were test tubes and turkey basters. Labels of C5-MB meticulously dated, going back at least a decade. It had stopped a couple of months prior.

 

The officers left as soon as the coast was clear. While Don did some long-overdue paperwork, I sat in my car and blasted the AC. I thought about that name, ‘Flamingo’. The Flamingo gets its pink color from the shrimp it eats; it’s a result of its diet and environment. Chrissie had never managed to digest the things we take for granted. She grew up on a completely different set of vitamins and minerals. Something they’d made up in a lab, back in the 70’s. Then again, if they hadn’t, she probably wouldn’t have survived infancy.

But what features of ours are inherently human? What is the human equivalent of the flamingo’s pink feathers? What had Chrissie sidestepped, and what had she gained in turn?

I couldn’t make sense of it. Instead, I turned on the radio. Maybe the shock jockeys could drown out my thoughts for a bit.

 

There was no music; all the local channels were reporting the same thing. They’d found the missing 10-year-old girl. They dubbed the rescue “an act of vigilante justice”. A deceased suspect was found on the premises, apparently killed in a brutal fashion. The girl had been released from a locked basement and reunited with her family. She had initially been taken on her way to show and tell, where she was going to show off a souvenir from a recent trip down south.

An unknown vigilante had broken into the house where she was kept. In the one sound bite they got from the girl, she spoke in a Texas accent. When asked to describe her rescuer, she only had this to say;

“That thing stole my snow globe.”

 

We finished our liquidation of the company and closed another case. Most boxes were filed away or destroyed, throwing decades of documentation down the shredders. I never got a clear view of Chrissie, and there were no answers as to what became of her. There was no recipe for the compound. Maybe she figured it out. I guess she had to, or else she’d have starved to death.

When people ask me about my craziest work story, this is the one I want to tell. I don’t know what to make of it, and the people with all the real answers are long since gone. It’s so much easier to tell stories about creepy old men than trying to explain the Flamingo, but I can honestly say I think about it every day.

I can’t help but wonder. If we are stripped of the building blocks that make us what we are meant to be – what remains?

A couple of years ago, I went through a rough patch. I went through a separation with my then-fiancée after an eight-year relationship, and I was moving to South Dakota for a job opportunity. There were a lot of things breaking down at once, and I didn’t have much room to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I was crashing at a college buddy’s place for a couple of weeks while I was looking for a place of my own.

It feels strange to slow down enough to catch a glimpse of your own life. I hadn’t taken a vacation in years, and all of a sudden, I had a full month of nothing on my calendar. I took walks, talked to people I hadn’t seen in years, rediscovered some of the music I used to listen to. It felt like I was sleepwalking through someone else’s life, but I guess that’s what it feels like to breathe free after choking yourself for years.

It was a strange time in my life, and it would change me in more ways than one.

 

I used to take walks along the river. I’d just started to listen to audio books, and I would take the long way back to my buddy’s place just to hear more. It’s strangely comforting, listening to a story. I guess to a lot of people, it reminds them of childhood. Having a story read to us is one of the most comforting things I can think of.

I stopped to tie my shoe when I noticed this acrid smell. I took off my headphones and listened to the river, but there was something else. A weak sort of wheezing barking noise. Taking a moment to step off the path, I noticed the source – an adolescent deer.

It was lying in the river, half its body submerged and the top half weakly patting at the grass as if hoping something would pull it up. It was covered in these nickel-sized holes covering the entire side of its ribcage, and I could see something moving under its skin. It was dying, no doubt about it.

 

I stepped a little closer, just to see what’d happened to it. The poor thing wasn’t long for this world. It didn’t look sickly, the wounds seemed physical and inflicted. I’d never seen a parasite able to do that kind of damage.

The barks turned to screams, and the screams turned to nothing. After a while, it was just opening its mouth without making a sound. I could see its eyes searching me. It made me believe in a kind of fear I couldn’t imagine. All these things like losing your job or ending a relationship… it’s all very human experiences. But what I saw in that animal’s eyes reminded me that there was a kind of fear I’d forgotten. A comfort I’d taken for granted.

Something was eating it alive.

 

I stepped back as it took its last breath. There was this chill across my body, like I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to. The shadows around me grew darker. I could feel something creeping across my skin just by looking at this thing. Nickel-sized open wounds. Dozens. Blood in the water.

I walked away with this unsettling sense of dread. I figured I ought to call someone; you can’t have a sick, dead animal polluting the waterways. But more so, I didn’t know what to think of it. Should I be horrified? Scared? Thankful to be alive?

I got back to the path and put my headphones back on. I let the goosebumps on my back take over as I shuddered, shaking off whatever worries I carried with me. I raised my phone to put my story back on, when I noticed a little gray dot on my thumb. Just this tiny beetle-looking thing. Using my index finger, I flicked it off.

But my finger passed straight through, and the little beetle remained.

I shook my hands a little and continued on my way, paying no further attention to it.

 

Apart from that, it was a fairly uneventful day. Had a chicken salad, answered some e-mails, and looked into some apartments. I had a good lead on one, I just needed a little more time. Luckily, time was the one thing I had plenty of. I have very patient friends.

That night, as I was getting ready for bed, I remember standing in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror. Maybe my eyes were looking a little darker, and the skin a little loose along the cheeks. They say you never look at the same you twice. Age does that to a person.

As I leaned down to spit, I felt a tickle on my right hand. Not much, but enough to make me look up. There was that little gray beetle crawling across the palm of my hand.

 

I turned the faucet to medium and ran my hands under it. The beetle was still there. I turned my hand back and forth, up and down, and it didn’t move an inch. After a couple of seconds, I was blasting it at max temperature, and the water passed straight through. I could see the beetle with my own eyes, but it’s like it wasn’t really there.

I put it out of my mind. I still had a story to listen to. I was gonna go look at an apartment in the morning. I had things to do, places to be – I couldn’t let my mind get preoccupied with little things that didn’t matter. I had real problems looming on the horizon, and if I kept staring at my hands I’d get nowhere.

So I went to sleep, trying not to pay attention to what I think was a faint tingle on the palm of my right hand.

 

I’d forgotten all about it the next morning. As I showered and shaved, I noticed a streak of blood across my cheek. Not much, just a tiny red line. I figured I’d accidentally cut myself, but on closer inspection there was nothing like that. It’d been a perfect shave. Then I looked down at my hand.

It was just a tiny little red dot on the back of my thumb. No bigger than the prick of a needle. The teeniest, tiniest little trickle of blood was running out, but it was already coagulating.

And at the edge of the wound, a little gray beetle; suckling at it like a gazelle at a watering hole.

 

Now, I’ve never really had a problem with bugs. I ate a worm as a kid. But that thing was messing with me. I washed my hands three times, and it was still there. I used more and more soap. I used a sponge and scrubbed until my skin felt raw. I used dish soap, a weird skin cream I found by the tub, but it did nothing. The beetle was still there, poking at the wound.

Finally, I just put a band-aid over the whole thing. It took the beetle a while to figure out. It tried to dig underneath, but the adhesive from the band-aid was blocking it. With enough effort, it probably could’ve made it through, but it had an obvious solution to this problem.

It moved out of the way and bit me. Now there was another little wound. Barely big enough to be seen, but it was there.

 

I figured it just wasn’t real. It wasn’t reacting to anything, so it couldn’t be real. Real things get washed off. Real things get scrubbed. Real beetles get squished and washed down the drain. Real things show up on the screen when you take pictures of it – this didn’t. Ergo, this thing couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible.

Deciding that this was the case, I made myself ready. I put on my nice shirt and pants, got my car keys, and checked the calendar. There was nothing tickling the back of my hand. There was nothing biting me. I had real problems, and this wasn’t it.

For a couple of hours, I felt nothing. I went around town, checked out an apartment, and had a long talk with my would-be boss about my upcoming move. He was flexible and could give me a couple more weeks, as long as I kept in touch and let him know the second I was available. The whole thing was a done deal, but it’s always a bit nerve-wracking when there are papers left to sign.

 

I went to see a guy about an apartment later that day. I got there in my fancy shirt, trying to look the part of confident buyer. I shook his hand and noticed him looking down. There was blood on his finger; he’d accidentally touched one of my wounds. He looked up at me with this one expression of absolute disgust, like I’d spat in his face. He composed himself in the blink of an eye, but for a moment, I could see what he was really thinking.

I apologized profusely and he did as well, but I could tell it really bothered him. All of a sudden he wasn’t thinking about the apartment, he was thinking whether he’d caught something from me or not. He jogged inside to wash his hands, and I knew the whole deal was gonna freefall through the floor. There was just… no way. I don’t think you’d be shocked to hear I didn’t get that apartment.

When I got back in my car, I was furious. I could see the beetle on the back of my hand, circling a little pinprick of a wound. I smacked my hand on the dashboard over and over and over, but once I turned my hand back around the beetle was still there. I brought the hand to my teeth and bit my skin. I spat, and scratched, and itched, but still – nothing. At my worst, I was using my car keys to scratch my skin like a lottery ticket, but all that did was cause more wounds.

The beetle didn’t seem to mind that.

 

It was an enormous source of frustration. Not only was it bothering me, but it was impacting my actual life. My buddy was asking questions about my apartment hunting, and it just got to me. We ended up agreeing that I could stay the full week, then I’d go stay at a motel. It all sounded very congenial and cordial, but I could tell he was just done with me. That’s how a lot of things in my life ended; with cordial smiles, tilted heads, and practiced lines. My eight-year relationship had died the same way. No screaming or crying, just a well-timed “we need to talk” in a public place, as to not cause a scene.

But this damn beetle was driving me mad.

I couldn’t take photos of it, so I tried to draw it. I tried to get a better look using a magnifying glass, but I’m a terrible artist. Still, I got a good enough look that I could recognize it from a photo. I scrolled through hours of images looking to see if I could find that one particular beetle. I never found a perfect match, but I think the closest description would be a sort of stubby darkling beetle with a light-gray exoskeleton and short legs.

All the while, it was chewing away on the back of my hand, and I could feel every tickle of its legs as it moved from one wound to another, poking at the scabs.

 

Going to bed that night, I could feel the heat from my hand. Not from the beetle, but from the way I’d scratched and itched at it. It looked swollen, even from a distance. I probably had to get it checked out if it progressed.

But that line of thinking drew me down a path I didn’t like. Laying down to sleep, I could still see the eyes of that deer. Those blank dark spheres – looking not at me, but the concept of me. Not knowing if I was a savior or a predator. Maybe it figured out I was neither. Maybe those barking noises were a warning to stay away - to turn around and run.

I never really fell asleep, but I shot out of bed like I’d been kicked. I felt a bite, this time further up my wrist. Turning on the lights, I could see the beetle had grown larger. Not by much, maybe a sixth of an inch. There was a slightly bigger bite further up my hand. It itched, already turning red.

I was done with this thing. I was absolutely, unequivocally, done. I would kill it even if it meant chopping my own damn hand off. I’d had enough.

 

I pulled out some ice from the freezer and dumped it in a bucket. I filled it with water. As I did, my friend walked out of his bedroom, hair still messy and a sleep mask tucked away on his brow.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m almost done.”

“Okay, but what are you doing?”

I sighed and bit my lip. There was no way of getting around it. I was going to have to look like a madman. I turned to him and showed him my hand.

“You see this?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you see?”

He looked a little closer. There was no way he wouldn’t see the beetle, the damn thing was front and center.

“Looks like a rash. You okay?”

“It’s not a rash. Not a scratch. It’s… I don’t know what the hell it is.”

“You should get that checked out.”

I rolled my eyes as he lumbered back to his bedroom. I shoved my hand down the icy bucket, only to watch the beetle casually travel up my arm, find a warm spot, and bite down again. This time, I felt it.

 

Over the next few days, the beetle was always on my mind. Everything else became this background noise to this immediate thing I could see on the back of my hand. I would get these specks of blood on my shirt, right by the wrist, and I would absolutely lose my mind with anger. At one point I noticed it didn’t seem to bite at wounds that were covered in something, so I rolled my entire hand in duct tape. The damn thing just crawled up my arm, found another spot, and bit me again.

I tried everything. I bought pesticides from a garden shop. I used some stuff used to clean pools. I tried to cut off the blood flow with a belt but ended up hurting myself. No matter what, the beetle had a solution. It would walk somewhere else, bite down, and keep eating.

After a couple of days, it was big enough to cover the nail on my pinky finger.

 

The same day I moved out of my friend’s place, and into a motel, I went to see a doctor. I didn’t even bother telling him about the beetle, I just showed him the wounds on my arm. He ended up giving me a prescription for some kind of eczema medication and encouraged me to eat more fiber, but there was little else he could do. All test results came back negative. He recommended some generic antifungal cream, but I would have to wait until the wounds scabbed.

I would get these bouts of rage. I could be going along normally and then feel that twitch of pain, and I would lose my mind. I’d slam my hand against the wall or beat my arm like a drum. I ended up with a whole bunch of bruises and cuts, and I was nowhere near closer to getting rid of that damn thing.

It would keep me up at night. I could feel it crawling around, looking for places where the skin was soft and thin. And this one time, as it bit down in the pit of my elbow, I made this ugly grunting noise.

My mind circled back to the ugly grunting of that dying deer. Perhaps it, too, had looked for a solution. Maybe until that last moment, it’d tried to wash them off by throwing itself in the river. Was that going to be my fate? Dying from some self-inflicted nonsense while this thing ate me from the inside?

 

It was hard to stay focused. I was barely getting more than 2-3 hours of sleep at night, and I found myself nodding off in my car. I’d moved into a motel down by the highway, but the wi-fi was spotty and I had trouble finding a new place to live. I could spend hours at the computer and still be no closer to a solution. All the while, my savings were bleeding out, and my would-be boss was asking questions I couldn’t answer.

I had this one constant tab open where, every now and then, I’d look into whatever long shot I could imagine to get this thing off of me. Poison, radiation, x-rays, soundwaves… there were a lot of ideas. The problem was, without knowing exactly what it was, there was no way to say what would work, and what wouldn’t. But I couldn’t show it to anyone, and describing it just made it sound like a sort-of gray beetle.

Then I had an idea. It was nasty, but it just might work.

 

I had this cigar cutter from a friend’s wedding the year prior. I hadn’t thrown it away, but never really found a use for it either. I’m not much of a cigar guy, but it’s kinda cool to keep something that looks like a guillotine in my pocket.

I noticed that if I poked myself with a needle, I could sometimes get the beetle to move. It would always go towards the freshest wound. So little by little, I tricked it to go to the tippy top of my ring finger. I set the skin at the tip of my finger at the edge of the cigar cutter and slammed down.

It’s not as dramatic as it sounds. It burned, but we’re talking about a small patch of skin at the tip of my finger. The beetle tumbled off, rolling onto the floor. I backed away, holding my bleeding finger up triumphantly.

Then it flew towards me. Turns out this thing had wings.

 

I tried to smack it away, but it passed through my hand. I tried running, but it passed through the door. I got in my car and drove, and it slowly came crawling from the dashboard right back on to my hand; still bleeding from the top of my finger. As it bit a nerve, I pulled over. I was in the middle of nowhere by then, and I just stood there screaming for a solid minute. My voice must’ve echoed for miles.

I drove around, going numb from the pain. If all this effort was all I could do to slow it down a little, I was going to wear myself out. There had to be something else I could do. Anything.

I experimented with a couple of things for a few days. Changing my diet, for one. I figured if this thing lived off of me, maybe changing what I ate could kill it. I tried a bunch of weird combinations, but nothing seemed to work. If anything, eating more fiber like the doctor ordered seemed to make it more active.

 

A couple of days passed. The beetle was growing. It could easily cover the nail on my ring finger. I could feel the individual legs and the round mouth moving in and out as it bore into my flesh. The wounds had started to look like what I’d seen on that deer. Round, and cavernous.

When you don’t sleep, the days start to blend together. I would forget to answer e-mails and phone calls. Instead I’d just sit in my motel room, hoping housekeeping would come by to change the blood-stained sheets. I’d begun wrapping my arm in a towel at night, but the wounds were getting big enough for the blood to soak right through.

I was tired. Exhausted, really, and it was starting to show. Looking in the mirror really felt like looking at a different person.

 

I stopped answering when my would-be boss called. I stopped asking when friends and family called. When I started getting texts, I just shut the phone off completely. They weren’t helping, and they wouldn’t understand. How could they?

I tried to get a video of the beetle biting me so you could see the wounds opening. It took a few hours, but I got it eventually. It looked sort of weird, but not like a bite; in the video, it looked more like the skin was just contracting and releasing. Less like a bite, and more like I took a big breath, and something broke on the exhale. It didn’t really show anything.

I considered getting a microscope, or some kind of macro-lens. But what was the point?

 

I’d tried everything. Electricity, pepper spray, fire, acid. I considered that maybe I could cut my finger off high up in the air, but the damn thing could fly. It was fast, too. It wouldn’t work. I made a long list of possible ideas, and one by one, I crossed them all off. All the while, I would feel something stinging my arm, and this ceaseless frustration would well up in my chest with nowhere to go.

The truth of the matter was; this thing wasn’t leaving. It was going to eat, and grow, and eat, and grow. It didn’t matter what I did, and it wouldn’t matter what I tried. I made list, after list, after list, and it was all just a monumental dead end. As I panicked, and cried, and scratched, it just sat there; quietly eating away at my skin.

People must’ve thought I’d been in an accident. Some of the wounds had gotten bad enough that I needed bandages. The guy at the drug store started to recognize me.

 

I remember booting up my phone to check a video I’d made, only to get caught in a call with my would-be boss. I had about a dozen missed calls from him by then. On a whim, I answered.

“Hey!” he said. “Glad to reach you, we were getting worried!”

“Yeah, sorry” I said, my voice hoarse. “I’ve come down with something bad.”

“You’re sick?”

“Yeah, it’s been pretty bad.”

I held my hand up, watching the beetle scurry over the bandages, looking for its next spot.

“We’ve been waiting to hear from you,” he continued. “We weren’t sure you’d be coming.”

“I’m not so sure either.”

“Sorry?”

 

It’d just slipped out, but I couldn’t help myself. The beetle bit down, sending another jolt of pain up my arm. I shuddered. It was big as the nail on my thumb by now. Not that it mattered, it was a pain when it was small, it was gonna be a pain when it grew bigger.

“I’ve been dealing with something,” I said. “I don’t think I’m getting better anytime soon.”

“It’s that serious?”

“I dunno. Maybe.”

The beetle suckled at the wound, perching its legs on the sides for balance. Not that shaking it off was ever an option.

“You don’t know if it’s serious?”

“I suppose it is.”

I yawned. I couldn’t help it, I was exhausted. I turned my hand back and forth, watching the beetle hang on like it was nothing.

“I’m gonna be real,” he said. “We were expecting you days ago. This doesn’t look good.”

“I might be dying.”

“You might be? How can you not know?”

“I dunno. It’s been eating me for weeks.”

I was referring to the situation as a whole, but looking at the beetle, I realized it was astoundingly literal. Eating me for weeks. It wasn’t meant to be a pun, but the moment I realized it was, I burst into a laugh. This loud, belly-bursting, manic laughter.

I don’t know at what point my would-be boss hung up, but I didn’t care. I was laughing until I ran out of breath and the tears rained down my cheeks. The laughter turned to a wailing cry as I rolled around on the floor like a toddler.

I ended up lying there for hours, watching the beetle take one bite, after another, after another. It was sort of hypnotic, and after a while, you dissociate enough to not feel the pain. That’s not your hand you’re looking at. It’s his.

 

After that point, I didn’t really care anymore. I stayed in my motel room, watching the beetle wander up and down my arm, looking for weak spots. It was sort of beautiful in the right light. Not really light gray, but more of a pale asphalt blue. Sort of like the novelty sunflowers they sold at the garden shop.

I would lounge around, waiting for a genius idea to spring to mind. I’d keep my headphones on and walk for miles, forgetting to put on something to listen to. I just didn’t want to hear my own grunts of pain when the beetle bit me.

It had stopped growing bigger, instead growing longer. Segmented. It was almost as big as my thumb. I didn’t care, but the bites were getting harder to ignore.

 

I got into this daily routine of cleaning my wounds, taking iron supplements, covering my body in bulky clothes. Thankfully, the motel room was cheap. At night, in lieu of sleeping, I would bounce between impotent rage and desperate crying. I would feel so sorry for myself, listing all the things I wanted to do if I could just get this damn thing off of me. All the while, it would just bite, chew, swallow, repeat.

Lying on the floor, I remember waking up from a strange rhythmic sound. I couldn’t figure out where it came from. I turned on the lights and realized I was shaking. The sound had been coming from me, tapping the floor. I rushed to the bathroom. My mind was racing a hundred ways at once, but they all funneled into this one contracting idea. I was dying.

I saw my black eyes in the bathroom mirror, and it was like staring that deer in the face all over again. It had known it was dying. Now I knew too.

 

The pain got progressively worse. I started getting these big round wounds just inches apart. Some bigger, some smaller, some with long strips of skin missing at the edge. If I tried to cover the beetle with my left hand, it had grown big enough that I could see the tip of its carapace peeking out the back of my hand. It looked so physical, but everything still passed straight through it.

I hadn’t even realized I’d given up. It just dawned on me that I had no ideas and nowhere left to go. I could go back to the doctor and get my wounds treated, but would it matter? Sooner or later, there’d be too many. I could prolong it, but to what end? Would I grow desperate enough to throw myself in a river too?

I started listening to my audio book again. I walked around for so long that I forgot how many hours passed. I wouldn’t even notice the shivers coming and going. It was just nice to finish something.

 

At the end of one of those walks, I remember sitting down on a park bench. At this point I could feel every bite of the beetle. It was so frequent that it looked like I had the hiccups, sending my entire body into a spasm.

I put on my headphones and dialed a number I hadn’t touched for some time. My ex-fiancée. We hadn’t talked for weeks, despite promising to be friends after an emotional breakup. It didn’t take her long to pick up. She waited for me to speak first.

“Hey.”

“Hey you.”

“You doing okay?”

“Not bad, you?”

I looked down on my hand, watching the segmented creature scuttle around, finding the perfect angle to eat.

“I know we’ve talked about this,” I said, ignoring the question. “But why did we go this way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why just… I mean, it was eight years.”

“We weren’t getting anywhere. With your job, and my classes, we keep… I dunno, circling the same drain. Year in, year out.”

I nodded. I’d heard the same argument and even felt the same thing. It just seemed like a really long time ago.

“Is that such a big deal though?” I asked. “Jobs, classes… I mean, yeah, it matters. But for how long? Until I retire?”

“That’s a long way off.”

“Yeah, but that’s coming too. Jobs end. Classes end. But we could still be around.”

She paused for a moment, letting out a sigh.

“I don’t think we can.”

I nodded. We sat there for a moment, letting the silence stretch the distance between us a little further.

 

I gave up after that point. I bought a whole bunch of gooseberries and just sat in the motel room, eating them like it was a job. They’re rich in fiber, and one of my favorite berries. Given the way this thing had reacted to me eating more fiber, I figured I might as well make a good meal.

I was coming to the realization that I wasn’t going to be okay. My arm looked like a minefield, and a couple of wounds were all the way down my shoulder blade. The thing scurried so fast from one point to another that I had trouble keeping track. If it wanted a particular spot, it would sometimes flutter from one point to another in a soundless burst of clattering wings.

The fibers really kicked things into high gear. The thing got ravenous. I thought it was just a strange quirk at first, but it completely changed the way it behaved.

 

It stopped taking the occasional bite and started digging down in a frenzy. Not moving from one spot to another, instead focusing on this one particular hole in my shoulder. Straight through nerve, and tissue, and muscle, to the point where the pain was so bad I couldn’t focus. I ended up on the floor of my motel room, screaming and bleeding all over the carpet. The pain had been manageable when it was just the occasional bite, but now it wasn’t stopping. It was eating and growing so fast that I could physically see it.

Someone called the cops. I have this vague memory of a door opening, and someone screaming at me. Meanwhile, I’m seeing this creature the size of my hand scurrying back and forth over me, biting down and tossing its body around like a predatory death roll. Someone was shouting.

“We need an ambulance!”

The creature was literally foaming at the mouth. Some kind of anticoagulant. My wounds weren’t closing, and I could feel this strange cold enter my bloodstream.

 

Colors looked different. Sharper, sort of. The pain slipped from me. Not like an anesthetic, but more like I just forgot what pain was supposed to feel like. It left me feeling empty and callous, like there was nothing left that could touch me. The only problem was; I couldn’t move.

Someone put on gloves and dragged me out. Someone else was trying to cover my wounds in bandage and gauze. There were flashing lights and raised voices. Meanwhile, this thing was taking bites out of me in front of my eyes, tearing up the skin for all to see. There was this one policeman trying to drag me out that dropped me the moment he saw a new wound burst open. I can’t imagine what he must’ve thought I had.

Meanwhile, I was nodding in and out of consciousness. Voices started to sound different. The sky looked strange. I was splayed out on a gurney, and it felt like I was already dead.

 

During the ambulance ride, the creature settled on my stomach, tearing holes out of me. It curled up like a lapdog, now large enough to cover my entire arm. It wouldn’t stop eating. The bites felt like nothing but distant pinches, but I saw the volume of meat disappearing into its maw.

I looked one of the paramedics in the eye and realized I was making a sound. With every bite, I was making this reactionary noise, like a bark. I must’ve looked at them the same way that deer looked at me, by the river. For the first time in a long time, I could see something of myself in another. More so than by looking in the river. We were both scared to death.

I tried to speak, but the words didn’t come out right. I tried to breathe, but the signals didn’t reach my lungs. I was collapsing. Shutting down. Little lights in the palace of my mind going out, one by one, as bite after bite took away some semblance of self.

I was dying, and I could barely feel it. But a part of you just knows.

I don’t know where my conscious thoughts ended, and something else began. But I remember swirling colors and strange voices. Bright lights passing by, maybe streetlights. A sky with strange moons, and people talking in unusual languages. Somewhere in the haze of expressions, little undercurrents of things I never got to experience. Things I didn’t know I missed. Eating ice cream. Having a fragrant bath.

Then one bite struck a nerve on my neck, and I passed out.

 

There are little flashes of life here and there, like a light swinging back and forth in my mind. In one moment I’m being rolled into the emergency room. Then, someone holding up my hand, looking for a pulse. And that thing, the beetle, curled up on my lap in a spiral. Had it stopped eating?

The next time I opened my eyes, it was dark. There were machines, and wires, and cables. The thing resting on my stomach looked… different. It had curled into a ball, the head and tail sort of fused together. It was lying still, slowly bobbing up and down with the rhythm of my shallow breathing. No pain. No biting.

I lay there looking up into the ceiling. The colors had faded. There was this tingle in my eyes that, if I looked a little closer, I could almost see the stars in the ceiling. Maybe it was just random neurons firing randomly to keep my senses alive, but to me it just looked like silver sparkles – and I was glad to see them dance.

 

It felt like the blink of an eye, but then it was morning. People walking in and out to check on me. Someone had opened the blinds on the window. The creature looked different as a light blue mold had crept over it.

Then, it cracked open.

I saw movement. Little things making their way out of the creature that’d been eating me, breaking it apart like a cocoon. At first it looked like a sort of mantis, until I noticed the wings. They unfurled, stretching out one by one and testing their tensile strength. There were about seven of them in total. Just these little red, white, and black things covered in gray hairs.

Butterflies.

They didn’t stay long. They polished themselves off and took to the sky; passing straight through the windowpane and into the world beyond.

 

In the days to come, the doctors looked for answers. Someone thought I’d gotten a flesh-eating bacterium, but it didn’t follow any known symptoms. Once it was clear that whatever it was had gotten flushed out of my system, they focused on my recovery instead.

I think in a strange way, giving up accidentally saved me. If I hadn’t started eating more fiber, that thing would have killed me just from the wounds. By accelerating the progress, it got what it needed before it killed me.

By the time I left the hospital, I had a journal full of question marks and a body full of scars. I was scheduled for a follow-up, but it was just to check on the wounds. There was nothing they could do to make sure this whole ordeal didn’t happen again, because they had no idea what it was to begin with.

 

Looking back at it now, I feel like I should be angry. Like I should be cursing God for making something I can’t understand, that tormented me in such a cruel way. I know I should feel like that, but at the end of the day, I’m just happy to be here. I can acknowledge that shitty things happen and still be thankful that I get to enjoy the things I’ve taken for granted. It’s helped me look past the calls, and the e-mails, and the diplomas.

There were other jobs out there, and other loves. I can’t say my life is perfect today, but it didn’t end with one turbulent upheaval. Not from a move, or a breakup, or a beetle. Life goes on, and sometimes that’s enough.

 

And sometimes on my way home, I take the long route. I put on an audio book. And if I look closely into the distant fields, I can see something fluttering from one bush to the other, biting into meaty red berries and suckling the juice.

Little gray butterflies with red, white, and black wings.

That only I can see.

Back when I was a teenager, my family was going through some sudden changes. My dad never really told me about the details, but I could figure some things out from context. I have two younger brothers; one six years younger, and one eight years younger. All of a sudden, our family is splitting up. My brothers are moving in with my mom, and I’m staying with my dad. It’s a lot of moving boxes, hurtful words, and late nights with difficult talks. The family tree was a bit more complicated.

That kind of situation is difficult enough as-is; especially for a teenager. You kind of have your own problems at that age, and making sense of the world gets a whole lot harder when your entire life is pulled up by the roots. Dad and I had to move into a smaller place, and I had to get used to a new level of quiet. I still talked to mom and my brothers almost every day, but it was clear things would never be quite the same.

After about a month, my mom was already seeing someone. It didn’t seem like a new thing. My dad was in a bad space, but I think just having me around helped a lot. Still, I had my own life to live, and I couldn’t be with him all the time. That gave him a lot of space for things he couldn’t do before, like fishing, or playing pool with his work friends.

I guess that’s where it started. That’s where Mister Yates came into the picture.

 

I remember that one Saturday, years ago. I got up at around 11am, made myself a cup of noodles for lunch, and noticed my dad wasn’t up yet. He’s an “up at 6am” kinda guy, so I didn’t know what to make of it. The door to his bedroom was open, so I peeked in.

He was face-first into a pillow, snoring like a boar. He still got his shoes on. I figured he’d had a couple too many to drink, which was unusual. I’d never seen him like that before. It was a moment where I figured maybe he’d taken this whole thing a little harder than expected. I saved him the last glass of orange juice and left him alone, writing a note on the counter that I was going to see a friend of mine.

When I came back for dinner, he was up. I got the impression that he’d only just got up. His hair was a mess, and he was wearing the same clothes. He had some ravioli cooking on the stove and yawned at me when I stepped through the door. He clearly hadn’t showered.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Think I’m coming down with something,” he muttered. “Went to fish down the river, and it’s like… I don’t know. Caught something. No fish though.”

“You got the flu?”

He shook his head, stirring the ravioli.

“Not a flu. Not a virus. Definitely not an infection. Maybe allergies?”

He shook his head, yawning again.

 

Then he did this… I don’t know how to describe it. We have this barbeque lighter in a jar on the countertop. He plucked it, grabbed a wooden spoon, and stepped away from the stove. The ravioli was boiling over. He took the spoon and lit the tip on fire. Meanwhile, I’m rushing over to save dinner, asking him what the hell he’s doing. He just looks at me like I’m crazy.

“What?” he asks, holding the spoon like a torch. “What is it?”

“Put that out!”

“Just a minute.”

“A minute for what?”

As I pulled the ravioli away, he put the fire out. And, while holding the burned spoon like a knife, he carved a charcoal ‘X’ on the back of our front door. Before I could even ask, he headed for the bedroom.

“I’m not awake yet,” he said. “It’s all Mister Yates. All of it.”

There was a half-burned wooden spoon on the floor, overcooked ravioli, and dad was passed out in the bedroom again. The only thing that seemed deliberate was the ‘X’ on the door.

 

I called my mom about it. She asked if I wanted her to pick me up, but I said no. I figured he just needed time. Mom seemed genuinely worried. Neither of us had seen this side of him before. I ended up cleaning the kitchen a bit, watching a movie, and slouching to bed just past midnight. Dad was still a no-show. I tried cleaning the ‘X’ up, but he’d scuffed the paint.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think I heard him walking around sometime in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sneaky about it or anything, he was walking back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom. At one point I’m certain I heard him kick the trash around. There was also a bit of singing, I think. Strange thing to notice at 2:30am.

Thankfully, it all seemed okay the next day. He was up early, making breakfast. Woke me up at 9am, got the kitchen smelling like pancakes and bacon. He was using the wooden spoon but looking at it like he didn’t understand the burns.

“You feeling better?” I asked, toothbrush in hand. “You were pretty out of it yesterday.”

“No idea what that was,” he said. “All better now. I’m getting two pieces, how many you want?”

He pointed to the bacon in the pan. He knew I wanted two.

“Who’s Mister Yates?” I asked.

He turned to look at me, almost forgetting to flip the bacon. He raised an eyebrow.

“Mister Yates?”

“Yeah, you said something about Mister Yates.”

“There’s no Mister Yates.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

He turned his attention back to the pan, shaking his head. He murmured something under his breath, but I couldn’t make out what he said.

 

Things were largely back to normal. He would go about his business as usual, and I got buried in assignments. Last year of high school can be relentless, and I couldn’t make time for him, even if I wanted to. Even if I cut out my time with the guys, and my desperate pursuit of a certain girl I liked, there was just too much going on in my life to step back and look at my dad. But even so, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of things that were out of place.

Sometimes the charcoal ‘X’ on the back of the front door had been filled in again. There’d be black stains on dad’s covers, and he’d wash them every other day. He also started getting this really red right eye, like he had an infection. He got a cream for it, but it didn’t seem to help. And every now and then, I could hear him walking around at night.

And sometimes, he’d walk straight out the door and be gone for hours.

 

One night I decided to confront him. It was just past 2am, and I could hear him rummaging around in the kitchen. I got up, walked out of the bedroom, rounded the corner, and froze.

I could see him in the light of the fridge. From the silhouette, he didn’t look like my dad at all. He was pulling things out and piling them up on the counter. Cereal, orange juice, salami, and this fancy sliced cheese we got at the deli. I flipped the light switch, and he snapped to attention like a cockroach caught in a spotlight.

I could immediately tell something was off. Not only the posture, but the way he’d combed his hair. He usually kept it back, but this was parted down the middle. He wasn’t his usual relaxed self. He looked like he was about to burst into a sprint, like I caught him doing something illegal.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He just stood there, looking at me.

“Hello?” I tried again. “What are you doing?”

Still, no answer. He just looked at me like I was accusing him of something horrendous. I took a step closer, and he dropped everything flat on the floor, pulling out a knife.

 

It was so far from anything I expected him to do that the image has sort of burned into my mind. He had this wild expression on his face, like an animal. But looking a little closer, there was more to it. There were these marks on his face, like pox scars. And his eyes; there was something weird about them. Not just the expression. It took me a while to notice, but it was the redness. He had an infection in his left eye.

The wrong eye.

I stopped talking. He wasn’t saying anything either. We just stood there, staring at one another. I didn’t even notice my hands were up, like I was trying to talk him down from a ledge. My heart was racing.

“I’m Yates,” he said. “Mister Yates.”

His voice was low and hoarse with a slightly southern tinge.

“I dun’ know you’re here,” he continued.

“I live here. We live here, dad” I corrected.

“I dun’ know you,” he said, circling the kitchen island, keeping the blade pointed my direction. “I dun’ know what you want.”

“Dad? What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

He blinked a couple of times and scratched his eye. He looked down, as if inspecting his hands. He yawned, dropped the knife, and walked straight back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. I knocked a couple of times, but there was no response. I could hear him snoring.

 

In the morning, I sat him down to talk. I laid it all out in the open. The ‘X’ on the door. The late-night escapades. The hair, the eye, the fridge raid – all of it. And when it was all out there, dad couldn’t pretend anymore. He threw his hands up.

“I didn’t know he was gonna do that,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Do what? Pull a knife on me?”

“That’s obviously out of line. Way out of line. He shouldn’t even-“

He paused and took a deep breath.

“Look,” he said, slowing down. “It’s not something I talk about. I don’t like to talk about it. But I think it’s reached a point where we have to talk about it.”

“I agree.”

“So,” he said, adjusting his seat. “Mister Yates. Let’s talk about that.”

“You said there is no Mister Yates.”

“And technically, that’s true.”

He looked down, tapping the kitchen counter a little. Finally, he looked up, scratching his right eye a little.

“And in another way, it’s not entirely true.”

 

My dad grew up in a strict household. I never knew my grandparents, but he was very clear about not wanting them in his life. They had this thing where they forced him to draw a charcoal ‘X’ on something he loved whenever he did something bad. It could be on his favorite book, or a painting, or even the family dog. They had a lot of strict and unusual punishments for every petty infraction.

“They used to say that if your soul gets too heavy, it’ll sink deep enough for Satan to pull you down. And while you struggle, he puts something in your place. In my case, it was Mister Yates.”

“So it’s like a second… what, a second you?”

“Not like that,” he said, shaking his head. “He was a thing to scare kids with. My parents would look at me and pretend they didn’t know me, asking if it’s me or Mister Yates in there. It’s this trick they did to hint that you might be doing something bad, and that you need to watch yourself. They did it all the time."

He explained it in greater detail. How they would deny him dinner because they were waiting for “him” to come back, and for “Mister Yates” to go away. It was a way to make him apologize, forcing him to prove himself to be good. They could get him to wash dishes, mow the lawn, or do whatever. They’d pull at his feet at night, pretending that Satan was about to drag his soul to hell if he didn’t go to sleep. It created this constant sense of pressure to stay on the straight and narrow, but narrow was never narrow enough.

“But now… I don’t know,” dad explained. “I don’t know where this is coming from. It sounds to me like I’m sleepwalking, but I’ve never…”

He trailed off, giving me a moment to catch up.

“It’s not every night,” I assured him. ”Just… sometimes.”

“Yates was always described as a trickster. Sort of impish. Like someone that’d steal an apple pie from a windowsill or tie your shoelaces together. Not the kind to… raid your fridge and pull a knife.”

“But he did. You did.”

“You’re right. I did.”

And he nodded. He knew I wasn’t making it up. Something had changed.

 

We tried to get a better idea of what was going on. My dad started locking his bedroom door at night, but that didn’t seem to help. He wouldn’t be up and walking every night, but maybe once every three days or so. Sometimes he’d watch TV, or chug a couple of sodas, but every now and then he’d put on some shoes and walk down the street.

I mapped it out. It would happen somewhere around 1 to 3am. It would only happen when he was asleep, but the exact timing would differ. The changes on him were surprisingly clear, like, it wasn’t just the hair and the posture. He would literally look taller, and he’d get a slight tan. And yeah, the pox marks were there. By morning, it’d all be gone.

He spotted me a couple of times. Once, he just took off running. Straight out the front door, gone with the wind. Another time he locked himself in the bathroom until early morning. But one time, his curiosity got the better of him.

 

He was standing on the couch, bouncing a little like an overactive kid. He was eating cereal straight from the box, watching the news. There was no sound. I stood in the doorway for a while, watching. He didn’t seem to notice. I got the impression that he wasn’t paying attention as much as he was just enjoying the colors and the serious-looking people.

When he finally noticed me, he pulled back; jumping off the couch with an actual snarl.

“Keep your cereal,” I sighed. “What the hell do I care?”

He hissed at me, backing away towards the door.

“Why are you watching without sound anyway? You can’t hear what they’re saying.”

I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. His attention whipped back to the screen, suddenly entranced by this development.

“They talk?” he hissed. “They talk to me?”

“You never seen a TV?”

“Is that his name?”

I pointed to one of the newscasters.

“Him?”

“Is he TV?”

“No?”

 

I had to explain the concept of television to him. Took the better part of twenty minutes. All the while, he was asking the strangest follow-up questions. How can you record the image of a person? How can that image show up in my house? How can I remember what they’re saying without ever being there?

I didn’t even notice it, but we ended up talking for well over an hour. I got the impression that he was confused by absolutely everything. He didn’t understand what was going on. At the end of that hour, he was curled up on the couch like a wounded animal, hugging a decorative pillow.

“I dun’ wanna be here,” he said, shaking his head. “I dun’ ask to be here.”

He scratched his left eye. It was hard to tell if he was itchy or crying.

“Then why are you here?” I asked. “What happened?”

He looked me up and down, like he was trying to assess my intention. He must’ve figured I was sincere. He leaned a little closer. Suddenly, this grin spread out on his face. This wide-faced, toothy, grin. In a sing-songy voice, he answered.

“He looked a bit too close, and blinked too many times. He thought he saw an eye above, and now he pays the price.”

“What are you-“

“Specks of dust that ain’t a thing, but things you ain’t perceive. Setting sky, a mother’s love, a soul without reprieve.”

 

He got up on the couch, clapping his hands once as if demanding my attention. He swung his arms out like he was reciting something from a poem. It was almost Shakespearean. He kicked over a lamp, but it didn’t even slow him down. He was giddy, like a kid on a sugar high.

“Alas, oh so, you can, you will! Bless an eye, oh blessed still! Spin around and look away, live to die another day!”

He turned to me, his face red, screaming at the top of his lungs. I could see the blood clotting in his infected eye.

“Scream and shiver, off you go! Blue’s the secret-“

Tearing up the decorative pillow, he threw the stuffing up like confetti at a parade, letting out a performative laugh with his hands raised to the ceiling.

“-the sunflowers know!”

 

I just sat there, panting. He was laughing to the point where he couldn’t breathe. I got off the couch, slowly backing away. He was tearing up pillows, spinning around, kicking furniture, and succumbing to these random bouts of intense screaming. The kind of unfiltered scream that you only hear when someone breaks a bone or loses a loved one.

After a while, he grew catatonic. He collapsed on the couch, but I didn’t dare to approach him. I wasn’t surprised when the cops came knocking. Of course someone called it in, it would’ve been crazy if they didn’t. Two burly men with flashlights, stern faces, and lots of questions.

It took me the better part of an hour to get rid of them, and even then, I had to agree to someone dropping by to double-check on me. All the while, dad was barely coherent. Mister Yates had slipped out of him like a thief in the night, leaving him exhausted and half asleep. I could actually see the change happening in real time as I looked at him. How he subconsciously combed his hair back. How the other eye started itching.

And how the pox marks faded from his face.

 

The next day, I told my dad all about it as we cleaned the living room. The manic rant didn’t make any sense to him, and having to vacuum the entire living room didn’t make his day any better. He couldn’t figure it out. He wrote it all down and read it over and over, but he couldn’t make sense of it. The poem, or song, was just… nonsense.

“I wonder why he only shows up at night,” I said as dad picked up a broken lamp. “You’ve never been like that before.”

“I’ve always been a sound sleeper,” dad shrugged. “You’re the same.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t have an answer for this,” he said, slouching his shoulder. “I think it’s best you go stay with your mother for a while.”

“Even after all this?”

“Especially after all this,” he said, scratching his irritated eye.

I picked up a shard and dropped it in the trash, then turned to him. I wasn’t gonna entertain the idea of leaving him behind.

“What if we just ask him?” I said. “He can talk, so why don’t we just… talk?”

“You really think that’s a good idea?”

“I mean, he’s gonna show up sooner or later anyway, right?”

“Right.”

He scooped up the final pieces, dropping in the trash.

“Alright,” he agreed. “Let’s talk to him.”

 

We tried to get the right timing for a couple of nights, but we could never get Mister Yates to show up. Instead, my dad had to try and spend each night sleeping with his hands and feet all tied up; not the most comfortable way to drift off. Maybe that’s what made it so difficult.

But just as predicted, Mister Yates came back. It didn’t take long. And when he did, I was ready for him.

I’d been checking in on dad every night, helping him secure the knots around his hands and feet. Now, finally, something was happening. It started with this wailing sound, then there was a thud. He’d fallen out of bed and was squirming around the floor, trying to get the ropes off. It didn’t take long to recognize the signs. The pox marks, the wrong irritated eye. When he saw me, he stopped moving. I turned on the bedroom light and leaned down toward him.

“I need to ask you some questions,” I said. “Is that okay?”

“Lemme go,” he whispered. “Lemme go, I’ll help.”

“Last time you destroyed the living room.”

“I’ll be nice.”

“Let’s try a question then, see if I can work with this,” I said. “Why do you call yourself Mister Yates?”

“It’s what they call me,” he whispered back. “It ain’t my name. We dun’ get names where I’m from.”

“And where’s that? Where are you from?”

“I answered a question,” he said, holding out his hands. “Now’s your turn.”

 

I was careful about letting him go, but I didn’t have much of a choice. He wasn’t gonna cooperate if I wasn’t gonna show a sign of good will. Letting him loose helped. We compromised on him getting free access to a box of cereal as we sat down in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I was allowed to ask whatever questions I wanted.

“Why do you only come at night?”

“Slip away when you sleep,” he said, showing fistfuls of chocolate flakes into his mouth. “Dun’ ask to be here. I’m real quiet about it.”

“You don’t seem all that quiet.”

“I been here for years,” he nodded. “But I stay quiet. Look up. No bother. But now it’s just…”

He looked up the little prize at the bottom of the box; a little neon-green plastic toucan.

“…it dun’ matter anymore. Might as well do whatever. Have a drink. Kick something.”

“What doesn’t matter anymore?”

 

He turned his attention to the front door. The faded ‘X’ was still there, albeit somewhat washed away. I could still see the outline of it.

“Orange sands. Rivers of fire. Black boxes, and the reddest, deadest, eyes.”

“Hell? You’re talking about hell?”

“It dun’ have no name. Just like I.”

“Hell is coming here, is that what you’re saying?”

“Guess so,” he said with a shrug. “Dunno why you call it that.”

“Is that where you’re from? From… orange sands? Rivers of fire?”

He looked up at me, mouth stuffed to the brim with chocolate flakes. He held the neon-green toucan with his thumb and pinky finger, changing into a bright voice. He couldn’t help but to laugh, spilling a dozen flakes on the kitchen counter.

“I dunno!” he chuckled. “I’m just a bird!”

 

I would have these talks with Mister Yates every now and then from that night going forward. I would get things for him during the day, and in return we’d sit down for a chat. Sometimes he’d get bored and go for a run, but most of the time I could hold his attention long enough to get a couple of answers.

Most of the time it was cryptic nonsense, or something that erupted into an impromptu song and dance number. Nothing quite as screamy as when they called the cops on us though. I think a couple of things he said were lies, or some kind of joke he forgot to laugh at, but there were a couple of things he was unusually consistent about.

He really seemed to be from a different place. He couldn’t remember when he was born, or by whom. They didn’t have things there. He really liked to play with things. Some of the imagery he talked about was also recurring. The ‘X’ was both a symbol and a kind of literal depiction. In a rare moment of clarity, he confided in me;

“They’re deconstructed,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you get it?”

Frustrated, he got a piece of paper. He ripped it in half, and put one half atop the other, shaping an ‘X’. Then he started folding.

It turned into a box. One he promptly threw at my head.

“An ‘X’ is an open box,” he said, pointing to the mark on the door. “Means they’re coming. And if they’re getting here, I’m not gonna play nice. I’m gonna have the cheese, and the olives, and the TVs. Because when they get here, that’s done for.”

 

During the daytime, dad was looking into it too. He was talking to some of the relatives he was still in contact with. Distant half-aunts and third cousins, whoever had been around at some point. Most of them knew about my dad’s upbringing and the way they’d made him do things. Some had even heard about Mister Yates. But it was my grandmother’s half-sister that came with the most interesting factoid. Apparently, my grandparents hadn’t always been so cruel. To quote;

“It’s like they woke up one day and decided they were gonna be someone else.”

That caught my dad’s attention.

There had been a time before the ‘X’ drawn on the wall, or the threats of him getting dragged to Hell as a child. But it was like someone flipped a switch, and overnight he was on the receiving end. And the only lead we had was this absurd condition that sometimes struck him in the middle of the night.

We didn’t have a choice but to talk to Mister Yates about it.

 

He got persuaded a couple of nights later using a bag of pomegranate-flavored gum. Once I realized he’d never really tried anything I figured I could get away with introducing him to whatever seems exciting in the moment. I was 100% right. He chewed on ten gum at a time until his jaw hurt.

“Can you take over fully?” I asked. “Like, all the way?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “If we play the long game. Once people figure out we’re there, they start rejecting us. It’s like a, uh… physical reaction.”

He pointed to his left eye. It looked worse.

“You can see it, right?”

“That means you’re going away?”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded. “But I’m gonna go out with a goddamn bang.”

 

Dad’s eye got progressively worse too. At one point it was swollen shut, and he had to wear an eyepatch. But it passed, and with it, I started seeing a change in Mister Yates as well. He would slow down, take a little longer to respond, and seem a little sleepier. He started showing up less frequently, and it was more difficult to keep a conversation going.

The last time I spoke to him, we were sitting on the couch. He was digging into a full jar of dill pickles while we watched Jurassic Park. He had only recently understood the point of movies to begin with.

“So this is all gonna end,” I said. “With fire, and sand, and…”

“I mean, yeah,” he interrupted, throwing a dill pickle at me. “So?”

“So?” I scoffed. “That’s not a big deal to you? Literal hell?”

“Nah,” he said shaking his head. “What else is on?”

He didn’t realize you shouldn’t switch mid-movie. Etiquette just wasn’t his thing. I let him have the remote.

“I don’t wanna go to a place like that,” I said.

That made him raise an eyebrow. He turned to me, leaning in needlessly close. Personal space wasn’t his thing.

“You know,” he said, finishing his pickle. “Have you ever considered that I may be an idiot, and a liar?”

“It’s crossed my mind.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“Then you did all of this for nothing.”

“Not nothing,” he said, waving a pickle at me. “This is everything.”

Last time I heard Mister Yates, I was crawling into bed. He was rummaging about as usual, then he just sort of stopped. I could hear his breathing slow, like he was falling asleep. He left something on my nightstand, went back into the living room, and fell asleep on the couch; hand still in the pickle jar.

By morning, my dad’s eye was fully healed, and there was a note on my nightstand. Mister Yates had torn out a page from our bible and written in big, bold letters;

I THINK YOU GOT ONE TOO

 

I showed the note to my dad, and we pieced it together. So, this was something that happened on his side of the family. Something inhabits us. Something that, with the exception of U Mister Yates, is both quiet and insidious. And if left to fester for too long, eventually, it can completely take over. Unless, for one reason or another, it decides not to. For my dad, the thing had rebelled. For my grandparents, well… we could only speculate. I brought up the possibility that maybe my baby brothers had it, but he just shook his head. Apparently, we’re a family, but not that kind of family. He did not elaborate.

It was a strange thing to consider. I’d never had trouble with waking up at night, or sleepwalking. But then again, that’s not a normal part of it. Mister Yates was the deviation, not the norm. Usually, whatever was in there stayed put, waiting for a night where it would just… flip a switch.

My dad started checking on me every night. Sometimes he would wake me up to see if I was still being me. We tried a couple of things to coax a reaction, but our efforts didn’t amount to anything.

 

One night as I lay awake, drifting in and out of sleep, I felt my eyes open. Not as in waking up, but as in an involuntary muscle reaction. It was this strange sensation of seeing, without being awake. Looking around the room, I felt my hand move. I tried to force myself to wake up, to move, but it felt like trying to run in a dream. Efforts got me nowhere, even blinking was impossible.

I realized this was what it felt like to lose control. That thief in the night, taking my place. Maybe it got bolder once it realized I was on to it. I could sort of move my lips a little if I tried, but I couldn’t speak. I was breathing heavily though. Heavily enough to move my lips and have a word escape on the exhale.

“…see you” I exhaled. “…see you.”

Something inside me jumped to attention. My eyes closed as I lay back down in bed. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into sleep, and a thought crossed my mind.

In those moments where something takes control, what happens to me?

I was about to find out.

 

It feels like something pulls you down. Physically, downward. It starts with your feet as if you’re wearing concrete shoes. You sink into yourself, deeper and deeper, until you’ve fallen for so long that you can’t feel it anymore. Like pretending you’re going for a walk while falling through the sky.

If I concentrated hard, and closed one eye, I could almost see what was happening outside myself. I was walking around. Looking through drawers. Taking small, careful, steps. Trying not to make any noise. But it wasn’t my steps, and it wasn’t my actions; I was seeing it from the perspective of a distant guest.

There was no loud crash, or sudden impact. You pass into this space of mine where you’re held while whatever happens outside happens. A place where the sand is orange, and the rivers are fire.

 

To explain a first-hand account of it is an abstract sensation. It’s not a real place. Not a nightmare either. It feels like you’re turning around, and there was this whole other world waiting behind your back. You’re not disappointed, or scared, you’re just angry you didn’t see it before.

The air feels like refined chemicals. The sun doesn’t just burn, it cooks you. The rivers of fire sizzle through ever-expanding plains. Ribcage hills litter the world like abandoned corpses. There are no stars. No clouds. And in the moments where you forget that it isn’t all normal, it’s almost beautiful. A reaction, to a reaction, to a reaction.

But then I brought my hand up to my eye. And if I pressed hard enough, I could see what was happening - outside.

I was fighting with my dad.

I could see a knife. There was fabric being thrown around. Blood.

 

One moment, I can feel the sizzle on my skin. In another moment, I force a sliver of light through my eye, and I see hands trying to keep me away. A stray pulse rushes through my ear, and I hear someone begging me to stop. All the while the fire roils down the river, snaking around a labyrinth of massive obsidian blocks.

I notice, briefly, that if I press really hard, the image gets a little sharper. I start to scratch and itch at my eye, and when I do, I can almost feel a sensation coming back to me. A tingle in the fingers. I watch, and see my head turn downward just in time for my hand to drop a knife.

I rub, and twist, and turn. My eye goes red, but I’m barely scratching the surface. I’m not getting through. It dawns on me what is going to happen, and what I’m about to experience. There’s this emptiness spreading through my chest as the possibility of being stuck in that place and frame of mind, forever, dawns on me.

 Like a hall of mirrors that won’t stop reminding me that there is a forever.

 

I sat down in the orange sand, feeling the weight of the realization settle in me. I was inconsolable. Even then and there, next to fire and pain, I’d never felt colder in my life. This could be it. The end of things.

I don’t know when it happened, but someone sat down next to me. I remember a skull, and flesh melting off a pristine skeleton. Pieces of sinew and marrow popping before crumbling to dust. And yet, the posture seemed almost casual. Friendly, even.

“…got time?” a distant voice asked, as if echoed from behind a pane of glass.

I shrugged. It asked me a question, but I didn’t understand. Then it asked again.

“…trust?”

I had no idea what we were even talking about. I shook my head.

“…ain’t dun’ yet.”

I didn’t have time to react as bony fingers grabbed the back of my head and dunked me face-first in the river of fire.

 

That primal pain gave way to the soft breeze of an indoor cooling system. I was suddenly standing in my living room, holding a tenderizer. My dad was on the floor, his hands cut and bruised. I could still feel the fire in one of my eyes. The burn was so intense that I had to cover it with my hand. I dropped the mallet and tried to take a step back, but instead collapsed to the ground. My motor functions were still asleep.

“You made it,” dad said, his hands shivering.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”

“I think it… fades. That place. You just sort of remember the feel of it.”

I nodded, trying to catch my breath.

“It hurts. Burns like hell.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Like hell.”

 

The next morning, I wrote down what I remembered. Some of it had faded, but not all of it. Most of what I wrote down that day is the basis to the description I can give to you here, today.

It was like Mister Yates had said; once you knew that thing was there, you could begin to reject it. Dad and I had a couple of close calls, but we managed to get through it. Some nights from that day forward I had to be locked up, or tied up, and the swelling in my eye got worse. But little by little, it went away. And with it, the images of that place. Nowadays I just have the words, and this vague feeling in the back of my gut.

Looking back at it, I don’t want Mister Yates to be right. I like to think he was being stupid, or wrong. I don’t want to think about seeing that place again, in any way, shape, or form. But I don’t think he was stupid. Maybe he just didn’t have the whole picture.

Either way, a dry eye heals. So do cuts and bruises. I sleep soundly at night, and those formative high school years are long since behind me. But to this day, there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m really me as I soundly sleep.

Back when I was in high school, we had to move on short notice. It was just me and my mom, and she was struggling to keep a job down. After getting tagged with a DWI, we ended up moving in with my aunt in the projects. It was the only way to make ends meet.

It was by far my lowest point. I slept on the couch in the living room while my mom took the bedroom. My aunt spent most of her time at her boyfriend’s place anyway, so she was rarely around. It was rough, to say the least. Everything can be rough at that age, but changing schools and getting thrown down a couple rungs on the class ladder was a bad combo.

I was a pretty normal kid. I played a lot of basketball, but I had no hopes of going pro. I had no idea what I was going to do. College was a pipe dream, so it was mostly about passing my classes and hoping for a miracle. Or a job. A job works too.

 

The area was pretty bad. One corner shop with welded windows and half a dozen hand-written signs stapled to the front door. No carts or baskets. A wall of pictures by the entrance showing who’s barred from entry. One of them had a little blue cross sign painted on, with a faded “R.I.P” beneath.

There was this sandwich place that must’ve been there since the 70’s. The place was tiny, with a lowercase ‘t’. I’ve seen refrigerator boxes that’s bigger. Basically a door where you can hear someone talking on the phone, with a sign that says “Yes goddamnit, we’re open”. Only two items on the menu; meat or no meat. I got nothing bad to say about that place though. Mr. Barker’s sandwiches are, to this day, the best damn street food I’ve ever had. I’ve tried recreating his pickled garlic salsa for years, but I can’t get the zest right.

Then there was the high school. There were metal detectors, and one of our teachers openly smoked in the classroom. The less I say about that place the better.

 

All that aside, it wasn’t like you couldn’t live there. I mean, yeah, it wasn’t pretty. You can sort of feel the eyes on your neck when you walk down the wrong street, but once you learn what street you’re not supposed to walk down, you’re gonna be okay. It’s not the kind of place where someone gets shot every day. I mean, it happens, but it’s not as random and sudden as people from the city think. You know who’s gonna be trouble by the look of them.

There’d been a couple of ideas on how to revitalize the area. There was an office at the far end that they tried to make into a sort of mini hotel. The kind of cheap place second-grade tourists stay at when they want the ‘authentic experience’. The place lasted for a couple of years but closed by the time we moved in down the street. There were still signs up when we got there, so it wouldn’t surprise me if some folks got tricked into thinking it was still open.

I wouldn’t say I had any friends, really. Not at first. I had some guys that I knew, and that I knew wouldn’t mess with me without a good reason. There was Kieran, for example. Pretty stand-up guy, we made a good team on the court. There was Holland, tallest guy in class. Nice, but a bit slow, and his hand-eye coordination was shot to shit. Guy could barely spell his name, but without him we couldn’t play three-on-three. There were a couple of others too, but most of them blended into the background.

 

When I’d lived there for about three months, there was a new push for revitalization. They put up new streetlights. Or at least, that’s what we thought.

First time I saw them was on a Thursday night. People were out and about. Someone was playing music, and I could hear someone yelling and whooping, but I couldn’t make out which apartment it came from. I had homework to do, and I wasn’t feeling sociable. My mom and aunt were out, leaving me to watch TV and procrastinating over equations.

I remember looking out the living room window, only to see a streetlight. At first I didn’t think about it, until I realized I’d never seen one there before. That’d been a problem for my mom when we first got there; she didn’t feel safe without them. At some point, the city must’ve fixed them. It was right there, bright as ever.

I watched a guy come wandering down the street and stopping underneath that light, looking up at it. He raised his hand to shield his eyes. He seemed to be a bit out of it, so maybe he just didn’t register what the hell he was looking at.

Then, the streetlight went out, just minutes after first spotting it. I blinked, adjusting my eyes.

There was no man there anymore. He was gone.

 

Over the next few days, I’d see the occasional streetlight here and there. Rarely the same one, and rarely for a long time. It’s as if they just came on momentarily, and only a few at a time. It felt appropriate, in a way. Of course the city would mess up trying something new. No good deed goes unpunished.

People around school were talking about it too. It was a known fact that the only streetlights that actually worked were the ones near the school, so to see any others was noteworthy. Not just because it was something new, but because it seemed inconsistent. They weren’t the only thing that’d happened around the neighborhood lately. For example, there was a full wall where they’d cleaned up the graffiti. They’d put in new windows in a couple of buildings. They’d moved one of the broken-down cars in the lot behind the gym.

Little things, but enough to show that something was going on. Kieran didn’t like it.

“It’s bad news,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how, but it’s all bad news. It’s gotta be.”

 

Later that week, I was out with the guys. They were dropping by a house party and wanted me to come along to meet some new people. It was mostly Holland pulling the strings on that one, he was invited pretty much everywhere. We spent almost a full hour getting there, just because he got stopped by so many people he knew on the way. It was ten minutes away at a light jog.

It was a pretty chill party. I ended up with a lukewarm beer, sitting in a cheap white plastic deck chair, texting. Holland was inside, trying to figure out just how many people he knew there. Kieran sat in the deck chair next to me, but he’d already finished his beer. We were talking about school when a streetlight came on, just a bit down the street.

There was something else in the air. Something like static. My phone started charging, and I went from two bars of coverage to five. I could feel the screen going hot.

“You seeing this?” I asked, showing him my phone.

“Told you,” he said. “Something’s wrong. Some mind cancer bullshit.”

Holland came rumbling out of the house with what looked like a quarter bottle of whiskey. Two guys were right behind him, one of them insisting he could take him in a fight. A lot of people wanted to fight Holland, just because he was the biggest. Holland waved them off and walked up to us. Kieran pointed down the street, to the light. Holland looked for a while, then took a step back.

“Shit, they got it working?”

“I dunno,” Kieran huffed. “Don’t like it.”

”Gotta be brand new.”

Before I could say anything, he walked off to check it out.

 

Kieran and I got out of our chairs and followed him. A little group from the party tagged along. The closer we got the warmer my phone went, like we were walking up on a power source. I stopped a couple of steps away while Holland stepped right into the sharp cone of light. It felt less like a streetlight and more like a spotlight. Center stage. He looked straight up, like he was staring at the sun.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “It ain’t new. There’s stickers and shit.”

“They probably just fixed the bulb,” Kieran added.

“Nah, there was nothing here. You mean they put in a busted and tagged light from some other shithole? Come on, man.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Kieran shrugged.

Holland tapped the streetlight a couple of times, shaking his head. The light went out. We went from burning bright to murky street corner in the blink of an instant.

And when we looked a little closer, Holland was gone.

 

At first we were just confused. Not just me and Kieran, but a whole bunch of people. We looked around like he took off running. I called him, but I couldn’t connect the call. Kieran snapped him but got nothing. Here one moment, gone the next.

While the others went looking for him, and calling out to him, I took a closer look at the streetlight. I noticed something. There was no bulb, and the glass was broken. A moment ago, it’d been whole. But we hadn’t heard any glass break, and there were no shards on the pavement. That, and there were more stickers on the sides. Different stickers. It’s like I was looking at a completely different streetlight.

We walked around, calling out to Holland. Kieran elbowed me, showing me his phone.

“We walk this way, I get more bars,” he said. “Bet there’s another light.”

“Think he went there?”

Kieran didn’t answer. He just shook his head and looked down.

 

We walked around for a couple of hours, trying to find Holland. He wasn’t answering anything, and we couldn’t get a hold of him. Some folks ended up calling his uncle, who he lived with, but he wasn’t home either. Holland was gone. Out, like a light.

Just like Kieran predicted, we found another streetlight by the corner shop. It was only on for a couple of seconds, but in that time I saw a stray cat walk through. It didn’t come out the other side. As the streetlight went out, I made the same observation as before; it looked completely different when it was on. There were two different lights; one functioning, one broken.

People started taking this seriously. A couple started to track the lights down and film them, hoping to see something weird. Others tried to dare one another to mess with them. I wasn’t there for it myself, but apparently an older kid went missing the same way that night. They stepped into the light, and they disappeared.

 

This was no joke. People were calling not just one another, but parents, friends, family, and even the police. There were a couple of videos that started to circulate the group chats. Videos of a guy standing in the streetlight, making a peace sign, only to disappear when the lights went out.

“I’m out!” was the last thing you hear him say.

They’re laughing in the video; until they ain’t.

That first night it just felt weird, but the next day, it was real. Holland was missing. People were out looking, calling one another, asking where he was last seen. I got four calls from people asking what happened and where he went, and I had to tell them all the same thing. One moment he was there, then he wasn’t. It didn’t make any sense, and it’s not the kind of thing you can tell a worried guardian in a neighborhood where people have been known to get in trouble over nothing.

Kieran went over to Holland’s place. I wasn’t along for it, but apparently he’d had a long talk with the uncle. All of a sudden the streetlights weren’t a fun quirk, there was something seriously wrong with them.

 

While we were at school, someone called city management to ask what the hell was going on. There were no answers, and no one was willing to come down and talk to us. There were no squad cars going around, no one knocking on doors asking questions. There definitely was no project to get the lights back on. Instead, while most of us went to school, some guys around the neighborhood brought hammers and saws and took down the last remaining lights. The broken ones, that is. To an outsider it must’ve looked like vandalism. For those of us who knew, it was a rare act of solidarity. Hell, even Mr. Barker was out on the street, leaving the sandwich place vacant for the first time in forever.

There was this feeling like, yeah, this neighborhood was shit. But it was ours, you know? Even I, who just got there, was still part of it. We were in it together and if no one was gonna have our backs, we’d do it ourselves.

But that didn’t stop something strange from happening. Most nights, you could see the lights go on. Not all at once. Few and far between, if anything, but they were there. Every now and then, someone would disappear. It could take hours before we noticed, but by the time we did, it was already too late. In that first week, we lost something like… five people?

 

It got bad enough that people outside the neighborhood started to notice. We saw new cars passing through, looking around. A couple of folks showed up at our school just to tell us we were full of shit. They saw the broken streetlights and thought we were making it all up to get attention. They didn’t understand.

But the consequences were real as real can be. Holland was gone from class, and no one knew what to make of it. Sure, people skip school all the time, but Holland wasn’t like that. He may have been slow, but he wasn’t negligent. He gave it an honest shot, and he was there every day, come hell or high water. Kieran and I had a couple teachers come up to us after class asking us if we knew anything. What could we say?

“He gone with the light,” was the best way Kieran could describe it. “Like we keep telling you.”

 

Some people started walking in the middle of the street, hoping to stay out of the lights if they suddenly came on. Sure, people had always had a tentative relationship with jaywalking, but this was a whole new level. You could see an old woman with two grocery bags walk down the middle of main street, and no one looked twice. It was amazing how fast people adapted, and how fast something turned from rumor to threat. But I guess if you’re used to threats, another one isn’t that surprising, no matter the shape or form.

I went out with a couple of people every now and then just to see what was going on. We could use our phones to kinda spot where the next streetlight would pop up. You’d get a small charge and better coverage just moments before it came on, so you just had to pay attention.

We usually saw them from down the street. Even if the light itself had been cut down and removed, a working one would stand there like nothing happened, shining down. Some people would run from them. Others would stop to take pictures. And once, I saw a girl being held back by two of her friends, screaming at the light to ‘give him back’.

We would do our part. Whenever a light came on, we’d throw things at it. Rocks, bricks, whatever. We’d break a couple. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t; I don’t know. But it felt good doing something. Anything.

 

One evening when we were out looking, a signal came on, stronger than before. We were right by the corner store, where the cat had gone missing. Kieran pulled me back as a streetlight a couple of feet ahead of us lit up. I could hear the crackling from it and saw a TV in a nearby house flicker through a living room window. The emergency lights on a parked car started blinking.

And there was someone standing there.

Holland.

His skin was almost gray, and his lips were cracked like dry paper. His eyes were sunken and pale, full of dust. He was wearing nothing but shorts and a single sneaker. There was dry blood coming down his left arm. I could tell he had trouble breathing, like he’d been running, or choking.

Kieran was about to run up, but I grabbed him by the arm. Something felt off. The other guys filmed it.

“Holland!” Kieran called out. “Holland, what the fuck?!”

Holland shook his head, biting down on his lip. He covered the wound on his arm as he spoke; his voice barely a wheeze.

“Tell uncle I didn’t leave him,” he cried. “It’s fucked. S’all poison, but I didn’t leave. I didn’t go.”

“Just walk! Get over here!” I called out. “Come on, let’s go!”

“S’all poison,” he said. “Dyin’. S’all fuckin’ poison.”

Holland took a step forward. As his body crossed that sharp cone, something happened. Parts of his body dissolved in a dithery cross-section. Slices disintegrated the moment they left the light, swallowed by the dark. I remember the moment his face went from weeping to a death’s head grin. His voice collapsed in a rattled falsetto, like someone poked a hole in his lungs halfway through a final wailing. Then the light went out.

Kieran freaked out. The others were too, sharing the video with people from around the block. I just stood there, trying not to piss myself. It took me ten minutes to realize Holland’s shoe and shorts were still on the pavement.

This had been real. The proof was right there.

 

Some people thought the video was fake, even though there were three different angles. Others thought it was some kind of sick joke, or a performance piece thing. Holland’s uncle got pissed beyond belief. He showed up at one guy’s apartment screaming his lungs off, demanding the video be taken down.

Meanwhile, Kieran and I were making plans of our own. I figured if something like clothes can come back from whatever that is, then maybe we can film it. That was our working theory. Kieran got a hold of a spare phone from his sister, and we decided to give it a shot. We got a selfie stick and chased down a streetlight, hoping to time it just right.

It took us a couple of tries, but a few days later, we nailed it. Just beneath the streetlight outside Mr. Barker’s sandwich place, we managed to sneak in a recording phone. We put it on the sidewalk facing upward, making sure not to have anything but the phone and the selfie stick go inside the light.

As it turned off, I grabbed the selfie stick and pulled the phone in. The screen was fried, but we managed to get the files off it.

 

The video footage was strange. We’d only filmed for about thirty seconds or so, but the recording was well over three minutes. In it, you could see my face as I turned the video on. Then there’s this bright light as the camera looks straight up. There’s a static crackling and you can hear what sounds like a spinning fan going higher and higher. You can hear Kieran and I talking in the background.

Then, around twenty seconds in, the screen goes white. There’s this crackling noise that rises and falls like an electric pulse. The white light would flicker with shades of blue and green, only to grow stronger and fade in waves. That’s all there was.

Kieran and I sat on a bench and turned up the volume, using one earbud each. We maxed out the volume, trying to discern some kind of detail. Kieran gave up on the fourth try.

“What if we speed it up?” he asked. “Or slow it down, or whatever.”

“Why not play it backwards?” I scoffed. “Could be some Pink Floyd shit.”

“What?”

“Fuck it.”

We tried a couple of things. Slowing it down, speeding it up. Low pass filter, high pass filter. It wasn’t until we tried a noise reduction filter that we realized what we were listening to. It wasn’t a wave, or a pulse. It was a noise of some kind. It sounded like someone talking.

“An eye,” Kieran mumbled. “Sounds like they’re saying ‘an eye’.”

“They?” I asked. “Who’s they?”

“I dunno, someone,” Kieran shrugged. “Someone talking.”

I didn’t like it but he was right, it did sound like a voice. And it did sound like it was saying something. I just didn’t like what I was hearing.

 

A couple of folks were escalating things. There was this neighborhood watch kind of deal with some guys walking the streets with guns, taking shots at streetlights that appeared. Some probably just did it for fun, but some of them were serious about it. Holland’s uncle was one of them. Kieran and I didn’t have the heart to hand him back the shoe and the shorts. The man looked like he was about to tear someone’s head off whenever we saw him.

We tried to do a couple more recordings. There weren’t as many streetlights around, but we caught a couple. It got scary though, Kieran was a bit rough around the edges. He almost stepped into the light once; I had to hold him back. I think if you see something enough times you start to think it’s no big deal even when it can kill you. Like he was somehow exempt from danger.

We got two more videos, and they were pretty similar. The sounds we got were a bit different, and the length of the recording changed, but we couldn’t get a clearer image. We tried putting the phone on the side, but it was difficult getting it to work without a working screen. We kinda had to guess where the record button was.

After the third recording, the battery exploded.

 

It was a late Friday when I was out with Kieran, trying to figure out what to do next. We were standing outside the corner shop, but they’d closed early. It was getting dark, but we were keeping an eye on our phones. No sign of lights. We stood on the same corner where we’d last seen Holland; a couple of folks had put flowers on the sidewalk. Mostly roses, and a couple of sunflowers. The petals were already sprinkled across the street.

“Think we can try again?” Kieran asked. “We can use my phone.”

“What’s the point?” I asked, kicking some flowers around. “It’s just light and noise. Don’t mean shit.”

“So we just go home? Then what?”

“Could play ball,” I shrugged. “Dunno.”

“We’re one man short for three-on-three.”

A rose petal got stuck to my sneaker. I kicked it off with a sigh.

“Fine. We’ll use your phone.”

 

We walked around for little over an hour. We heard a gunshot and saw one of the lights go out further down the street. I don’t even think it was part of our neighborhood; it was way too far off. I bet a couple of innocent lights got busted in the process.

Kieran and I walked round and round the block a couple of times, trying to find something on our phones. Not a peep. Maybe the watch got them all. I mean, there had to be an end to the lights at some point. We ended up right where we started, outside the corner shop. Kieran was pissed as all hell. He was calling people, asking them to check their phones to see if anyone was picking up something.

Meanwhile, I was checking my socials. People were talking about the lights like it was some kind of urban legend. Even people who lived in the neighborhood were talking about it like it was an excuse. It was this attitude of ‘we know what’s really going on’. Like Holland was some kind of gangster who had it coming. Didn’t matter how many people came to his defense in the comments, the memes and shitty jokes were all that remained in the top comments.

After ten minutes or so, Kieran put his phone down and frowned. Then he looked up.

“Hey,” he said. “Your phone okay?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “98%.”

“We’ve been out for hours, man. It shouldn’t be 98%.”

My hand felt warm as I looked down. I got five bars of coverage. Sweat trickled down my neck as my hair stood up from the static air. I realized I was leaning back on something that hadn’t been there a moment before. Something metallic, and tall.

The light came on.

 

My throat immediately closed off, like my body was protecting me from something. I couldn’t even exhale, it was just this thick miasma sinking into my lungs. The light was blinding me, turning the entire world a burning white.

I could see an outline of the street, even then. I could see a shadow of what looked like Kieran just a couple of feet ahead, but the world was too bright to make out the details. He looked like someone had spilled an ink blot in his likeness.

It was the same neighborhood. The corner shop, the sandwich place; but it all looked different. Cleaner. Different names on the signs. More screens in the windows. Bigger sun in the sky.

Kieran was moving around, but slowly. He was reaching for me, screaming something. It came through as this static, where only a couple of syllables made sense. He was panicking, but it was like seeing it in slow-motion.

 

I turned my head, looking for something. Anything. I didn’t even know what, just whatever could save me. My skin felt like it’d been dipped in boiling water, turning from a searing heat to an icy cold. I could feel the moisture in my eyes and mouth evaporate, and the skin around my gums tightened as my teeth strained against the sudden pressure.

There were people there, dead in the streets. Most of them made it a couple of steps from the lights. Others were still sitting under them, as if waiting for them to come back on. One dead man looked more like a burned log than a person, leaving a seared imprint on the concrete.

It had only been a couple of seconds, but my head was swimming. I could see heat swaying on the horizon, and the sky beyond as a distant mirage. It was mid-day, and it was killing me.

There were no clouds, no sky. It was just a pale white and a black hole, like I was staring up into an all-encompassing eye. Blood vessels the size of distant galaxies. An impossible attention, turned our way.

I remember trying to say a word, but I could only click my tongue. An eye. An eye. An eye.

 

I took a step and fell forward. I’d slipped on something. Even now I could see the flowers on the street; the rose petals and the sunflowers. They’d turned a strange blue and curled in on themselves, like dying bugs under a magnifying glass. Kicking out with my leg, I realized why I’d slipped. I’d stepped on something. Holland’s second shoe.

I kicked it. It bounced a couple of feet and lost its color. Maybe I was going blind. My eyes were swelling shut, but even with my eyes closed the light burned through my mind. It was this otherworldly feeling, like I was falling, but not from the world disappearing beneath me. It felt more like I was growing smaller and smaller at such a rate that the air around me couldn’t keep up.

Something shifted. I heard a thump, like rubber hitting glass. Kieran had thrown the shoe at the streetlight and made it flicker – if only for a second. He yelled something, but I only heard the first word.

“Hold-”

I just lay there, trying to force air in, or out, of my lungs. I couldn’t. It all felt like poison.

 

This place was wrong. It was made for something or someone else, at another time and place. People weren’t meant to walk those streets or sit beneath its lights. It must have been some kind of mistake. A huge, terrible, mistake. And all the while, something was watching me break into pieces. An eye.

I remember the last sensation of touch leaving my fingers as the concrete faded away. My mind was shutting down, racing a hundred ways per second. Maybe that’s what it feels like when you’re dying, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I was doing. It wasn’t really panic, or euphoria. It was more like anything, everything. The rubber taste of a pacifier, the smell of batteries, the feel of a freshly made bed under my fingers. Like my mind was grasping at whatever straws it could find, hoping to keep me kicking for just a little longer.

Then it slowed. And slowed. And slowed.

 

Now, I’ve heard about this next part from some guys in school. No one knew Holland’s uncle used to be in the navy. No one knew he could hit a streetlight from all the way down the street, one handed, with a handgun. He barely had to aim, he just pointed, clicked, boom. Done. It was the only light he shot, and he hit it right on the mark, first try.

And thank God he did. The moment the streetlight popped, I could feel a flush of cool air. It felt like I’d come up to the surface after a long dive.

The moment my lungs opened I exhaled this black powder, straight from the bottom of my lungs. Kieran was already dragging me into the street, calling for help. I couldn’t see anything. Everything burned, like I’d pressed my whole body against a hot stovetop and only just now released the pressure. Some people were running our way, calling out to us. I heard someone mention my name. It hurt when Kieran shook my shoulder, but it was nice to feel something real.

When I finally got enough soot out to gasp for breath, I could feel the world returning to me. My thoughts mellowed, and the pinprick in my dry eyes widened.

 

They had my mom and aunt come pick me up. They had to drive me into the city. By the time I got to the emergency room I was so tired that I couldn’t remember my name. I just sat there giggling like goofball, falling in and out of consciousness. They probably thought I was on something.

When I woke up the next day I was on the couch in my aunt’s living room. Mom was stroking my hair. The TV was running, but they’d lowered the volume. There was orange juice on the table, and one of Mr. Barker’s sandwiches. The meat kind.

I remember everything hurting. My eyes, especially. I could barely keep my hands steady.

But man, was I happy.

 

I moved out of that neighborhood a couple of years ago when I got a job in the inner city. Some folks may have heard the rumors of those strange lights, but most thought it was a hoax. I think the total number of missing people was somewhere around nine, but at least one of them turned out to be someone who skipped town. Didn’t really help the credibility of the real victims.

If you talk to the right people, and mention the right names, I’m sure they’ll tell you all about it. Not because it’s the most interesting thing in the world, or the strangest thing they’ve seen. No, they’ll tell you because it was something we managed to deal with as a community. After a couple of weeks, there were no more streetlights. We got them all, and they never came back on. Holland’s uncle got the last one, and thank God he did.

I haven’t been there for some time now, but from what I hear, things are pretty much the same. Mr. Barker is probably closing in on 80 by now, but he still works the sandwich stand. Some folks still leave flowers by the corner shop. And if you ask the right person what happened there, they’ll tell it like it is.

Holland, he gone.

He gone with the light.

The biggest changes in life usually come about in unexpected ways. Back when this all went down, I wasn’t expecting anything to impact my day-to-day life. I was worrying about things like whether or not Marissa was going to respond to my texts or ghost me for the fourth day in a row. I was worried about whether or not I had to work an extra shift the following week, or if I could take time off to go to a concert. That’s the kind of thing I was thinking about, not whatever the hell was going on with my kitchen counters.

I should take a moment to explain.

Back then, I was living in an apartment. The owner was having it refurbished, but there’d been a shipment delay that caused a couple of things to be delivered at a later date. For example, a new sink for the bathroom. The landlord switched it while I was out. Next up was the kitchen countertops.

They used to be this cheap, powdery, pressed-cork type of wood, but now they’d been exchanged with slabs of stone. I didn’t even think about it until I got home from work and saw the note on the door.

“Installation finished. We appreciate your patience!”

 

I barely even noticed. A kitchen counter is something you sort of take for granted. It wasn’t until I made myself a sandwich that I realized that, hell, these things were pretty neat. Smooth, polished, stone. It felt nice to the touch. A little warm. Each was a distinctly different piece, having varied shapes and patterns engrained in the stone.

The counter was split into four straight sections and a corner piece. I dragged my hand across each one. My microwave and knife block were still there, so they must’ve put everything back in place by hand. That was nice of them.

As I got to the section at the far end, my thumb snagged on something. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but it felt like a splinter. I put my thumb in my mouth, but not fast enough. A few drops of blood spilled on the counter. I’d only had them for a couple of minutes, and there was already blood on them. That had to be bad luck.

I never figured out what I snagged my thumb on.

 

I didn’t think much about it for a couple of days. I’d walk by those counters when I made my dinner, or brushed my teeth, or whatever other little things you do every day that you don’t think that much about. It’s just a part of the ambience. Stone, wood, plastic; it doesn’t really matter. It’s another thing, and things don’t matter that much when you’re late for work or finally getting a response from Marissa about meeting up next Sunday.

One day as I was standing there cutting up an orange, I poked myself on the index finger. Another few droplets spilled on the counter. As I wrapped my finger in some paper, I watched those blood drops pool in the middle of the counter. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a slight tilt to it. Any liquid spilled on the counter naturally pooled in the middle, and if there was too much it trickled out like a spout. None of the other pieces of the counter did this, only the edge section.

I cleaned it up and enjoyed my orange, not thinking too much about it. A lot of things out there are over-engineered to the point where you don’t know about half the features. Like those little white paper thimbles you use to put ketchup in at fast food joints. Did you know those can fold out? They can get twice as big. It’s the kind of little thing you can go your whole life without noticing.

For about a week, everything was as it should be. Work, having a coffee with Marissa, getting to bed early. Just the everyday cycle of things. I did notice I was having a streak of bad luck though. There was always something bothering me, but it was usually a mild annoyance. A paper cut, brushing my teeth a little too hard, biting down on the corner of my nail until a little red dribbled out. Stuff like that. But every time it happened, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of things.

First, that it almost always happened near that kitchen counter.

And second, that whatever little drop of blood was spilled always pooled so naturally in the center of it, like the countertop was built for this.

 

I remember the thought sneaking up on me like a prowling cat. I was having a sandwich in the kitchen after a night out. As I waited for my phone to buzz, I considered just how many times I’d accidentally bled on that counter. The answer, once I thought about it, surprised me.

I’d bled on it every day since it got there.

It seemed unlikely, but once I mapped it out, that was the truth of it. I always flossed my teeth while walking around the kitchen, and my gums were not in the best of shape. A little blood there. I had this scab on my arm that, when scratched, bled a little. Another few drops there. A paper cut here, a slip of the knife there, a particularly bloody steak … one way or another, for about a week, there’d been blood on that counter every single day.

I chalked it up to bad luck, and even then, it was at most a curiosity. As soon as that phone buzzed, the thought fled me like a startled bird darting for the sky.

 

I did start to pay a little more attention though. I was being a bit more careful. I stopped walking around while brushing my teeth, instead resorting to sitting down and counting out the seconds. I started preparing my food on another section of the counter, as if depriving the edge piece would somehow grant me some modicum of control. But even so, a couple of drops would make their way to it, one way or another. Sometimes when I wasn’t even paying attention.

For example, one day I smacked a particularly large mosquito on it, leaving a little blood stain. Another time I had a nosebleed, and I didn’t even notice it until it got on my hands. Despite my (albeit minor) acts of resistance, a couple of drops would find their way to that counter either way. That’s where that alien thought hit me for the first time.

There’s always blood on the counter.

 

I’ve always been a bit superstitious. I avoid breaking mirrors or walking under ladders. Hell, I don’t say “thank you” when someone says “bless you” after a sneeze. I’ve heard that’s bad luck too. It’s not so much that I actually believe the universe will turn against me if I abstain from certain rituals, but it’s more like a set of behaviors that have imprinted on me over the years. I think we all have things like that which we just need to do. Little misconceptions and superstitions that keep us believing things work in ways they don’t.

I began to consider the possibility that maybe, somehow, there had to be blood on the counter. I didn’t question how, or why, but the idea itself added up. There’d been a little blood there every single day, that much was true. It had all been from a series of little misfortunes, but that didn’t change the fact.

But I think what made me uneasy was that little groove. That slight tilt, making every drop of liquid pool in the middle. It was so perfect. Symmetric. Like the stone itself was made for this purpose.

I would just have to wait and see. I was going away for a few days, so there’d be no blood on the counter anyway.

 

I was off for a few days. Marissa and I were seeing each other, and I went to stay at her place. I also had a work trip the following Monday, so I was away from home for a couple of days. By the time I got back home I was so exhausted that I didn’t even consider the kitchen counter. I mean, who in their right mind would?

It wasn’t until I heard a strange noise that I snapped to attention. It was coming from the kitchen. I put down my bag and noticed two distinct and recognizable sounds long before I stepped through the kitchen doorway. One sound was the hiss of a sudden wind. The other was the buzzing of flies.

There was a dead bird on the floor. It had crashed through the window, slammed into my kitchen, and died. The flies were already feasting on it. I could see them crawling all over, their wings twitching. From a distance it just looked like static; these little black dots spread out in a random pattern, the only constant being their movement.

And as always, there was blood on the counter.

 

The landlord, a tall and skinny guy in his late 40’s, had me put up a cardboard patch on the window while we waited for a replacement panel. When he came up to inspect the damage, he dragged his finger across the edge of the broken glass. Naturally, he got a little cut. As he hurried to wash it off, a couple of drops of blood spilled on the counter, because of course it did. What is it with people and having to touch things that we know will hurt us?

“Gonna be a few days,” he mumbled. “How’re you enjoying the countertops? Pretty neat, huh?”

“Yeah, neat,” I said, nodding along. “Much smoother.”

“And tougher,” he added, giving them a tap. “Gonna need a sledgehammer to make a dent in this thing.”

“You know what they’re made of?”

“Some kind of stone? Limestone, I think.”

He patted the stone and went on his merry way, turning only when he got to the door.

“I’ll have the window fixed by next week. Sorry about the hassle.”

 

While the dead bird was gone, the flies remained. They pooled around that countertop, as if still sensing something in its grooves. Then again, maybe they knew there’d be more blood to come. Either way, they were there to stay. I had to get a fly swatter and hang it next to my fridge. I got a blue one, with a sunflower on the handle.

As I was heading to work one morning, I knew I’d be gone pretty late. I was seeing Marissa after work, and chances were I’d be spending the night there. That made me pause. If I were to leave, would another bird come crashing through the window? What other absurdity could happen?

Then again, nothing could happen. There was no evidence pointing to this being anything else than my superstitious mind making up ghost stories in my head. And yet the buzzing of the flies told another story. They weren’t around for make-believe. They wanted blood.

I don’t know what made me hold my hand out over the countertop. I had a small cut on my thumb and applying just a little bit of pressure made a drop of blood spill out. I didn’t feel a thing as it plopped into the groove, centering itself perfectly on the counter. I don’t know why I did it, but I felt this ease in my chest. Like I’d set something straight.

I could walk away with a good conscience.

 

The following weekend, Marissa was having a get-together with some of her friends. I had planned to go, but at the last minute, she had to cancel. There’d been a leak in her bathroom. On a whim I offered to have her relocate to my place for the night. We hadn’t been dating for that long, but this would be a good time to meet some of her friends and break some ice. It took some convincing, but she eventually came around to it.

Marissa arrived early. We made some appetizers together and prepped some cocktails. She spent at least two hours putting together a playlist. I made a little poster and put it up in the hallway, telling my neighbors we were having a get-together. All fairly normal casual party stuff. It was nice though, it felt very couple-y. We hadn’t done a lot of that stuff before.

We were expecting about ten people, but some of them brought plus ones. Some younger folks barely in their 20’s mixing with some work friends well into their 30’s. Some brought wine, others stuck to smiles and snacks. My entryway was too small to fit all the jackets.

 

We had a nice enough time. Marissa butterflied from one group to another, gossiping and chatting away, leaving me to handle the practical details. Getting things from the oven, filling up bowls, putting out glasses, opening wine bottles, that kind of thing. Meanwhile, she was floating around, having people admire her fancy new dress. It wasn’t that fancy though; it cost less than $30. But to her credit, she wore it well.

I was, admittedly, in a bit of a mood. Marissa had barely introduced me to any of her friends, and I hadn’t heard her mention me as the boyfriend to any of them. It was something we’d discussed; her reluctance to actually outright commit to the relationship. Instead she just introduced me by my first name and rushed off to the next adventure. It frustrated me. It’s an ugly feeling.

We had some fun though. There were a couple of party games, plenty of drinks to go around, and the kind of half-shouted semi-private late-night philosophizing that can only come from an abundance of wine and a comfy kitchen chair. I didn’t learn a single name from those who came that night, but I remember our many talks about ridiculously deep topics. No wait, I think there was a guy named Kibble. He had a whole thing about probability that he talked about.

 

Sometime around midnight, things were getting hazy. I’d had a couple too many drinks, and about half the guests had left. Those who remained had dedicated themselves to finishing what was left in the bottles left behind. Marissa was half-asleep on the couch, clinging to one of her friends and nearly snoozing on their shoulder. Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen, washing up a wine glass. One of the guests had a thing about not wanting to refill their glass; it had to be cleaned in-between pours. I didn’t mind, it was nice to get out of that room for a bit.

I don’t remember her name, but she was one of the younger guests. She came in, grabbed the wine glass, and leaned against the counter. She grasped her wine bottle and absentmindedly made small talk as she waved it around. She had a lot of big ideas and big words, making the sway of the bottle go further and further. Finally, as she waved away a fly buzzing near her face, she smashed the wine glass. Out of instinct, she tried to grab the pieces. She closed her fingers around the sharp edges and froze.

She bled from her hands. The others rushed in to see what was going on. I don’t think they noticed the flies had been there all along.

 

As I looked at the others, I realized something unsettling. As blood pooled in the center of the counter, no one looked worried. No one was calling out, screaming, or running up to see what was going on. It’s like they already knew. They just stood back, and looked, as blood poured from her hands.

She didn’t seem to mind either. No urgency, no call for a band-aid, nothing. She could take one step to the left and have her hand run under a cold tap, but instead she just stood there, letting the blood pool on the counter. As I looked around the room, I was the first to speak up.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

There was no response. Instead she squeezed her hands a little, forcing out another dribble of blood. The others just watched.

“Are you okay?”

Again, nothing. Just the buzzing of flies.

 

After about a minute, she moved over and ran her hand under the tap. Marissa got a fresh towel from the bathroom while I moved over to sweep up the glass. Not five minutes later, they’d all said their goodbyes and left – even Marissa. She was supposed to stay the night, but she’d snuck out like the rest of them, leaving me to clean up that mess on my own.

And yeah, she was ditzy. A bit irresponsible. But I don’t think that was a matter of carelessness – there was something else in the air. The groove on the counter was full, like an overflowing cup. The blood had reached the spout, making it drip on the floor.

I stood there for a while, just watching it. The whole thing felt wrong, like I’d been complicit of a crime. It’s like the air of the room had been sucked out, leaving everyone fatigued and fearful. Like the life of the party spilled out onto the floor.

By the time I got my soapy mop out, close to 2 am, the flies were already gathering. No matter what I think happened, the blood on the counter was real. I could wash it away, but that didn’t change the fact that it happened.

 

I decided I was going to do something about it. I called my landlord and tried to have him exchange it, pointing out the groove as a construction error. It wasn’t bad enough to make a glass tip or spill, but it was a clear imperfection. He agreed that it was bad, but replacing the whole thing would be expensive. Instead he settled on a compromise; he’d come by with a bunch of tools and smooth it out himself. He was a handy guy, he could do it. I was a bit skeptic, but it was better than nothing.

He came by that same weekend, toolbox in hand. I was a bit distracted. Marissa and I were having a fight, but it’d take her fifteen minutes to respond to my messages, and the responses I got were usually just one to three words. Meanwhile, I was tapping away, trying to come up with the correct combination of words just to get her to care. I was losing.

“It’s this one, right?” the landlord called out from the kitchen. “I’ll start with the angle grinder.”

He pointed at the right section, and I nodded. He waved away a couple of flies and gave me a heads-up. There was gonna be some noise.

I moved into the bedroom and closed the door. I was so focused on the little screen that I barely paid attention to what was happening in the other room. She’d left me on read for three messages, and we were going on twenty minutes. It was driving me crazy. When I finally put my phone down, I realized the machine noise was sounding a bit… strange. Muted. Not just from the closed door, but something else, too.

 

Even from outside the kitchen, I could see a small streak of blood. It had shot out far enough to almost reach the hallway.

I’m not gonna speculate on what happened, or why. But the landlord was standing by the countertop with the tip of his index finger sawn off. The angle grinder was still spinning, kissing the tip of his finger bone with an industrial-grade diamond blade. I could see smoke coming off of it as the machine shrieked. The landlord, on the other hand, didn’t say a word.

He just stood there, watching the blood overflow.

 

I pulled the plug on the grinder. He slowly snapped out of it, but he never really caught on to the kind of urgency a situation like that demands. There was no rush of adrenaline or desperate calls for help. He just nodded, excused the mess, took his tools, and left. He’d fixed absolutely nothing.

As I waved away a couple of flies I realized he’d left the tip of his finger on the counter. I could barely see it from the mass of black dots swarming it, rubbing their wings together.

I think that’s the moment it finally sunk in. I wasn’t dealing with something normal or rational. For all intents and purposes, there was some kind of will and way acting on its own, pushing one fact beyond a strange fiction.

There would always be blood on the counter.

 

 I spent some time looking up what I could. There really wasn’t that much to say. The countertop was made of limestone, cut and prepped in Mexico. It was imported and assembled stateside. That was pretty much it, the company was still very active and there were no signs of there being anything unusual about them. They had plenty of limestone countertops, and everyone seemed happy about them. No crazies in the comments ranting about blood.

I did drop into a couple of rabbit holes. For example, a lot of old Mayan temples were made of limestone too. They constructed everything from temples to altars in that same material. It’s not that strange, really. You can make a bunch of stuff with limestone.

I remember listening to a short documentary about the Mayans as I mopped the kitchen floor for the second time in less than a week. My mop was getting this sickly pinkish hue from having been dipped in a deep red over and over. I tried washing it a couple of times, but I could still see the red in it long after it was gone.

I ended up sitting in the kitchen, completely forgetting to check Marissa’s reply. Instead I looked at my countertop, trying to figure out what the deal was. This crazy thought came to mind.

Maybe it wanted to be something else, much like how I’d wanted to be a cowboy growing up. Maybe this was a way of lashing out or realizing some kind of untapped potential. It was impossible to know for sure.

The flies followed the tip of the finger all the way into the garbage.

 

Over the next few days, things with Marissa got progressively worse. We got into another fight, and when she outright said she wasn’t sure that we were actually dating, I called the whole thing off. I wasn’t gonna stand for that. I spent some time with my friends, took a couple extra shifts, and tried to keep busy. Or maybe I just didn’t want to go home.

Just passing through my kitchen would give me this sinking feeling, like I was in the presence of something. Like I was missing some key detail or forgetting to do something important. At times I considered giving the counter a drop of blood just to feel myself calm down. A tap on the finger isn’t so bad – it’s much worse to anticipate an accident that you know will come. If you haven’t bled on the countertop, you’re not gonna start chopping carrots, or cutting chicken breasts. You know what’s going to happen.

But things reached a tipping point when I took a double shift and crashed at work. I was gone for a full day, and when I got back home, there was a dead mouse on the counter. I have no idea where it came from, or how it got there. I live on the second floor, so it must have made its way up somehow. I’d never heard or seen any signs of rodents before.

I’d had enough.

 

I got a hammer and a big iron spike. I’d seen one outside, it must’ve been used to secure the fence leading up to the entrance. Now I was gonna use it like a chisel. I hurried into the kitchen, my boots still wet with mud, and placed the spike on the countertop; readying a blow from my hammer.

Then, I dropped the spike.

It wasn’t a conscious movement; my hand just twitched a little. There was this impulse to lay the palm of my hand flat on the counter, spreading my fingers in every direction. I was still readying the hammer. With the same feeling as I had at the party, I wondered why I wasn’t putting the hammer down. Why was I letting this happen?

What was I, exactly, about to do?

 

I blinked and dropped the hammer, letting it crack one of the kitchen tiles. I’d been fully prepared to smash my own hand on the countertop for no apparent reason. It just seemed like the appropriate thing to do. There’d been a will imposed on me.

I picked the spike up, and the hammer, and tried again. Faster this time. Spike up, hammer up, a scream. At the last moment I turn around and flick the hammer straight across the room. It crashes into the opposite wall, making a dent in the gypsum.

My hand felt warm, and as I turned to look, I realized I was holding the spike at a strange angle. The tip of it was burrowed in the palm of my hand.

And there was blood on the counter.

 

My thumb was sore, so I couldn’t stay up all night scrolling. Marissa was already out meeting new people, posting on her socials. She didn’t even slow down. Not even a frown on her reel. Not that I could scroll long enough to check, my hand was killing me.

I stayed up late that night, wondering what to make of this. I was gonna have to clean the counter again, but really, what was the point? No matter how many times I cleaned it, it ended up the same way. There would always be blood on the counter, no matter what I did, and no matter how much I tried to fight it. I could be standing there every day, spraying it with the same lemon-scented bullshit, and I’d have to do it again the next day. Like showering, or brushing your teeth. Was this my life now?

I wasn’t imagining this. It was getting worse. It was demanding more, and bigger. No one had to spell it out for me, but I could feel it.

It wanted to take a life.

 

I got back in the kitchen the next day. I put on three pairs of gloves, got that iron spike and the hammer, and took another swing at the countertop. This time I got a hit in, cracking part of the seal underneath. It took a couple of tries, and I smashed my own thumb once, but it was progress. I took a break to check my thumb, then got back at it.

It took me nine hours to break enough of the seal around the countertop to dislodge the whole stone. By that time my hands were a wreck, and there were bloody handprints all over the damn thing, but I got it done. I pulled it off and dropped it to the floor, cracking another floor tile. It wasn’t that heavy, but my hands felt like they were burning. I decided to call the landlord again. I would happily pay for the damages as long as he got rid of the damn thing.

He came by with his finger wrapped in a bandage. He was, admittedly, pretty tired of this whole ordeal. Noticing the mess I’d made, he just sighed.

“I’ll pay for it,” I said. “All of it.”

He nodded at me. Without another word, he grabbed the stone slab. But instead of heading for the door, he stopped for a moment.

There was something about the look in his eyes that made me uneasy. His mind was a mile away. He was looking at nothing. I snapped my fingers at him, but he didn’t as much as blink. Instead he raised the stone slab like he was Moses holding a Commandment.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Hello?”

He looked at me, then shook his head. He looked down at the stone, letting out a frustrated grunt. And in a fit of frustration, he took a step back, and flung the entire slab out the window.

 

Glass everywhere. The damned thing sailed through the air, landing with a meaty thud. The landlord shrugged at me, gasping for air. That’d been more exerting than it looked.

“Let’s go get it in the truck,” he said. “I’ll get rid of it.”

We went down the stairs together, but something didn’t feel right. Not just because of the action of throwing something out a window, but it seemed too easy. I’d fought to get that thing off, but he’d thrown it out without a second thought. It didn’t add up.

Coming outside, I could see I was right.

 

Turns out, a neighbor had passed my window just as the landlord chucked the slab. That meaty thud was not a chunk of stone hitting the lawn, and not a matter of messing up the community garden. It was an adult man having his head caved in against the pavement.

It felt so unreal, seeing a full body in a colorful sports jacket with half their head cracked on the ground. There was still movement. A fading pulse. People were coming out from all over. It felt like descending into a nightmare, and I didn’t know whether to run, or cry, or scream. I ended up doing neither. I just stood there, like the guests at my party.

Looking around, so was everyone else. They stared in silent reverie. The whole neighborhood was out to see the dead man on the street. It was less of a murder, and more like a… community gathering. No one was happy, or cheering, or even expressive; they just stood there, like this was the most normal thing to happen all day. Like this was supposed to happen. Like it was expected.

“Is anyone gonna call for help?” I gasped. “Anyone?”

A dog was going ballistic nearby, barking up a storm, and I couldn’t stop staring at the limestone countertop. It was still intact, laying to the side. Absolutely drenched in blood.

No one was moving a muscle.

 

Eventually, there was an ambulance, and police, and witness statements. People asked me in very careful voices about what happened, offering me the occasional snack from a vending machine. Probably to compensate me for sticking me in an interrogation room for hours on end. Good cop, bad cop.

I didn’t know what to say. I told them what truth I could, that there’d been a problem with the countertop and that I’d asked my landlord to help me remove it. The rest was a matter of impulse, random happenstance, and something I couldn’t quite explain.

All the while, my head was swimming. Had this happened because of some shared paranoia, or had it been the will of some unseen third party? Were we ultimately responsible?

 

By the time they finished, I’d been watching their notes. There were scribbles about the assembly, the manufacturer, timing of the attack, all of it.  The doodle of an eye. I couldn’t bring myself to explain my theory; it didn’t make sense for me to mention it. I couldn’t think of a way to say it without sounding like a lunatic.

Things don’t wish for things. They don’t want to be other things, because they can’t want. And yet, there seems to be this inclination, this divine leaning towards one thing acting like something else. It was the only way I could think of it.

It was a kitchen counter, wishing to be a sacrificial altar. And we were obliged to help, unknowingly or not.

 

Before I went home that day, I decided to ask the officers a final question.

“What’s going to happen to it?”

“It’ll be filed in evidence,” they explained. “It’s technically a sort of murder weapon.”

I almost laughed. They were gonna file it under evidence, and put it among the knives, and guns, and iron pipes. They’d leave it on some shelf somewhere in storage and forget about it. It’d sit there as other things would pile on top. Evil things. Horrible things stained with hateful impulses.

It would be a resting place where desperation and bad intention would rest upon it for decades to come.

And as the stone was locked away, sealed and unclean, they had assured that there would always be blood on the counter.