r/Dreading

It's Friday.

She comes around every Friday.

It's like clockwork. Every Friday afternoon for the last... I don't know... four years?

She's my ex-girlfriend. She comes around and wants to talk, but I just can't anymore. She's always so sad. All she did for the first few months or so after the end was just cry and apologize for how things ended, and that hurt to see, but I couldn't even tell her to scram.

"Go on, live your life. Don't you get it? It's over."

That's all I want to tell her, but... you know how it is.

The worst part was that, eventually, she wasn't coming by alone. She was bringing people by. Usually trying to celebrate something. She actually showed up with a cupcake on my birthday as if I'd celebrate with her.

I wish she'd move on. She needs to move on, I can tell. She looks so... lonely. I see it in her eyes. All she wants is for us to get back together, but that's never happening.

Ok, I take it back. The cupcake wasn't the worst part. The WORST part was when she started bringing the kid. She tried telling me that I got her pregnant, that we had a son. I didn't listen to her. I didn't believe her. Maybe I didn't want to.

She'd go on and on about how he was 'just like his daddy', but again, that's not me. I... I don't want him to be my son.

Is that too cruel to say? I don't think it is, given the circumstances. She's losing her mind, she can't come to terms with the end. It's O-V-E-R... OVER.

Sometimes she's here, sitting in my grass at the ass crack of dawn just... talking. To me. As if I'm listening. I mean, I am, but that's beside the point. I can't just... go out there and give her a hug, even though I wish I could sometimes. There are a lot of things I'd wish for. I wish my place didn't feel so claustrophobic. I wish her son didn't look so much like me.

I wish I wasn't stuck in this grave. We'd still be together.

George Corden had dreamed of this moment for years. All his time poring over ancient scrolls and tablets, refining and refining his translations, practically learning to read the heretofore inscrutable strokes of cuneiform, all lead up to this singular moment. He had dismissed the team of local diggers he had hired to excavate the site. Gave them all some bonus coin, told them to enjoy themselves for the weekend. They thought it was for them, but he wanted - needed - to be alone for this last part.

Up in his ivory tower, he had been laughed at. At first his colleagues had just assumed he was interested in myth and fiction, not that he believed it. Then he had no colleagues and his acquaintances would hold their noses at him at conferences and in hallways. Of course none of it was true; he was a madman for not seeing it, for believing it.

After a time, the process of becoming a pariah becomes self-sustaining. When enough people treat you as though you were less than dirt (at least something useful can sprout from dirt), your reputation accretes, layer by layer, until people unfamiliar with you can still see your shell of disdain: the chain reaction of academic isolation can end only with annihilation.

Unless you leave the tower. Which, of course, the former Professor Corden had done. He descended down into the earth as far as he had ascended, going through archaeological teams and his vast inherited wealth at an ever-increasing rate. Until now.

Now was his final dig. The money was all but gone, but as it had bled out of him his certainty had grown in equal measure. Somewhere in this pit, probably five or so inches below his very feet, lay his treasure. He put pick to dirt and found it: a lamp, burnished to a matte bronze color by sand and years.

Those who laughed him out of academia would have told him that there was no genie inside that lamp because genies were not real. They also told him that the lamp was not there in the first place. What did they know?

Before rubbing the lamp, Corden retrieved from a buttoned breast pocket a piece of paper, heavy with his leaden scrawlings. He had practiced and rehearsed this moment, but still there was no sense in taking any chances. He glanced at the paper, mouthing along as he read the words he had slaved over for years. Satisfied, he rubbed the lamp.

A thick haze wooshed out of the lamp, filling the space around Corden. The acrid gas invaded any orifice of his it could, filling him, judging him, emptying. As the cursed effluvium left him, Corden felt somehow lesser than he had before, as though some critical portion of his essence had left him along with the genie. The thought fled from his mind as the figure took form in front of him.

It was hideous. Shaped like a man in general, it had the head and tusks of a board. Its eyes, full of yellow sclera holding large, vacant pupils, gazed directly at Corden’s own, burrowing deeper into him than any lover he’d ever had. Its furry black tongue lolled out of its mouth, dripping a viscous saliva.

The genie spoke, making harsh sounds from the back of its throat. Corden hadn’t anticipated that, but of course there was no reason to think it would come out speaking English. He only hoped that whatever magic animated the being of smoke and sorcery would translate for it as well. He greeted it as politely as he knew how. The translation worked; the genie spoke in a way he could understand. It spoke of wishes and pursuit.

Corden had not expected that last bit. The rules were simple. There must be balance. The genie would grant his wishes, as many as he wanted to make for anything he wanted. But each wish had a cost. With each working of magic he demanded, the countervailing forces would grow stronger. Simple wishes would grow their power in small ways; larger wishes in larger ways. If this force, which Corden felt was honestly underspecified if you asked him, ever caught him, his reckoning would come due.

He hesitated. He had planned on making grand wishes, the sort that apparently would summon all the hounds of hell right on his heels or something. He had prepared for an ironic genie, one who would interpret his wishes to the letter but specifically countervail the spirit. His wishes were explicit and legalistic, as devoid of loopholes as he could manage. He had not thought there’d be a cost. Perhaps he should change his mind. If the cost was the catch, then maybe he didn’t need the thoroughness. He pondered, but ultimately decided he’s sacrificed everything else in his life to get here. He couldn’t go small.

He wished, basically, for an infinitude of resources, power, love. He wished for all those who had scoffed at him to have their comeuppances. He wished to go down, now and forever, as the greatest man ever. He wished for everything he could think of. He wished for godhood.

And then he ran. And as he ran, he looked back. Behind him was not the dusty dig he had descended into. Instead it was a void, like outer space but without the twinkling orbs. He gazed, and the nothingness gazed back at him. He knew then that what the genie had said was true. It would never stop. He would never be safe. He had power, riches, fame, adoration, reputation, goods, services, influence, money, gems, intelligence, spirit, everything and anything. Except safety. Except freedom. Except the ability to ever, ever stop.

I grew up with a typical middle class household upbringing. You didn't leave the fan on if you weren't using it, the radio playing if you planned on leaving the house, and you especially didn't leave the tv on while you went about your day unless you wanted your parents to complain about the electric bill.

Well, here I am 30 years old, my own house, no kids, no spouse, working my own job with my own money to do whatever I want. And while occasionally that just means doing things like eating ice cream for breakfast or staying in my pjs all weekend without someone nagging me, or playing the radio as loud as I can without worrying about people living upstairs, I'm still mindful of leaving my electronics running all day if I am out of the house. Call me frugal all you want, but I find it tacky and wasteful.

And maybe I take it a step further than most people but my tv has a sleep timer on it. All of my tech does, in the case that if I ever forget to turn them off, they'll turn off on their own.

Well, it was a night like any other, I was laying on the couch downstairs, texting my friends, while reruns of Regular Show played in the background. I wasn't watching it really, I was more distracted in the group chat. Ryan was cracking us up, and Amy was sharing photos of her vacation to Cancun.

At some point I got up to use the bathroom, and when I returned I realized the tv was off. No big deal, I figured I must have lost track of time and the sleep timer must have gone off. Nothing I wasn't used to and since I wasn't interested in watching more tv anyway, I didn't bother to turn it back on.

My mistake.

My lids were getting heavy so I said goodbye to the gc and reclined back on the couch, ready to crash here for the night, since another perk of living alone means I can sleep wherever I want to.

The whole house was in darkness save for the small lamp in my living room.

Now, I don't mean to brag, but I have a nice tv, one of those 70" babies that make my house the place everyone wants to come to to watch the game. I swear, this girl's a thing of beauty. Always crystal clear 4k with her. Naturally, my eyes drifted off to the black screen, kind of unfocused as sleep called to me beyond the horizon.

In the dark screen I could make out the outline of mundane objects in my house, like shadows. My lamp, the bookcase, the dining room behind me, the couch and my almost sleeping form, just murky black figures.

I was drifting off, no longer paying much attention when I sensed movement. My eyes flicked to the screen, and there it was, my shadowy counterpart lay on the couch, its head turned the way mine was, my reflection looking right at me, until it got up off the couch and walked away. I sat there frozen in shock, turning my head this way and that, certain there was someone else in my house. But then I felt a little ridiculous! Maybe I was the one who got up without realizing.

I stared at the screen again, certain all that would be staring back at me would be my own figure lying on the couch, but from what I could see, everything was there except me?

Something flickered on the screen again, a person, me, walking back to the couch while I lay there, immobile.

I got up immediately and turned on all the lights, grabbing a baseball bat from my glory days and brandishing it as a weapon I searched the house, calling for the intruder to show himself, but I found no one. I checked doors, windows, closets, but still nothing.

Finally, utterly and completely stumped I returned back to the couch, defeated. I looked at the tv again and all I saw of course, was my same living room, completely identical, and my silhouette staring back from the couch.

Again, I felt ridiculous. Ha, too many long nights playing Call of Duty boozed up or staying too late at work with very little sleep, I guess. I laughed and put my feet up, prepared to resume my almost slumber again when I noticed something...there was my reflection but it wasn't reclining, matching my movements the way reflections do, and should. Instead my silhouette was sitting up and waving?

I looked behind me. Nothing.

Immediately I found the remote, turned the tv on and the scary imposter figure vanished. Cartoon antics returned and pretty lights replaced its shadowy face.

I went to the settings and turned the sleep timer off, relieved, until click the tv shut off on its own. I figured maybe my finger must have slipped while I held the remote. A logical explanation really, it had to be the reason.

I closed my eyes, fumbling for the power button. I did not want to see my silhouette anymore. I kept trying but the tv still wouldn't turn on. I had no choice, I would have to turn it back on manually.

I crouched down on my knees trying to find the button on the side of the tv with one hand covering my eyes. It wasn't easy, in fact, it was near impossible, but luckily I found it and the tv switched back on, noise and color filling the space once again. I felt victorious.

I removed my hands from my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

Click!

It went off and my living room was once again submerged in darkness. But greeting me this time not on the couch, was my silhouette waving at me. Where I stood between the couch and the television, with some reasonable distance between us, my silhouette sat on the floor pressed against the glass. Somehow it had gotten even closer, we were face to face now, but it had no eyes and no mouth, in the black glass of the tv I could only make out its shape.

Experimentally, I turned my head, left. It followed and did the same as I did. I turned my head, slowly, right, and again it repeated the action as I did, just as slowly. I put my head down, making sure to keep my gaze locked on the screen before me and staying vigilant, but to my horror, my silhouette did not move along. It did not budge.

It sat there watching me.

Waiting.

Then, it waved at me again, but instead of hello, it waved slowly like it was saying a mocking goodbye.

I didn't waste any time, I bolted straight out of my house, my heart in my throat. I didn't even have shoes on.

I'm at my friend Ryan's house right now in his guest room where there's no tv. I've drawn down all the curtains, and I'm typing on my phone right now because even the lock screen going black is making me nervous. What the hell is happening, guys?

My job the past year has been my one constant. Now you may not have heard of Ulric’s pretzels. Not a ton of people have. We aren’t a very big chain and well… we happen to be in the process of going out of business. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. You know how malls have a certain comradery to them? Well, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re too young to remember or simply never had the experience of being set free in the giant playground of glass and linoleum by your aggravated parents on a Saturday evening with a wad of cash and two friends laughing like feral hyenas at your side. 

Or maybe you’ve never worked at a food court and had the luxury of high fiving your favorite Orange Julius worker and spending your 15% off mall discount on a post-shift treat so tantalizing that you nearly fall over after hours in a hot kitchen. 

I don’t know your life. What I do know is that my city has one of the best malls I’ve ever encountered. Or moreso, one of the only malls I’ve ever been to. Not having ventured much outside of my own neighborhood, I don't have much to compare it to. Still, as far as jobs go, I’ve had much worse. 

What a lot of people don’t realize is that a mall can be a leg of a community. A strange type of third space that you only start to notice if you’re there more than once a week. Early in the morning, the mall walkers start their trek through the place like they’re on a mission. 

It’s often the older people who’ve made it their routine exercise regimen. Or the unhoused that need a place to cool off from the summer heat. Occasionally you see habitual shoppers carting bags around in full suitcases. As mall workers, we see all types of people in the duration of a day.

At first, my smiles and waves were more compulsory. It was my job to be friendly and give out samples. But the more time I spent there, I started to notice myself genuinely looking forward to their company. Everyone is a moving part. A cog in a perfect Truman show-esque machine that seems to loop every half hour or so. 

I’d start to think, oop there’s lady-with-perm again, arguing with her husband next to the department store. In about fifteen minutes we’ll see the old man with the Yankees cap on his third lap of the day and he’ll smile and wave and make a joke about how if he worked here he’d be eating the cheese right from the nozzle. 

Don’t get me wrong, the conversations aren’t always so predictable. I’ve had a middle aged dude rant to me about the history of Kaiju in film, helped a teen girl plan her promposal to a boy she was pining over and even wound up consoling a teary-eyed woman about her divorce. 

So when I first met Hope, I wasn’t at all phased by how she turned the conversation existential. I’d assumed this came with the territory given my boss was a part of a semi-popular church and we had a lot of regulars who happened to have some flavor of religious. 

The first thing I noticed about her was that she seemed genuinely untroubled. Not in the smile-at-customer-service worker, kneejerk way. But another level of happy. She had this casual ease about her. It made me feel like somehow, if I just listened to her, everything was going to be okay. 

“Have you been curious about His word?” She asked me. I paused, trying to think of how to react. I knew what she was likely implying, given that my parents had been religious. But I’d fallen out of it due to time constraints in college. 

I wasn’t necessarily uninterested. I only hadn’t thought about it in any substantial way. 

Though I had often wondered what that meant for me. If the very banal life I was living, having just left a long-term relationship and living alone, (only entertainment the kooky customers that stopped by the storefront on occasion) meant that I was subjecting myself to a bleak afterlife with not much to show for my actual, current life. 

I told her that in all honesty, it depended on the day. That I did believe in Him but simply didn’t have reason to be consistent about it. She seemed genuinely content with my honesty, chewing on her pretzel casually

Nothing about her seemed too preachy. Actually, she really didn’t need to be. For some reason I didn’t want her to leave. Not only because of this subdued allure she exuded, but because my shifts tended to be so dull and lonely I’d have done anything to break them up. Just to talk to someone. Anyone.

As we wrapped up our conversation, we exchanged numbers. I felt strange about the whole thing. But she explained to me that she worked at the shop across the way, selling candles and room fresheners. Something about that felt comforting. A fellow employee that was probably just as eager for friends as I was.

She slipped me a coupon for 50% off tea lights. On the back she’d written,

Mandy, 

Trust that he will not forsake you.

The sentiment unsettled me a bit. Did I come off as some pitifully lonely pretzel girl that needed a stranger’s reassurance? 

What bothered me most was that I hadn’t offered my name. Only my phone number on a bit of scrap paper. I hadn’t even worn my nametag in months because I had forgotten it a few times and the boss didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t like it would have been hard to find. But I suddenly found myself feeling too… seen. 

After catching glimpses of her note near the register for the next few hours, I tore the thing up. 

Every so often after that I would catch Hope staring at me. It wasn’t threatening or anything like that. It was more like she was… studying me. Like now we had some kind of connection that made me important in her eyes. 

To add to my stress, the shop was getting a bit destitute. They were cutting hours to the point where I was digging into my meager savings just to pay rent. When I did come in, I was working on my own, eyes bloodshot from scrolling on indeed the whole night previous. 

But who was I kidding? This job was all I had. I’d never gone to college and the idea of working anywhere else felt wrong to me now. Like leaving a little piece of me behind. I know that sounds dumb, but when most of your friends leave town, you start to rely on the few things that you’re left behind with.

Even when I wasn’t seeing Hope at the sales counter, I would see her in the reflections of the glass doors or out of the corner of my eye I would catch a swath of curly hair, just out of sight. 

I think that’s also when the humming started. It was as if it was coming from right behind my eyes. 

I started thinking maybe it was the building doing construction somewhere, shaking the walls. But it wasn’t mechanical. I googled tinnitus on my break but it didn’t quite match up with how other people describe it. Almost a lyrical hum that toyed at my attention. 

On Sunday, I saw one of our regulars. But she wasn’t looking so good. 

Linette had always been a bit on the grunge side. She let her teenage granddaughters add lilac streaks into her grey hair and talked about her high school garage band like they’d been bordering on being the new Kiss. 

But she’d always taken good care of herself and held conversations with me on a regular basis. We talked about music and whatever new combination of fry oil and cheese had cropped up at the food court.

That day I noticed she was staring into space instead of rattling off her usual order. Or at least I thought she’d been spacing out. I soon noticed it was the reflective wall. 

Beyond that, she looked gaunt. I’d never seen someone lose so much weight in the span of a week. Her skin bunched around her brow bone and cheeks like the jowls of a neglected dog. The darkness under her eyes made them look bruised like she hadn’t been sleeping either. 

I said hello to get her attention and her face snapped towards me, suddenly more aware than I'd been expecting.

“Oh, honey…” She raised a hand to my face, startling me. “Don’t you want to know what happens after?”

I froze for a moment, noticing that her hands looked rough and desiccated, like she’d been doing an unholy amount of yard work. I stepped back, letting her hand fall and hit the counter. She didn’t flinch, arms hanging useless by her sides. 

I muttered an apology regardless. She was a nice lady and I hadn’t meant to cause her harm, just to weasel out of her grasp.

“After what?” Having had Hope on the brain, I had wondered if maybe she was also trying on some new religious ideology. Not that she seemed to be the type to attend church. But it wasn’t impossible.

Linnette mimed some laughter as if she were humoring my feigned ignorance. But I wasn’t feigning anything. She poked a thumb at me as if to say “get a load of this gal” and then simply walked away without buying anything.

The interaction stayed in my head all week on replay. What had she meant? Was it in fact some kind of mall-centric cult that I had missed the memo on? Or was she maybe alluding to the fact that she knew we might go out of business soon?

I kept remembering the feeling of her crusty hand on my face. It was possible that she was just going through something mentally. But the timing of both interactions couldn’t have been a coincidence.

So now we come to tonight. It’s a Wednesday and of course as usual it's pretty slow. But it’s always slow on weekdays and frankly I don’t mind. I usually catch up on reading or draw in the margins of the employee manual. 

But today, I got a call from my boss. The man was in tears explaining how we most likely will only last another week or so. That I should make other preparations for work. It doesn’t surprise me enough to hit me right in the moment. 

It took a couple of hours to really sink in. But as I’m brushing butter and salt on what will most likely be some of my last pretzel tots, I get a pang of anxiety in my gut. No, I was not surprised. But what am I going to do without this?

Don’t you want to know what happens after?

The words have been echoing through my synapses. They’re making a mockery of me. Of this life I’ve built.

I’ve been realizing that it’s very possible that the reason I haven’t found a new job yet is because I don’t want one. 

Anyway, I was closing up today which meant that by the time I left the mall it was dark and empty. The humming became even more intense now and I don’t know what could possibly be making the sound now that all of the bustle is gone. 

A stress reaction. That’s all.

When I walked out carrying the day’s trash thrown over my shoulder, the only sound was the night cleaner guy across the way wiping down the windows. An ominous squeak, woosh. It gave me a chill anyway. Call me jittery but until you’ve worked a closing shift in the echoing maw of an empty mall, you have no idea what it’s like.

Next, I entered the service hallway. This is something I would immediately regret. But the alternative was venturing down an alley to get to the outside dumpster and I was not prepared nor in the mood for the anxiety of all that.

The emergency lights did not illuminate enough to ease my jitters either, but that was to be expected. 

I shuffled through the darkness. The place was too quiet. Besides the steady humming that seemed to get louder every minute. 

I curse my lack of foresight here, because I could’ve gotten out my phone flashlight. But I wanted to get out as quick as possible and I knew that digging into my backpack would only hold me back. 

I saw the light at the end where someone had propped the door open to the exit. But I let that make me cocky. Or maybe that had been the plan for me all along.

My foot caught on a sudden nothing and I fell through the void I now realize must’ve been an open vent or bulkhead or something. Before I could process the lurch in my stomach from the fall I hit a new patch of ground. 

My knee made a cracking sound as it met the concrete and my eyes watered with the pain. The contents of the trash bag had belched open on top of me and I could feel salt and grease already starting to mingle with my hair. 

I was about to cut my losses, leave the bag and run up the closest flight of stairs out of the place when I saw it. The altar. 

Candlelight illuminated what had to be at least ten feet of store items stacked into a tower, glistening with some kind of tar-colored viscous goo. I could make out brief glimpses of breakfast cereals, designer bags, the latest trendy keychain that’d been selling at a nearby kiosk, body oils, soaps, candles. 

I crouched there, at first more perplexed and mesmerized by the glowing beacon than afraid. It started to concern me, actually. The lack of urgency when I looked at it. All my panic melting away. But then I saw something move at the foot of the tower. 

A figure appeared to have been kneeling and praying. Not just any figure, but Hope. She had turned her eyes to me. They were glassy and I could see tears shine on her face. I knew they weren’t tears of sadness but… something else. Devotion? 

She gave me a hollow, sickening smile.

Her hands were still clasped at the altar and I gaped in horror as I saw that one of them was nailed down to the side of the plastic base of the monstrosity. Blackened blood pooled out from her palm. 

I realized finally what it was that was housing the tower’s collection. Our mall’s old wishing well. The one I’d tossed pennies in as a child. 

It’s needless to say I got out of there fast. Despite hearing the sing-song calls of Hope trying to lure me back. “MandyMandyMaaandy” I heard not far behind me. The fact that she must have literally ripped herself away to follow me was more than disconcerting. 

But eventually, like drains leading to the ocean, apparently all tunnels in the mall eventually lead to an exit when you’re frantic and running from an unhinged sales lady. 

So I'm in my car now, after having sprinted to the back of the parking lot because even the parking is a struggle here. I’m wondering what the hell I should do besides writing this. 

I know I should probably quit, but with Ulric’s going under, I feel awful leaving the poor guy at his weakest point. 

Besides, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t morbidly curious about what exactly is happening here. These people are my people and I don’t want to abandon them without an explanation.

Still, I can't help feeling a sense of dread wondering what it is that they are praying to. Who or what is taking their offerings.

Like I said, the mall is all I have at this point. So I might as well stick around and find out.

(To be continued)

Chapter 1:
 
I have lost count of how many months I have been awake for. Or has it been years? Our ship, The Nessie 14, was stocked up with at least five years worth of food, that was how I kept track of the passing time. This proved useful until we hit an asteroid field, its disembodied, rocky finger tips unintentionally unlatching two of the four food silos, and one of the three escape pods in the process. The Nessie still bears the accident's cracks and scars, like a wounded soldier.
 
My stretcher is stained a mustard yellow. My body's sweat and oil has seeped into the sheets. Cleaning it is no use, and it is too sticky to sleep on now, causing my back to break out into eczema and rashes. I have resorted to moving one of the medically designated metal tables and turning it into a makeshift bunk. Underneath is a thinner tray where Marcus would be able to sleep, but I haven't seen him get any rest for weeks.
 
When I first met Marcus, he was a cocky, fit party boy. He is somewhere in his forties, but with grey hair peppered in more than the usual man his age. He seemed like an unstoppable force of socialization with anybody he came in contact with, especially the number of men in the office who he had small, mutual, and charming infatuations with. I was plentiful shyer than Marcus, but I really did look up to him. I never told him. When we were back on Earth, I could never really get a word in edgewise anyway.
 
Nadia is our other crewmate. She's in her early 30's, somewhat young for this kind of mission, but makes up for it with how brilliantly smart she is. A little too smart if you ask me. I can't say much though, I am as thick as pig shit.
 
Once we made it into space, we went into what the movies call Cryosleep. Professionally the scientists at the office called it a Medically-Induced Hypo-Thermatic Coma. Before we left, the procedure was altered, improved. This allowed the coma, our "Cryosleep" to be elongated, far beyond the previous crews before us. There are rumors Walt Disney is hidden somewhere, sleeping through the same procedure. I call bull shit. If he felt anything like how I felt, especially in such an early attempt, he must have the mind and body of a puss ridden blob fish by now.
 
Our ship was called the Nessie 14 because, well, this is the 14th attempt. Twice the ships exploded before reaching orbit. Eight other times, we never heard from or saw the ships and crews again. And three times, the crews turned around, returning to Earth. That didn't matter though, they were ridiculed for abandoning the mission, an expensive mission at that. It had cost the companies hundreds of billions accumulated over decades of past attempts. The astronauts didn't care though. They had been in space for long enough that they now only ramble nonsense, forever changed from how the confinement of time twisted and hollowed their brains.
 
Our mission isn't one of necessity, but to everybody, especially at the companies, it is a need. The Gilling Telescope, the most advanced of its kind, picked up something from the farthest reaches we have ever found. It didn't just pick up something, it picked up nothing. No stars, no moons, no planets. Nothing. Human kind, after millions of years, has found what we believe to be the edge of space.
 
Chapter 2:
 
I woke up from my coma the first out of the crew. There were clocks on the ship, but no form of calendar. Command didn't want us to know how many years we had truly been asleep for. Even though they kept this from us, I knew, everyone I cared for or loved had most likely been dead for generations.
 
We were instructed not to wake our other crewmates up, as it would interrupt the rhythm of the procedure and could cause harm to the individual. I was isolated for a period that was unknown to me, my only company being the ship's terminal, which spurted out random notifications and warnings, as well as the amalgamation of strange galaxy clusters in view from the multilayered, thick windows. As I watched the clusters, they had the sway and movement akin to fish and whales, as if they were living beings.
That time isolated on my own were the loneliest 105 days of my life.
 
Marcus woke up to the overwhelming smell of body odour and old crushed food packs. His eyes, blurred with a clay thick glaze from the coma, scanned the room. As his eyes wet and adjusted to the light, I could be seen, curled in the dark corner. The vague hum and buzz of my discman could be heard through my cheap plastic headphones. A TOOL CD whirred around inside the small machine. I was ritualistically picking at the barcode sticker still adhered to the back of it. I didn't notice Marcus sleepily approach me. He dropped to a squat, laid an ice cold hand on my shoulder and cockily sputtered "You look a little worse for wear, bud". A relieved and friendly smile pushed up my cheeks. I slowly breathed out. "What took you so long".
 
It took another two weeks for Nadia to wake up. In those weeks, Marcus and I got to know each other better. We had an unmarked console onboard we could read, and write our personal logs on, though we mostly just used it for video games and karaoke. Due to the failure of previous missions, many brands no longer wanted to be seen in conjunction with the mission, so many of the useful items around the ship came in pastel and white unmarked casings. We had unbranded beers aboard, which originally seemed like a waste of space, something that could have been replaced with more useful cargo. We were exceptionally grateful for it in the end. They were all empty vessels of glass by the time Nadia came to.
 
I learnt multitudes about Marcus' life back on Earth. His personal life seems pretty much what it looked like from an outside perspective. Parties every weekend. Flatmates by choice so there were always others around to socialize with. The closer I looked at him, the more I noticed the scarred holes in his earlobes, and the flimsy and eroded septum from what looks like years of cocaine use.
 
We were alerted to Nadia's waking by hearing a guttural groan, and a thick, soupy liquid splatting against the floor. It was like the elevator scene from The Shining, but with much cloudier and beiger vomit instead. We spent most of that day cleaning sick from out of the needle thin panels in the floor, and adjusting Nadia to her surroundings. Seemed like her lengthier sleep as well as her smaller frame caused more side effects post coma.
 
Chapter 3:
 
The next three months were what we expected. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Check the scanners. Wait. Eat Lunch. Check the scanners. Do repairs. Eat Dinner. Check the scanners. Sleep. Repeat. It took Nadia longer to warm up to us. She was very dedicated to the job. Trying to prove her work ethic, only maintaining recreational small talk with us when either Marcus or I tried to include her in our bored antics. Eventually she started allowing breathing room in her busy brain to conjure up jokes. "What issue did the asteroid have with its bum... a hemorrh-oid". It was unexpected from her but extremely welcome. I don't know how the others feel, but I think we became pretty good friends.
 
One night we sat around having dinner together, and Nadia breached the topic of loved ones.
"Do you guys miss your family, I mean sorry for the sudden deep conversation, but I mean... I do". She twirled a curl into her wiry, dark hair. Marcus was the first to respond.
"I was on my own, so not really, didn't have friends and family, I'm a bit old for all that". I noticed a solemn glint in Marcus' eye. It was a noticeable juxtaposition to his strong willed demeanor. I always saw Marcus converse and playfully interact with people all the time back in the office. To think he never considered himself close to them tugged at me.
"Hey you aren't too old for that, you have me- you have us". I responded, my mouth talking faster than my thoughts. His expression shifted to smug and he chuckled.
"Haha ok big man, what about you, miss your family?". The sudden return to the question sunk me into deep consideration.
"I used to look after my father, he lived with me. He used to be quite demanding, even when he couldn't properly speak". I had a certain harsh tone on the word 'demanding'. Marcus' face indicated he picked up that I hid more in that word than what it seemed.
"Then he passed away and I lost my way a little, didn't really do or have anything else. So with what training I had before looking after Dad, it got me into this mission... and that's that". My voice trailed off and we all paused and breathed for a beat.
"Well thanks Nadia for that chipper topic!" Marcus' chuckle being so contagious the saddening tension all diffused and we continued onto lighter conversations. Those nights, with Marcus chuckling and Nadia's deep thoughts, were really special to me.
 
 
After three months, the accident happened. It was 11:45 pm. Nadia was asleep. Marcus was in the storage room, to which he sometimes disables the anti-gravity measures and floats around listening to music. I was reading a book called The Holy Innocents. It made me a little sick, but I had already read the majority of the books in the console over the previous months so I endured. The starboard side solar panels had been down for a week. Nadia and Marcus had been spending 12 hours a day, taking turns going for space walks with repair tools, attempting to fix the issue. I would keep myself occupied by the systems, communicating with them, and endlessly testing whether their endless attempts at patching finally succeeded. I heard the anti-gravity measures reactivate and Marcus, already cloaked in one of the three thick, bulky space suits, tiredly walked up to me.
"Ready to try this again?".
I sighed.
"Yessir".
 
I waved Marcus out through the abnormally thick glass pane in the airlock door. I watched as the pressure of space caused the interior panels to cling to the walls of the ship for their lives. Marcus, steadily hooked to the Nessie by a dense cable, routinely shimmied himself around the corner, out of my view.
I began walking to the heavy set, surgically designed terminal chair. I didn't make it though.
The entire ship jolted, rotating with great pace on a north-west axis. My body was launched, like a baby bird's premature first flight, directly into a hardened corner of the terminal chair. My head collided first. What I heard before going unconscious was a bone crushing crack.
 
Chapter 4:
 
I woke up. The pain, I wanted to scream. Scream so loud my stomach would slither up my throat, metallic blood fill my mouth, until it dribbled off my flaky lips. As much as I tried, all that came out was the muffled sounds of a dying mammal. My jaw was shattered, sharp shards of bone poked through my face muscles like gravel or stones in a bloody wound. It was locked shut, and started dripping dark, red fluid. I held it with my right palm, and helped myself onto both legs with the left. The ship had stopped rotating. Loose objects and panels were scattered across the floor. Few sparks fountained from worn cables.
 
I heard a groan. Nadia. Her silent, wet huffs crept from the bed bays. I hobbled towards her noises, the sounds of skin and nails clipping against the metal floors slowly coming into earshot.
 
Nadia laid in a pool of blood, thickening around the perimeter of her body. Her skin was pale, and eyes unfocused, the figure of a dying snow angel. A long handle had been snapped off during the accident, and as Nadia fell from her bed, the handle pierced the side of her waist, smoothly crawling through the meat of her body until it spurted out the other side. I slumped down to my knees, my lack of balance making it feel more like a fall. I sloppily trace my hands around her wound, trying to find the correct spot to apply pressure. I kept one hand held on her, and the other hand reaching for her bed shirt's sleeve. It was an old stained Freddy Krueger shirt, the soaking, red blood stains unintentionally fitting the faded design. I pulled hard with the one hand, slowly ripping off her sleeve. With each rip and tug, her torso would jolt, compressing her raw wound into the edges of the handle. She would gasp a hideous, wispy gurgle each time, guilt striking my heart like a crowbar.
 
Her harsh, pained exhales reminded me of the deer my father used to hunt. When I was in my early teens he would take me to a small island, about an hour boat ride from the beach near our house. I hated it, but for my father, it was a necessity. He was raised in a cabin in the forest with his father.
I never met my grandfather, he passed away in prison when I was a child a few months before he was to be released. I had only heard the few stories my father would grunt, with malice on his tongue. The way my father hunted was inhumane. He would find a deer, a large one, and lock his brain onto it, the rest of the world, a smoky fog. He would spend hours ritualistically sneaking through the trees, rifle in hand, a predator in a wooden city. I was just there to watch, a dedicated spectator for his sport. Once he had enough of his unnoticed taunting. He would fire the rifle. Hit somewhere that wouldn't kill the animal, just hurt it enough it would squirm and writhe on the ground. He would drop on one knee, always the right one, and stab from the belly to the neck, slowly, the deer vomiting its last breathes in perpetual terror. Nadia's eyes, her sputtering heartbeat, her slowing, sickening gasps... I couldn't let it happen again.
 
I wrapped the sleeve where I could around the wound, the jutting handle an obstacle for this act. She needed better medical attention. The only way this could happen is if I could get her to the medical bay. I looked down, guilt building even more.
"I'm sorry" I muttered to her, but the inability for any jaw motion caused it to be a wet, incomprehensible mess. As I did this flecks of my still dripping blood decorated her face.
I guided my hands under her back and under her knees, I then pulled up. I used all the strength I was able to muster in my state to pick Nadia up off of the ground. She screamed, no longer a raspy groan, but a needly, sharp scream of pure agony. The sound had no other emotion, her body, her mind, was only pain.
 
I am not exceptionally fit, but I had enough strength, especially in that situation, even in that state, to trip and stumble myself into the medical bay and drop Nadia's progressively more limp body onto the long metal table. A fountain of darker blood crawled out of her mouth as her body heaved onto the surface.
This is when her glassy eyed gaze started to come into focus. I was relieved, thinking she was at least cognoscente enough to leave her paralyzed state. Her eyes weren't focused on me though, they were focused on the other side of the room. I traced her gaze with my own, and realized I should have never felt any relief, I should have just felt pure fear.
 
Marcus' motionless body lay pressed against the large window that adorns the wall of the medical bay. Heavy debris from the loose food silos, which had now been fully torn from the ship, covered him, forcing his body to be compressed into the glass. I could not see his face. His helmet was just a doorway into a confined space of only blood. A tear rolled down my cheek.
"Get... him..."
I looked down at Nadia. Her face was determined, but weak. She slinked her hands to her waist, putting pressure on her wound. I grumbled a saddened noise, and slowly traced backwards, keeping my eyes on Nadia until I turned the corner. Her determined look fading as I left.
 
I had never been in space. I was trained for it, but I was on the mission to monitor the scanners, sort out the technology and analyse from the inside. I was in my suit, head peaking out from the thick valve that I twisted my helmet into. I couldn't focus, the scraping of the helmet mechanically screwing into its latches picked its soundwaves at parts of my brain. I was stood in the airlock. I had to lock myself in there, and then venture out of the room all by myself. This was a procedure that needed two people, but there was only me. I flinched every time I felt the cold, damp fabric lining of my helmet, soaking in the blood from my jaw. I took a step. I had to do it. I had to save Marcus. I took another step. The entire ship shifted and I fell to the floor.
A smaller asteroid had collided with the ship. I thought it was over. Why couldn't it have been over. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go out there.
 
Chapter 5:
 
My bare toes felt the chill of the metal floors. My heel tapping repeatedly, at a continuous rate, like a machine in an oil rig. I sat back against the medical bay doors. A small red light spread its glare onto the top of my head, curling into oblivion off the split ends and the tip of my hairs. The medical bay doors were locked. I couldn't face what was in there. My brain was filing thoughts through a fog, an endless fractal that was sporadically being combed through. I sat there for an hour. Paralyzed albeit for my heel. Another hour passed. A tiny metal clang from behind the doors pulled me back to reality.
 
With swiftness I slam my fist against the door, spidering my fingers with haste until I found the lock, and disengaged it. The doors slid open, and an uncomfortable darkness thickened the air. My pupils darted in threes, until they could finally focus on Nadia's stationary body lying on the table. Arm strung off one side, caressed by a thin line and a needle which laid coldly on the floor. The line connected to her wound. She had stitched herself up.
At that time I hadn't even processed that the only sign Marcus had been crushed against the window, were the deep scratches of metal against glass looking out to empty space.
 
I rushed over to Nadia's side. I held my hand near her chapped lips. There was barely any breath pushing against my palm. I shuffled as fast as I could possibly go over to a nearby counter. I stumbled and crushed my organs against the hard edge, silently pleading for air as I winded myself. I spiraled my arms out like an octopus, pulling cabinets open, throwing piles over, trying to find an oxygen mask. My stress unfolded at such a rate I did not notice the slow, heavy footsteps behind me. I returned back to reality again at the sounds of metal squeaking against metal, and a pressurized puff of air. I turned around.
 
Marcus stood, still in his suit, hand clasped against an oxygen mask pressed onto Nadia's face. His helmet was missing, exposing his completely blood soaked face, a thick, deep, red wound across his temple. Chunks of blood coagulated inside his nostrils.
"What were you doing?" He tiredly demanded.
"I was trying... to help her" I unintelligibly spat out.
"I don't even know what you're saying, you know where this mask is kept! We all do!"
"I'm sorry" I said so quiet and full of guilt it was almost a hum.
Marcus, displaying a cowl of anger limped out of the room, pieces of fabric from the bulky suit fluttering to the floor.
 
Chapter 6:
 
The next three weeks rivaled the loneliness of my first 105 days awake on the Nessie. Although we have built back our comradery now, there was an undeniable and dark tension swimming through the air between us after the accident. Marcus wouldn't talk to me, unless it had to do with our mission, or making small repairs to the wounded ship. I sat in the corner again, listened to my discman, as Marcus tended to Nadia. It took her five days to wake up. Five days of silence again, not that I could talk anyway with my jaw.
 
One night, two weeks after the accident, Marcus left the med bay and made his way to the dust glazed corner I resided in.
"Can you talk now?"
I crack open my jaw, the bone hinge popping and cracking in place.
"Yes" I sounded different now, a sultry mix between a new accent and a speech impediment. The way my jaw was healing, I'd never talk the same.
He stood, looming over me. We no longer seemed like equals, people that were friends days ago. Now we were just a strong man, and the broken jawed monster in the dark. If Marcus heard me say this now, he would scoff. Nowadays it seems like he always knows what is going on in my pale head, and says just the right thing I want to hear to make me feel like I'm not a failure.
 
"You did nothing, you left her. Why?" He asked, his anger not quite masking his genuine questioning.
"To save you" I croaked.
"You didn't save me" His tone became demanding.
"I went to save you! I did".
"I could see very little through that window, but I could see you leave, leave Nadia, and then nothing. For the two hours I was stuck at that window, trying to pull myself in, watching her die".
My breath picked up in a defensive panic.
"She told me to leave, she told me to".
 
A voice shot through the room. A bullet of words pierced my heart. Nadia paced out of the medical bay.
"Take some god damn accountability you little... you little rat!" Her breath was heavy, this was the first time she had stood since the accident. She was in a fresh shirt now, allowing a new stain of blood to take another victim.
Marcus twisted around, worriedly shifting his feet in concern.
"No Nadia, you need to rest".
"I can't just let him shout excuses and excuses and EXCUSES!" She dropped to the floor, blood sneaking through her gritted teeth. She gasped. The same guttural gasp she made when I held her bloodied wound. Meat machinery clicked in my head. My eyes lost focus and I stared into the room as if it were space itself.
"He made me cut the deer..."
"What?" Marcus mutters in utter confusion.
"He made me...". I wasn't a spectator. Another excuse.
"I wish your jaw was still broken you horrible fucking man" Nadia continued. She mustered enough strength to determinedly guide her arm towards a nearby table. Her hand lied upon a metal cup, and without a beat, lunged it towards me. It hit my jaw. I cried out the loudest my throat could expel, like a wounded animal. I am not a wounded animal. My eyebrows furled and the oily skin on my forehead tightened.
 
Chapter 7:
 
Those three weeks of turbulence are finally over. The yelling, the arguments, the disappointments we were able to put them behind us. They were a temporary asteroid field that we repaired together and now have moved on. I slip off of the table and the soles of my feet spread across the metal floor. A hard dried substance clinging to the floor panels dig into my skin, but I pay no mind. I cheerfully careen my way through the ship. I need to shower, but it is not an urgent necessity as my body odour isn't a dominant smell these days anyway.
"Marcus I'm up!" My voice bounces and twirls through the empty hallways, which are thick with static and silence. In return I hear him talking from near the main terminal.
 
I make my way up to the terminal. The hallways seeming more mazelike, and even natural. That was possibly just the mold and stains which relocated itself to bare surfaces, growing everyday like an infinite puzzle. I glide past the medical bay, the red locked light flickering in glitched, pulsating bursts. Without decelerating I glide my hand across the face of the doors. I can feel multiple dents from smaller fists that were punched through from the opposite side. I pressed in slightly, the doors staying idle as the lock refrains them from jostling in their place.
"You eaten yet Marcus?"
His monotone voice responds, as I can hear it passing through the hallway much easier as I draw nearer. I step into the doorway, facing the terminal, and see Marcus in his usual spot upon the terminal chair.
"Already at work I see" I chuckle to us both.
"Scanning... Scanning" Marcus responds, his robotic voice wheezing through the speakers. I pull up a chair, shrieking metal noise spouting out, as I scrape it in front of Marcus.
 
Marcus' corpse lay upright, strung up a distance from the terminal chair with cables and strings.
"How's the work going?" I ask, making tired morning small talk.
"Scanning... Scanning" Marcus responds again.
"Haha yeah I get you, work's work". I go to affirmatively pat him on the shoulder in jest. My mind contorts and clocks what I am doing. Do not touch him. Do not feel him. Keep the immersion.
 
Marcus' body is skinny and brittle. His stiff, sloppily positioned posture, strung about like clothes on a washing line, resembled that of a sapling, thin roots with even thinner branches. His eyes were a dark grey, both looking like they had receded into his skull, and like they were on the verge of toppling onto the floor. His handsome, grey, peppered hair was stringy and loose, no longer giving the aesthetic of a young spirited, charming man.
After a fluttering beat, my thoughts travel back to normalcy.
"I am going to go have a little break before I get into working ok"
"Scanning... Scanning"
"Ok yeah see you soon" I make my way to another room, and deactivate the antigravity measures.
 
"Scanning... Scanning... Warning"
 
Chapter 8
 
I let my limbs go limp, gracefully contorting in antigravity. I'm listening to my discman, floating in complete silence, letting all thoughts pour out of my skull, emptying my mind. I see out the window something unusual, well, it's what I don't see. I don't see anything. I see nothing. My eyes widen in complete satisfaction and amazement. Then, my skin tightens.
 
A sequence of crumbling and metal shrieks start echoing through the ship. A layer of the thick glass windows that line the ship start snaking thin almost unnoticeable cracks through their exterior. The ship starts vibrating at only the consistency of a small bumblebee, but noticeably increases within seconds. Pressure within my joints start popping like internal bubble wrap.
 
I grasp onto the wall and propel myself towards the exit. The red light disengages as my fingers, pivoting with an uncomfortable tightness, unlocks the door. I re-enter gravity as my body slinks heavily to the floor. I wind myself as my ribs collide with the stained panels. In a tornado of limbs I clumsily push myself forwards towards the terminal
"Warning... Warning".
"Marcus what is going on?" I shout towards his corpse.
"Warning... Warning"
"Piece of shit" I mumble under my breath, entertaining the idea that he could even hear me. I brush the cables that prop him upright aside, and type into the terminal. His face, frozen in shriveled, moldy, infinite sleep, watches over a short distance from my head. I type a string of messages, simplified to the question "What is happening". As the ship's metal groans the terminal spells out shrill audio from its speakers.
"Limited distance remaining, undocumented pressure damaging hull, repair or 98% human fatality hypothesised".
 
Sweat spirals off of my forehead as I fling my view back towards the window. The void of space started to gradient to a different colour, as we get closer a wall of murky light absorbs what was once darkness. Slowly, from a short distance, a lone piece of debris drifts from beyond the glass. I try focusing my eyes. There are thick letters dashed across the debris, almost unintelligible with how creased and compact it had become. My eyes expand with fear and awe as my brain pieces the words together.
"Nessie 7"
A sharp, unsatisfying crack pounds into my head as I watch an intricate web of thick white lines develop across the window in the storage room. Muffled whistles start pushing into the glass and I have only seconds to act. My toes press with force against the panels and I launch myself towards the lock. Shrieking sounds of glass and air becoming more overwhelming. Another push, propelling myself again. the web of glass expanding to the full size of the large window. My skin keeps getting tighter, shrink wrapping my bones and muscles in a fleshy package. With all my strained strength I launch myself one last time, a finger length away from the lock. Then with the cry of one thousand tiny glass shards, and the wind of a planet wide blizzard the window breaks. My hand reaches the lock as my legs and hips are sucked towards the murky abyss. Tears are vacuumed from my eyes as, with all the hope I have left, I activate the lock. The doors barrel towards each other and shut with a large crack and thud in the centre. I release a heart stopping scream and pull away.
 
Droplets dance along the floor beside me and I pull my gaze down. The bottom of the door's crease is painted red, and my left foot is missing three and a half toes. Red pulp and toothy bone protrude where the toes used to be attached. The Nessie moans and roars, twisting inwards on itself. The pressure, the pulling, the compressing, its overbearing. At the speed we are travelling towards the cloudy edge of space, we won't make it before we collapse inwards and transform into a crumpled piece of paper. I need more speed. I need to finish the mission.
 
There are two remaining escape pods that sit within a well at the bottom of the Nessie. Developed to protect us during an emergency, they launch outwards at a speed exceptionally faster than that which we are travelling now. That is my only way out. I hobble through the corridors, one wrong movement away from slipping on my own slinking trail of blood. One fall, one stop in momentum, and I could miss my window to escape, and become stuck, melded and bursting inside an imploded metal prison. I press on, past the red light of the medical bay doors, past our dingy, damp sleeping quarters, and to the few steps that remain to make my leave. With each hobble down these steps, I writhe in pain, gaining my breath before each drop as even the smallest bump shoots agony through my foot.
 
I now stand at the escape pods. Two undamaged circular orifices with a view to a compact metal char and a baron console. This is it, this will bring me past the edge of space. The ship roars and sparks, glass shattering and panels crumpling. I have no time to breathe and with my one healthy foot I push myself into the pod. The door speeds to a robotic close and decompresses with an industrial exhale. I don't even think about sitting in the chair, I set the velocity to max, ignoring the warning. Disengage the launch countdown and... The roar of the engine pulsates as I shoot out into space. I don't look out the front window. I look back. The walls of the ship are an obstacle to my view, but I know I'm in the eyeline of Marcus. Guilt wells up as tears thicken against my tight eyelids. My crew once trusted me. Considered me their friend, and what did I do to them. String Marcus' corpse up. Lock Nadia in a room to starve. I made that choice for them. I am the one leaving their bodies behind as I get to run away and see the outcome of our shared work.
The Nessie crumbles inwards slowly as I look away, my brain slowly focusing on the quick collapse of the escape pod. Alarms whirr and bounce their sounds through the deteriorating structure. I just need more time. One of my lungs tighten as the other one expands full of liquid. My face tightens on one side and sags on the other. The pressure is too much for my body. My ears trickle blood profusely, until it slips across my lips and into my mouth. The alarms are almost silent as my ears are blocked and muffled. The murky wall becomes brighter as I propel closer. I am almost there. The mystery uncovered and the mission almost complete. What is beyond the edge of space? Galaxy clusters shoot past and swirl around me, becoming strands and trails of light at the speed I am travelling. My knees swell, filled with fluid and my eyelids puff up until my vision is as though I am looking through two straws. I shut what remains of my vision, my body contorting and the escape pod ripping into strings of material and metal as I break through the barrier.
 
Space breaks into an exploding splash. Voids of stars and darkness spray and clump like a blast of water from a whales blowhole. I open my eyes, glazed over with blood and crust. I see a bright void, a sky above the space below. Static clusters of galaxies and stars resemble vast islands, and the dark pit that we know as space, just an ocean. I am but the size of an ant, in whatever this world is. It's beautiful, it's horrifying, it can't truly exist, can it? A large collection of space and galaxy reaches out with an elongated form, a limb, and swats me and the debris downwards. My head crumbles from the impact, my body just a collection of mush and bones gracefully twisting through a plateau of inconceivable life. My vision goes dark.
 
I lay on humongous interstellar grains. A beach of stars. What resembles the remains of my body decays purple, and frost claws and grasps at the edges of my skin. I do not remain anymore, just the mind and body of a puss ridden blob fish. The black, bleeding orbs that contain the last resemblance of my eyes drift upwards, and everything fades to black.

If you grew up anywhere near eastern Ohio, you know every small town has its monster.

In Blackwood Creek, population 1,800, ours were the Hollow Men.

When we were kids back in the late 2000s, the story was standard campfire lore stuff: tall, impossibly thin figures made of dry corn husks and river silt that walked the perimeter of the timber woods after dark. According to the kids at school, if a Hollow Man tapped three times on your bedroom window, it meant your family owed the town a debt, and you’d wake up with your lungs full of topsoil.

We laughed it off. We used to dare each other to sprint into the treeline past the old water tower at midnight. Standard midwestern rust belt childhood stuff.

Until last weekend.

My family runs the local scrap and cleaning business. The town council recently voted to demolish the old Blackwood Creek Municipal Building a squat, red brick relic from the 1920’s that had been abandoned since the bad flood in ’97. My buddy Nic and I took the contract to clear out the basement archives before the wrecking ball moved in.

Deep in the storage room, behind rusted filing cabinets full of unpaid water bills from the 70’s, Nic kicked over a heavy steel deposit box. The lock was long rotted away. Inside, wrapped in a oilskin jacket, was a thick, leather-bound book with gold foil lettering on the spine:

TOWN OF BLACKWOOD CREEK  OFFICIAL LEDGER (1980–1985)

We figured it was just tax records or old mayor meeting notes. But when I flipped to October 1982, the neat cursive handwriting changed.

The entries weren't about budget allocations or road maintenance. They were organized in a two column grid: Yield on the left, Designation on the right.

Here are a few exact transcriptions from the fall of 1982:

October 12, 1982

Yield: North Ridge Harvest  4,200 Bushels.

Designation: Standard Quota Met.

Note: The low whistle was heard near the silo at 03:00 hours. The perimeter holds.

October 19, 1982

Yield: North Ridge Harvest 1,100 Bushels (Early Frost Loss).

Designation: Deficit incurred (72% short).

Note: Town Council convened at midnight. The ledger demands balance. Subject chosen: Hayes, Michael (Age 9).

My stomach dropped when I read that name. Michael Hayes was my father's older brother.

All my life, I was told Uncle Mikey ran away in the winter of ’82. My grandmother died believing he’d hitched a ride on a freight train out toward Columbus. I kept reading.
 
October 21, 1982

Designation: Transaction Complete.

Note: Michael Hayes delivered to the tree line at 02:45. The Hollow Men accepted the substitute for the lost grain. Earth was smooth by morning. Next year's soil guaranteed rich.

Every bad harvest year had a name next to it. 1980: Sanger, Clara (Age 82). 1982: Hayes, Michael (Age 9). 1984: Vance, Sarah (Age 17).

They weren't local legends. The town elders weren't just afraid of the Hollow Men they were trading with them.

Nic and I took the ledger back to my truck. We sat in silence for a long time, the engine idling while rain hammered against the windshield.

"This is crazy," Nic said, his voice shaking. "This is just... some sick joke the old council wrote down to scare each other."

"My uncle disappeared that exact week, Nic," I said. "Look at the dates."

Before Nic could reply, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a weather alert for our county: Severe drought conditions warning, crop yield projected 60% below average for the upcoming fall harvest.

I looked up from my phone toward the tree line bordering the scrap lot.

Standing right at the edge of the woods just beyond the beam of my headlights was a figure. It was nearly eight feet tall, unnaturally narrow, its limbs bending at angles no human body could manage. It didn't have a face, just a hollow cavity where the mouth should be, lined with dry, rustling corn husks.

It wasn't moving. It was just waiting.

And then, soft and distinct against the sound of the rain, came three slow taps against my passenger window.

Series Log Note:
I’m writing this from my kitchen with every light in the house turned on. Nic went home an hour ago, but his mother just called me saying he hasn't come inside yet, and his driver's side door was left wide open in the driveway. I think they know we have the book.

The rain stopped, and there’s a tapping on the window, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

Part 2: I Went to Antarctica Looking for 10,000 Missing People. I Came Back With a New Boss.

Part 3: Apparently Using Assistants as Sacrifices Violates Company Policy

Part 4: I Work for an Organization That Hunts Gods. One of Them Warned Me About the Angel Following Me.

Part 5: My Boss Asked Me If I Thought He Was a Monster. Now I Know Why.

Part 6: The Most Powerful Being in the CSP Is Studying Humans. Unfortunately, I'm His Favorite Lab Rat.

Part 7: Someone Stole the Rifle Built to Kill Gods. Then They Pointed It at Me.

Part 8: I Thought Dating an Angel Was Bad. Something Wearing My Face Was Worse.

Part 9: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. The Feather Led Something to Us.

Part 10: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. Humanity Now Has a Single Point of Failure.

Part 11: CSP Sent a Team Into Hell. Nobody Came Back.

Part 12: The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand

Part 13: I Was Prepared to Fight a Cult. Instead, I got a Family Reunion.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Part 15: I Became the Head of a New Division. My First Case Was a Place My Sister Never Escaped From.

“You look exactly like the memories.”

The old man stared at me with a smile that made my stomach turn. It made me angry, too. This place had stripped my sister of her memories; the one thing that made her my sister. My Remi.

I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “What do you want?”

It was obvious Evergrove had trapped us here on purpose. The place had suddenly appeared on C.S.P.'s radar a month ago, but Remi had encountered it years ago. That meant Evergrove hadn't suddenly awakened.

It had been here all along.

Watching.

Waiting.

And now, somehow, it had deliberately gotten our attention.

The old man’s smile widened. “You're just like your sister.” He paused, studying me. “Makes sense. She raised you.”

My stomach tightened. His gaze shifted past me toward Angelo and Elior before returning to me.

“I have business with you.” His smile disappeared. “Everyone else can leave.”

I looked around the store. For once, the old man wasn't threatening us. He was offering us an exit, and somehow, that scared me more.

If I let everyone leave, there was at least a chance they would survive. Evergrove had been destroyed once before. Remi had killed whatever was inside it, and yet somehow, the place had returned. Whatever Evergrove was, it was more than a god.

Maybe it was more than an entity.

I looked at Angelo. He was already looking at me.

“I won't leave.”

My jaw tightened. “Everyone else can.”

Jackson, my inexperienced new assistant,immediately stepped forward. “We can't leave you guys here.”

I closed my eyes. “Jackson.”

“But—”

“Stop talking.”

He fell silent. When I opened my eyes, I stared directly at him. “Please.”

That finally silenced him.

The old man watched the exchange with an amused expression before looking at me again. “Still protecting everyone around you.”

I said nothing.

He smiled. “Your father would have hated that.”

Everything inside me stopped.

I turned so fast my coat swung behind me. “Father?”

The word echoed through the empty store, but the old man didn't answer. Instead, I noticed his hands. They were trembling, barely enough to notice, and he tried to hide it by curling his fingers into his palms.

Then I saw his eyes.

The smile was still there, but his eyes weren't smiling. Something was buried underneath them.

Regret.

I knew that look. I'd seen it before—not in monsters, but in people who wanted to do something and couldn't.

My eyes narrowed.

The old man hadn't trapped us here because he wanted to.

He was being made to.

My gaze drifted toward the shoppers, and the story Remi had told me came rushing back. Years ago, she'd traded her memories to a spirit in exchange for a knife, a knife she used to kill the night manager. At the time, I'd assumed the spirit had made the bargain willingly.

But what if it hadn't?

My eyes moved from face to face: the cashier, the old woman, the father, the child, and all the other people who had been standing here before we'd even entered.

All of them were spirits.

And all of them were being controlled.

My blood ran cold.

“Get out.”

Nobody moved.

I raised my voice. “GET OUT NOW!”

The Retrieval teams moved first, running for the doors. Jacob remained, as did Elior. Jackson didn't move either.

I looked at Angelo. He leaned toward Jacob and whispered something too quiet for me to hear. Whatever he said, Jacob's expression changed. He grabbed Jackson by the arm.

“Come on.”

“I'm not leaving her.”

“You are.”

Jacob practically carried him toward the entrance while Elior followed. Jackson fought them the entire way, but they dragged him toward the doors anyway.

Then, just before they closed, he looked back.

Our eyes met.

I knew that expression.

He was going to transfer the moment we reached base.

I couldn't blame him.

The doors slammed shut, and silence swallowed the store again.

The old man turned toward Angelo, then back toward me.

“How do you know my father?”

A quiet laugh escaped him. Then his eyes changed.

For a moment, they didn't look human anymore.

His voice dropped into something deeper, older, something that seemed to vibrate through the walls.

“Let me tell you a story.”

He took a slow step forward.

“A very long time ago, there was an angel.”

Angelo's expression hardened.

“She created her first god.” The old man smiled. “The God of Obedience.”

I glanced at Angelo, but he didn't look away from the old man.

“She was tired of her siblings refusing to listen to her. And being the eldest, she believed she was entitled to become the one who created all of them.”

“Like The Creator?” I asked.

The old man chuckled. “Is that what you call the one who left?”

Angelo's eyes narrowed.

“She was quite irresponsible.”

“Mother wasn't irresponsible.”

Angelo's voice was cold enough to make the words feel like a warning.

The old man looked at him for a moment before laughing. “Your sister thought otherwise.”

Angelo said nothing.

The old man's smile slowly faded. “The God of Obedience was powerful. Too powerful.”

He looked around the store as though remembering something that had happened a very long time ago.

“At first, it commanded humans.”

He paused.

“Then lesser gods.”

Another pause.

“Then greater ones.”

The fluorescent lights above us flickered.

“And eventually…”

The old man's eyes settled on Angelo.

“It commanded…the angel who made it.”

Angelo's expression didn't change, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Pain.

“The Angel was afraid,” the old man continued. “For the first time in her existence, she was afraid of something she had created.”

He smiled faintly.

“So she destroyed it.”

His smile widened.

“She shattered it.”

He spread his hands as though he could still see the pieces falling.

“Pieces scattered across the world, never to meet again.”

I looked around the store—the silent shoppers, the smiling faces, the old man standing in front of us.

“And I am guessing Evergrove is one of them?”

The old man nodded as he looked at me again.

“Your sister, a mere human, destroyed this piece.”

My throat tightened.

“And yet you're still here.”

“Of course.”

He smiled.

“Just because you destroy a piece of a god.” His voice became almost playful. “Doesn’t mean you destroy the god itself”

Angelo stepped forward, placing himself between me and the old man.

The old man looked at him.

Then he smiled.

“So how is the angel? Did she succeed in becoming the creator?”

Angelo didn't hesitate.

“I killed her.”

For several seconds, the old man simply stared at Angelo. Then he laughed, but the sound changed halfway through. It no longer sounded like an old man. It sounded ancient, like something enormous was wearing his voice.

“Hahahaha.”

His shoulders shook as he laughed. “If only she had let me help her.”

He looked at Angelo with something approaching pity. “You angels are so incompetent.”

Angelo moved.

One instant, he was beside me. The next, he was halfway across the store.

“Stop.”

Angelo froze, his foot suspended above the floor. His body trembled as he strained against whatever had suddenly taken hold of him. Slowly, his foot lowered, and his knee buckled beneath him. He caught himself, then immediately tried to move again.

Nothing happened.

“Angelo?”

His breathing became uneven. “I can't move.”

The old man's smile returned. “If I could command your sister…” He took another step forward. “I can command you.”

Angelo's hands clenched as his entire body strained against something none of us could see, but it didn't matter. The strongest being in the room was being held in place by a single word.

The old man turned his attention back to me and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Now, where were we?”

His eyes met mine.

“Oh, yes.”

“Your father.”

My stomach dropped.

“After your sister killed me and disappeared…” He paused, watching my reaction. “Guess who came looking for her?”

I already knew.

“My father.”

The old man smiled.

I remembered those days. Remi had disappeared, but my father hadn't cried or broken down. He had searched for her night after night, but not like a father desperately trying to find his daughter. He searched like a businessman who had just lost something valuable: a crucial piece of a deal.

A daughter he had planned to marry off.

A future he'd already arranged.

And when Remi escaped, he lost control.

I remembered walking through the house back then: the silence, the doors closing, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the halls. Everyone had learned not to speak when he was angry, and for months, I'd spent my life walking on eggshells.

The old man watched the realization settle across my face.

“He found me.”

His smile widened.

“Or rather…”

“One piece of me.”

I swallowed. “What did you do to him?”

“Offered him a deal, of course.”

He glanced down at his trembling hands. “I was too weak to control him. Your sister truly did a number on me.”

There was almost admiration in his voice.

“What did you want from him?”

“Something to replace the piece I lost.”

He lifted his eyes to mine.

“A small portion of what made him human.”

I laughed bitterly.

Of course.

What a fate.

My mother had become a cult leader. My father had become a power-hungry god dealer. Apparently, my family had a talent for making terrible decisions.

“And what did my father want?”

The old man looked almost amused.

“What your father had always wanted.”

He stepped closer.

“Control.”

His smile became colder.

“He wanted children who would never disobey him.”

A pause.

“So I gave him exactly what he asked for.”

My blood ran cold.

“What do you mean?”

The old man's smile softened.

“I constructed you.”

I stared at him.

“From your sister’s memories.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“When your sister made her bargain, she gave me something far more valuable than memories.” He tilted his head. “She gave me pieces of you.”

My eyes narrowed.

“And I used them…”

His smile widened.

“To make you.”

The words had barely left his mouth before the room seemed to grow colder.

I stared at him, trying to understand, while he looked at me almost fondly.

“But there was one problem.”

His gaze settled on my face.

“The deal was for both of you.”

He paused.

“But I was only able to make you from her memories.”

My stomach tightened.

“I never had your memories of your sister.”

I didn't understand at first.

Then it clicked.

“You couldn't create her.”

The old man smiled.

“Exactly.”

He took another step toward me.

“I could reconstruct the you she remembered.”

He paused.

“But not the her you remember.”

I stopped breathing.

Something cold spread through my chest as I stared at him.

“You need me.”

His smile widened.

“Now you understand.”

I felt sick.

All those years. Everything I remembered about my sister: her voice, her face, the way she used to hold my hand, the nights she stayed awake when I was afraid, the way she raised me when our parents wouldn't. Every stupid argument, every laugh, every moment I thought I'd forgotten until something reminded me.

Everything that made Remi my Remi.

That was the price.

The old man had never wanted my life. He wanted the one thing I could never replace.

My memories of her.

And suddenly, Evergrove didn't feel like a prison anymore.

It felt like a laboratory.

And I was the final ingredient.

I looked at Angelo. He was still frozen, his body unmoving since the old man had commanded him to stop. Then I noticed something else.

The faint glow that usually surrounded him was gone.

His presence felt... smaller.

Wrong.

“What did you do to him?”

The old man smiled. “I stripped him of his angelic authority.”

My blood ran cold.

Angelo's eyes met mine. For once, there was nothing divine behind them. No power. No protection.

Just Angelo.

“You took his powers?”

“No.”

The old man shook his head. “Inside Evergrove, he can't be an angel.”

I frowned. “What?”

“That is how my power works.” He gestured toward the store. “Inside here, everyone is equal. Gods. Humans. Spirits. Angels.”

A smile slowly spread across his face.

“None of you have authority here.”

He took another step toward us.

“I am the only one with authority.”

His voice dropped.

“I am the only one who can command.”

Angelo's expression hardened, and the old man smiled at him.

“You may be an angel outside.” He lifted one finger. “But inside my domain?”

He pointed at Angelo.

“You are just another person who must obey.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

“The one you want is me,” I said.

It was true. The old man had never wanted Angelo. He had never wanted Elior, Jacob, or anyone else who had walked into Evergrove.

He wanted me.

More specifically, he wanted the memories I carried.

“So let Angelo go.”

I looked at him.

The old man shook his head as much as his frozen body allowed.

“Nayeri, don't.”

The old man's expression softened.

“If it makes you feel better…”

He stepped closer.

“I don't want all of your memories.”

I stared at him.

“Only the ones I'm missing.”

My chest tightened.

He extended his hand.

“Give me those, and I will release him.”

I looked at Angelo. For the first time since I'd known him, he couldn't protect me. He couldn't fight, couldn't heal, couldn't even move.

He was completely human.

And somehow, that made my decision easier.

“Deal.”

Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri—”

The old man placed two fingers against my forehead.

“Then let us finish what your father started.”

The moment his fingers touched my skin, something pulled.

Not at my body.

Something deeper.

My memories.

They began flashing through my mind.

Remi laughing.

Remi holding my hand.

Remi teaching me how to lie to our parents.

Remi sitting beside my bed when I was afraid.

Remi stealing food from my plate.

Remi arguing with me over the stupidest things.

Remi promising she would always come back.

My chest tightened.

“No.”

The memories began slipping away.

Not fading.

Being taken.

I reached for them, but my hands couldn't hold onto something that existed only in my mind. I desperately clung to them, trying to hold on to every fragment, every image, every sound.

Then everything stopped.

Panic replaced the fear.

“No. Please…”

The old man said nothing. He simply watched.

And the last thing I saw before everything went black was Angelo.

No longer an angel.

No longer the being who could stand between me and anything in existence.

Just Angelo.

The man I loved.

Watching me disappear.

I woke up in my childhood home.

For a few seconds, I didn't move. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to understand why I recognized it. The faded wallpaper, the wooden floor, the photographs hanging crookedly along the hallway, everything was exactly as I remembered it.

Except for one thing.

It was peaceful.

Too peaceful.

There were no screams, no footsteps echoing through the halls, no doors slamming. There was no need to listen carefully for my father's footsteps before deciding whether it was safe to leave my room.

I slowly got to my feet and followed the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen.

Then I saw her.

A girl stood by the stove, her long hair falling all the way to her lower back. She turned toward me, and my breath caught.

She had my face.

My eyes.

My features.

Everything about her was unmistakably mine.

Except she smiled.

Not the smile I'd learned to use when I wanted someone to leave me alone. A genuine one.

She wore a simple sweater and jeans, with the front of her hair loosely tied behind her head. A wedding ring rested on her finger.

I stared at it.

“Where am I?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“No thank you?”

A small laugh escaped her. “This is still Evergrove.”

I looked around the kitchen. “I see.”

Then I looked back at her.

“Who are you?”

She held my gaze for a moment before answering.

“I’m the version of you he created.”

The words settled heavily between us, and suddenly, it made sense. She wasn't a copy of me in the way I'd first thought. She was the result of the deal; the obedient daughter my father had asked for, the me Evergrove had created from Remi's memories.

But if that was true—

I frowned. “Then why did you help me?”

Her expression softened.

“Because I pity you.”

I almost laughed. A copy of me was standing across from me, making tea and calmly telling me she felt sorry for me. There was something deeply insulting about that, but I had no idea how to respond, so I decided not to.

Instead, my eyes dropped to the wedding ring on her finger, then to the photograph sitting on the table behind her. It was her, standing in a white wedding dress with diamonds draped around her neck and her long hair falling down her back. She was smiling brightly.

I'd never seen myself smile like that.

I looked back at her.

“You're married?”

She looked at the ring and smiled. “Yeah.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Father arranged it.”

She returned to whatever she was doing. “I think you'll like him. He isn't like Father.”

I stared at her.

She seemed so ordinary. So painfully ordinary.

She complained about her husband leaving his socks on the floor. She told me she'd burned dinner the night before. She even laughed when she realized she'd put salt in her tea instead of sugar. At one point, she bumped her knee against the table and immediately apologized to the table.

I couldn't help staring.

She noticed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She smiled and went back to her tea. She even asked if I wanted some.

She was everything I wasn't.

Human.

Not weaker. Not less intelligent.

Just... human.

I looked around the kitchen again. The sunlight spilling through the windows, the warm cups sitting on the table, the wedding photographs, the little signs of a life that had somehow grown inside this nightmare.

And slowly, I understood what I was looking at.

This was the life I might have had if I'd never escaped this house. If I had stayed. If I'd learned to obey. If I'd let Father decide what my life was supposed to be.

And strangely, I wasn't jealous.

I was glad.

Because she seemed happy.

She had found something I never had.

But this future didn't feel like mine.

It felt like hers.

I looked back at her.

“You're his obedient daughter…”

She nodded. “I can't disobey him.”

“Then how are you helping me?”

She gave me a small smile. “Because telling you how to end this isn't disobedience.”

She winked at me as she poured tea into my cup.

Sitting across from her felt surreal, like I was watching a version of my life that had somehow happened to someone else.

She was me.

But she wasn't.

“So…”

I looked down at the tea.

“How do I end this?”

Her expression changed.

The smile disappeared.

My fingers tightened around the cup.

“Kill Father.”

She said it almost in a whisper, as if the walls might hear her.

“What?”

“Yes.”

She took a sip of her tea and looked toward the photographs hanging along the wall. I followed her gaze. There were pictures everywhere: her wedding, her husband, holidays, birthdays. A life.

But there wasn't a single picture of Remi.

Not one.

“How do I kill him?”

She looked back at me.

“He's still human.”

“Father?”

She nodded.

“He will remain human until Evergrove succeeds in making—”

She paused.

“Riva.”

My stomach dropped.

I hadn't heard that name in years.

“My sister's name is Remi now,” I said quietly, correcting her.

She looked at me for a moment.

“Remi.”

She said the name carefully, as if trying it for the first time.

“Is that why you saved my memories of her?”

“Yes.”

She lowered her cup.

“Because as long as Riv—” She paused, catching herself. “I mean, Remi isn't made in this world, the deal remains unfinished, and Father remains human.”

She glanced toward the hallway.

“And if Father dies in the real world, this place dies with him.”

“And you?”

She smiled.

“I'll finally be free.”

My throat tightened.

“Then why don't you kill him yourself?”

Her smile disappeared.

“I can't.”

She looked down at her hands.

“I'm his obedient daughter.”

The words came out strangely flat, rehearsed, like she'd said them so many times that she'd stopped thinking about what they meant. Like someone had programmed the answer into her.

Then she looked back at me.

“But you aren't.”

She stood from the table.

“You still have a choice.”

I didn't move.

For the first time since I came here, she looked genuinely sad.

“Goodbye, me.”

She reached out and placed her hand against my forehead.

“Wake up.”

The moment she said it, the world around me cracked.

The kitchen split apart like glass. The walls disappeared, and the house collapsed into darkness around me.

Then I fell.

Angelo's face was the first thing I saw.

His eyes were wide, as the old man stood in front of him.

“How dare you disobey meeeee.”

The old man's voice distorted, stretching into something that made the walls vibrate.

“SIRAAAAAAAAAA!”

My real name echoed through Evergrove.

Not Nayeri.

Sira.

My body went cold. 

But something about the way he said it felt wrong. 

He wasn’t talking to me. 

He was talking to her. 

The obedient Nayeri. Evergroove’s Nayeri. 

Sira. 

I barely had the time to process what that meant before the old man's body suddenly convulsed. 

His chest split down the middle, not like flesh being torn, but like something inside him was forcing its way out. His ribs bent backward as his skin peeled apart, revealing something black writhing beneath the opening.

Then the tendrils erupted.

Angelo couldn't move. He couldn't even raise his arms.

“Nayeri!”

I moved without thinking and threw myself between them.

The first tendril punched through my stomach.

For a second, I felt nothing.

Then the pain arrived.

A small gasp escaped me, and Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri.”

Another tendril tore across my side, and my knees buckled. Angelo still couldn't move. He could only watch as I fell in front of him.

Then the lights went out.

Every fluorescent bulb in the store shattered at once, and darkness swallowed us. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, until something cracked. Not wood. Not glass. The building itself.

A deep fracture tore through the wall behind us, and the old man stopped. His head slowly turned toward the sound as footsteps came from the other side.

One.

Then another.

The cracks spread farther across the wall, and the old man's smile disappeared.

Then the wall exploded inward.

Light flooded the store, and someone stepped through the opening.

Elior.

Light poured from his body, illuminating the broken store as his eyes burned white. He looked at the old man, then at me, and his expression changed.

“I am sorry, Uncle.”

He raised his hand.

“For my delay.”

The light exploded outward, throwing the tendrils backward as cracks raced across the walls of Evergrove. The entire store shook beneath the force, and for the first time since we'd entered the store, the old man looked afraid.

Elior stepped forward.

And the fight began.

I barely heard it.

Angelo was holding me, and somehow, he'd finally broken free. His hands were covered in my blood as he looked down at them, then back at me.

He tried to summon his authority.

Nothing.

He tried to heal me.

Nothing.

His expression slowly changed.

“No.”

He tried again.

Nothing happened.

“No.”

His voice cracked as he stared at his hands as though they had betrayed him. For the first time since I'd met him, Angelo looked completely helpless.

Tears rolled down his face.

“I can't.”

I looked at him.

“You're crying.”

He didn't answer. Instead, he pressed his forehead against mine.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't.”

I reached up and touched his cheek.

“You saved me enough times.”

He shook his head.

“No…”

I smiled.

“It's okay.”

He closed his eyes, and I pulled him closer before kissing him.

It wasn't passionate.

It wasn't dramatic.

It was gentle. Warm. Almost painfully normal.

When we pulled apart, I smiled.

“Hah.”

Angelo looked at me.

“I never expected my first kiss to be my last.”

His face crumpled.

“No.”

He shook his head.

“No, it's not.”

His voice trembled.

“You're going to be fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

I smiled.

I wanted to believe him.

I really did.

But my vision was already beginning to blur, and suddenly, all I could think about was everyone I loved.

Angelo.

The first time we met.

The strange way he learned how to care about people.

The way he always noticed when something was wrong with me, even when I didn't say anything.

Remi.

Her laugh. Her stupid jokes.

The way she was getting used to holding my hand.

Jacob.

All the arguments. All the times he'd annoyed me.

The only family I had after Remi left.

Elior.

The idiot who somehow managed to make Jacob blush without even realizing what he was doing.

The one I never got to see marry Jacob. The one who taught Angelo how to be more human every day, despite not being human himself.

And then Noah.

Mostly Noah.

I thought about his little voice.

Nay?

I remembered making his spicy eggs. He always complained that they were too spicy, then he'd eat the entire plate anyway.

I thought about cutting his hair while he complained that I was pulling it, and watching Baby Shark with him until I wanted to throw the television out the window.

I wondered who would make his spicy eggs now.

Who would cut his hair?

Who would watch Baby Shark with him?

My chest hurt.

Not because I was afraid to die.

Because I didn't want to leave them.

My vision darkened as Angelo continued holding me, his tears falling against my face. Somewhere behind us, Elior was screaming. The old man was screaming too, and Evergrove was coming apart around us.

And then I thought about another life.

A life without gods.

Without demons.

Without C.S.P.

Without monsters hiding behind human faces.

Maybe we'd have a tiny house in some boring little town.

Our neighbors would be Jacob and Elior. They'd run a little restaurant; Jacob used to tell me about his dream to be a chef.

It would be the kind of place where neighbors were like family. They'd complain when our grass got too long, and we'd complain when their dog barked at three in the morning.

Our biggest problem would be a power outage.

Angelo would complain about the heat.

I'd complain about his complaining.

And somehow, we'd be happy.

Maybe we'd get married.

No grand ceremony.

Nothing extravagant.

Just us.

And Noah could be the ring bearer.

I smiled at the thought.

Yeah.

That sounds nice.

My fingers slowly loosened around Angelo's hand.

Maybe in the next life.

My eyes closed.

Maybe we'll both live there.

Maybe we'll get to be boring.

Maybe we'll finally get to be human.

And then—

everything went dark.

I am Willy Pete, the crazed writer recording all of the oddities, visuals, stories, and research surrounding the Altar-Net. Thank you for absorbing this stuff into your gray matter.

To all of you who take some time to read my posts, whether or not you comment or upcharge them, I must take a break. I've been posting daily, here and elsewhere, telling you things I've seen and experienced and heard about during my research on the Altar-Net. The finale of Keht-o-Komz will arrive soon. Another story about that damned cat is on the way. I have a backlog of stories from survivors of the Water Walls. There are more third person stories such as Diamond-shonal Shiffed.

But I need to catch my metaphorical breath, just for a day or two. In the meantime, I will try to post very short stories, or expositions. I must keep the engine idling instead of letting it stall. Yoon-Iverz is growing bored. The Altar-Net is falling apart because Yoon is not maintaining it. I have Kraig's journal and I will eventually share his findings here.

Sharon and the others, they've been thrown through the cosmos and we may have to look for them. Zach, James, Mr Praunski, and the rest of the population of Clarkson County hold more weird stories.

At the moment I'm fighting an infection of the soul. Jimmy, an old literal literaturial demonic entity, has been summoned. He is not dangerous for most. All he does is pull readers into stories and make them the monster. He seems to favor my fingers for crafting those.

You can find these tall and short and medium tails in several subreddits. Just check my profile. I've got ambitions to utilize YouTube to give visuals, post interviews with Altar-Net refugees, and expand the understanding of the Common Denominator. Eventually I may create a website, almost like an archive.

I should get back to my studies. I hear a baby crying outside.

My phonetically-accurate name is Willy Pete. Since the precise initiation of this cycle I have been the only consistently active Recorder of the Altar-Net. I'm not from Earth. English is not my first language. But the world I come from is almost identical, my native tongue seems to share almost every tributary, and our physics seem to share the same roots.

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For the lack of better explanation *{or language unit for description of something}* I'm a wizard. I have been trained in the general, rudimentary, and basic foundations of many subjects, theories, topics, ways of thinking, and variablous laws. The Uppest Sparts granted me the rank of Travel-Storier, which means I am qualified to record the events, histories, entries, and everything else, of any place I can find. I'm only the third Travel-Storier in all of my world-population's recorded history. The other two are, allegedly, still working and living, but we lost track of them.

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So, according to our... I think you call them traditions, so according to our traditions we must create a new Travel-Storier when the last one cannot be accessed or communicated with after one approximated unit of time that's equivalent-ish to one of your centuries. The first Travel-Storier was able to clirx phrases to our Tower, via one of the Uppest, while the next Travel-Storier was still in development. It takes some tricks of reincarnation and space-time magic to develop a fully acclimated Travel-Storier. Fortunately for all of creation this creates an almost inconceivably collosal buffer period. The next Travel-Storier wasn't completely refined until quite a few of your yeee-bonz ago. Now, I am the currently supported Travel-Storier, and I am responsible for maintaining the Yoon-Iverz.

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You should be somewhat familiar with my records, by now. I've written about some of my experiences on this world. There's been mentions of the ALTAR-NET. Among the opening segments of some of the entries there should be mentions of Towers. Well, now I must explain what some of that is allllll abwat. About. Apologies.

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My world presides on one individual vertex of the Altar Network. Yoon-Iverz is the creator of everything. His name has been spoken and shared down through all the branches of the created worlds and populations. You Earth-Humans represent only one of those (incalculable) branches, and his name has been concentrated down to one word in your language, Universe. The Altar-Net currently spans the diameter of several galaxies. Every planet, cloud, ring, graph-chart, and conceivable dimension that harbor a vertex are all connected like an intricate web. Yoon-Iverz created it all because he needs stories to keep himself entertained.

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In the last Eon we witnessed the disintegration of several Altar-Net strands. The Uppest could no longer monitor an entire trade system's worth of Towers. Something is very wrong with the Altar-Net. One of my Eternal Tasks (ordered unto me by the Uppest) is to find out why the Altar-Net is breaking. Towards satisfying my Uppest, and to satiate my own curiosity, I must record and share as many stories as I possibly can.

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There are events and species and leaks in the Network and cross-threads to explain. Boredom is the name of my nemesis, and if I fail to defeat it then ALL OF EVERYTHING will be destroyed. The only other solution The Uppest can pursue is a terrible solution I cannot bring myself to think about.

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My cross-dimensional label is Willy Pete, and I'm the Travel-Storier Wizard who has seemingly been tasked with the impossible. The Altar-Net is relying on me to find the other two Travel-Storiers, record and display my stories for Yoon-Iverz, and harvest more time for The Uppest to concoct a viable solution to the Yoon-Iverz Y'alls Problem.

Finale

<Redacted> State Prison.

Sanders

7/24/2022

9:04 am:

A man, Avery Lemug, dropped off a bed that he said should go to Death Row. He also dropped off a paper with a list on notes, as well as a warning that if it doesn't go to Death Row, follow the notes.

The request was followed and the bed moved to Death Row. The notes the man left read as follows:

1. If in Death Row, reserve for the worst of the worst. Use as frequent as necessary.

2. If not in Death Row, Leave in secluded cell.

3. Longer without someone, the stronger the bed's urges grow. Not a problem in Death Row.

4. Do NOT let an innocent or suspected to be innocent or someone in appeals in the bed.

5. Do not worry about cleaning bed. It does that itself.

6. Do NOT sleep in bed.

7. Does not fill. You can try as much as you like, will not fill.

8. Do not look for me.

Sorry for the fake name.

-

<Redacted> State Prison

Sanders

8/14/2026

Found the <Redacted> Wonderer killer. Booked today. Set for Death Row.

Brief:

Franklin Stevens would lure homeless people and prostitutes into his car before taking them home, killing them, and disposing the bodies. He moved to finding former inmates and doing the same. Plead guilty. Sentenced to Death on the 14th of December by way of Code: Resting Place.