r/Ruleshorror

​Have you ever accidentally lost something incredibly important? Perhaps that watch your mother gave you for your birthday, the ledger you used for cooking the books, or even the knife you accidentally dropped into the river when you murdered someone...

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​If so, come search for it at our shop!

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​1. Do Not Search for Lost People

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​If you are lucky, you might find a monster wearing that person's skin. If you are unlucky, it will send you and your family straight to the celestial spirits of another dimension.

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​2. Never Search for Things You Haven’t Actually Lost

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​Like that ten million dollars, that grand mansion, or that sports car you never actually owned. You will lose your way in this shop. While the shop does send out search and rescue teams, the fees are exorbitant—and anyone looking for high-priced luxury goods they never owned probably can't afford the rescue fee anyway.

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​3. Do Not Search for Any Living Organisms (Whether Plants or Animals)

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​Ah, I feel like this should have been written together with Rule 1, but since I've already written this far, I'll keep it separate. To put it simply: what you will find are alien lifeforms or monsters that have done business with our shop. Why do we do business with them, you ask? If you were in our shoes, would you pass up such a unique opportunity? As for what kind of business it is... well, you'll find out once you encounter them!

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​4. Never Take Items Formed from Other People's Memories

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​This is blatant theft, and it will break the memory connection between that person and the object. You will be hunted down by the shop's special forces and sacrificed to the Ancient Gods.

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​5. Never Search for Lost Time or Dimensions

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​This will cause a space-time rift that will consume the seeker. According to our research, you will be trapped in a grinding vortex of time and space with no escape. Most importantly, we would have to deploy our special forces to patch up the rift. This is extremely dangerous and drains our budget—funding a special forces unit is very expensive.

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​6. Staff in Green Uniforms Are Open for Conversation; Staff in Orange Uniforms Are Not

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​Employees in green uniforms are general customer service staff. Those in orange uniforms are the special forces—every single second of their time is immensely valuable.

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​These are the rules. We wish you the best of luck in recovering what you have lost.

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​

(Part 1)

1. You will find it on your porch facing away from your front door towards the mountain. It's important that you don't move or damage it. Never interact with it unless otherwise stated.

2. Regardless of your activities during the day, the effigy must be on the porch facing away from the front door before the sun goes down.

3. Before you go to bed, check outside to make sure the effigy is still facing away from your door. If you find it facing the door, lock all your windows and turn a lamp on until the morning.

4. If you notice a smell from the effigy like it's burning, this is normal. Don't touch it or try to cool it down no matter what happens.

5. If you wake up to find the effigy's base empty, grab a lit candle and place it in front of the base. Go about your day as normal. It’ll be back by sunset.

6. If you see the effigy in your house at any point, find the nearest window and place it facing out towards the mountain.

7. Only you are allowed to start fires as long as the effigy inhabits your home.

8. If you hear someone trying to start a fire, whether they're a guest, a friend, or a family member, douse the wood with a large glass of water. If they light a fire before you’re able to, it's too late.

9. Always keep a glass of water next to your bed. If you wake up in the night and the temperature is much hotter than you remember, and you can hear what sounds like hissing near the foot of your bed, do not react. Drink the water slowly and lie still until the morning.

...

When I finally woke up the next morning, I made it my personal mission to complete as many tasks as I could around the house to get ready for work. I wasn't even thinking about stepping outside. You’d call it procrastinating…. and you'd be right. I would've rather done literally anything other than look through that window again, let alone go out the door.

Maybe it was because I had kicked that little statue off my front porch the night before in a screaming blind panic. Stupid, I know. I have no excuses. I probably had just screwed myself over before I even had a fighting chance.

I'm sure most people would've kept a cool head, followed the rules, and waited it out until the effigy and the thing that put it there eventually decided to move on or something. If that was even possible.

But I wasn't most people.

Even after I had punted the effigy into the darkness beyond the porch light, I spent the rest of the night convincing myself I had imagined the whole thing. And by the time the next morning rolled around, I didn't know if the effigy would turn back up there. I was praying it wouldn't. And just the implication that it could, sent a finger of cold tickling down my spine. That would mean that whatever that thing was the night before, I would be subjected to its rules.

And not only had I thrown the list away, I spectacularly failed rule one. I remembered that rule well enough.

1. You will find it on your porch facing away from your front door towards the mountain. It's important that you don't move or damage it. Never interact with it unless otherwise stated.

Well, crap.

Finally, I had no other distractions. I was showered and in my uniform, my coffee was in my thermos, and my lunch was made.

I looked behind me towards the sink, desperately hoping to see a plate or two that I could wash and put away. Anything to stave off going outside if only for a few more minutes.

The sink was empty.

I clenched my jaw and gripped my thermos tighter. I walked up to the front door. I saw the effigy through that window, just like last night. Right where it was before.

The blood drained from my face.

The effigy itself was humanoid in a loose sense of the word. It stood with its arms slightly raised from its sides, like the posture of someone about to be asked a question they already know the answer to. It was facing away from me toward the mountain, exactly as the note had described. What I could see from my angle was a set of shoulders that were broader than they should be for the scale of the figure, and the suggestion of a head that was elongated slightly.

It was eerily similar to how the creature that put it there looked.

My mind was almost going static with fear at this point. A brief mental image of that monster flashed into my head and I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath to center myself.

I was even beginning to debate with myself on what to do. The conversation went a bit like this:

You've been staring at it through the window for twenty minutes. You're going to be late for work. My brain said.

"Correct." I whispered back.

Okay, it said. Then go to work.

"What if-”

It's a statue, Simon. Whatever put it there is gone. It's just a statue.

There are moments in your life where you realize the fear of looking foolish is actually stronger than the fear of whatever it is you're afraid of. This was one of those moments, at least for me. I didn't want to admit to myself that I was genuinely terrified to open my own front door.

And once I made that realization, what followed was easier to do. Albeit only slightly.

I unlocked the deadbolt, turned the handle, and opened the door.

The cold came in first, the sharp clean smell of pine and mountain rock. A wind had picked up since I'd woken up and it moved through the tall grass at the edge of the property in slow waves.

In the morning light I could see the effigy more clearly than I had the night before, and I wish I could tell you that clarity made it less unsettling.

It didn't.

It was maybe fourteen inches tall, sitting on its own base, which was smooth and flat. The material was dark, some kind of stone or fired clay. The detailed work on the statue was extraordinary for something so small.

The figure had texture to it, a kind of layering along the torso that looked almost like scales, or like something had grown up along the outside of it. The head, which I could see in profile from my angle, had a jaw that was slightly too long, almost like a lizard or alligator, and one of the eye sockets that faced me was deep and perfectly circular in a way that made the shadow inside it look carved rather than cast.

It was genuinely beautiful work. And it made my skin crawl.

I noticed something I'd missed the night before. At the base of the figure, worked into the stone in letters so small I had to lean close to read them, was an inscription. I had to tilt my head and use the morning light at the right angle, but I could make out a string of characters that meant absolutely nothing to me. Not any alphabet I recognized.

They weren't runes in the fantasy novel sense, and they weren't anything that resembled Latin or Greek or any other script I'd seen in passing.

They were old-looking. That was the only way I could put it. They looked like they were trying to tell me something in a language that predated writing. The effigy just sat there. For all intents and purposes, it was just a statue.

On impulse, I nudged it with my foot. Nothing happened.

I heaved a sigh that eased the tension in my shoulders a little. If I remembered the note right, it said I could go about my day as normal. I just had to make sure it still faced the mountain.

I climbed into my car and began to drive away. But as I left, I glanced back into my rearview mirror one last time.

I don't know what I was expecting. For the effigy to be gone, maybe. Or maybe for the whole thing to be something my brain concocted out of exhaustion and a vivid dream caused by a small town burger.

But when I looked through the mirror, there it was. It seemed like it was almost staring at me.

I didn't stick around.

…

The delivery job in daylight and fresh air had a way of making the previous night feel less real. There's something about physical labor and social interaction that has a kind of corrective effect on the brain. You're moving, you're talking to people, you're lifting things, and the primal part of you that is convinced the world is ending recalibrates to what you know are facts.

And the facts were that I was fine. The town was fine. The sun was out and the mountain looked like a postcard as usual.

I made three deliveries before noon. Two of them were to houses on the east end of town. The third was to a property about a quarter mile north of mine, further up the road that ran past my house.

An older man answered the door, wide and solid, with the kind of weathered face you get from spending most of your life outdoors. He signed for his package without looking directly at me, which I might have taken personally if his attention wasn’t focused on something just past my shoulder. I turned around to see he was looking at my house in the distance, just visible above the low rise of the terrain.

"You're the one that moved into the old Garet place," he said, more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah," I said. "I just moved in a few days ago." He turned to me. "How's it sitting with you?" he asked.

"It's a great house," I replied truthfully. I went with the short answer because it was the most honest one I could come up with at the time.

He looked at me for a moment. Then he looked back at the house.

"Good foundations under that place," he said finally. "My name's Walt. Walt Henner."

“Simon Belmont.”

Walt shifted the package under one arm and shook my hand with his free one. His grip was firm but not unkind. "You get settled in alright?" he asked.

"Pretty much," I said. "Still got boxes to unpack but the important stuff is handled."

Walt nodded slowly. His gaze was turned to the road that ran between my property and the base of the mountain.

"Do you know much about this area?" I asked.

"Born here," he said. "I've lived here seventy-one years."

"Long time."

He gave an acknowledging nod and shifted his weight, setting his package inside the doorway. He looked back at me, and his eyebrows creased into a frown. “Son, are you feeling alright?”

I looked up from my notepad and blinked. I laughed nervously. “Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?”

“You look like you've seen a ghost is all.” Walt gave me a look that left almost no room for further protest.

I bit my lip.

I’m not sure why I wanted to just tell him everything. About the note, the effigy, all of it. He'd lived here long enough, he was bound to know something about what's going on.

So I went with my gut, and I told him.

From the moment I moved in, to finding the effigy on the front porch this morning, I told him. I left out the part of me kicking the effigy the night before. Didn't want the conversation to be cut short with a “you're screwed, goodbye”.

Walt nodded as I recounted the story. He opened the door wider, and his smile was sympathetic, quite unlike the gruff frown that covered his face when he first opened the door. “Why don't you come inside for something warm to drink?”

Almost without thinking I stepped inside with a mumbled thank you. I didn't have any other deliveries for the day. And if this was my chance to get answers about the effigy, I was going to take it.

Walt’s set up was simple compared to my house. It was a small one bed and one bath bungalow with a living room that had a kitchen taking up one half and what looked like a little desk and office space taking up the other half. The desk was covered with notes and newspaper clippings, like it was the set of that detective show Darrin showed me.

“I apologize for the mess,” Walt called over his shoulder as he shuffled through the living room and put the kettle on. “My grand nephew called me earlier this morning. One of his friends found something interesting in a cave a few months ago, he was talking my ear off for an hour and wanted my input.”

“No, it's alright.” I sat on the couch and pinched the bridge of my nose. “This past week has been… interesting.”

“I'm sure it has.” Walt looked over at me. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee's fine, thank you.” I smiled gratefully.

Walt turned the heat up on the stove and sat down in the arm chair across from me. “So. I'm sure you have questions. About the house.”

I didn't answer at first, then I nodded wordlessly.

“You probably feel like Ross took you to the cleaners in regards to that place, huh?” he pressed.

“Kind of, yeah.” I pursed my lips. I was already thinking about the talk he and I were going to have once I got home.

“Before you go after Ross,” Walt sighed, “he doesn't know about the truth behind our ‘superstition’ as he calls it. If he does know, he chooses not to believe it. He always manages to find some natural explanation for why people leave that place alone. Gas leaks. Pests. Things like that.”

“And what's your explanation?” I looked the old man in the eyes.

He thought for a moment. “This isn't just my ‘explanation’. This is the town’s history we're talking about here. There is a legend about what lives under Mount Iston. It's an old legend. Older than any others that the Natives cooked up when they first came here. Even back then, the very first of them knew to stay away from those slopes.”

“What kind of legend is it?” I asked.

Walt rubbed his chin. “There are theories. Debates. Some call it a cryptid. Others call it a spirit. But what people do agree on is that it's called the Otor. The first disappearance that was attributed to the legend was back in 1947.”

My skin crawled. “The first attributed?” So there were more, I thought, and my throat tightened. So many more.

The old man nodded solemnly. “It was one of the Grayson kids. Isaac Grayson. Taken by the Otor to the mountain when he wandered into its territory.”

“Let me guess. My house is in that territory.” My voice cracked more than I'm comfortable admitting.

Walt looked at me apologetically. “Yes.”

Anger began bubbling up in me. “And you didn't think to stop by and tell me everything? You didn't think to warn me not to move in?”

“Be honest with yourself, would you have believed me if I told you everything? Would you have moved away and tried to find another home? Or would you have called me crazy and kicked me off your property?” Walt raised an eyebrow.

He had me there. “Touché.”

He turned to his desk and dug around in it a little. Then he brought out a yellowing piece of paper. “Figured this would come in handy in the future.”

I took it from him when he offered, and my jaw almost dropped.

It was the note. The rules. It wasn't the exact same piece of paper I threw away, but there were the same rules.

“How did you-” I stammered.

“I figured you'd have thrown the first one away by now. Didn't have time to get this one to you, unfortunately.” He glanced over at the kitchen and got up to check on the coffee.

I looked down at the rules then back to Walt. “So you're the one who's been putting notes all over town?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any way you can think of, I don't know, to stop this spirit-cryptid thing or something? Maybe banish it? Maybe I can just leave?” The once neat paper was already crumpling in my hands as they began to wring with worry.

He shook his head as he poured the steaming brown liquid into a grey mug. “You can certainly try.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Garets tried to move away. That much is true. On the outskirts of town, they died in a car accident. Both of them were incinerated.” Walt turned to me. “I bet my bottom dollar that the Otor wouldn't let them leave.”

“So it keeps people here...” I whispered.

There was a grunt of reply. “Only the people who are desperate enough to live in that house for one year. Think of it like a deal. You live within its borders for at least one year, and only if you follow the rules will it leave you alone.”

“And you know all of this, how?” I glanced at him.

Walt stared into his coffee for a long moment, his years seeming to bear down on him. “Because I lived in that house myself. I was just a kid, trying to make ends meet with my family. For a year, every time I tried to run away, it drove me back. Every time I thought I was out, the Otor would just drag me into its cursed world. Its blasted rules. The only way I survived was by figuring out the rules and holding to them.”

I remembered how I had kicked the effigy off my front porch, screaming bloody murder. “Right.” I said carefully. “And hypothetically, what would happen if I did break a rule?”

Walt sipped his coffee, not taking his eyes off me. “I would imagine the Otor would be quite upset.”

Great.

“I know this is a lot to take in.” Walt raised his mug to me. He didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled a little.

“But you can wait this out. As long as you follow the rules and last until next year, you'll be just fine. And if you need absolutely anything, for any reason, call me. My phone number is on the back of the note.”

…

The next few weeks were quiet.

Not eerily quiet, necessarily. Just regular quiet. The effigy sat on its base every morning when I left and every evening when I came back.

By the end of the month, I had started to think of the effigy the way you think about a garden gnome someone left behind. A little ugly, a little strange, but ultimately harmless. Probably not worth the energy of worrying about.

The rules had become routine.

But the thing is, I wasn't really afraid of the effigy itself at this point. It was the spirit.

I had been waiting for the spirit, this Otor, to come back and dish out some punishment or consequence for kicking its effigy that one night way back. But so far nothing had happened. And that almost made things worse for a while. Maybe it was waiting to lull me into a false sense of security before striking? Or maybe it decided to give me just this one freebie due to my mental distress?

One could hope, right?

But as one month bled into another and nothing happened, I was beginning to believe that maybe it had forgotten. Or the real consequences were the hours of sleep I lost along the way.

Because when the thing you're afraid of simply doesn't happen for long enough, your brain starts quietly negotiating with itself. It starts filing the fear under “probably nothing” and then under “definitely nothing” and eventually under “we don't need to keep that file open anymore”.

It's not stupidity. At least I don't see it that way. It's just how the brain conserves energy, I think. The system was not designed for sustained vigilance about a spirit maybe punishing you.

I unpacked the rest of my boxes. I called Darrin and told him about Grayson's triple function building set up and he lost his mind exactly as predicted.

I started learning the back roads well enough that I didn't need the GPS anymore.

I figured out that the woman who ran the diner was named Carol and that she put brown sugar in her cornbread which is an objectively correct decision.

I followed the rules to a T. At least ones that have happened so far. If the effigy faced my front door, I turned the lamp on until morning. If I found it in the house, I put it at the window. There weren't any mishaps with the effigy leaving the base empty, or the hissing at the foot of my bed. At least not yet.

I was, against all reasonable odds, starting to like it here.

…

Saturday morning, I slept in. Which I feel like I earned. I made coffee with more care than usual, found a podcast I'd been meaning to listen to for months, and sat in the armchair with my mug and genuinely felt okay.

I wasn't going to look out the window. I was going to have one morning where I just drank my coffee in peace. Hours passed, and I felt significantly put at ease just by not acknowledging the weirdness of the past month.

When I finally looked out onto the porch, the base was still there. But the effigy was not.

I stared at it for a long moment, then stepped outside to get a better look. The base sat empty on the second step, that smooth flat disc of dark stone, and there was nothing on top of it.

Something in the back of my brain started pulling at me. Something’s familiar about this. I frowned and went back inside.

I looked through the drawers of my kitchen, then my office space until I found the list of rules that Walt gave to me.

5. If you wake up to find the effigy's base empty, grab a lit candle and place it in front of the base. Go about your day as normal. It’ll be back by sunset.

That one had seemed like the most harmless item on the list. Grab a candle and it'll come back. Fine. That should be simple enough. The only problem was I didn't own any candles.

I stood in the kitchen and turned this over. The rule said a lit candle in front of the base, but it didn't say what happened if you couldn't.

Maybe nothing. Just like how the consequence for kicking it was nothing.

Maybe the effigy came back regardless and the candle was just a ritual or formality, something the Garets or Walt had done out of habit with no actual function behind it.

You have to remember that this incident came up after a full month of “nothing” as far as the Otor enforcing its own rules. Looking back I wasn't as vigilant as I should've been.

It's kind of an inside joke among the locals, Keegan Ross had said.

As long as you follow the rules and last until next year, you'll be just fine. Walt had said.

I went with my gut.

I felt like it wouldn't hurt. I went to Grayson's at eleven. They sold candles in the provisions section, tall white ones in glass jars. I bought two, feeling slightly stupid about it, and drove home.

The base was still empty. No surprise there.

I lit one of the candles and set it in front of the stone disc and stood there on the porch in the late morning chill feeling ridiculous.The candle flame pulled sideways in the mountain wind and I had to cup my hand around it to keep it from going out.

But after a few minutes of sputtering and dancing in the wind, the flame went out with a grey line of smoke tracing up. So I lit the match again and I cupped my hand tighter, trying to ignore the heat against my palm.

It lit, held for a few seconds, and went out again.

I stood there for another few minutes, relighting the thing, watching it die, relighting it. The wind off Iston was steady and entirely unhelpful. Like the mountain was completely indifferent to the rules of whatever this was.

I tried setting up barriers to keep the candle out of the wind, but just when I thought I found a good way to do it, my lighter would gutter out.

After the sixth time, I gave up. I put the candle back inside and tossed the lighter into the kitchen drawer, frustrated. I had done what I could, but nothing seemed to work.

The effigy would come back or it wouldn't. I'd followed the spirit of the instruction, if not the letter. That had to count for something.

I went back inside.

I had two broken rules under my belt at that point. Which should've made me be more careful about checking to see if the effigy came back at all.

It didn't even occur to me to check the basement.

…

Later that night, I woke up in a puddle of sweat. The heat in the room was stifling, I could hardly breath.

At first, I didn’t move. I just lay there in the dark with the sheet stuck to my chest, trying to make sense of the sensation. It felt like I’d fallen asleep in front of an oven with the door open.

My first thought was the rule. Rule 9.

9. Always keep a glass of water next to your bed. If you wake up in the night and the temperature is much hotter than you remember, and you can hear what sounds like hissing near the foot of your bed, do not react. Drink the water slowly and lie still until the morning.

I went stiff immediately, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening so hard my ears started to ache.

Nothing.

No hiss.

No breathing from the foot of the bed.

Just the low groan of the house settling and the muffled sound of wind moving around the eaves. I turned my head an inch at a time and glanced toward the end of the bed. There was nothing that didn't belong.

The glass of water on my nightstand caught a thin piece of moonlight.

I had started keeping one there after Walt gave me the copy of the rules. And even after I let my guard down, I still kept it there out of habit. The glass was full. Untouched.

I reached for it anyway and drank half in slow, careful swallows.

Nothing happened.

The room stayed hot.

I sat up, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I could feel the heat rolling up through the floorboards, thick and dry, like the whole house had been built over something burning.

“That blasted furnace,” I muttered.

It was the only explanation that made sense. The house had an old heating system in the basement. Mr. Ross had shown it to me during the tour, talking quickly the whole time, explaining the pilot light and the vents and the shutoff valve with the uneasy energy of a man who wanted to leave before I asked too many questions.

At the time, I’d barely listened. I was too busy pretending I knew what half of those things meant. Now the whole upstairs felt like a sauna, and all I could think was that some ancient furnace had decided to cook me alive in my sleep.

I checked my phone.

2:43 AM.

Because of course it was.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, weighing my options. I could ignore it and try to sleep. That was tempting. It was also how people ended up as headlines with phrases like “preventable accident” and “faulty heating system” in the article.

The rules said not to react if I heard hissing.

I didn’t hear hissing.

This was maintenance. That was all. Annoying, badly timed, maintenance.

But then another thought pressed into my mind. It was the alternative. And it was one that forced me to shake my head to clear it. No use panicking just yet.

I got dressed. Because walking into a basement in boxers at three in the morning felt like the exact kind of decision horror movie characters would make before getting folded in half. I put on my jeans, T-shirt, socks and shoes. I even grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight.

Then I stood in the bedroom doorway and listened again. Still no hissing.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet, maybe, but I was trying very hard not to let my brain do that thing where it turns every absence of sound into evidence of an ambush.

I walked down the hall.

The heat got worse near the basement door.

That should have reassured me. It meant I was right. The furnace was probably malfunctioning, or maybe something had gotten clogged. Or the thermostat had shorted. I didn’t know. I was making up homeowner words at that point, but they helped.

The basement door was just off the kitchen. A narrow white door with an old brass knob and a little keyhole that had been painted over sometime in the last thirty years.

I put my hand on the knob. It was warm but not hot enough to burn. Just warm enough that my fingers curled away instinctively.

I almost called Walt. I actually pulled my phone from my pocket and found his contact. My thumb hovered over the button.

Then I imagined waking up a seventy-one-year-old man at 2:45 in the morning just to tell him my furnace was acting up.

I put the phone away.

The fear of looking ridiculous is a powerful thing. I wish it wasn’t. I honestly wish I could tell you I had grown past that. But no. Even then, after the note and the effigy and the thing on the porch, part of me still cared about sounding stupid. So I opened the basement door.

Almost immediately I coughed and turned my face away. It smelled like dust that was baked too long on metal. Old wood and warm stone. The kind of smell you get when you first turn the heat on after months of not using it, except much stronger.

My flashlight beam cut down the stairs, and the basement waited below.

It looked exactly the way it had when Mr. Ross showed it to me. It had a low ceiling and concrete floor with exposed beams with shelves along one wall. A workbench was left behind by the previous owners. The furnace squatted in the far corner like an ugly metal animal.

Nothing moved.

The heat grew heavier with every step I took down the short flight of stairs, pressing against my face and filling my lungs. By the time I reached the bottom, sweat was already running down my spine.

I stopped at the foot of the stairs and swept the flashlight slowly from left to right.

The beam of my phone seemed to disappear before it reached the far wall. The shadows between the support posts were like ink.

The furnace suddenly made a low loud clanking sound and I flinched so hard I nearly dropped my phone.

“Okay,” I whispered. “That’s normal. Completely normal.”

I crossed the basement.

Every step echoed wrong. The concrete should have made my footsteps sharp and flat, but instead the sounds came back soft and delayed, as if the floor extended far below me and my steps were landing on a thin lid over a much deeper space. The furnace clanked again.

I reached it and crouched in front of the panel. Heat radiated off the metal. There was a little viewing window near the bottom where I could see a small orange glow inside.

The pilot light, I thought.

Good. At least that's normal.

I found the shutoff valve after an embarrassing amount of fumbling and turned it. Nothing changed.

I turned it the other way. Still nothing.

“Come on,” I muttered.

I glanced around the floor and picked up a hammer. I knocked hard on the side of the unit with it, because apparently that was the full extent of my repair knowledge.

Tap, tap, tap.

The humming stopped. And the silence that followed was immediate and total.

I smiled despite myself.

“Okay,” I said. “All good. Time for bed.”

That's when the little orange glow in the viewing window went out.

The basement plunged into a deeper dark around the edges of my flashlight. I stood there with my phone raised, arm trembling, the beam fixed on the furnace.

The silence pressed around me like a blanket.

Complete, utter silence, except for one tiny sound behind me.

Something small was sliding across the floor.

I whirled around and saw nothing but the far wall of the basement. Then I lowered the flashlight.

The effigy was sitting there.

It looked like it had been there the whole time. When the beam of my flashlight hit it, the shadow it cast stretched long across the concrete. Too long, and too thin. It climbed halfway up the wall behind it and swayed from side to side.

Slowly. Very slowly.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I could only watch as the shadow of the effigy moved in a silent, macabre little dance.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

My mind raced frantically, trying to come up with a plan. Make a break for the stairs? Maybe. Call Walt? I could. But what would he do before this thing decided my life was over?

I went with my gut, and I took one step toward the stairs.

The shadow stopped all at once. It froze against the wall, thin and crooked and perfectly still.

Then it hissed.

The sound was low at first, almost questioning.

Then it came again, and again. Faster each time, more insistent, until it sounded like a dozen voices whispering through clenched teeth.

I turned my flashlight toward the stairs.

The second the effigy left the beam, a horrible scraping sound filled the basement.

Stone on concrete. Heavy, dragging, stone.

I snapped the light back.

The effigy was closer.

Not by much, maybe a foot.

The shadow’s hissing grew louder.

I don’t know how to describe the horror of that moment in a way that makes sense. It wasn’t just fear. Fear is too clean a word for it. This was something deeper. Older. The kind of terror that makes your body forget it belongs to you. The shadow on the wall began to move again, only

this time it wasn’t swaying.

It was reaching out with one arm.

A charred arm slid out of the blackness behind it. Too long. Too thin. The skin was cracked and burned-looking, with deep splits in it that showed something pale and wet underneath.

The hand closed around the effigy’s head. Then it dragged it closer.

Scrape.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t.

My legs had gone completely numb beneath me. I was standing there, trapped in my own body, while that ruined hand pulled the little statue another foot across the floor.

Scrape.

The Otor let go of the effigy one finger at a time.

Then it placed both hands on either side of the statue and began to pull itself into my basement.

The head came first.

Hollow eye sockets, so wide you could almost believe they were peeled back and molded to accommodate staring through the black. They stared out from a skull that looked almost reptilian, but not enough to be anything I recognized. The jaw was too long. The teeth were uneven and crowded, set into an open-mouthed grin that looked almost excited.

A thick black tongue slipped out and hung there, twitching.

Then came the shoulder, arms, then the rest of it unfolded from the wall.

The basement didn’t change, not exactly, but my eyes couldn’t hold onto the shape of the room anymore. One second the Otor was right in front of me. The next, it seemed to stand at the far end of a tunnel that had no business being there, drifting from one side of my vision to the other. It took a deep breath through its open mouth.

Then it screamed.

The sound was almost human. That was the worst part. The scream slammed into my chest and rattled behind my teeth, and in that same instant, my legs remembered what they were for.

The Otor charged.

Its movements came in sharp, cracking bursts, too fast for something that size. Its hands and feet struck the concrete in hard stomps as it skittered towards me. Its tongue whipped from side to side, and those empty eyes stayed fixed on mine.

I ran.

I bolted up the stairs with the creature panting and hissing behind me, close enough that I could feel heat rolling off its open mouth.

I slammed the basement door shut. A body hit the other side hard enough to bow the wood and the Otor’s shriek of outrage crashed into my ears. I didn’t wait to see if it would hold.

I sprinted down the hall, flew into my bedroom, and threw that door shut too. I grabbed the chair from the corner and jammed it under the doorknob with shaking hands.

Then I backed away until my legs hit the bed.

For another minute or two, the Otor banged against the basement door. I could hear wood beginning to splinter. But then all at once, the noise stopped.

Silence.

Just me, standing in the dark, listening to my own breath come apart. Then something knocked.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

It was coming from my window.

You have been picked among several thousand candidates to partake in a very important ceremony. You were selected based on your mental fortitude and good nature as made clear by your actions in life and the impression you've left on people like us.

1: At 8AM on July 9th 2026, stand in the middle of the street outside your apartment until a red car stops near you. The driver will pretend to be angry. Open the door and plunk yourself in the passenger seat, the driver will stop being angry and take you to the event.

2: On the drive over, make sure to hit the driver in the shoulder and say "punch buggy blue" if you see a blue car. This is important to letting them know you are one of us. If you don't see a blue car for the entire drive then I'm sorry my friend!

3: The event starts at 10AM but our drivers have a tendency to be fashionably early, if they arrive early and insist you go in just politely say no. You don't want to see what's going on in there until you're well ready!

4: It's important you enter the building between 9:59 to 10:01 and no earlier or later, synchronize your watch if it will help. Oh, yeah, you can't bring your phone. When you enter, go left and enter the first door you see that says "staff only," do not talk to the receptionist except to say hi.

5: Ignore all text in italics. It seeks to misrepresent the nature of the ceremony, your role in it, and the important steps you must take in precaution.

6: You will find 9 strange men in blue jumpsuits holding candles. Your objective is to beat them all up. They will be very scared and not move much. If you look closer you will see their skin is an elaborate fungus network which is how you can tell! However one of them will be a decoy who infiltrated the group, please do not hurt him too bad he is a professional who has hard to replace.

7: Close your eyes as soon as the last guy is knocked out, you will hear one of three things. If you hear a somber lullaby curl in fetal position and pretend you are next to an erupting volcano. If it's maraca guitar I do not know what to do, try your best! If it sounds like an old jazz organ then there is nothing you can do and you likely will not survive, I suggest you pray, unless you are atheist in which case don't then.

8: You are allowed to peek if you want but only for a little while. There will probably be a scary array of 100 people's faces and some of them will have dimples in weird places oh, no. If you do peek make sure you are making eye contact with one of the faces!

9: After 5 minutes our guy will collect you, he will maybe be in a bad mood since we haven't told everyone the exact plans for logistical reasons, like some people would be mad the event is going on and they're not part of it... one way or another he will sit you down in front of a piece of paper and tell you to write everything you saw and heard, this includes the sound you heard and the faces if you saw them. Be descriptive but you can also take some artistic liberties if it's easier to explain that way.

10: You will be driven home. If you memorize the street signs you can come back any time and we'll be happy to have you volunteer, maybe you could meet some friends and be selected for future events!

Thank you for your time and your scrutinizing eye! Your full compliance is crucial to prevent societal collapse. Memorize these instructions in their entirety by the date mentioned, and be prepared to act on them.

As mentioned in section 5, some information contained in this missive may have been corrupted by a malicious party; you are expected to work around these corruptions to the best of your ability. If too much of the information is corrupted you can write to us on the return address and get another copy that will hopefully be alot better.

Good luck.

It is highly recommended that you do not stay overnight in the Everlock Gardens, as we cannot guarantee your safety after hours. However, in the event you find yourself locked in after evening hours, here’s a guidebook on how to hopefully survive.

Rules for Surviving Everlock Botanical Garden at Night

1. Please understand that following this guidebook does not guarantee your safety. All this list offers is a possibility—the chance to leave this garden with your sanity somewhat intact and the loss of limbs kept to a minimum.
2. It is especially crucial that you stay on the stone-paved paths at all times throughout the night; it will be the safest ground for you to stand on. Watch out for cracks or missing stones; our flowers sometimes burst through the paving to extend their roots in order to snare their prey.
3. If possible, try to lock yourself in a security booth. The influence of the flowers cannot penetrate the security room's walls.
4. Try to avoid running into the night-shift staff. If you are lucky, you might just give them a terrible scare... but in the worst-case scenario, you could end up with a bullet in your chest.
5. If you see our daytime staff members within the garden, do not approach them under any circumstances. They are off duty and are not there to assist you.
6. If you happen to see Peach, a member of our day-shift staff, do not engage with her; treat the sighting as a mere hallucination. No matter how desperately she pleads, you must never follow her. Pay attention to her bloodshot eyes and the scraps of flesh clinging to her teeth; she is starving. Once she starts “bleeding” from her nose, she will rush off in search of easier, dumber prey—prey other than you.
7. Avoid the Venus flytrap enclosure in its entirety; there is a possibility that you run into Lily, and you do not want to fall into her trap-like mouth when she is at her hungriest. 
8. Polyphemus moths appear constantly at night. Be careful not to injure them accidentally. Also, do not look directly at their wings; there are "eyes" upon them, and he dislikes having his gaze met.
9. Light is your friend. Stay close to a light source whenever possible, and never remain in the shadows. 
10. If you feel like a shadow is following you, hold out your hand and wait for a moth to land on it. That should drive the shadow away, for the two detest each other. This method also works if you hear an unlacing sound from behind.
11. Try not to look out into the dark abyss of the night. You might begin to see things that are not really there, or suddenly find yourself locking eyes with something unseen.
12. After midnight, you cannot trust your senses. The flowers release their pollen at exactly 1:00 a.m., and that pollen can influence your sight and hearing.
13. Do not touch any of the flowers. Especially avoid touching the ones that are exceptionally beautiful. They cleverly use their appearance to their advantage, and the moment they sense a presence overhead, they lunge forcefully to sink their teeth into their prey.
14. If a flower manages to latch onto you, get it off as fast as possible. Do not let it get under your skin. If the flower manages to enter under your skin in any way, we can no longer offer you any advice. Once exposed to a substantial amount of moisture, it moves so rapidly that it is impossible to halt its movement by any means.
15. The trees in our gardens will be your rare saving grace in protecting you. If, for some reason, you cannot reach a security booth, run to a tree, embrace it firmly, and bury your face in the bark.
16. Do not climb the tree unless absolutely necessary or if the tree offers first with its vines.
17. If the tree you are clinging to suddenly transforms into a hemlock tree and you hear a murder of crows, we can no longer offer you any advice. That is our cleanup crew. We can only hope it will be quick. 
18. Under no circumstances should you set foot in our forest. It is the hunting ground of "That Thing," and the trees themselves are far from friendly.
19. As soon as the sun begins to appear on the horizon, please immediately head to the entrance gate. Security personnel will be on hand to guide you safely outside the garden.
20. If you encounter something not on this list... may mercy be upon your soul.

Please understand that staying after the garden hours is not only against our policy but is also a danger to your life. If the incident was a genuine accident, we may consider issuing only a warning (a violation notice). However, if the violation was caused by a prank, such as a "dare" or a test of nerve, you should first reconsider your choice of friends and be prepared to face a ban on park entry for the remainder of the season. Furthermore, any repeat violations will result in an indefinite ban, with an extremely low likelihood of that decision being overturned unless a deal is made.

Welcome to Everlock Garden. We can spot new visitors right away, and we are always delighted to guide those eager to discover the wonders of nature. Our botanical gardens are a relatively new addition to the Everlock complex. Although it originally opened alongside our museum, a series of accidents within the nature reserve forced us to close to prevent further casualties (after all, we did not want our main museum exhibits to get lonely from lack of visitors!). Unforeseen circumstances would extend the closure for maintenance by several more years. However, thanks to an agreement, we have finally been able to reopen. In the weeks since reopening, the gardens has regained its popularity among locals and is bustling with tourists. So with activity picking up, we have created this pamphlet to help first time visitors like you fully enjoy the wonders of the garden and its plant life. Please take a careful look and have a wonderful time.

Rules for visiting Everlock Botanical Garden

1. Admission to the garden is generally free. However, if you wish to visit during the spring, you must reserve a ticket and sign a liability waiver. We are aware this sounds extreme, but it is an essential measure to ensure the safety of both visitors and plants (the flowers get anxious around crowds).
2. Outside of the spring season, our staff does not sell tickets, nor should you attempt to purchase them. If you are approached by an "employee" trying to sell you a ticket, politely tell them you already have a reservation and promptly report the incident to the security office.
3. If you were unfortunate enough to have purchased a ticket from that representative, you have unwittingly entered into a contract. Now that you know of that organization's existence, there is no way to avoid it. You are permanently banned from entering our premises. Stay away from our exhibits.
4. Our garden and museum attract visitors from all walks of life. Some are less "humanoid” than others, some hail from entirely different eras. Please treat everyone with respect and refrain from making unnecessary comments about their appearance. Inappropriate behavior can result in your expulsion from the premises if deemed necessary*.* 
5. While we ask that you do not judge our locals; shall you encounter an individual exhibiting characteristics or behaviors that resembles a Spider, with the exception of our regular Linda and our staff member Lucy, promptly notify our staff. They will know what to do from there.
6. We strongly recommend visiting with friends. The garden is more enjoyable with company, and it is always good to have someone there to keep you in check. However, please avoid visiting in groups of five or more. Being stared at by too many people makes some of our plants and flowers anxious, causing them to become aggressive/defensive. Once they reach that state, it takes a long time to calm them down, so we ask for your consideration. 
7. Please stay on the stone-paved paths at all times while in the garden; these are the safest areas for visitors. If the stone path you are walking on suddenly turns into a dirt path, turn back immediately. This indicates that the plants are trying to lure you into a trap. That path leads to an area inhabited by highly predatory plants and flowers—and you certainly do not want them to mistake you for prey. 
8. If, upon attempting to retrace your steps, you find that the path previously paved with stone has turned into a dirt path, we unfortunately cannot provide you with any further assistance. It seems those flowers have grown ravenous and have marked you as their next prey. In this situation, it is best to wish for a peaceful end.
9. Please strictly refrain from stepping into, walking through, or playing in the flowerbeds. Doing so compacts the soil and damages precious roots. Some flowers perceive this as an insult, and insulting nature is the one thing to be avoided above all else here. 
10. Never reach out to touch the stems of the plants. If you drop something into a flowerbed, please notify a staff member; they will be happy to retrieve it for you. Attempting to pick it up yourself might startle the plants and could cost you a finger. 
11. Please avoid touching the plants more than necessary, but especially do not pick the flowers. The plants and natural elements here are protected for everyone’s enjoyment; they are not meant for private collections, nor can they survive outside this garden. Subjecting such beautiful living things to such a miserable fate would be cruel. 
12. If you arrogantly assume these flowers would look perfect in your living room and attempt to pick them, one of three fates await you: 1.) The flowers bite off your hand in self-defense, or summon reinforcements to surround you, in which you will promptly become fertilizer. 2.) If luck is on your side, you might simply be discovered by the staff and subdued with a stun gun. Though not all of our staff are this merciful, so do not count on this. Or 3.) Even if you miraculously managed to take the flowers home, you would soon find yourself greeted by an unpleasant visitor from our recovery agent. If you have no desire to become another flower in Lily's Garden, it is best not to lay a hand on them.
13. The trees in our garden are deeply respected—not just by the other plants and wildlife, but by us as well. While we ask that you treat the entire garden with care, please be especially mindful to avoid any behavior that shows a lack of respect toward the trees.
14. For this reason, and the safety of our visitors, tree climbing is forbidden. When the trees feel threatened or insulted, they defend themselves using their vines, branches, or even roots. Consequently, it is not uncommon for the offender to be flung high into the air. Even if you survive the impact with the ground, you then risk being torn apart by our man-eating flowers next. 
15. Yes, we do have cherry trees. And yes, they are breathtakingly beautiful when in full bloom (from mid-April to early May). However, if you spot a "cherry blossom tree" blooming at any other time, please turn back immediately and notify the nearest staff member. They will offer a sincere apology and handle the situation promptly. Approaching such a tree puts you at risk of being lured by its pheromones and becoming its next meal. 
16. Please also show respect for the bodies of water, such as ponds, rivers, and lakes. Entering or swimming in the water is strictly prohibited. Such actions provoke the garden's aquatic inhabitants, who do not appreciate being disturbed. Their ferocity is often likened to that of starved piranhas. 
17. There are no fountains in this garden. Should you happen to see one, please ignore it. As long as you do not acknowledge its existence, it will cause you no harm. 
18. The Everlock Garden is, in fact, a garden. In this regard, we ask visitors to exercise due caution regarding not only the natural environment itself but also elements that might seem out of place within a natural setting. Outdoor spaces here inherently carry certain risks. 
19. If at any time, a spider lands on you and burrows into your skin, please notify a nearby staff member immediately. We sincerely apologize for the consequences that will follow, but this is for the sake of everyone, including you. After all, you surely would not want to become a puppet for that spider's "master."
20. With the exception of service animals, pets are not permitted. We cherish animals just as much as you do. However, our facility is not suitable for pets. Should you disregard this rule, Everlock Garden accepts no liability if the pet eats poisonous flowers, has its head bitten off by a flower, starts growing flowers from its orifices, wanders into a flower circle or fairy circle and "disappears”, is hanged by a vine, is absorbed into the soil, drowns, randomly becomes rabid, or is shot by a staff member. In such an event, you will be banned from entering the garden for the remainder of the season. 
21. Any children under eighteen must be closely supervised at all times to ensure they do not climb trees, rocks, or sculptures. However, we kindly ask that children under ten be left at home, as it is difficult for children of this age to fully grasp the importance of following the rules. 
22. Drones are strictly forbidden; please do not even attempt to bring one onto the premises. The plants and certain exhibits here value their privacy and can sense electromagnetic waves. If the plants feel they are being observed without their consent, it could lead to total chaos. Furthermore, some of our staff members can find it unpleasant.
23. If you are on a tour of our botanical gardens or a part of a school trip, the guide will hand you a separate pamphlet in addition to this booklet. Read and follow the exact rules our guide tells you to; do not question them or challenge their authority. Some guides may find such behavior offensive and may even openly express their displeasure, some more vulgar than others. Remember, they have walked these gardens longer than you have ever known of its existence. Never act based on your own assumptions.
24. Our staff may designate sections of the garden as off-limits at any time. Please do not complain to the staff or attempt to enter these restricted areas in any way. There is a reason for the closure: the plants and flowers in that area have started to grow more bloodthirsty. Stepping into that restricted area will certainly result in the loss of your life. 
25. Picnicking is permitted only in our tulip fields. Please do not eat anywhere else in the garden; the flowers may get jealous and want you as their snack.
26. Sitting on the grass is only permitted in our tulip flower fields and should not be attempted anywhere else in our gardens. 
27. If you feel tired at any point, there are many seating areas available for you. Should you choose to settle onto the grass, you will notice that it feels astonishingly—almost unearthly—soft. The moment you sink into that yielding ground, you will find yourself never wanting to leave. Indeed, within an hour, leaving will have become impossible; the blades of grass will have already entered your bloodstream, injecting relaxing compounds while slowly draining the very nutrients from your body. You will simply remain lying there until you are reduced to a withered, hollow husk.
28. Smoking is strictly prohibited on the Everlock premises at all times. If you cannot resist the urge and light up a cigarette, you might manage that first puff without incident. But in the blink of an eye, you will notice that one of our tree vines has coiled around the offending wrist holding the cigarette. That is your final warning. If you insist on taking a second puff, well… say goodbye to that hand.
29. Please treat our staff with respect during your visit to our gardens. While our staff are generally very friendly, some of them find it difficult to suppress their more… primal instincts. Please do not create situations that might cause them to lose control of those instincts.
30. If at any time you notice any of our staff members following you, politely approach them and ask, "Is something the matter?" In most cases, that alone should bring them back to their senses.
31. If that staff member still does not react, leave the area immediately, but do so backwards. Try to keep your eyes on them as much as possible until you have to turn a corner. Once they are out of sight, run to the closest security booth and report the incident. We apologize for the inconvenience.
32. If it is Micah who is stalking you (you will be able to pick him out by his jet black hair and dead eyes), stand completely still. Do not let him realize that you have noticed him. Close your eyes and pray that he is not hungry enough to target anything he deems “easy prey”.
33. Please refrain from reporting our staff when it is not necessary. Our staff tries really hard to behave themselves, and when they get reported without reason, it causes significant demoralization. In some cases, individuals who file false reports may even become targets themselves.
34. It takes a full day to explore the entire garden, so you are welcome to stay until the evening. However, all visitors must leave the garden by 9:00 PM. This rule is non-negotiable.
35. If this is your first visit, please feel free to skip the following message. We are grateful for your support and hope you fully enjoy the natural beauty of our botanical gardens!
36. To certain patrons, we offer a word of advice out of kindness: It would be wise to refrain from acting as if you are an expert on our gardens and museum—or believing you understand them better than our specialized staff, and even us—when you actually know nothing about them. Adopting a "know-it-all" attitude in this area, particularly toward specific staff members, could jeopardize your health. While our staff are strictly instructed not to harm visitors, please do not test them. Even when reason holds, predatory instincts always lie just beneath the surface.

 

And that is all you need to know about visiting our botanical gardens. Our gardens are extremely beautiful and the plantlife is unique, it is always a joy to show them off to people that appreciate nature. Do not let the bizarre rules and sometimes troublesome environment discourage you from visiting. The beauty beyond the difficulty is far worth it. Do be on the lookout for more areas and exhibits that are opening to the public. As we clean up our gardens, we can open more of it up. We hope to see you at our gardens someday!

If you’re staying in Room 312, you’ll eventually notice the door at the very end of the hallway.
Don’t worry.
Everyone notices it.
The hotel has a few rules.
Please follow them.
1. The door should always be closed.
2. If you find it open, close it immediately. Do not look inside.
3. If you hear knocking from the other side, keep walking. It isn’t for you.
4. If the knocking comes from behind you, don’t run until you reach your room.
5. Never ask the staff what’s behind the door. They’ll stop smiling.
6. If another guest asks whether you’ve “seen the room yet,” tell them you’ve just arrived.
7. If the hallway seems longer than before, don’t turn around.
8. If the door has disappeared, go back to your room and lock it. Don’t leave again until sunrise.
9. If you wake up and your room number has changed…
…don’t open the door.
The hallway already knows where you are.

Most guests follow the rules.
The missing ones usually didn’t.
Housekeeping still leaves towels outside their rooms every morning.
No one has had the heart to tell them those rooms have been empty for years.

Destroy this document after you have read and memorised its contents. If Euphoria learns how we're beating these things, it’s only going to get harder to do so. 

How to survive a Clown encounter - a guide for those who want to avoid Joy. 
This should never happen if you are careful. Make your commute as short as possible, memorise some cheesy stock happy-sounding phrases and remember to keep that smile plastered on your face. 
However, mistakes do happen, and with some luck you might be able to regret this one later. 
The easy option is to just accept your fate and become Joyful, but if you wish to fight for your mind, then follow the advice below.

Before anything - disregard any thoughts of evading or physically fighting the Clown, unless you can somehow withstand a ten thousand volt shock from the shock bolts all models are armed with - then by all means go for it. 

The first step is to determine what model of Clown you are dealing with. There are currently two out on the streets that we have documented - the older Whimsy and the newer, but discontinued, Delight. The key way to tell the difference between them are their faces and the colours on their clothes - Whimsical have their red cheeks and noses painted on, while on Delight they are thin metal structures attached to the face. As for colours, a Whimsy will never be wearing green, and they stopped any blue outfits for the Delight models (it’s a ‘sad’ colour, right?)

If you think you are dealing with a Whimsy model, continue below. If it is a Delight, skip down the page. Quickly.

How to trick a Whimsy:
- Whimsy are older models of Clown, and their facial scanning software isn’t as advanced as it could be, so to convince them you’re happy it’s best to go for exaggerated body language and vocal expression. They’re slow to process language, too -  so keep talking about how happy you are, what a wonderful world it is, ect. The maximum time for a Whimsy to spend analysing any single person is 200 seconds (just over three minutes), so keep the act up. It’s harder than you think to sing and dance for that long, so the ideal thing is to have a few cheerful songs memorised at all times, but if you’re really desperate you can always go for Happy Birthday. 

- They see best when both eyes are focused on you try to keep to one side as much as possible without getting them to turn their head. Just be careful not to stray too far, as they might take this as an escape attempt. 

- If  their nose begins to flash - this means they have decided that you are unhappy. If you don’t want to become Joyful you must act very quickly - they will raise their right arms - aimed at your head. Again, don’t try to run, however tempting, as having your muscles spasming from a stun shock will seal your fate.

- When their arm is straight and against your forehead, you will hear one click (technically there’s two, but by the time the second one sounds you won’t be able to hear anything). This click is the mechanism for the stun weapon disengaging and the OSL (On-Street-Lobotomy) instrument being activated - for about a second here, the Clown is defenceless. Grab the head, and twist it as hard as you can in either direction.

- If all goes well, you will damage the main power cord that runs in a similar position on Clowns as the jugular vein does on humans, causing it to lose control of motor function. Note that if you tried this at any other time, the defence backup would have kicked in and caused a huge electric shock throughout the Clown’s entire body. 

If it doesn’t work, then at least you won’t be sad about it. 

If it did work, run. Very fast, and very far. 

Don’t go home. It will have sent your name and address to Euphoria. Your only chance now is to find one of our safehouses (see below). 

If you encounter a Delight:
Delights are different. They were supposed to be the replacement for the Whimsy, but shortly after being put into service it became clear that their programming doesn’t function correctly, and they have lost all connection to Euphoria, meaning they no longer receive orders. 

They function on outdated and often corrupted protocols, meaning they are extremely unpredictable. We have an incomplete list of known behaviors. 

- On occasion, their target observation protocol might go haywire, causing them to follow behind people extremely closely. If they do this to you, do not react, and encourage others not to either. They will remain around two feet behind you for a period of anywhere from an hour to several days. It is unknown why, but acknowledging their presence in any way when they do this makes it more likely for them to attack. 

- The Delight was supposed to be able to cheer people up in more ways than just the OSL, and so they may sometimes tell jokes. Laugh. No matter how bad, or how odd, or how violent the joke. 

- A Delight doesn’t always want you to be happy. Their programming is so unreliable that sometimes they think the target emotion is anger, or fear. Keep close watch of their eyes - if what they see matches what they think is their target, their eyes will be green. If not, they slowly turn grey. If the eyes completely turn grey, you’re in trouble. 

- The easiest way to deal with Delights is not to encounter them. They are actively being recalled by Euphoria, and seem to somehow be aware of this and want to avoid it. Keeping to well lit and populated places lowers the risk of an encounter with them. 

- Delights have no known physical weakness that can be exploited like the Whimsy, but they have a very odd software one. If you are being cornered by a Delight, tell them that “Fred will be home from the supermarket soon, so be sure to water the rabbit.” It makes them freeze up for nearly a minute. Quite who found this out, or how it works is a mystery - our best guess is some sort of debugging statement that was left in. 

- Be cautious that if using the above method, you must run after causing them to freeze, since they will act with extreme aggression once recovered. And even though they can’t access Euphoria’s network, they will remember your face. 

The safehouses:
- The password for our safehouses is “NRHVIB OLEVH XLNKAMB” - encrypted for our safety, as we believe Euphoria incapable of deciphering even simple ciphers. You’ll need the actual phrase to get in. 

Good luck. 

Welcome to Wuwang Hill. You are working as a caretaker, and during your employment, please comply with the rules and respect the inhabitants of Wuwang. The salary for working as a caretaker at Wuwang Hill is 10,000,000 Mora per month, and you will be provided with a private house on Wuwang Hill for the duration of your employment. You do not need to worry about being alone at home, as you will be living alongside several Millelith troops stationed on Wuwang Hill.

​Some of the rules at Wuwang Hill are as follows:

1. ​Upon arriving at your private house in Wuwang, it is highly recommended that you check the house basement to ensure the food and drink supplies are sufficient for one month. Additionally, if you find a corpse in that room, please contact the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor (08************).

2. ​You are expected to frequently check that the windows and doors are tightly locked to prevent Hilichurls or other creatures from entering your home.

3. ​Inside your house, you are provided with a bladed weapon and a firearm. For firearm usage, please conserve your ammunition, as purchasing bullets requires a pre-order from the nation of Snezhnaya.

4. ​When inspecting the forest, you are required to bring a companion and weapons; otherwise, you will be attacked by a horde of Hilichurls.

5. ​During an inspection, if a sudden fog rolls in, immediately hide in a safe place. If you fail to do so, your life will be at stake.

6. ​You are required to install a detector device on the bags carried by nature lovers. Its function is that if campers or nature lovers go missing or are in danger, you must deploy there along with the Millelith soldiers.

7. ​If you wish to patrol or check conditions, you are expected to bring weapons and five Millelith troops, as you never know when monsters and astral entities might attack you blindly.

8. ​Do not forget to bring a body bag during patrols. If you find a corpse on the hiking trail (Sector F90) or the camping grounds, you must wrap it as quickly as possible; otherwise, the Ghoul will take and consume the corpse.

9. ​While making your rounds, you will encounter a structure resembling a Domain. Your task is to ensure the Domain's door is tightly closed; otherwise, primordial creatures will devastate Liyue.

10. ​If you smell a burnt odor inside your house, prepare yourself and your troops, as you will be fighting a flying creature with (partial information missing).

11.​Go to Sector E67. You will find a large bamboo stake measuring 25 cm in length; your task is to check whether the stake has detached from the cursed ground or not. If the stake is detached, return to the post immediately to contact the troops, but if the stake remains driven into the ground, leave that place right now. Many reports indicate that officers who stand idle for too long will have their souls sucked out, leaving nothing but their skin.

12. ​While patrolling the Sector A15 area, you will encounter the ruins of a settlement. Your task is to verify if the ruins are still there. If the ruined settlement has transformed into a bustling settlement, you should return to your private house, pack your things, and inform Liyue officials to prepare their elite troops. This is because they are not ordinary citizens, but citizens who were cursed by an Adeptus for breaking a promise made several hundred years ago, turning them into bloodthirsty residents.

13. ​When patrolling between Sector B90 and D01 via a helicopter equipped with a thermal camera or NVG, you should avoid aiming the camera at an empty circular area with a surface area of 2 meters and a diameter of 1.75 meters, as it will damage the camera's functions.

14. ​When making rounds in the Sector C57 area, if you see a creature with the following characteristics:

-​Height: 167 cm

-​Oval-shaped face with red eyes

-​Male

-​Bandages containing ancient mantras wrapped around both arms, wearing shabby clothes

-​Armed with claws growing from his nails and carrying a claymore. According to legend, anyone struck by his claws or claymore will melt like ice.

​Please do not act foolishly by fighting this creature. If you see it, please contact the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, as that creature is part of Miss Hu Tao's collection.

​Sectors that should be avoided are as follows:

-​B87: A highly dangerous sector because the anomalies in this area attack blindly.

-​A39: This sector must not be entered by just anyone, as only Adepti, Lady Ningguang, and Shenhe have the right to enter.

-​C25: Although this sector is only shaped like a football field, the negative energy in this sector is extremely potent.

-​E38: Never enter this area, even if you possess excellent combat skills. JUST DON'T!

-​D19 to D45: Basically, this area can be safe, but it can also be unsafe due to a fog that can cause guards and hikers to go missing or, at worst, be mysteriously mutilated (refer to rule number 5).

​Those are all the rules. If you happen to find Miss Hu Tao's collection, a reward of 50,000,000 Mora will be given. Please remain vigilant and be careful during your work. Warm regards from the commander of the Wuwang Hill forces.

Okay so I need to explain something first. I'm a beauty influencer based in Jakarta. Not like huge huge but I had about 400k on TikTok and another 200k on Instagram before this happened. My content is mostly makeup transitions and skincare routines and sometimes I do these AR filter reviews where I try on filters other people made and rate them. It's not deep. It's not supposed to be deep.

Three weeks ago I got this idea to make my own filter. I wanted something that felt mystical, you know? Like witchy but make it Javanese. My grandmother was from a village near Solo and she used to tell me stories about the old magic. Dukun. Pesugihan. Pengasihan. I didn't really believe any of it but the aesthetic was perfect. Dark feminine energy. Ancient wisdom. All that.

I found this old notebook in my mom's storage unit. My grandmother's handwriting. Most of it was recipes and household stuff but there was one page folded over and tucked into the back cover. Seven lines of Javanese. I couldn't read all of it, my Javanese is trash honestly, but I could pick out a few words. Lawang. Tamu. Pasrah. Door. Guest. Surrender.

I thought it was a prayer. A blessing. Something welcoming.

I built the filter in Spark AR. It was simple. The text would appear on your forehead like it was being written in real time, glowing gold, and a whisper track would play the words. I recorded the whisper myself. I didn't know what I was saying. I just sounded it out phonetically from my grandmother's handwriting.

The filter went live on a Tuesday. I posted a video of me using it with the caption: "say it with me besties. ancient Javanese blessing for good energy "

I wrote the words out in the caption so people could follow along.

Aku bukak lawang.

Aku nerimo tamu.

Aku pasrahke awakku.

I didn't include a translation because honestly I didn't have one. I just thought it sounded beautiful.

The video got 2 million views in the first night. By Thursday the filter had been used 8 million times. Duets. Stitches. People mouthing the words. People adding their own music. People doing makeup transitions where their face changed when the whisper hit. It was the biggest thing I'd ever made. Brands were DMing me. My follower count was climbing by the hour. I was literally shaking with adrenaline.

Then the comments started changing.

At first it was normal stuff. "omg this is so creepy i love it." "the whisper gives me chills." "i've used this filter 47 times and i swear my skin looks better??"

Then: "i can still hear the whisper when i close the app."

Then: "does anyone else feel like something is watching them after using this."

Then: "i didn't want to say the words but the filter made me want to. like i had to. like something was waiting for me to say them."

I ignored it. Viral content always attracts weird comments. That's just how the algorithm works.

Then my grandmother's sister called me.

She's ninety two years old. She lives in the village. She doesn't have a smartphone. She doesn't know what TikTok is. But somehow she had seen the filter. Someone's granddaughter had shown her.

"Nduk," she said. Her voice was shaking. "Where did you find those words."

I told her. The notebook. The folded page. The seven lines.

She was silent for a long time.

"Your grandmother was not a healer," she said. "She was a keeper. She kept things locked. Things that should not be opened. The page you found was not a prayer. It was a contract."

"A contract for what."

"Pengasihan. A binding. The words you are teaching people to say, they are not asking for protection. They are offering themselves. I open the door. I welcome the guest. I give what is asked. You are telling millions of people to invite something into their bodies."

I felt my stomach drop. Actually drop. Like the floor had opened under me.

"How do I take it down."

"You cannot. The words have been spoken. The door is open. The guest is arriving."

I hung up and tried to delete the filter. The button wouldn't work. I tried to delete the video. The app crashed. I tried to delete my whole account. The confirmation email never came.

I opened the comments on the filter video. There were thousands of new ones.

"i keep saying the words in my sleep"

"my roommate used the filter and now she won't stop smiling at the wall"

"something answered. i heard something answer."

"i don't remember recording this video"

"i don't remember saying the words"

"i don't remember"

"i don't"

And then I saw the duets. People who had used the filter were posting follow up videos. They looked exhausted. Their eyes were wrong. Too wide. Too bright. Like someone had turned up the saturation on their irises. They were all saying the same thing.

"I can't stop hearing the whisper."

"There's something in my mirror."

"I think I said yes to something."

One girl posted a video of her bathroom mirror at 3 AM. The filter was still on her face even though she wasn't using the app. The golden text was scrolling across her forehead. But it wasn't the same words anymore. It was new words. Words I hadn't written. Words I hadn't recorded.

She was crying. She was saying "I didn't mean it. I didn't know what I was saying. Can I take it back. Can I please take it back."

The whisper on her video answered. Something older. Something that had been waiting.

You opened the door.

You welcomed the guest.

You gave what was asked.

The filter has been used 47 million times now. I can't delete it. I can't stop it. I can't even close the app. Every time I try, the whisper starts again. My grandmother's voice. My voice. The other voice. All layered together.

Aku bukak lawang.

Aku nerimo tamu.

Aku pasrahke awakku.

I know what the words mean now. I know what I made people say. I know what I said myself, forty seven times, while I was testing the filter, while I was recording the whisper, while I was posting the video and writing the caption and telling everyone to say it with me.

I opened the door.

I welcomed the guest.

I gave what was asked.

And if you read the words out loud while you were reading this post, if you sounded them out the way I wrote them, if you whispered them under your breath because you wanted to know how they felt in your mouth, then I need you to understand something.

You just said them too.

Aku bukak lawang.

Aku nerimo tamu.

Aku pasrahke awakku.

I open the door.

I welcome the guest.

I give what is asked.

The guest is arriving.

And the guest has been waiting a very long time for enough people to say yes.

Bzzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzzzt, Bzzzzzzzzt.

"For fuck's sake, it's 3am, who the fuck is texting me at this time?!"

"Oh, it's from work. I really cba even looking at this, but fuck it, I've already opened the message"

- Hiya pal, it's your manager here, look, we've got some staff shortages at the minute, with what happened to the supervisors and such, so we're going to need you to close for us, on your next shift. I'm closing tonight, but I've attached a list of instructions to follow, so you can close up safely and efficiently, in the minimum amount of time.

Please follow this list to the letter, as I want you making it out of here tonight at a reasonable time, and in one piece. Business has been down this week, and the labor budget with it, and I'd appreciate not having to interview for any new staff anytime soon, so, please don't leave us in the shit, alright? Thanks bud, appreciate it.-

"Business is down, huh? No shit. Maybe more people would book in if they charged less than 60 dollars for a four-ounce sirloin steak. I'm working in a fucking circus, I swear."

"Sigh"

"For fuck's sake. Fine. At least I can say I've done it, and know how to do it, and they might actually give me that supervisor promotion they've promised for the last, what, six months?"

-Hi, yeah that's fine, see you tonight-

"Fucking tool"

"Well, I'm fucking awake now, might as well read this list. Bet you I already know most of what to do here. Brian gets paid a full salary just to restate the fucking obvious for a living, I swear"

-Restaurant Lock-Up Procedure-

"No shit, sherlock"

-When closing down and locking up the restaurant, please follow these instructions to ensure everything goes off smoothly-

"Right"

-

1. When the duty manager(either myself or the other one) leaves for the night, continue your duties as you would if they were still there. Keep the restaurant patrons happy(remember, service with a smile!), and keep the regular drinkers happy too. They're currently propping the business up, so treat them well, and at the very least, refrain from agitating them. They've been here long since before we took this place over from the last owner, and they'll be here long after we're gone.

2. While the last remaining restaurant-goers are finishing up their meals/ post-food drinks, please start gently breaking the bar down. Make sure the back bar is tidied, and wiped-down, return all of the bottles to their assigned shelves, and put the drinks garnishes in the back bar fridges. Put the non-essential bar mats through the glass wash, along with the drip trays for the beer taps that aren't being used(use your best judgement on this one). Continue polishing glasses in your downtime, putting them back on the shelves. Make sure they're as streak-free as you can get them, especially the wine glasses, and make sure there are no lipstick marks around the rims of the glasses, since it's not a good look for our customers or ourselves.

"Mhmmmmm, as I thought"

3. If a guest of the restaurant, or a drinker, approaches you and asks for a pint, and any of the beer taps run dry, head down to the cellar and change the keg. If there are no other kegs remaining, politely inform the guest that we're out, and take the beer off the tap for tonight. Offer them an alternative, and if they quickly become angry, politely ask them to leave. If they start throwing abuse your way, and kick up a fuss, the kitchen will help you remove them. Give them a pint on the house afterwards to thank them(not of what we've run out of, obviously). Do not let the belligerent guest back in after you've ejected them from the premises. They'll give up and leave eventually, they only know how to act human for so long.

"Wait, what?"

4. Once all of the checks and bills are paid, make sure to cash them off on the tills, once the guests are away. Same goes for any bar tabs. Doing this ensures the customers only return when they're guests of the restaurant.

"Wait, hold on, the fuck does he mean by that?!"

5. Everyone should be out of the restaurant by half-past 9. There may remain one gentlemen in a brown duster coat drinking at the bar. Leave him be for now. If he asks for another drink, give it to him. Famous Grouse whiskey, single measure, over two cubes of ice, no more no less. Don't attempt to charge him for the drink. We don't want a repeat of the last staff member who tried that.

If he attempts to make conversation by asking questions, give one-word answers only, ideally just yes or no, and absolutely do not give him your name. After he leaves, the restaurant should be empty, save for any remaining kitchen staff. They'll do as they will, and leave in due time, so just go about your business.

6. Take any remaining plates, dishes, or cutlery, into the kitchen, and leave them at the KP station. Spray down and reset the restaurant tables with fresh napkins, cutlery, and water glasses. If any of the water glasses already on a table explode without warning, calmly sweep up the broken glass and replace them, and be additionally vigilant for the rest of the night. This is your first warning.

"The fuck?"

7. Once everyone is off-premises, kitchen staff included, please go outside and take the sandwich boards in. The restaurant is closed, and we really don't want anyone, or anything else, entering the premises during this time. After you've done this, please lock up the left door with the key on the keyring hanging on the hook behind the hosting desk.

8. Return to putting glasses through the glass wash, as well as the rest of the drip trays and bar mats. While doing this, make a list of what stock needs brought up from the cellar. You'll only be able to do one trip, so please make sure that you don't miss anything out.

"What does he mean by that?"

9. Take the general waste and bottle bins out back. When you place them in the bin, reset the rat traps on your way back please. They're getting bigger, and we'll need to order some larger ones soon, but these will do for the moment. Ignore any scraping noises you may hear, and any shadows you may see darting about, they're just the rats. If you hear a low growl or repeated clicking sounds, promptly come inside.

"Well, that doesn't sound concerning in the slightest!"

10. While completing your close down, you might here and electrical snap sound, out of nowhere. Don't mess yourself, it's just the bug zapper we have installed in the kitchen. Keeps the flies away from the food prep areas, for hygiene reasons. If you start hearing the bug zapper sound tripping rapidly, more than 5 snaps in a second, immediately lock the kitchen doors please, and complete the rest of your duties as quickly, and as quietly, as possible.

11. This is where things get, ahem, tricky. You now need to grab stock, and secure the premises. Take the keyring off the hook, that you used to lock the left-hand side door, grab a bag, and head outside and down to the cellar. When you open the cellar door, check if the main lights are on. If they're not, immediately shut and lock the door with the blue key on the keyring. Don't worry about the stock this time, and pay no mind to any shuffling you hear when you're locking the door.

12. If the lights are on, it's safe to continue.

"Safe!?"

Move beyond the plastic curtains, past the keg room, to where the stock is held. Collect it, and collect it quickly. Don't step in any unlit area in the cellar, please. I don't want to have to interview for new staff. Ignore any creaks or grunts you hear, especially if they sound vaguely human. Do NOT attempt to confront the source of these noises. Do NOT go ANYWHERE near the water heater, and avoid that section of the cellar completely. If you notice one of the chest height boxes next to the water heater(you should be able to see looking in to that part of the cellar) has its lid open or missing, you will then hear the creaks and grunts getting louder, almost closer. Vacate the cellar IMMEDIATELY. Lock the door. We will understand. If you complete your stock take without any issues, shut the lights off in the cellar as you leave, and leave quickly.

"Is he taking the piss?!'

13. While in this stage of the closedown, just give a cursory glance to the security cameras near the entrance. If you see any humanoid figures standing visible on the cameras, check what direction they're facing. If they're facing away from you, continue about your business, but keep an eye out when moving into an area where they may be. They should be gone by the time you get there, but if they're not, then give them a wide berth and go about your business. They'll move on soon enough.

If any figures are facing the camera, staring directly at it, or turn to face it while you are looking, please avoid going anywhere near the area covered by that camera until your shift has concluded. If this interferes with your work, don't worry, we will understand.

14. At any point, should you see any former staff members, with pitch-black eyes, on the premises, whether on the cameras, or in-person, do NOT interact with them in ANY way. I cannot stress this enough, please do NOT even let on that you perceive them. They might be here, but they are NOT who they once were. If any of them start to move towards you, immediately leave the premises. Do not return until explicit authorisation is given by management.

We will understand.

15. Once all of the mats, drip trays, and glassware have been put through the glass wash, drain the glass wash and let it switch off. Be alert. If you've locked up the cellar and back door, good. You've bought yourself some time. You will begin to hear frequent banging and rattling on the cellar door now, and you should complete the rest of your duties and get out of there ASAP. If the cellar door was not locked before you drained the glass wash, please, vacate the premises IMMEDIATELY.

16. With the glass wash draining, conduct your final checks. Check that all of the upstairs windows have been closed and securely locked. If any are open, close them. Now, check that the restroom windows are shut and locked. Once this is done, return upstairs and double-check those windows. If the lights are off in one of the upstairs sections, or go off while you are upstairs; immediately move towards the nearest light source as quickly as you are able. One of the upstairs windows was not properly secured on your first check. This is your second warning. Return to the restrooms and conduct a second check. Check the stalls; if you see what looks like feet underneath a stall, do NOT open the stall, and leave the bathroom immediately.

"Right, this is a shitpost. It's gotta be. Like, come on, how much of this does he actually expect me to believe?"

17. On your final check, the bug zapper will start to speed up its snaps, and the kitchen doors will begin to rattle in their frames. You do not have much time from here.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSSSSZZZZZSSSZZZZZ

If you hear a large slam, followed by an impossibly loud creaking sound, the cellar door has been opened. Set the alarm and get out of there NOW.

If you hear footsteps on the premises at any point from here on out, avoid the area that you hear them, and keep track of where they are. You may see shadows occupying impossible areas of the room. Pay them no mind, and focus on getting out.

"Nah mate, this is fucked. If this is a joke, I might actually make a formal complaint about this one. Too far, man, too far."

18. Once the glass wash has been drained, immediately head over to the tills and clock out. Do not neglect to do so, otherwise you may find it more difficult to leave than you bargained for. Switch off all of the lights on the premises very quickly, taking care to stay as close to the light from the security cameras as possible. Ignore any and all sounds you may hear, and do not leave your post until you have armed the security measures.

Type the code into the wall terminal, and press the lock button. The arming alarm will sound, and you will have approximately a minute to leave before the building fully locks. Do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do NOT, allow yourself to be inside the building after the alarm timer runs out, please. I do need to ask a personal favour; If any of my stuff, like my laptop, or phone charger, are under the hosting desk, please take them with you as you leave, and hold onto them until my wife or I can come and collect them. When you're outside the building, lock up the door you just exited from, and do not react to anything you may see standing on the other side of it. Don't attempt to look inside any of the windows once you're outside.

If you've made it out, then thank you very much. You've done a lot of good by the business, and I'll make sure upper management are well aware of your efforts.

When you're next in, you'll be briefed on what is going to happen going forwards, so don't worry about that. You'll likely be asked to do more closes, so if that happens, just follow this guide I'm leaving you. I know you'll do us all proud pal, I'm sure of it.

Once again, for all that you've done, thank you.-

"Okay, that's a weird way to end something like this. Screw this, I'm going back to sleep"

#5:30am

BZZZZZZZZZZZT. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

"For the love of God, what now?"

*click*

"Hello?"

#"Hi, this is Brian's wife. You work with him, right?"

"Yeah, I do. What's going on?"

#"Okay, I was hoping you would know where he was? He didn't come home last night, and he's not answering his phone"

"What?"

#"Please, if you know anything, you have to tell me. I'm really worried and-"

*click*

"I'm handing in my notice"

If you found this list I am dead do not mourn me it was by my own hand. What I have written here was learned by trial and error and was paid for with the lives of many companions. Do not waste what I have given you.

1. Always destroy the heads of those who die. there are many who would make use of their bodies deny them.

2. Never travel in a groups larger than a dozen herds always attract predators.

3. The BIRDS are your allies they will warn you of danger but they are spiteful as well. Reward them often and generously. Never harm them for they can just as easily lead danger to you.

4. Do not pray try not to ask for help either without naming the specific person you are asking. IT considers itself a god and you do not want ITS help.

5. Never enter the TOWNS both the ones that were once ours and the ones THEY built. Even the abandoned ones there is nothing for you there and you do not want to see what THEY leave behind

6. You may have notice that your memory from before and after the EVENT is full of holes. Do not make my mistake do not try to remember what you have lost and above all else DO NOT REMEMBER THE EVENT.

7. Do not think of IT often and when you do try to dehumanize it as much as possible IT likes attention.

8. The Soldiers speak nothing but lies. Their food is rotten their medicine is tainted and there is no safety. Do not fear them their guns have no bullets and they are too weary to chase you. Do not end their suffering if you can help it. They made their deal let them reap the consequences for it.

9. Do not fear the children they are not much stronger than an adult and far more uncoordinated and they are truly sorry for what they do to you. Fear what made them for they are its eyes and it is not sorry for what it will do to you.

10. The communes are peaceful despite their appearance. However that peace requires you to sacrifice and if you are not willing to make that sacrifice leave before they make you.

11. Do not let THEM know of you they will chase you and you are faster than them but THEY do not stop so you either must cross a river THEY cannot swim or kill them. I recommend the river they do not die easily.

12. If you think they will catch you pray as loudly as possible before THEY take away your tongue. Think of IT while you do and IT might show up, IT and THEY are not allies and there’s a tiny chance you will be able to escape in the fighting. IT will win and IT loses interest quickly.

13. In the likely event IT catches you do not look afraid, do not cry and do not beg. Curse IT until your last breath. ITS PUNISHMENT will be agony but it will end being FORGIVEN does not.

14. Do not travel during winter you will starve there is no food during winter. Stay at one of the Communes if you are able too they have plenty of food and they sleep during the winter. Always leave at least a week before spring they get quite active when they thaw.

15. Do not go to the shore many of those who remain are clustered there and being a small fish in an empty ocean is far better than being a small fish in a cramped pond.

16. Do not get overconfident because of this list there are many horrors out there. When you encounter something unknown make sure you are not the slowest in your group.

Like the title says. I work overnight security at a mall. I won't say exactly where, but it’s a large one in the Midwest. 

Something I can’t explain happened to me while I was working one night. Before I can dive into that, though, I have to throw a few things out on the table so I can illustrate a bigger picture for you.

I’ve never lived alone before. Moved from my parents' to a single bedroom with my high school girlfriend at 20. I’m 26 now and I’ve been on my own for a year now. 

I’ve gained a taste for solitude and some of the other tokens of adult life. Like nesting, for instance. 

The geometry and symmetry of my living room. How many inches sit between the orange area rug and each wall? The diagonal angle of my olive green sofa. My glass coffee table, shaped more like an artist's palette than a surface to place the TV remote. 

I love the mid-century aesthetic. That 1960s American dream gripped by fear of imminent nuclear holocaust vibe. Chefs kiss. 

Which is why last week, while patrolling the second floor, I walked past this home goods store. I pass this store a few times a night—12 AM, then 2 AM, and again at 4 AM. Anyway, I saw this pair of table lamps. Yellow. Glass. Even the shade. All sunshine and bubbly optimism. 

I have a nice floor lamp. The kind that hangs over the couch like a bug's antenna. But a room should have at least 3 light sources. The right ones can make everything else look different. Change the entire character of a room.

For the 15 seconds I stood at that display window, I imagined how they’d look accenting the caramel stain of my acacia wood side tables. Decided they would look good. And then resumed patrols. 

They drifted near the edge of my mind the rest of the night. Flicking on and off in the dark. I almost considered picking them up after shift when the mall opens. Then I recall the number printed on the price-tag tucked under the base of one.
Deferred purchase.

The lamps don’t have anything to do with what happened. Well, at least not in the way you’re probably imagining. When I recall how things worked out. I always circle back to the lamps. The first chartable, observable thing I did that wasn’t part of my job description.

My job runs on a loop. Sunday nights are early nights. You’ll hear the metal clatter of gates around 6:55 and I have to spend the next 20 minutes asking people to leave the food court too loudly and waving the air behind old people who only come to the mall to walk circles in the AC and call it exercise. 

From there it's walking routes, locking doors, checking gates, switching off lights. Usually, I end up walking one or more of the girls from the make-up and body stores to their car after having to stay late for inventory or a new floor set.
I always liked doing that.

For lunch I always stop by the food court before closing so I can pick up hot wings and a Coke that I’ll keep on ice in the security room fridge until break.
I always get hot wings because they also have wet napkins, and I can ask whoever is working to throw a few handfuls in the bag for me. 

You see, I have a problem with germs. Bad enough that it became work for everyone around me, like my ex. I won’t go into specifics but I’m better now.
And the parts that stuck around—counting, clocking, cataloging—turned out pretty helpful for this job.

I was on the second floor in the security room, wiping the orange ring of heat from around my lips after finishing lunch. I cram several packets into my left pocket after I finish wiping my hands and step out of the office. The first stop on my route is the north exit of the parking garage.

I whistle along to ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ as it plays over the speakers. I love this song. Actually, I’d argue it’s one of the greatest songs ever.
Tooth and nail.

I aim my flashlight through the window after giving each door a solid rattle. Unit 214 sits to the right when I turn around. It’s been empty for a few months now. 

What used to be one of those fast fashion brands that sew together tissue paper and call it a tee shirt, was now nothing but a concrete box with exposed ventilation.

 I push through the employee exit between the shoe and jewelry store and take the stairs back down to head to the south entrance and restart my loop. 

The mall has 4 main entrances, 2 stories, 2 escalators, and more than 260 stores and restaurants. So you can imagine I spend a lot of time counting, checking off lists—making sure everything is still the same as it was 2 hours ago. Security spiral.

When I reach the bottom of the escalator, I tear open a wet napkin, fold and press it onto the handrail. I watch it turn dark and sheen like a black marker as the grimy buildup from thousands of hands wipes clean. 

I step onto the metal just as my mark of purity comes back around. It takes 34 seconds to complete the circuit. During that time, 43 steps disappear into the metal comb. 43 yesterday. 43 the day before.

I never liked those things. 

The metal teeth.

When I was 6, one lace from a new pair of AIR Jordans my dad had just bought me accidentally got swallowed while stepping off an escalator. 

The only thing I remember was the sound of the invisible machinery underneath. Working with a purpose I didn’t understand. It didn’t feel hostile while eating my shoe. Just cold and indifferent. Paper shredder.

I step off when I reach the top and toss the napkin. Dig through my pocket. Tear open another and wipe down my hands—which I also throw in the garbage. I make my rounds. Rattle gates. Sweep my light over window displays. Make a mental checklist of what every mannequin wears. Glance at the titles and authors printed on the spines packed into cases behind glass. But I never linger long enough.

Eventually, I stop at the home goods store. And like before, stare for too long at that pair of yellow table lamps. My mind searches for methods to acquire them the same way an addict schemes for drugs.

A sigh passes through me as I let the urge die.

“After payday.” I breathe.

I always say that.     

I make my way back to the north entrance. My light sweeps over the empty parking garage through the windows. I rattle the gate and spin. But, instead of taking the employee stairs, I walk along the storefronts back to the escalators.
I adjust my route once I lock all the doors and gates for the night. From there it’s not about locking everything up quickly. But making sure everything is still where it belongs.

Most nights I’ll complete about 5 or 6 laps, maybe more if I'm bored. Tonight I end up doing more than ever. I can’t tell you what compelled me on this particular shift that differed from any other. 

I execute the same ritual on the escalator going down. The two cross one another in an ‘X’ shape. One goes up, the other down. I commit to this same loop 10 times. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I wanted time to go by faster and was too restless to stare at the wall of monitors with my feet up all night.

It was ride 10 that did it. I step on right as my marker returns. I’m looking down at the comb. Watching the stairs fold out of its teeth. Counting each one under my breath.

“41, 42, 43—44…”

I stop counting. The escalator doesn’t.

Recount. 44 again. My brain stumbles. 

My heels almost hit the top comb. And I feel it nipping at my ankles. I step over. Stare down at the teeth. The machinery underneath glows. Too bright. Brighter than I remember. 

All at once, I get this feeling like I’m standing under a net of eyes. I shake my head. Shake the feeling and turn. 

A cold weight plunges through me. Dead elevator.

My light slowly dithers over storefronts. From one window to the next. My hand, shaking. The beam, shivering. Every single mannequin has reoriented itself and is now staring directly at me. 

No—not at me, but more like the spot they knew I would arrive at.

I break into a cold sweat. My hands fumble. There’s a loud crack as my flashlight hits the metal stairs and rolls back. The sound of metal on metal splitting the air over and over, violating the quiet, reverberating off every angle in the dark. 

My heart claws its way up into my throat. And I clamber after in a panic as it tumbles against the stairs' current.

It loses momentum halfway down, but so do I. The stairs carry me back to the top as my flashlight rolls in place. Every time it falls off one step and onto the one below, the beam switches off. But—once the flashlight gains a couple feet of elevation—the beam switches back on. Almost like flickering between two realities.

I swallow. Craggy fear crumbles into my stomach. Rockslide. 

At first, I walk down the stairs, but they carry me upward faster than I can descend. After several attempts and near topples, I wrap my fingers around the cold metal and—

The beam vanishes. 

For a split second, and I know this part sounds crazy—the mall disappears. It felt like whatever was watching me chose that exact moment to blink.

The beam returns. Visual contact restored. And I ride to the top and step off. I turn. Slowly. My breathing finally catches up with me. I pace a few steps back and forth. The mannequins' faces don’t follow me. They stay locked onto the top platform of the escalator. Waiting. Reserved seating.  

For me? 

Or someone else. 

The idea alone makes the hair on the back of my neck bristle. 

Because I’m seeing—anomalies. And because it’s my job—I continue patrolling my route. 

The beam of my light dithering here and there. My brain suddenly gaslighting itself at every storefront. Was that like that before? The only things out of place are the mannequins around the escalator. I think. At least from what I can see. Corrupted memory.

I want to believe someone is messing with me. But I can’t put together a story where it makes sense. To move all of them during the time I was on the 1st floor you would need—access to the mall after hours, the keys to every store facing the escalator, enough time to reposition each one individually, and a deep resentment for me that goes beyond something personal.

I sweep the beam over the parking lot, nothing but gray concrete painted with yellow boxes and exposed pipe along the ceiling. I grab the gate and shake it. I look once more across the row of 6 white Nissan Rogues. The words ‘Security’ plastered in vinyl across the doors.

I turn to my left and start following the wall, but stop just short of Unit 214. A faint light glows from within. A long grid of shadow stretches out from the base of the gate. My body searches for a reason to ignore my mind with every cautious step I take. Administrative override. 

I grab my belt to steady my left hand while the beam in my right still jitters along the floor. The air in my lungs is getting heavier. I pause for barely a second to exhale before glancing around the corner into Unit 214.

It’s not a monster. Or a room packed with mannequins, all watching me. No, that would have been better in some ways. Because I can’t quite place why what I see is so much worse.

For a second, relief blooms in my chest, but then I take in the wrongness of it all, and the calm inside me wilts. Above is a mess of exposed pipes put together by something without eyes. The walls lean over the room, the floor wider than the roof. 

Sitting on the floor in the very center of the room. Only doing it wrong. 

The lamp. 

Both of them. 

Together. No—not together. Not both of them. 

One of them. 

Duplicated. 

Glowing. 

My eyes trace for any evidence of a cord at all and come up empty. Despite this, their glowing persists. Painting the concrete in overlapping yellow rings like a figure 8. Unsupported function.  

My heart kicks against my ribs. Whatever structural piece my knees require for standing gives out. I stumble back. The keyring on my belt chimes. I run. Back to the escalators. Feet echoing against tile. Pulse thudding in my neck. 

I circle around the landing to run for the security room. I need to breathe. Need to think. To count something persistent. To squeeze something real, and solid in my hands. Reference point.

My mind won’t stop spinning, won’t stop tumbling. But then it lands on a thought like an open Rolodex. I don’t know why I did it, but it just made sense. My body remembering something I don’t fully grasp yet. 

The flashlight. 

I gallop down the ascending escalator, then up the descending one. Each time counting the steps. Feeling lighter every time I complete the circuit. Pressure release. Until finally I’m sweating at the bottom of the escalator. Breathing through a mouthful of cotton and pennies. 

The 6 am lights bang on and begin their hum. I look around, eyes wide and wild. I spend the rest of the shift sitting in the office, staring at the wall of monitors until changeover. Checking the cameras around the escalator. Rewinding footage. Searching for answers. Diagnostic mode. 

The tapes are clean. Just another regular Sunday night. Just me walking in circles, jaw flapping as I count under my breath. But I never stop at Unit 214 for more than a second. Every loop is the same. I check doors, rattle gates, sweep my light over clothing racks and shoe walls.

I leave work exhausted and confused. Go to bed with questions in my mind that Google can’t answer. I try various phrases. Keywords. ‘Escalators,’ ‘Looping,’ ‘scary mall experience.’

I learn nothing valuable. I don't know if it's because I'm searching for the wrong things or the tools to calculate something like this don't exist. 

So I start with what is concrete. I recount all my actions after lunch. Eliminate variables. Pretty soon, a pattern emerges. One so subtle that I almost miss it. But it’s there. Real. Predictable. 

And scariest of all—reproducible. A system that behaved the same way every time. 

Like a game.

I spent the entire Monday—my only day off this week because I have to cover someone else’s shift on Tuesday—writing notes. 

***

Notes:

1. Mark a section of the black handrail. It doesn’t matter with what, just as long as it survives the machinery. A strip of white tape will work perfectly.
2. Ride the ascending escalator while counting every step.
3. Walk the upper balcony and ride back down while counting again after marking the section of rail where you step on. (Always step onto the escalator when your mark appears)
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until the marker disappears.
5. If the mannequins are all facing the top of the escalator on the tenth circuit, the loop has begun.
6. Every completed loop adds one step to the escalators. Observation and acknowledgement of this helps sustain the loop.
7. Do not allow any part of your body to touch the comb. (I don’t know why yet)
8. The mall will begin changing after the first additional step.
9. Always count. (VERY IMPORTANT) If you stop counting, don’t panic. Just start over.
10. Make sure you pick a song you like, cause you’re going to be stuck with it.

***

I go into work Tuesday night. My head buzzing. Hornet nest. The fear I felt on Sunday is gone now. Replaced by a feverish hunger for answers. I shoot a nervous glance from the notebook sitting atop my bag in the passenger seat to the dangling zipper that swings with every motion of the road.

A roll of white duct tape. White chalk marker. Laser pointer. Measuring tape. Research tools. The smell of cheap coffee and Chinese take-out slam into me when I open the office door. 

My boss spins in his chair to face me. Clocks the bag I’m shoving into my locker like I’m hiding evidence.

“The hell you got there?” he asks, brows pinching together.

“Just some clothes.” I lie, “Going to the gym when I’m off.”

His eyes start at my feet and travel up my frame to my shoulders.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good thing.” He snorts. “You look like you’d break in half from the AC kicking on.” He laughs.

“I’m gonna start pre-shift.” I say, shaking my head. 

“Whatever. Just be back by 7. I’m sick of waiting for you so I can leave.”

I check out a radio and flashlight from the utility room. Head to the food court to pick up my usual hot wings and Coke. My boss is already gone when I get back to the security office. I store my lunch in the fridge and clock in. 

The time clock chimes when I swipe my badge under the red laser. 

Boo-pee-boop.

I chase customers out of the mall with far less patience than Sunday night. An overweight guy yells at me when I tell him to keep moving every time he pauses his waddling gait to lean against a wall and breathe hard.
The lights finally bang off. The mall soundtrack echoes off empty walls. Fountains continue babbling in the dark. My flashlight glances off padlocked gates as I walk. The ritual ensues. Rattling doors and gates to make sure everything’s at home where it should be. 

My eyes snag for a moment on the yellow lamps in the home goods window as I make my way to the North parking garage exit. I finish locking down everything. Check the remaining boxes off in my head when—

A familiar ice spreads through my body. Cold ink.

I’m aware of Unit 214 to my right. 

But I don’t want to look. I breathe. A heavy sigh slips out of me, and I turn to face the empty store.

Normal. 

Just concrete. Exposed pipes neatly exploring the ceiling. 

I feel a twinge of disappointment. Which actually scares me more than if the lamps were there again. 

I take the employee exit stairs to the first floor and circle back to the bottom of the escalator. Execute my wet napkin cleansing ritual. Then I fish the roll of tape out of my bag. Neatly tear a 2 inch strip.

 I breathe. Remind myself I can do this. Slap the white tape on the rail when the smudge comes back. It seals like a glove. 

My eyes watch. My lips count. 30 seconds later the tape comes back. Perfect. I hitch a ride, counting the steps that disappear into the comb. When I reach the top, I trash the napkin before I circle around the balcony. Rinse and repeat. Slapping the white duct tape square on the grimy smudge once again. 

My heart misfires on loop 10. 

My grip tightens on the flashlight. At 23 steps, I hear the chorus of ‘Blue Bayou’ suddenly go flat. Like Linda forgot her own melodies. 

Cold dread beads on my forehead. 

That was it. 

The blink. 

At 43, I turn around and step over the comb. Somehow my legs already know not to go near it.

My stomach tightens. Wet noose. Once again, every mannequin surrounding the escalators is staring at the space where they remembered I’d be. That hunger returns, almost giddy and child-like. My legs move before my mind does. Then I remember. I fish a wet napkin from my left pocket, tear it open and scrub my hands. 

I always fold them before I throw them away. I don’t know when it started. Just one day, I was already doing it. 

I twist to throw it into the garbage and stop. There’s already the used remains of a different one sticking out. I push the lid open with the one in my hand. Several soiled wet napkins fall to the floor. Someone didn’t take out this garbage. I make a mental note.

I walk toward the north parking garage entrance, slow and cautious. My beam searching. Skimming. Collecting. I spot the yellow glow off to my left behind a kiosk selling blind box toys. For the first time ever, I don’t check the garage doors first. Instead, I turn and face unit 214.

I swallow hard. Drywall dust.

The wrong scene has returned. Same error message. Walls leaning inward. World’s worst HVAC setup. 

The glass lamp. 

Sitting on the floor the wrong way, casting overlapping halos of yellow. 

4 now. 

They’re multiplying.

I un-shoulder my bag. Dig through for the laser pointer. My fingers close around the tiny piece of metal. Unspent round.

I pull the bag back onto my shoulder and grab hold of the gate with my left hand. I don’t know why. In case my legs decide to give up again, probably. I press the button. The beam slices through the air and lands on the wall behind the lamps. I slowly lower the red dot until it glances off the glass shade. 

Something moves on the lamp beside it. At first, I thought it was a reflection. But then I moved the laser. And it moved, too. 

Identical. Mirrored. Like the room just copied the result without understanding the reason. 

My stomach folds inward. Collapsed display.

I go back to the escalators, circle around the balcony to the descending stairs. I watch the glowing comb at the bottom swallow each step. I kneel. Pull the measuring tape from my bag. Begin feeding it down until it hooks one step. 

The numbers climb between my fingers. 10 feet. 20. 30. Suddenly the tape is alive. The steel warbling. The numbers flying through my fingers faster.

Climbing higher. 

50 feet—

60—

70—

An icy prickle crawls down my back. 

100—

110—

120— 

The tape runs out. The roll yanks from my hands so violently I sprawl to the floor. I watch on hands and knees as the tape measure disappears into the bottom teeth with a wet, mechanical slurp. 

For one second, my lungs forget how to breathe.

The 6-year-old boy in me that almost got eaten by machinery shivers.
I push myself up. Stand on wobbly legs. I look around wildly for something else to throw down there. My mind lands on the water bottle in my pack. The plastic crinkles under my grip when I release it onto the steps.

It rolls down the steps; when it reaches the bottom teeth, it flattens. Disappears. Next thing I know, I’m running down the steps and jumping over the teeth. I dig through my back pocket, unfold the wrinkled receipt I got from buying lunch earlier. I hold it over the comb. The paper flutters at first, then—the bottom edges elongate, stretching toward the comb’s teeth. I let go, and it vanishes into the metal seam. 

A terrible excitement balloons in my chest. I start dropping random objects into the glowing jaws. A pen, a palm leaf, a roll of towels from the bathroom—anything I can find that isn't bolted to the ground. I take a chalkboard display from outside a coffee stand and toss it on the steps. It stretches into taffy before something yanks it below. I throw a table and chair from the food court at it which curl into dead spiders before slipping under the metal.

Eventually the novelty wears off. Something unfamiliar replaces the fun. A slow, creeping anxiety. All over my body. Hairline crack.

Where is all of this stuff going? The machinery beneath sounds busier now. Like it’s got more energy after I fed it. 

I look back upstairs. What happens if I do the loop again? Another 10 maybe? I do just that. I wish I’d stopped right here. Just packed up and gone home. But I didn’t. Because only one question rings in my head. 

Not ‘why does the comb eat stuff?’ Or—‘Why are the lamps I want to buy in 214?’

How deep does this go?

On loop 15, I hear something below me. My first thought is; ‘Someone broke inside’ But then I realize the sound is following my footsteps. Mimicking me. It stops when I do, walks when I do. And—I swear—I think I can even hear someone counting. Second mouth. 

The garbage can lids now bulge. Soiled wet napkins littering the floor.
The music has a strange texture now that I can’t place, like the room sounds submerged. A bad cassette. I stop in front of the sporting goods store on my way back to the descending escalator. My back foot sticks to the ground. I stop. Stare through the glass.

Each mannequin wears the same white tee, blue shorts, and basketball shoes. I shine my beam past them. The same basketball shoes line the wall. Like the store picked a favorite one.   

Loop 20. I think this is the part where most people would turn back. Because this is the first time you see ‘it’.

I step onto the descending escalator, lost in my head. Muttering digits under my breath while I stare at the glowing comb pulling me closer. When something catches my eye, something new. Someone—new.

“43—” I breathe.

A voice below me answers.

“44—”

My mouth hangs open. For a second, I think someone is mocking me. 

Then—

I look up. 

My heart grips fear and runs with it.

Now, because of the escalator's orientation, you only see the back of whoever is on the ascending escalator. And it’s a brief window. That’s how I spot the familiar security uniform. The back of its head. Jaw absently flapping. The small scar behind its ear where hair doesn’t grow. And then it’s out of sight. 

My feet arch wide over the comb. The seams now glowing orange like heat elements. I reach up and touch the raised mark behind my left ear. A cold fist clamps down on my insides. 

The lamps. Surfacing. Like some targeted social media ad. The wet napkins. Multiplying. The loop running my rituals without me. I’m being remembered. Referenced poorly. 

A worse realization dawns on me. If I go back up—it will be his turn to look at my back. The hair on my neck bristles. What happens if it spots me? And then, an even worse—or better—idea pops into my head. 

Camera 14. 

What if I only have access to the loop’s footage while I’m inside the Loop? New destination. 

I crouch on the way up. Press myself against the wall. The urge feels ridiculous. Like I’m hiding from a mirror.

“49—50—51”

The voice sounds like mine, only wrong. Reconstructed from memory. My heart spikes. The frantic rhythm almost throws off my count, and I stumble onto the second floor. Practically diving over the comb. 

I make a break for the security office. Footsteps echo on the floor below me. There’s a loud clatter from the first floor, like whatever rode the escalator down just barreled into a wet floor sign. 

I reach the door. Fumble for my badge. Relief washes over me when I hear the chime. 

Beeeeeep.

The door clicks shut behind me. I sink into my favorite rolling chair. A breath escapes me. Quiet valve release.
I lean over the controls. Camera 14. This camera makes no sense to me. It’s at a junction of the escalators where you can see both up and down. But the bottom of the descending steps and the top of the ascending steps both trail off camera because of the angle. 

I always thought it was useless until now.

I rewind camera 14. My finger hovers above pause/play. A horizontal, static hiss splits the screen. After a few minutes. I hit play and wait. The screen glitches. Skips frames. Me ducking, my back pressed against the metal, ascending. 

Then, *it—*appears. 

My heart skips timing.

It looks like me, but assembled wrongly. The first draft. Its face and eyes—they’re…too tall. Its elbows hang below the waist. The security shirt looks tight around the shoulders. Because it’s supposed to fit me. Not it.

I rewind again. The video glitches again. Skips a frame. The double appears on the escalator from nowhere. And then it finally clicks. I rewind again, but this time, farther back. 

My stomach drops a step too late. 

 I see myself ascending into loop 20, the double behind me, already descending. 

***

Updated notes:

1. Always count out loud. If you miscount. Start over. (And pray nothing noticed.)
2. Mark the handrail with something that will survive the machinery. (Always board here.)
3. One step gets added per loop. Always acknowledge it. (The loop needs to know you noticed.)
4. Don’t touch the comb. Don’t feed it. (Yeah, I know. I did anyway.)
5. On the 11th loop, all the mannequins around the escalators will reorient. (The loop has pulled you in.)
6. Stores simplify as the loops compound, only selling one item. This is normal. (Memory compression?)
7. Objects you interact with gain significance within the loop. This effect compounds exponentially. (The mall remembers everything you do, but not why.)
8. You will hear the double before you see it. It will fully appear on loop 20.  IT WAS ALREADY THERE.
9. The loop’s geometry will prevent you and the double from meeting. Do not interfere with this. (I don’t know what would happen, and I don’t want to.)
10. The cameras within the loop only show the loop's reality. Not the outside world.
11. Stick to a routine. Acting unpredictably makes the loop chaotic.

Right. You got out of bed at 3am probably grabbed a drink, some food, took a shit. Whatever.

And now you come back to yourself in bed….even though you’re right here reading this.

No you are not dreaming and no you haven’t gone insane….But you will be dead if you don’t follow these steps….

1. Secure the Perimeter
   QUIETLY Shut the bedroom door immediately, but do not leave the room. They operate as a pair. The entity currently in your bed assumes you are still gone, while the one waiting in the hallway is actively waiting for the signal that you are gone from this room now that they’re here. Do not step outside for any reason.

2. Neutralize the Entity in Bed
   You have a tight three-minute window to eliminate the creature in your bed. In its current state, its strength mirrors your own, but you have the crucial advantage of surprise and the opportunity to arm yourself first. Destroy it quietly and conceal the body in a well hidden spot as this will be important later. It will resist, so make your moves fast and silent enough to take its place before the hallway partner detects anything amiss.

3. Evade the Partner
   Once you occupy its spot in the bed, hold your breath the moment the partner enters. The door is going to slam open. Remain completely still. Its face will be above yours. Remain completely still. Wait until the exact second it tries to speak then unleash everything you have straight into its mouth and sprint out of the house. It will be right on you and absolutely angry, but it will give up the chase once your out the house

4. The Return
   When you eventually come back home, verify that the house is truly empty. If your concealment job was sloppy, the partner may have discovered the remains. If that happened... it’s going to make things deeply personal, and it is almost certainly still waiting inside for you. If you hid it well enough, the remaining creature should be gone, having left the premises to search for its partner.

Before I get into Wednesday night, there’s something I should explain. I mentioned I always buy hot wings because it’s an unlimited wet napkin glitch. 

That’s completely true still. But not the entire picture.

The actual reason is a lot messier. You see, there are many cleaner things on the menu for a guy like me with a history. I get wings because they’re difficult. Because for 15 minutes a day, I have to sit with buffalo sauce coating my fingers and burning my lips.

The old me. Sick me. The one that weighed too much for everyone—that would have ruined his entire day. Hell, probably his entire week. But now every wing is a small, delicious act of defiance. Exposure therapy pretending to be lunch.

Then, like a reward, I tear open the little paper and foil square. Cleanse my hands. Physically. Spiritually. 

Some people say grace before meals. I drench my prayers in spicy buffalo sauce and call it healing. 

I’ve already decided tonight that I’m going further than yesterday. I barely slept after work this morning. The reels keep spinning in my head. Camera 14. Forward, reverse. It. One loop ahead of me. Predicting me? I don’t like that. But I’ll stop if things get too dangerous.

Halfway up my ascent to loop 10, I feel the blink. ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ loses the key for a moment, then over-corrects. 44 steps just like Sunday, just like Tuesday. Every mannequin remembers the script, staring at the top of the escalator exit. Welcome party.

The garbage is already full. Wet napkins spilling from the push-lid onto the floor. A single napkin on top of the bin’s plastic dome. Neatly folded in the beam of my flashlight. My stomach squeezes tight. Cold vice. It’s folded the same way I fold them before wiping the escalator's handrail.

I hear something clatter near the North exit’s parking garage. I beeline straight for Unit 214, already regretting the decision. A wall of bright yellow emanates through the gate’s metal slats, stretching across the floor like a web of shadows. 

I switch off my flashlight. Stick it on my belt. Curl my fingers around the metal. And stare. The glitch persists, only worse now. 8 lamps now. Contamination event. Most of them look fine. One is missing its glass shade. Another has 2 bases fused together. Rendered together. 

Knotted copper pipes running the ceiling like a windows screensaver. Blindly assembled. The longer I stare, the worse it gets. Each time I circle back here, it picks up right where we left off. A bad save file.

At loop 14, a sound so small I think it’s imagined floats past me on the escalator. A mosquito in my ear. 

My shoulders climb an inch. False alarm. It almost throws off my count. When I reach the bottom floor, I kneel. Pull a white chalk marker from my bag, draw a slash through the 4 lines I already drew. 

The twin dolphin fountain babbles to my right—soft and persistent. I stand. Glance toward the food court. Some restaurant logos look misspelled. Or actually, more like misprinted. I stroll along the restaurants, staring at the menus, things that look like words and food at first glance, but fall apart under a microscope. 

One smell permeates the air, regardless of where I stand. Soybean oil. It almost makes sense when I remember half the stores in the food court are Chinese takeout.

After convincing myself I’ve seen all I need to, I head back for the escalators. I got too excited, I guess, because my hip collides with one chair. I stumble. The chair drags across the floor. Grating tile.

I’m not sure why I did this, but instead of pushing the chair back into the table with the rest, I pulled it away farther. Left it like that. Maybe it’s because the old me would have put it back. The old him would have wanted it neat. Where it belongs. But I’m not him anymore.

A breath leaks out of me, I duck, pressing myself against the wall. I’m more mentally prepared this time when I hear it muttering past me. I peek over the handrail and spot the back of my head riding down the escalator. Doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
I step over the comb. ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ plays from the overhead speakers. Only slower. Echoing a fraction of a second too late. I circle the balcony and ride back down. Each loop, marking another slash at the bottom of the descending escalator. Each loop, confirming the compounding steps. 

On loop 25, the singer fumbles the lyrics to the chorus, like he messed up playing live. Or worse, whatever is playing the song forgot instead. My skin prickles. Missing texture.

Stores now only sell one item each. Mannequins are incomplete. Only shoes. Only tee shirts. Each one rocking the worst selection possible.  

Inside the jewelry store, the same 1.8 carat princess cut engagement ring copy and pasted endlessly in mirrored display cases. Window banners advertising ‘DIAm0ND R!NGS’ and ‘FlNANClNG’ for people with ‘BAD CR3DlT’
Counterfeit language. 

Something keeps pressing CTRL+CV on each storefront. The mall is becoming lazy. No longer any variation or branding. The very concept of inventory losing priority with each iteration. Every store slowly converging on one answer.

Loop 30. A cold fear seeps through me like a ‘finger of death’. Ice blooming wherever it touches.

The mannequins have turned into human parodies. Approximations of human anatomy. 4 legs attached at the waist. Headless. One with too many torsos stacked together. Limbs clipping through the walls and display glass like a failed render.
My beam trembles over them, waiting for the rest of them to buffer.

Loop 35. Everything keeps getting worse at being what it’s supposed to be.
Wet napkins I don’t remember using cover the floor. They’re no longer just wrinkled and soiled. Sometimes they’re folded. Pristine. I find them stuffed into planters. Packed into garbage cans. Wedged beneath kiosks. Sometimes they’re just lying on the floor, overlapping one another like a glitched windows error box you drag across the screen until your PC crashes.

My throat tightens. Symptom bloom.

By loop 40. I realize the double sounds different. The voice is lower now. More distorted. Lagging. Stumbling over its count repeatedly. It's getting worse at mimicking me. Every loop becomes less human.
Generation loss.

The footsteps echoing on the opposite floor stagger and trip. I’ll hear something crash, then find a kiosk of blind box toys trashed on the next floor.

 Loop 45. I hear a crash coming from the North exit. I head toward the sound to investigate. The sound of a fracture crawling through glass. Loud ticking. Cracking. Unit 214 lit like a Christmas tree. 

It takes my eyes a second to adjust to the mass grave of yellow lamps. Some lit. Some flickering. Others crushed under the weight of hundreds more. Like the mannequins, the lamps also have ugly misprints. Something buried shatters. Several lamps shift and tumble down the pile. Glass avalanche. 

An idea surfaces. I pull the bag from my shoulder and once again retrieve the laser pointer. I aim it through the metal slats. Press the button. The little dot glows on one lamp. Red vector. 

Slowly. It multiplies. Exponentially. Until I lower the pointer. 

I don’t know what made me do it. But I raise the laser again. Only this time I give the button 3 measured depressions. 

The red dot blinks 3 times on one lamp. At first, I think ‘they duped me.’ Because nothing happens. Then, hitting me all at once—like I’ve got hundreds of rifle barrels trained on my body—a swarm of glowing red dots. They light me up. Once—twice—three times. 

Simon says.

The mall tilts. A certainty inside me tilting with it. Load bearing. 

I slowly reverse. Adding distance between me and the glitching lamp nest. A pained grunt escapes me as my back collides with something big and solid. My hand stumbles to regain balance. 

Cold metal. Curved. Painted. 

I twist. 

My stomach does too. 

Another impossibility joins the pile.

Sticking out of the parking garage doors is the hood of one security vehicle. Not crashed. Placed. Nothing broken or forced. Just a car loaded halfway through the wall. I drag the beam across the hood and into the garage. It’s all CTRL+CV for as far as I can see. The security vehicles are reproducing in low fidelity.

One with a concrete pillar growing straight through its roof. Some intersect as if assembled at the factory wrong. Some missing details completely. Wheels that are all tire and no aluminum. Missing headlights. All hood. No cab. ‘SECURTY’ repeatedly pressed across the doors like a stamp losing ink. Xerox identity.

My pulse stutters. I leave because I’m tired of everything I look at multiplying. It’s like when you’re driving to work and you see a billboard for a jewelry store with a 1.8 carat princess cut and pain point marketing slapped all over it. Then you get to work and put your feet up to scroll before you have to clock in and there it is.

You never searched it, or said it out loud. You just thought about it for one second at 70 miles an hour, and something was already listening.

The flashlight’s beam pulls me along the wall as I look from window to window. I stop in front of the bookstore. The same book fills every display.

‘The ShlNlNG - sTVEn KllNG’ 

Even the covers are botched. The Overlook Hotel and howling snowstorm look more like a jousting match with spectators by a lake than a secluded mountain resort.

On the way back down I see the double again. Hunched over and breathing hard between counts. Its left ear looks like it melted down the side of its head a couple inches, then cooled again. He looks exhausted. 

A pang of guilt flashes inside me.

I look down, try to stare at my feet until I can see the orange glow and moving parts of whatever machine lies beneath the comb. I give it a wide berth. I don’t make it off the metal when my foot dies mid-step. My hand frozen inside my bag, fingers white around the marker.

My slashes on the floor have doubled. No. Badly reprinted. 45 before I went up. 90 now. I don’t recognize the hand that wrote them. Jagged and clumsy. Not mine. I’ll have to rely on my own internal framework. 

I catch the smell of soybean oil coming from the direction of the food court. My feet follow it there, passing row after row of chairs and tables. I stare up at one menu. Every item has become ‘CHlKKEN T3RlYKKl’ shown with an image that looks like a suggestion of white rice and chicken teriyaki in a styrofoam takeout box. 

But that’s not the worst part. When I look closer at the flatscreen, I realize there’s no glow behind the fake words and food. The logo is barely visible in one corner—‘VllZl0’. They're not even real flatscreens. Just cheap approximations of what fast food menus look like. Bad photocopy.

I turn to leave and—stop. The chair I pulled away from the table. There’s another one next to it. Like it was lonely. So someone placed another. They tremble in my light’s beam.

I swallow guilt. Fishbone. 

Because all I can think of is this bad memory of my ex. Not because of her. She was perfect. I remember hearing the words ‘communal dining’ from the hostess and feeling tiny bugs crawling under my skin. Pulling my chair to one side of the table, and her following me with hers until we were staring across the flames at the other couple the hostess sat us with. I just want my ‘clean space’. To tear open a clean one and wipe it across my space.

They did the onion volcano. Made the flames touch the metal hood over our heads. Everyone was smiling and laughing. Everyone but me.
I remember looking at the raw chicken touching the grill, which was also touching the shrimp, which was also touching the vegetables, and feeling my tongue swell and my breathing pick up. 

And by the end I'd convinced—her, the other couple, and the cook that we needed to shut down the entire restaurant immediately. Because only I can take dinner with my girlfriend and turn it into a cross contamination event.

She apologized to me 3 times that night. On the drive home, in tears. In the kitchen with her arms around my neck. In bed, before she kissed the side of my head.

Like she was the one who messed up. Lost case.

Heat rises. In my face. Behind my eyes. The scene blurs into prisms.

“Why are you doing this?” 

To nobody. To the mall. To me. To her—maybe. To the version of myself that was running loops long before I stepped on an escalator. 

Something meaner replaces the heat under my skin. A hotter, smoldering substrate of self-loathing. 

The old me. The weak me. Shows his ugly face. 

I clench my teeth. Tighten my fists.

I plant my shoe on the edge of the chair and kick as hard as I can. The sound echoes through the mall. Chair dragging against floor. Colliding with a table and toppling more. 

Then everything is still.

I listen to the sound of my own heavy breathing. The slow, melting version of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ that’s occupying the air. I feel my shoulders rise and fall. My heartbeat losing speed. A long therapeutic breath slips out of me.

Then, a chair moves. Barely. Like someone bumped it with their hip walking past. I watch. Waiting. Pulse throbbing in my neck.

Every table and chair violently pulls to one side of the room. Not all at once. Gradually. Social propagation. Like the chairs are recruiting others to lash out as well. Until it’s spreading across the entire food court like a riot. 

My legs carry me toward the escalator with frantic energy. Chairs and tables fly in front of me. I duck as legs whistle over my head. Some smash into the wall and splinter. Others get stuck behind pillars and dividers. The sound is deafening. Like it’s raining 2x4 planks inside the mall. 

I reach the end of the food court. Cold sweat slicks my hands and back. My forehead glistens. I turn back and stare, breathing like I just survived a car accident I caused. 

The last chair tumbles over, slides slowly across the floor until its legs touch the wall. Like it finally found where it belongs.   

***

Updated notes:

1. Always count out l0ud. If you miscount. Start over. PRAY N0THlNG SAW. 
2. Always step on at your mark. ALWAYS.
3. The loop begins when the rnannequins stare. 
4. The l00p adds one step every cycle. ACKN0WLEDGE THE STEP.
5. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. 
6. You vvill hear it before you see it. The double appears at loOp 20. IT WAS ALREADY THERE.
7. The double copies your behavi0r. The loop's geometry stops you and the double from ever lnteractlng.
8. You're allowed to look, but only at its back. D0NT LO0K.
9. The loop changes things in the rnall. Objects become important when y0u interact with them.  
10. The cameras only show the l00p. N0T THE 0UTSlDE.
11. The mall remembers what you do. N0T WHY.  
12. Unit 214 contains objects you thought about. Unit 214 contains objects y0u wanted.
13. Stick to a routine. Don’t give it your info.

***

The glowing light from unit 214 turns the escalators into a giant black ‘X’. A folded forever against a backdrop of advancing yellow blight.

When I think about it, the escalators—they’re less of a loop, and more of a figure 8. Every time you go up or down, you also have to circle back around. An infinite detour where real and phony intersect in the middle. 

My mind keeps running the same folded circuit. How the loop saw me pull out one chair and decided to place another one next to it. 

That’s it.

I’m the one who filled in the blanks.

Like when a ‘psychic’ tells you, “You had a very heavy relationship in the past.” It’s a safe bet. The kind of assumption you could point at anyone. The trick only works because you do the rest of the math yourself. Cold reading.

I wasn’t lying when I said I’m better now. At least—I didn’t believe I was lying.

My footfalls echo across the floor. I stop at the comb. Stare at the glowing seams. Cold static rolls over my neck and shoulders, down to my finger tips. Dead channel.
I don’t know why I keep going deeper. Probably because it’s easier than fighting my way back out. Maybe the loop will eventually forget itself. And me along with it.

Loop 50. I think I’ve finally cracked. I keep catching these little glimpses of something small and red from the corner of my eye. But every time I crane my neck to look at whatever is there, it either darts out of view, or wasn’t there to begin with.

Loop 55. ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ stretches into something unrecognizable. Too slow. Bouncing off the walls wrong. Submerged. Fragmented. Corrupted melody.

Loop 60. The stores are experiencing retail dementia and have forgotten how to be stores. And now they’re trying to remember using the only consistent reference they have.

 Me.

The electronics store sells only radios. Clothing stores sell a parody of my security uniform. A kiosk that once sold knock off perfume now has wet napkin squares crammed into the glass cases.

Loop 65. The glow from unit 214 is brighter than ever. My feet suddenly stick to the floor mid-step to investigate. I spot something behind the vent. Just a flash. Enough to leave a sharp prickle behind my eyelids. 

I spot a bench and grab one end, pivoting to the other side of the walkway. I climb up. Dig through my bag for the pocket knife. Hinge the phillips out. Start twisting the bottom screws. The first one falls to the floor and taps away. Halfway through the second, the metal flexes out. 

I didn’t have to keep twisting because I could already tell what was inside. But I do anyway. On the final twist, the screw falls. So do the wet napkins. They tumble onto my feet. Onto the floor. I catch one and feel the texture between my fingers. My skin goes tight. Shrink wrap. 

It feels waxy. Like dryer sheets described over the phone. The mall is just guessing now.

Loop 70. Things stop agreeing on what size they’re supposed to be. Newer, tinier seating to replace the old, still broken and piled against one wall of the food court. A flashlight hangs in the window of what used to be a sporting goods store, the size of a canoe. 

Nothing looks impossible. Just strange. Wrong at first glance.

The yellow glow from Unit 214 is so close I swear I could touch it, but the gate, the parking garage, feels far. 

The room's dimensions are terrifying now. Some lamps are yellow approximations. A little bit wrong. Different heights and shapes. The pile glows like a toxic yellow waste. 

The more distance I add between me and what happened at the food court, the more the scar opens. By loop 75 a bad dinner date from a year ago feels bigger than this retail purgatory.

The ride takes 93 seconds now. The steps under my feet have gone darker. Blacker. Reflective, just like my flashlight. The metal teeth, bright and searing, devoid of empathy more than ever.

Loop 80. The mall runs out of wall. Entire textures missing or unrendered. The mannequins hurt to look at now. No clothing or retail purpose. Just horrific attempts at human form. Stacked torsos. More faces than a mannequin should have fit onto one head. Too many arms clipping through walls. Ceilings. Display glass.

My trembling hand stretches out to touch the fingers on one reaching through the glass. The white fiberglass is gone. Updated to something impossible.
I look at the pale knuckles, the skin pores, the dotted moles arranged just like my own. 

The hair on my arms locks into a rigid grid. 

Every inch of the floor is graffiti’d with little white slashes in groups of 5. Some overlapping, jagged or incomplete. Manic scrawling on prison cell walls.
Security cameras are growing from walls where they shouldn’t be. Little black tumors.

Loop 85. I can’t look at it anymore. With every descent, the double looks like someone took it apart and put it back together worse than before. Its footsteps are more clumsy and irregular than ever. They echo wrongly as it struggles to keep up. It cries out randomly like it’s confused or in pain. The voice layered, pitching up and down, repeatedly trying to recall my own. It crashes into clothing racks, tipping and shattering planters. 

Slowly. Everything rots. The mall. The mannequins. The double. 

Me. 

On the next ascent. I catch myself in the reflection of a storefront.
My insides twist into hard, geometric knots. For a second—I think it's the double. 

My pulse fights like a trapped bird hitting the same 4 glass walls. 

Suddenly, I’m running the escalators. Each step feels like pushing through wet clay. Every breath tastes metallic, like my engine is burning out. Everything around me buffers slower than I can ascend. 

I don’t know why I kept running. Maybe because for the first time the loop looked exhausted. Like it was the one suffering. Maybe I thought I could outrun reality. Outrun myself.

I lost count after 100, but somehow the numbers keep coming. Reality is crashing. Glitching. Buffering. Rendering a nightmare.

I slowly step over the comb—now a glowing industrial shredder. 

A single floor tile catches my eye. Yellow. Glassy. Just like the lamp. Randomly placed like a dropped pixel. My flashlight finds another. Then there’s 3 of them together. Then an entire corner. It occurs to me they’re spreading. Toward something.

I trace the yellow disease back to patient zero. Back to Unit 214. The entire north exit glows sickly yellow. The walls and floor nearest 214 are converting. 

No—

Updating. 

The tile, the steel, the drywall—all replaced with the same material as the lamp. Even the shadows have nowhere to go. Pixelated veins spreading in every direction. Turning everything it touches into lamp, like some yellow rot. The car hood and bumper of the vehicle clipped through the exit are completely yellow, the infection traveling into the parking garage. 

214 has turned contagious. The yellow texture, bleeding toward the escalators. The very concept of the room escaping. Expanding.

The infected walls are now generating their own yellow light. I switch off my flashlight, my eyes relying on just the yellow glow. 

The gate groans and ticks. Bowing under the pressure of endless lamp production. Something finally gives. Buffer overflow. 

The gate folds under the weight of thousands of yellow lamps. The gate, screeching and bending. Lamps popping and shattering. Shards of yellow glass spitting through the metal slats. 

Lamps gush from the folded corners of the gate. Pouring onto the yellow tile like a river of misshapen glass. Newer versions push older copies forward. Wherever the lamps settle, another yellow tile updates beneath them. 

I slowly reverse. Then notice something on my hand. I glance down and see a little red dot. I shake it off. Lift my arm and stare at the back of my hand. The glowing red dot returns. 

One dot— 

Two—

Three—

I stop counting. Then—every lamp locking onto the biggest heat signature at floor level. 

Mine.

They cover me—hands, arms, chest. They crawl across my uniform like flies exploring something that stopped moving a long time ago. Dozens of tiny red points treating me like a surface.

A new absence opens up inside my chest.

Every lamp agrees on one thing. 

That I belong somewhere. 

I turn and run. The dots pursue me like a swarm of angry bees. My feet echo off yellow tiles. Wet napkins fall around me like feathers. One lands on a yellow square and instantly turns to lamp. My legs kick off the floor harder.

Hot breath pooling around my chin. The tang of wet pennies coating my mouth.
I see the escalators ahead. But I’m not heading for them. Suddenly I hear dragging across the floor. And my shins collide with something hard. I go horizontal, landing hard on the ground. 

All air exits my body at once. A pained cry rips from my throat as pain shoots through my left shoulder and arm. My blood curdles when I hear the double wail from the floor below. Long and tortured. Something that used to sound like my voice before the mall forgot that too. Crashing into things in the dark. Glass breaking. Gates rattling. The gait of something that learned to walk from observation, trying to run without knowing how. 

I look down at my legs tangled around the bench. The same bench I used to reach the vent. 

Simon says.

The dots swarm me—my legs, my hips, my chest and arms. I flail, swatting frantically like I’m brushing away insects. Then I stop—look at my hands mid-swat. 

Dot. Dot. Dot. 

What the fuck am I doing? I was trying to fight light.

My feet are back under me. Kicking the ground harder than ever. My heel slips on a wet napkin and I almost go down again, but somehow regain my balance. I don’t look back. Not at the bench—or the escalators, the mannequins, Unit 214.
I run. Losing count. Start over. I can hear the double below me still. 

Doing what it does best.

I reach the security office. My hands shake as I fumble with my badge. Swipe it under the interrogator.

Beeboop-beeboop. 

Access Denied.

I curse under my breath before trying again.

Beeeeeep. 

Access granted.

Updated notes:

1. Always count out l0ud. If you miscount. Start over. PRAY N0THlNG SAW. RUN.
2. Always step on at your mark. ALWAYS.
3. The loop begins when the rnannequins stare. 
4. The l00p adds one step every cycle. ΛCKN0WL∑DGE THE STEP.
5. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH THE C0MB. D0NT TOUCH. . .
6. You vvill hear it before you see it. The double appears at loOp 20. lT WAS ALREADY THERE.
7. The double copies your behavi0r. The loop's geometry stops you and the double from ever lnteractlng. THE GEOMETRY IS FAlLlNG.
8. You're allowed to look, but only at its back. D0NT LO0K. l WARNFD Y0U N0T TO.
9. The loop changes things in the rnall. The loop changes things in the rnall. THE L0OP CHAXGES REFERENCE MATERlAL. 
10. The cameras only show the l00p. N0T THE 0UTSlDE. ØU†S1DΞ RΞ†RΞΛDlNG??
11. Objects become important when y0u interact with them. THE LOOþ  REMEMBERS EVER¥THlNG 
12. The LO0P remembers what you do. N0T WHY. THE LOOP IS GUE§§lNG  
13. Unit 214 contains objects you thought about. Unit 214 contains objects y0u wanted. Unit 214 remembers the shape. N0T THE REAS0N. 
14. Stick to a routine. Don’t give it your info. lT ALR€ADY HAS lT.
15. The loop can be observed safely. THlS CANN0T BE SUSTΛlN3D.

 

Your therapist seemed like a nice guy.

You were depressed after breaking up with your boyfriend. You’d lost your appetite, you

were sleeping all the time, you felt lethargic and unmotivated. Your parents were worried

about you, so you avoided them. Your friends noticed your resistance to their attempts

to cheer you up, and you avoided them too. You kept hearing ads for therapy on

podcasts, so you decided to try to find a therapist.

You looked online but quickly became overwhelmed. There were so many profiles, so

many different specialties and modalities. You scrolled through the profiles until one

caught your eye. It was a man with a warm smile and an office just a few miles away

from your apartment. So you emailed him.

Your therapist returned your email within the hour. Your therapist offered you a free 30

minute phone consultation to see if he was the right therapist for you. Your therapist

even mentioned the possibility that he might not be the right therapist for you. Which

made you feel like your therapist was the right therapist for you.

The phone call with your therapist went well. He seemed to understand your situation,

the sadness after the break up, the depression you found yourself struggling with. You

mentioned the idea of seeing your therapist online, but your therapist suggested that in-

person therapy would be better for you. You decided to start therapy with him. Your

therapist said he could see you the next day. You hung up the phone and noticed you

felt a little bit better.

Your therapist’s office was on a walkable block with several cafes. You arrived early for

your first session, and waited in the lobby until your therapist came to greet you. Your

therapist shook your hand, and smiled warmly. Your therapist walked you back to to his

office. Windows let the morning sunlight in, illuminating a comfortable couch with pillows

on each side, and a coffee table with coasters and a box of tissues on it. Your therapist

explained his cancellation policy, his note taking practices, and then asked you a simple

question: How were you doing?

It all gushed out like water from a fire hydrant. The deterioration of your relationship with

your boyfriend, the arguments, the infidelity, the anger. Your confusion about whether to

try to repair things or end them. The aftermath of the breakup, the back and forth, the

depression. Your therapist looked at you intently, nodding along in understanding. When

you started to cry, your therapist let you. Your therapist didn’t try to cheer you upimmediately. He didn’t tell you everything was going to be okay. Your therapist just sat

across from you with a sympathetic, comforting look on his face. Your therapist nudged

the box of tissue in your direction, and you blew your nose and laughed awkwardly.

Before you knew, it the session was over. You admitted you felt better after getting all

that off your chest. Your therapist was glad to hear this, and said he looked forward to

seeing you next week. Your therapist also offered you his phone number, in case you

had any kind of emergency between sessions, and said you could call or text him if you

needed to. You thanked him and left. You went home and fell asleep on the couch.

Your therapist tracked your progress over the next few weeks, noting that you had

become able to talk about the breakup without crying. Your therapist encouraged you to

see this as a positive sign, as even if the external events in your life hadn’t changed,

your reaction to them had. You admitted that you felt better, but even so that feeling was

more of a glimmer of hope within the overall depression. Still, your therapist’s positive

attitude gave you hope.

Your therapist was the one who suggested you start seeing him twice a week. Your

therapist was happy with your progress, and wanted to intensify treatment now while

you were seeing positive results. You didn’t feel strongly either way, and since you

worked remotely it was relatively easy to fit two sessions a week into your schedule.

Your insurance was still making it pretty affordable, so you agreed.

Your therapist asked you about your childhood, your parents, your hopes and dreams.

You hadn’t thought about things like that for a long time. You’d been consumed with the

trauma of the breakup. It was nice to talk about something else. You told your therapist

about your parents. How your father was domineering and your mother submissive.

How your father was quick to anger and your mother tiptoed around it. How you couldn’t

wait to leave for college and get away from them, but at the same time found yourself

relying on them for emotional and financial support. Your therapist assured you he

understood. And you felt better knowing your therapist understood.

One night your therapist took you out to dinner. After one early evening session you

walked out together, and when you reached the sidewalk your therapist mentioned he

was going to grab a quick bite and invited you to join him. You hesitated, but before you

could think of what to say your therapist assured you it would be okay, there was

nothing improper or unethical about it. It was just dinner. So you agreed.Your therapist took you to an Italian restaurant around the corner, a neighborhood place

that was nice but not too nice. Your therapist said he liked to have a glass of wine at the

end of the work day, and suggested you have one too. You weren’t sure about this, but

your therapist told you dinner was on him, so why not treat yourself? Your therapist

ordered you a glass of pinot noir.

You had a nice time at dinner. You talked and laughed in a way that you hadn’t in a long

time. Your therapist noticed this too, and remarked on it. Your therapist suggested that

this was a result of both your clinical work in therapy, as well as this new experience of

being together outside of therapy in a social setting. Your therapist said he was glad to

see you smile, that you have a beautiful smile, and that he hoped through your work

together you’d find more reasons to smile. You blushed, and agreed.

Your therapist is the one who suggested you add a weekly meal to your weekly

sessions. Your therapist explained that these social interactions would help you recover

from the breakup. Your therapist described how he would model what an ideal partner

would be like, showing you how a man could be trustworthy and supportive, and how

you could learn to feel comfortable being with someone who could be accepting of you.

Your therapist insisted he wasn’t trying to replace your ex-boyfriend, but that he was

trying to help you prepare for your next relationship, a relationship that would be better,

happier, and more fulfilling, because of the work you were doing in therapy together.

You nodded at that.

Your therapist dropped you off at your apartment after dinner one night. You’d started to

split a bottle of wine with your therapist at your weekly dinners, and he observed that it

would be safer if you didn’t drive. Your therapist encouraged you to take a Waymo to his

office for your session that day, and said he would drive you home after dinner. Your

therapist liked the idea of sharing time in the car together, telling you that it would be

good for you to continue to develop both your clinical relationship and your friendship.

You directed your therapist to your apartment, where your therapist pulled up and

stopped the car, turning off the ignition. Your therapist told you how proud he was of

your progress, how he admired the way you’d overcome your depression and started to

enjoy life again. Your therapist looked at you for a long moment, then leaned over and

kissed you. You were surprised, but you didn’t flinch. You accepted the kiss without

protest.

The kiss ended, and your therapist said he was looking forward to seeing you tomorrow,

and every day after that. You smiled and nodded, then got out of the car. You walked upto your front door, and as you opened it you turned back to see your therapist in his car,

watching you. Your therapist waved, and waited until you’d gone inside and closed the

door. Then your therapist drove away.

Your therapist sympathized when you told him your insurance was going to stop paying

for your sessions. Your therapist is the one who suggested your reach out to your

parents about paying for therapy. So you asked them, and your parents said yes. They

were happy to pay for therapy, because they hoped it would help mend the conflict

between you. They were skeptical of the twice a week sessions, but went along with it

because what they cared about the most was your well being, and you told them

therapy was helping.

Your therapist enjoyed cooking in your apartment. You started having dinners at your

place. Your therapist would pick up ingredients on the way over from work and have you

sit on the floor in the corner of the kitchen and keep him company while he cooked. At

one of these dinners your therapist explained that the way your relationship was

progressing was good for your sense of intimacy. This was something you struggled

with in your previous relationships, so it made sense that developing more intimacy with

your therapist would help your experience of it. Your therapist insisted that the way your

relationship was developing was completely appropriate.

Your therapist explained that the fact that you were having sex wouldn’t take away from

the clinical impact of your work together. One night after dinner your therapist took you

by the hand, led you to your bedroom, and had sex with you. No words were

exchanged. You didn’t protest. You knew it was something he wanted to do, so you

accepted it. Afterwards he cuddled with you, telling you how special you were and how

much you meant to him. You smiled and nodded in agreement.

Your therapist was concerned when you mentioned your recent contact with your ex-

boyfriend. He had texted you, asking if he could see you, and part of you wanted to see

him. Your therapist listened carefully, then shared his opinion that any attempt to

rekindle that relationship would only lead to more heartbreak and pain. Your therapist

encouraged to resist the urge to talk to your ex-boyfriend. The conviction your therapist

showed made you feel like you should agree with him, so you did.

Your ex-boyfriend had come over unannounced one day. You were reluctant to let him

in, so you had the conversation at your front door. Your ex-boyfriend said he was

worried about you, that this was less about him wanting to get back together and more

about him being concerned about you. He told you your friends had reached out to himwith their concerns about you, that you were avoiding them. Part of you did want to

reconnect with your ex-boyfriend, but you knew your therapist thought it was a bad idea,

so you dismissed that feeling. You assured your ex-boyfriend you were over the

breakup and moving on with your life. Your ex-boyfriend seemed skeptical. After your

ex-boyfriend drove away you noticed your therapist in his car across the street. Your

therapist locked eyes with you for a moment with a look you’d never seen before. Then

your therapist drove off.

Your therapist didn’t mention any of this at your next session. Your therapist was his

normal, supportive self. You were happy to avoid talking about that awkward moment

from the night before. Later that night you texted your ex-boyfriend asking him if you

could see him again, but you never heard back.

Your therapist was alarmed when you told him your parents wanted to meet him. When

your parents told you they were going to come visit you didn’t put up a fight, but you

didn’t tell your therapist right away. When you finally told your therapist, he wanted to

know all the details about how long they’d be in town and what your plans were with

them. Your therapist observed that your parents might not understand your relationship,

and that they might not approve of your relationship, even though there was nothing

wrong with your relationship. Your therapist decided you would tell your parents he was

out of town that week. You felt relieved about this plan. Part of you wanted your parents

to know about your relationship with your therapist, but another part of you knew it had

to be kept hidden from them. You didn’t want your parents to think anything was wrong.

Your therapist was the one who suggested the tattoo. Your therapist said that having his

name on your body would be your secret to share, and this secret would increase the

sense of intimacy between you. Your therapist chose where the tattoo would go: across

your stomach, below your belly button. Your therapist told you that the knowledge that

his name was written on your skin would be of comfort to him during the week you were

apart when your parents were in town.

Your parents’ visit was difficult. You could tell they were worried about you but didn’t

want to alarm you by revealing just how worried they were. Your father assessed your

apartment, replaced some light bulbs, and fixed the clicking sound your stove made.

Your mother busied herself doing laundry and cleaning out your refrigerator. You went to

dinner a couple of times, saw a movie, and spent plenty of time sitting together in your

living room, on your phones.Towards the end of the visit your parents said they wanted to talk to you about your

therapist. Your father wanted to know more about him, and what you talked about in

therapy. You were resistant to this, but your father told you he was paying for it, and that

give him some right to be included. You mother tried to soften your father’s brusque

manner, translating his questions into more a pleasant form so you’d feel less attacked.

You were vague, saying your therapist understood you, and that he was a big reason

why you were doing so much better. Your father had looked up your therapist’s profile

online and had questions about his education and training, but you didn’t have the

answers. This made your father angry. You ended up having a big fight, and you told

them you were sick of how they didn’t trust you and couldn’t let you live your own life,

and if they wanted to stop paying for therapy fine, they could just save the money for

your funeral after you committed suicide. Then you went into your bedroom and

slammed the door.

Your parents said goodbye the next morning. You apologized for the suicide threat, and

told them you didn’t really mean it. They appreciated this, and seemed relieved, but

avoided talking about it further. You hugged them both, and apologized for not driving

them to the airport. When your father went to take their suitcases to the street your

mother told you she was concerned about your relationship with your therapist, that she

didn’t want you to do anything rash, and that you could talk to her about anything,

anything at all. You thanked her, and assured her everything was totally fine and normal.

Your therapist was happy to move in to your apartment. Your therapist mentioned it first,

noting how much bigger it was than his place, how his landlord was raising his rent a

ridiculous amount, and how he spent so much time at your place anyways. Your

therapist said this was a decision you needed to make together, as therapist and

patient, so you went over the pros and cons together, and after some consideration your

therapist said that it made sense for him to move in. You didn’t feel strongly about it one

way or the other, so you agreed. Your therapist told you he thought that even though

you had made this decision together, you should still officially ask him to move in. So,

you asked your therapist to move in. Your therapist said yes.

Your therapist explained why it was a good idea to add him to your bank accounts. Your

therapist said it would easier if you didn’t have to keep track of paying him for each

therapy session, especially since now that you were living together every interaction

had the possibility of being a therapy session. You felt ambivalent about giving your

therapist access to your banking information, but your therapist insisted that this

arrangement was best for you, so you went along with it.Your friends had an intervention. They invited you to brunch and told you how

concerned they were about you. They didn’t think your relationship with your therapist

was healthy. They were worried you were being brainwashed, taken advantage of. You

listened to their concerns and validated them, then admitted that you’d lost touch with

them, and promised to be more available. You convinced them that your relationship

with your therapist was totally fine, and there was nothing to worry about.

Your therapist said you’d get used to the cage eventually. Your therapist explained how

it was really more for him than for you, how knowing that while he was at work you were

at home, in a cage that was too small for you to stand up straight in but big enough for

you to crouch and lie down, made him feel closer to you. Your therapist knew that him

feeling closer to you made you feel closer to him, and that developing these feelings of

intimacy would be good for you in the long term. You were surprised you didn’t react

with more opposition. Something about the choices in your life being made by someone

else made you feel relieved, like somehow giving your therapist responsibility for your

life was one less thing you had to worry about. You got used to the cage.

Your therapist came home upset one day and told you he had gotten a disturbing phone

call from a private investigator asking if you were a client of his, and wanting to know

more about your relationship. Your therapist also revealed he had gotten a call from a

professional mental health organization he was a member of following up on a tip about

an improper relationship he was accused of having. Your therapist was worried about

these developments, and told you he suspected that your parents were behind it. Your

therapist asked you in a threatening manner if you had anything to do with this, and you

told him you didn’t, that you hadn’t spoken to your parents since their visit. Your

therapist said that your parents were trying to sabotage your relationship, and that if

they kept it up they would end up like your ex-boyfriend. You understand what this

meant but you were scared to show that you understood, so you didn’t react when your

therapist said this, but the way your therapist said this scared you.

Your therapist set up the phone call with your parents. Your therapist told you he would

do most of the talking, and what talking you did would be about how you were feeling

much better and that therapy with your therapist was the reason why. Your therapist put

the conversation with your parents on speaker phone, and you cringed as your father

got angrier and angrier at your therapist’s attempts to avoid sharing any details about

your relationship. Your father revealed he knew about you adding your therapist to your

bank account, which flustered your therapist, who motioned for you to say something,

so you said that it was your suggestion, because you were so depressed you werehaving a hard time managing the payments. The conversation ended with your therapist

promising to continue the conversation with your parents, who sounded unconvinced

but placated for now. After the phone call you were scared, and your therapist held you

in his arms for a long time, telling you everything was going to be alright, before he had

sex with you and put you in your cage for the night.

Your therapist lay on your bed, looking at you inside your cage. There was silence as

your therapist stared at you, and you divided your attention between returning his gaze

and trying to get comfortable on the pile of blankets. The only sound was the click of the

thermostat and the hum of the air conditioning every twenty minutes or so. This went on

for a couple of hours, and each time you started to fall asleep, your therapist would say

your name loud enough to wake you up, and you would shake off the sleepiness and

stare back at him until finally your therapist fell asleep.

Your therapist was taken completely by surprise when your parents showed up the next

morning. Your therapist answered the door and tried to keep them outside but your

father pushed his way in, your mother right behind him. Your therapist and your parents

stood in your living room, yelling at each other. You sat on the couch, watching them

fight, but you weren’t sure whether it was really happening or not. At one point your

mother grabbed your arm and pulled you towards her, and your therapist grabbed your

other arm and yanked you back onto the couch.

Your father tackled your therapist, and they fell to the ground together. Your therapist

rolled over on top of your father, slamming his head into the ground over and over until

your father stopped moving. Your mother screamed and pounded her fists on your

therapist’s back. Your therapist grabbed your mother by the throat, squeezing until she

stopped moving. You and your mother locked eyes as she slowly stopped struggling,

and even though you knew something horrible was happening you found yourself

unable to move.

Your therapist let your mother’s body drop to the ground, then turned to you and said

something in a comforting voice before running out to the garage. You felt the enormity

of the situation hitting you but at the same time felt strangely detached from it. Your

therapist returned with a can of gasoline and began pouring it on the bodies of your

parents, then on the rest of the furniture. Your therapist sat down on the couch beside

you and kissed you and told you he loved you, and that this way you’d be together

forever, then picked up a matchbox and struck a match.In the millisecond of time it took the match to ignite you were overtaken with a strong

urge to not die. It was like all the inaction and paralysis you’d been experiencing over

the past few months was suddenly lifted from you, and without consciously deciding to

you shoved your therapist aside and leapt up from the couch. As you reached the front

door your therapist’s scream for you to wait was drowned out by the whooshing sound

of the gasoline igniting.

You ran outside and fell on the lawn outside your apartment. You turned and watched as

the fire roared. After a moment your therapist ran out onto the lawn, his body completely

engulfed in flames, collapsing just feet away from you, his body convulsing. You heard

sirens in the distance as you stared at the twitching body of your therapist, as smoke

and the smell of burning flesh swirled around you.

You don’t remember the fire department showing up, or the ambulance that took you to

the hospital. Or talking to the police, or your parents’ funeral. You don’t remember being

admitted to the psychiatric unit. You don’t remember the doctors and nurses telling you

what you’d been through was traumatic, but that you’d get better eventually, and they

would make sure you got the help you needed. You don’t remember anything.

Your new therapist seemed like a nice guy.

​

I’d like to say that I'm never one to make impulsive decisions. That any direction I took had a reason behind it, and I'd be able to articulate it. And it would almost be the truth. Indecision wasn't a quirk that my parents really cultivated in me growing up. My mom would say something along the lines of “idle hands are the devil's workshop”. And my dad would spout these fatherly proverbs that would almost always, in some way shape or form, translate to “just stop catastrophizing and make a decision”.

It was that mindset that caused me to go with my gut on various occasions, from taking a soul sucking job at a corner store because it paid well to moving into a dirt cheap apartment in a dangerous part of town.

I probably would've been able to land something better if given time, but the positions I qualified for rejected my resume because they were looking for someone who “aligned more with company values”. And the ones I actually wanted required at least five years experience for an “entry level apprenticeship”.

A fat lot of good my degree did me.

Honestly though, my luck held for a while in that part of town. I wasn't going broke, and I hadn't gotten mugged yet. But the powers that be have a way of pulling the rug out from under you at times, replacing it with newer and more bizarre circumstances.

I want to make it clear that I didn't get fired. I quit. The clientele and the management at my old job made that place a living hell, and I needed to get away.

But unfortunately the trade off was that I no longer had an income, and rent was right around the corner. So I started looking for jobs, sitting at my desk under the dim glow of a yellow lamp that should've gone out years ago.

After staying up til 3am, and two energy drinks later, I finally found a job posting as a delivery driver in a remote town called Turnpike, a hundred miles or so east of Portland. I took a look at the benefits. For a small town position, the perks were pretty good. Medical, dental, the whole caboodle. And it seemed easy enough. Driving a delivery truck, how hard could it be?

I called the company the next morning and they were more than happy to accept the extra set of hands. As they laid out what would be expected of me, they assured me the pay would be comparable to what I had at my old job.

Turnpike was the size of a postage stamp; no more than five hundred people. It was the type of place where the one hotel was also a bar and that bar was also an antique store. It was two hours away, so the only real options were to either move there, or pass on one of the only opportunities that have cropped up since I got fired… I mean quit.

I searched their properties, looking for something affordable like a small mobile home or an apartment. But no such luck. I was about to give up hope when I remembered a house listing I'd seen three weeks before. It was on some rural property website that my college friend Darrin had sent me as a joke.

“Simon, you have to check this out,” he’d texted me with a teary eyed laughing emoji.

It was a house in that same area at the base of a large mountain called Mount Iston. According to the listing, the place had been vacant for eleven months. Darrin's text message attached to the link described it as "the kind of place serial killers would retire to.”

We had a good laugh at that. At the time, I agreed with him. I figured that house would’ve been a good set up for some kind of subpar thriller.

But as I dug deeper, the pricing looked really good. Almost a steal. It was so low, that I could get a down on it and the mortgage would be less than my electric bill. And the view of the craggy slopes of Iston was absolutely stunning.

I went with my gut, and I bought it two weeks later.

…

As I drove to Turnpike, the Portland skyline slowly melted away into suburbs, and the houses in turn faded into farmland. For a two hour drive in a u-haul, it wasn't all that bad. I had my favorite music and podcasts to listen to, and I packed some of my favorite snacks for the road.

As I pulled into town, I did a double take. I knew that Turnpike was going to be small. But I was still surprised by how much. It was barely the size of a college campus. The main street had a gas station, a diner, a post office where the delivery company operated from, and what I could only describe as the most multipurpose building I had ever seen in my life. A hand painted sign above the door read: GRAYSON'S HOTEL AND PROVISIONS; EST. 1947. Below it, two smaller signs hung on either side of the door. One read BAR. The other read ANTIQUES. Darrin was going to lose his mind when I sent him a picture.

I double checked my GPS. The house itself was on the other side of town, on the outskirts. A single road peeled away from the main street and stretched north, with Mount Iston growing larger and more imposing through the windshield with every passing second. It was a different thing entirely when you were looking at it for real rather than through a listing photo. In the photos it looked dramatic and picturesque, like something off a calendar. Up close, it looked heavy. That was the only word that came to mind. It sat low in the sky like its density was pressing down on something underneath it.

I pulled up the gravel driveway to my new house. And I was greeted by a middle aged man with a grey jacket and well polished shoes who was waiting for me on the front porch.

He smiled as I got out of the U-Haul and held out his hand. "Hello. I'm Keegan Ross. You're Mr. Belmont, I assume?"

I nodded and took his hand in a firm shake. "Yes, that's me. Pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure's mine." His smile stayed fixed, but there was a nervousness behind his eyes that caught my attention almost immediately. It wasn't the ordinary kind of nervousness you'd expect from a real estate agent hoping to close a deal. It was the kind that lived just beneath the surface, restrained by professionalism but not entirely hidden.

"Allow me to show you around the place," he said, "then we can work on getting you all settled.”

It was, objectively, a beautiful house.

Mr. Ross showed me through the interior. Three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a kitchen that had been updated sometime in the last decade, a living room with a stone fireplace, and a basement that smelled faintly of cedar and old mineral water. He explained the heating system, the well, the septic. He talked a lot. Faster than a realtor needed to, I thought. His hands moved when he spoke like his words needed to be scaffolded by his gestures.

When we were back on the front porch, he turned and faced me with his clipboard and presented me with the keys.

"I think you'll be very comfortable here," he said, and for the first time his smile had some genuine warmth in it. "It's a good property. Solid bones."

"Why was it vacant so long?" I asked.

He paused. Just a fraction of a second too long.

"The previous owner relocated," he said. "Family situation. Nothing wrong with the house itself, it just sat on the market a while. Remote properties take time.”

I nodded and accepted the keys. We shook hands again, and he walked back to his car with slightly more purpose than was necessary. I watched him pull out and drive back toward town, and I stood there on the porch looking out at the field and the dirt road. The late afternoon light was turning amber across the grass.

As I turned back to the house, there was something on the door that I could've sworn wasn't there before.

To be fair, there was nothing that was really distinguishable about the mail clip on the door, except that it looked like a hand. I've never found that unnerving, except now it held a piece of yellowing paper against the door.

That paper wasn't there before. At least… I didn't think it was there before. Mr. Ross and I kind of rushed into the house for the tour so maybe I just missed it.

I unfolded the paper. It was almost soft in my hand, like it had been crumpled and straightened a thousand times. My frown deepened the more I read:

*1. You will find it on your porch facing away from your front door towards the mountain. It's important that you don't move or damage it. Never interact with it unless otherwise stated.*

*2. Regardless of your activities during the day, the effigy must be on the porch facing away from the front door before the sun goes down.*

*3. Before you go to bed, check outside to make sure the effigy is still facing away from your door. If you find it facing the door, lock all your windows and turn a lamp on until the morning.*

*4. If you notice a smell from the effigy like it's burning, this is normal. Don't touch it or try to cool it down no matter what happens.*

*5. If you wake up to find the effigy's base empty, grab a lit candle and place it in front of the base. Go about your day as normal. It’ll be back by sunset.*

*6. If you see the effigy in your house at any point, find the nearest window and place it facing out towards the mountain.*

*7. Only you are allowed to start fires as long as the effigy inhabits your home.*

*8. If you hear someone trying to start a fire, whether they're a guest, a friend, or a family member, douse the wood with a large glass of water. If they light a fire before you’re able to, it's too late.*

*9. Always keep a glass of water next to your bed. If you wake up in the night and the temperature is much hotter than you remember, and you can hear what sounds like hissing near the foot of your bed, do not react. Drink the water slowly and lie still until the morning.*

I turned the paper over, hoping to find a signature or something. Any indication of who wrote it. But there was absolutely nothing.

I wish I could say that I sat down with the paper and mulled it over, maybe reached out to Mr. Ross to figure out if the previous occupant left it for me.

But I didn't. I didn't laugh, but I also didn't get angry or frustrated that this might be some kind of joke.

For the first time since childhood, I wasn't sure what to do. And I wasn't sure which explanation was more likely.

When I was a kid, I always used to make up stories and worlds when I played by myself. There were monsters and dragons. And there were rules for all the games I played.

This was probably just a child's note for whatever game they enjoyed when they lived here. But what kind of kid was able to write rules like these? And with such good handwriting?

On the other side of the coin, maybe the previous tenant was just old or not all right in the head. Isolation can do that to people sometimes. And when they feel like life's falling apart, they try to reassert some sort of control. Whether it was a routine or a list of rules like this one. No matter how bizarre.

Regardless of what the real reason was, I treated the note with the same effort and care I felt it deserved at the time. I crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash.

I didn't have time to think about junk mail. I needed to unload the U-haul and make the house into a home.

…

My first few days on the delivery job kept me busy. It was a great way to get to know some of the people in town, and the larger boxes I had to carry helped me gain the beginnings of healthy muscle. But in the back of my mind, that list of rules kept popping up again and again.

I'd thrown it away, and it along with whatever else was in the bin was taken to the landfill by the garbage truck the day before. And I still wasn't sure if I regretted that decision or not. But somewhere between loading packages and navigating the winding back roads outside Turnpike, my brain kept turning the words over like a stone it couldn't put down.

*You will find it on your porch.*

Find what? Well, an effigy obviously. No duh. But there hadn't been anything there. I'd looked after I read the note, more out of curiosity than anything else, and there was nothing. So whatever this supposed effigy was, it either hadn't arrived yet, or the whole thing was exactly what I'd decided it was. Just a crazy note from someone living alone at the base of a mountain for too long.

On my way home from my shift, I decided to give Mr. Ross a call. I turned over the card he gave me in my fingers while I waited at the stoplight.

The phone rang and rang.

*This is stupid,* I told myself. *Why am I getting so bothered by a single note?*

I was just about to hang up when Mr. Ross answered the phone. “Hello?”

I slipped the card back in my pocket and gripped the steering wheel as the light turned green. “Hi, it's me. Simon Belmont. I had a couple questions about something I found at the house a few days ago.”

“Sure, go ahead. How can I help you?” I heard some rustling in the background, like he was getting some paperwork done. He probably had me on speakerphone.

I wasn't sure how to start, so I just went with my gut. “There was this strange note with a list of rules on it. Something about a statue, fires, keeping it outside. Or something like that. I threw it away, they didn't really seem like regular house rules. But I'm curious, did the previous tenant leave that for me to find?"

There was a short *hmmm* of thought from the other end of the line. “I’ve seen notes like that crop up from time to time on some houses I've sold around here. From what I understand, it's kind of an inside joke among the locals, I wouldn't be too worried about it.”

“An inside joke.” I repeated.

“Yeah,” he replied. “They usually do it for newcomers to town. But it's just local superstitions, I assure you.”

“And if it's not a superstition?” I don't know why that question slipped out.

“Look,” Mr. Ross’s tone took a warmer turn. “I've been a realtor for twenty years. I know how anxious people get in a new place, especially one as remote as yours. I’ve been in the same boat. I wouldn't sell you a house that I knew had some kind of ghost in it. It's bad for business.”

That relieved my worries but only a little. “Alright then, I appreciate your time. Thank you.”

“Absolutely. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to call.” He hung up, and I slid the phone back into my pocket.

Later, I pulled into my gravel driveway, and my stomach growled. I was starving. But I also really didn't want to cook tonight.

So, I ordered a classic burger and fries from the hotel… bar… whatever. From Grayson's.

Once the food arrived, the knot of anxiety that was coalescing in my stomach started to ease at the sight of the sesame seed bun and steak fries in the styrofoam container. Maybe I was just hungry. Maybe Mr. Ross was right. I was reading into this whole note thing way too much.

I settled into my armchair for some dinner and a show on my laptop. It was a detective show that I had already half-forgotten the name of, Darrin recommended it to me. And it wasn't bad.

I glanced out the window as the title sequence played and the snow on Mount Iston’s peak was turning a kind of orange-ish white from the sun's rays.

My eyes trailed down the slopes. Just taking it all in. While the show began to play in earnest, my eyes skipped from tree to tree along the clearing. I found rocks and bushes, and I strained my eyes to see if I could catch a glimpse of any hikers out. The house was close to a hike and bike trail after all.

There was no one.

But what I did see, I had to look again to register. There was someone there just beyond the tree line, slowly making their way between the trunks. I couldn't discern any features or details. I also couldn't find the glow of a headlamp or flashlight on them, and I was wondering who would want to go hiking without one this late.

That's when I realized I was looking too low. I lifted my eyes up the silhouette.

Its strides were too slow.

It was tall.

Freakishly tall.

A clattering jolted me back to reality and I found my lap was missing its food. I glanced at the floor.

Shoot.

I dropped my plate. The fries skittered over the hardwood and my burger sat in a dejected lump next to the chair leg. I gathered up the food quickly and settled back into my chair to eat.

Five second rule. Don't judge me.

I looked back at the window and sat there for a moment with a cooling french fry halfway to my mouth. The tree line was just a tree line again. Vegetation and pine needles and the last slant of amber light bleeding out of the sky. Nothing there that didn't belong.

I popped the fry into my mouth and turned to watch the show.

I told myself it was a hiker. How could it not be? The trail was right there. People hiked at dusk sometimes, the stubborn ones with headlamps clipped to their hats.

But hikers didn't usually move like that. And they didn't stand that tall. Eight feet was probably an exaggeration born from distance and fading light and a brain that was barely functional. I'd been driving all day. I was tired. My eyes were playing tricks.

I turned back to my laptop and ate my dinner in silence. And I didn't look out the window again.

As I continued my binge, slowly but surely, I started nodding off. Thankfully I had set the empty styrofoam container on an unopened moving box, so no more spillage. My eyes began to slide closed as yet another episode began to play. I was too tired to even close the laptop. I probably started to snore. I won't confirm or deny.

Then I heard a sound from the front porch.

It was a heavy sound. The sound of weight settling onto old wood, a slow compression rather than a step. One, then another. Then a pause. Like something was moving on four legs.

It was loud.

My eyes snapped open and I sat absolutely still. The sleep melted from my eyes as I sat up straighter and strained my ears.

The porch creaked again. Slowly. Definitely a quadruped.

Then silence.

I don't know how long I sat there before I finally got up. I told myself I should stay in the chair and continue my show. That it was nothing. A deer on the porch, maybe. An animal investigating the lights from the house. Something mundane and explicable. All of that crossed my mind, and I got up anyway. Because the alternative was sitting there listening to my own heartbeat more than the laptop for the rest of the night.

I walked down the hallway. The front door was to my right. The window next to it looked out onto the porch.

I stood inches from that window for ten full seconds. The footsteps slowly made their way across the porch before I finally looked.

It was a deer. A simple brown deer. Just as I expected.

I let out a breath I didn't know I held. The deer regarded me for a second with its blank eyes then continued to stroll around the deck a little.

But then it stiffened. It quickly raised its head and its ears were up. Like it had noticed something there that it didn't before.

It bolted into the night, and I was about to turn away.

Then I saw it.

At the far left edge, where the porch wrapped around the corner of the house, something was crouched. The single porch light didn't reach it fully. I could see the shape of it in the way you see things at the edge of dark; not clearly, but undeniably. It was large. Its back was to me. The crouch was not human. The angles were wrong, the proportions extended in ways that turned the stomach slightly without immediately explaining why.

As I watched, it shifted its weight. Slowly. The porch groaned under it.

Then it turned its head.

And even in the near dark, even at that distance, even through a pane of glass, I knew with absolute certainty and terror that it was aware of me. All I could make out was hollow sockets in the dreadfully elongated snout of the skull and the pinpricks of light in them.

Then slowly…

Very slowly…

It extended an arm that was far too long and set something on the second porch step with a soft gentle *click*. A little statue roughly fourteen inches tall.

The hiss of amusement that came out of the thing on the porch wasn't a laugh per se. It was almost satisfied. Kind of like that sound you make when you finally find that one foodstuff in the pantry that you've been craving all day.

It was like that. All put into a low hollow hiss.

…

That's when I snapped awake.

My head lurched forward and I caught myself on the armrest, breathing hard. The laptop was still playing, some scenes of dialogue I'd completely missed. My neck ached where it had been crooked against my shoulder. I sat there for a moment with my heart doing something unpleasant in my chest, trying to locate myself.

Living room.

Armchair.

My house.

Right.

The dream was already breaking apart the way they do, losing its edges. But the shape of that thing on the porch stayed with me longer than the rest of it. The way it had crouched. The way it had turned its head. The hollow eye sockets in that elongated skull catching whatever light the house offered.

I rubbed my face with both hands and exhaled slowly.

What on earth was in that burger.

The laptop had moved on to yet another episode by then. I checked the time. Just past midnight. I'd been asleep for nearly two hours in the chair. My back was going to resent me for it in the morning.

I closed the laptop and sat in the dark for a minute, letting my eyes adjust. The house was quiet. Genuinely quiet in the way houses in cities never are. With no traffic, no neighbors, and no ambient hum of the city itself. Just the wood settling and the distant sound of wind off the mountain.

And then, for no reason I could have named if you'd asked me, I got up and walked to the front door.

I told myself I was just checking the locks. And that the noise I remembered from earlier, the weight on the porch boards, had been a deer anyway and I just heard it while unconscious.

I wasn't checking for anything specific. I was just being responsible. New house, new locks, good habit.

I stood at the window next to the door and looked out.

The porch was empty. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Of course it was empty.

I was about to turn back to head to bed when something at the edge of my vision caught my eye. I looked again.

My stomach churned. Sweat began to trickle down my neck despite the chill.

There, facing away from me toward the mountain, sat a statue.

A small statue. Roughly fourteen inches tall. Dark material.

It was right on the second porch step.

Right where the thing had put it.