r/TheDarkGathering

Before we begin, I think I should introduce myself, or at least the name I plan on using for these little posts. My name is Michael, just Michael for the foreseeable future, and the other names typed here won't be real either.

When you think of monsters, what usually comes to mind? Maybe a little goblin thing, a fierce dragon perhaps, one of the demons from Hell itself out to get you and your soul? Or maybe it's the dread of knowing that you're about to die and there's nothing you can do about it.

Well, that last bit was more or less personal to me, see this particular branch of the Government doesn't really...recruit, more like you're dragged into it one day and not allowed to quit. You see, I was briefly part of the FBI, not high on the hierarchy but high enough to be assigned to missing persons cases.

Which was fine, not why I initially joined, but well, I was doing some good work at the very least, found a few people, and...for the people I didn't, I gave the family some kind of closure. This case happened in 2020. I was sent to a place called Swan Falls, a small town next to a large forest, so plenty of places for a kid to hide and get lost in.

Sammy Roseland, a ten-year-old girl, was outside playing before she disappeared. Mom was in the Kitchen making breakfast or something, and Dad was still asleep. The parents didn't know she had gone missing until about two minutes later, when the Mom went to check on her. They spent an hour searching for her before calling the local Sheriff, who then got a whole search party out, and eventually it all snowballed towards my desk.

I was sent out to help the locals search for her. Now, this wasn't the first time I sent out for a missing or possibly kidnapped kid. This one thought was a bit weird. I arrived in town on a Monday morning, it looked like your typical small town, one Motel I could stay at with the occasional bug here and there, lots of mom and pop shops.

The town wasn't cut off from the rest of the world, had decent internet, and all but the road I took wasn't paved, so not a lot of tourists or out-of-towners. I did my best to do some research before arriving in town, a small place with some other disappearances in the past, but nothing that couldn't be written off as due to local wildlife.

The fact of the matter was, I wasn't sure this girl was maybe eaten by a Bear or something else, sad as it is, it does happen sometimes. Stepping out of my black Jeep, I was greeted by the local Sheriff, Martin, an older man, maybe in his fifties, with a small gray/white beard. He was wearing what you typically thought of as a sheriff's uniform, maybe the jacket he was wearing was a bit dirty, although my own jacket hadn't seen the washer in a bit.

"You the agent they sent?" He said in a gruff but somber tone, and I could immediately tell he had given up finding Sammy. It was sad seeing that look, no matter how many times I've seen it at this point.

"Yes, I am, Special Agent Michael, good to meet you, Sheriff, I'm guessing?" I said as I held out my hand for a handshake, and with a somber nod, he took my hand. He had a decent grip, but I could tell he was losing strength, or maybe losing hope would be a better way to put it. His eyes had bags under them, and I could see whatever light was in them fading quickly. Not that he was dying, but rather that he was losing hope, as I said.

We walked and talked with Sheriff Martin, explaining that they searched the more explored part of the forest for anything, even some torn clothes. He even brought out a map with a bunch of small red xs scattered all over it, showing teh areas they had explored so far, but that they still had plenty of ground to cover.

I also noticed this one little area, which, in all honesty, looked like a little light brown stain. Martin saw that I was looking closely at the stain. "That's an old mine, closed down in I think 1967, once the well dried up, the company in charge of it basically sealed it off, no way in, no way out."

Well, I immediately told myself that I'd check it out, see if it was actually sealed up or not, and if not, see if the kid was down there, maybe lost or pinned up a rock. Still didn't give me hope of finding them alive, but it was as good a shot as anything else. Thanking him for the talk, he gave me the map in case I wanted to join the search party, but said I didn't have to and could just wait out in my motel room.

Still don't understand why they called one of us down there if they felt they weren't going to find her. Might've been someone else and not a local or something, could be that the Government branch I now work for was looking for recruits or something.

Anyway, I grabbed the flashlight, some climbing gear I packed in the jeep, and made my way to the mines, wanting to take a look for myself. When I got deep into the forest, it didn't take me long to lose sight of the town and a few of the houses near the outskirts. The forest was huge, the grass nearly reached my ankles, and the trees towered over me like giants. I heard the distant chirping of a robin, I think, and the skittering of some small animal.

The weirdness started as soon as I got close to the abandoned mines. I started noticing that everything around it was dying. Fungus started to overtake everything. I felt like I needed a hazmat suit just to walk through it at some point. Animal bones and still rotting corpses were spread out, and the trees were starting to tear apart, with dozens of small to large branches scattered.

The whole place stank; it felt like my nose was burning and cementing itself in my nostrils. I'm not afraid to say that I was shaking at this point as I kept walking through the fungi forest, even though I was sure no child would ever willingly walk into such a place. Which meant that her being kidnapped was starting to look more likely with each passing second. I eventually reached the mines, and that place was...dead, there was no better word for it.

The whole place was slowly rotting away, even the metal was starting to rust through with a hole big enough you could fit a fat bear through it. Taking a breather, I approached the cave slowly, making sure no one was goign to sneak up on me as I brought my flashlight out and my Glock 17m, making sure the safety was on just in case there was a rabid animal in there or something else.

The pace was dark as expected and was basically just one large tunnel downward, with some old mining lights hanging overhead and well. On the side of the walls were various strange symbols I didn't recognize. I would've called them satanic, but the way they were drawn? No painted on the walls made me think it was more like a whole other language instead.

Going further in, the whole thing just got freakier as the symbols became more erratically painted on. Felt like I was going through the mind of a mental patient, pretty sure several of the symbols were drawn over each other several times as I went deeper in. Eventually, I came across a large...room? Yeah, room was the best way to describe the place, it was too nice to be an abandoned mineshaft and too...odd.

The whole place was circular and ritualistic, covered in dark grey concrete with several torches around the room still lit somehow. "What the fuck..." I muttered to myself as I went deeper, spotting a trail of blood leading to the center and dozens of bones in the center of the room. Some looked like old animal bones, others looked human, and in teh center of it all was a gigantic hole with strange iron bars covering it.

Now, when I say gigantic, I don't mean you could fit an elephant inside it; you could fit about five all at once if it didn't have the iron bars. The whole thing felt like a still-active satanic ritual spot, and the people who made it could come back any minute. Good news was the blood was old, and I mean old, just from a courtesy look at so that meany little Sammy wasn't here.

Still didn't explain what the hell was goign on here or who was still using this whole area for whatever weird occult ritual was happening. Making the stupid decision to approach the large cage, I shone my light down it and saw an endless dark hole with dry blood all over the walls and more of those same strange symbols, written more crudely than the stuff I saw before.

That's when a pale hand shot upward right through the bars. It was skinny and frail, looking like it hadn't seen sunlight for years. It had hair, but it was that long white one you'd see in movies, you know the kind that whatever it was on only had a few strands of. The fingers were the worst bit because it may have only one thumb, but it had dozens upon dozens of fingers.

It was nauseating to look at, and I am not afraid to admit that I puked seeing each of those little fingers squirm around the arm, trying to reach for me. It then began speaking in some strange language that I couldn't understand; it sounded...alien, like I was talking with a creature from another planet or dimension.

"Listen, I can't understand a word you're saying *Gurgle*, but I am asking you to calm down and to stop reaching for me." I said as I swallowed some vomit before taking a few steps back as the arm kept extending out of this-this thing's cage, revealing several small arms attached to it. That's when I saw it, oen of the arms had a...had a mouth on it, small with a few teeth and a whole tonuge, but it was a fully functioning mouth.

"Holy fuckign shit!" I screamed as I pointed my gun at the thing because it for sure wasn't human. Then two more smaller arms appeared, each one with eyes attached to it as they started looking me up and down, forming a fucking makeshift face.

"Ahhhh...such an odd tongue to use, oh Child of Adam, what has happened to the others, to the men who hide their faces?" It spoke with...it wasn't male or female, no, it felt different, like I was speaking with a thing that was a bit higher on the totem pole than me.

"You do not wear the leather of those odd black creatures, nor do you wield the weapons of Azazel that spray fire?" Yet it spoke with what I could only describe as an elegant nobleman, and...and that name Azazel, I didn't know it at the time, but I had heard it somewhere before.

Azazel was one of the fallen, one of the watchers who gave man warfare and taught us how to make weapons and stuff. Now I didn't know what the hell this thing was talking about at the time, but it didn't matter because I was terrified and shaking, just wanting to fire off a shot.

"No... No, you do wield one of those unwieldy weapons, smaller and weaker, yes, but the same." That's when I noticed the arm, no, the arms, as more started crawling out of the arm, none of them touching the iron bars for some reason. Each of them is just as monstrous and alien-like as the first one.

"What-What in the living hell are you?" I asked, stuttering as I continued taking more steps backward, unsure just what I stumbled on.

Then it started laughing, and it felt liek my soul was being torn apart as I could feel its malic pouring out of its cage. The arms started to slowly recede as it did, I-I don't think it was preparing to attack of anything like that. Like it knew it couldn't escape whatever the hell those bars were, but then it began speaking with a more demonic voice, the kidn yu'd recongize in a movie or TV show, except more...monstrous.

"I am that which destroyed the temples of Men, whom sullied the grounds of God itself and cause evil unbound by mortal laws, I am the son of Gadreel whom gave weapons to man and wage his own conquest wth you."

"I am the son of a Daughter of Adam, whom laid with my father not for love...but for pleasure and lust, sinking thyself into the domains of Hell."

"Nothing more than an abomination whom God sought to drown, weakened and imprisoned beneath the Earth and forever tied to the Mortal world till the End!" It shouted with such malice and evil I fell to my knees, thinking I was being choked by that-that monster.

Its hands around my throat, shouting in my ears as venom dripped out of its various mouths. The very Earth beneath us shaking as it moved, its prison far larger then I intially saw when I got close. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, shoving me upward and back to the entrance, forcing me away from that hellish creature.

Disorted for a hot second, I shook my had taking a deep breath as I felt like I could finally breath again. I then saw a man wearign all black gear and...riot equipment, it was the best thing I could compare it to at the time. Whoever they were, they were covered in various symbols each one from a different relgiious affiliation which I still don't know how it works. On the back in white letters were the letters P.R.C. At the time I was just thankful just to get away from the thingthat I didn't notice the rifle in their hand.

At least not right away, when I got a seond look at them, it didn't look like any weapon I had ever seen. It was sleak, and felt like I was looking at a piece of alien tecnology a hundred years ahead of whatever the military had. They got a radio out a second later and began speaking in a feminine voice, I think they were a bit older then me maybe in their late 40s or something close to that. Either that or they smoked a pack of cigs everyday for years or something but that didn't matter as the creature went strangely...silent.

"Command, we have a breach at site 067, I repeat a breach at site 067, seems like one of ours got a bit...What do you mean new recruit!" They shouted after pausing for a second, probably just as confused as I was.

They turned around after getting a quick check at the things cage, probably making it wasn't damaged by me being an idiot or if that thing somehow got a way to break through them. Afterwards tehy essentially dragged my ass outside, my face the picture of confusion, if you looked it up my face would be the first thing that popped up as I nearly shit my pants not minutes earlier and now was being rescued by some person in weird-looking tattical gear armed with advanced weaponrny.

"Alright then, I'm assuming you here for the littel girl that was reported missing in the area?" She said taking off her helemet, revealing an older woamn in her later 40s just as I thought, with short red hair adn a face littered with scars and an actual hole in her left cheek.

"Ye-Yes? Do you know where she is...did...did that thing eat her?!" I said both as a question and shocked/disgusted by the idea having not considered it earlier.

"No luckily for you and me she was found before the thing could drag her beeneath the Earth and do...God knows what none of us have any clue what they want."

"She's just being...have you ever seen Men in Black? Because right now her minds being erased of the experience before being set back here." She said taking a more relazed demanor taking a cig out and lightning it.

"Sorry about all this, usually we have someone from *Huff* our group introduce themselves before showing you all this." She gesturted to the cave entrance, god I could still smell teh sulfure now, just another stench etched into my mind same as the accurrsed fungi forest.

"Wh-Who are you people?" I said still processing all this new information, and the veyr idea fo the supernatural being real alongside Demons, Angels, and...and God.

"Well you had a hell of a first day even if you didn't know, Agent Michael you've been fired from the FBI and placed into the Paranomal Research and Contaiment divions of these United States."

So yeah that was my first day in my new job and my first into my descent into Hell and the monstrous things that were imprisoned and roamed this Earth.

Let me emphasize, I don't mean it's generating a woman in every image. I mean literally, the same woman. Every time. In every picture.

I'll start by apologizing. I would include photos, as I'm sure it would help diagnose the issue better, and I'm no writer, however after having three X posts deleted, one post each in the ChatGPT, Midjourney and similar subreddits, and a snapchat (I'll get to that one later) it's become clear to me that whatever unusual virus my devices have all somehow contracted does not allow for me to share images of it. It's like this problem is…unique to me or something, and every attempt to share any picture containing the woman results in the same thing. Failure, or immediate deletion. Super inconvenient, I know, but I'll do my best to describe the issue.

Before you bother spamming my comment section with every word for liar in the dictionary, I'm not saying you have to believe me. I'm asking those of you who do to help me keep my job and sanity, both of which I feel precariously close to losing each day this…phenomenon persists.

Monday, I was polishing up images for the college's fall enrollment campaign – removing background clutter, dropping in the logo, the usual. The deadline was Tuesday, my creative director had already emailed twice, and I was doing what I always do under pressure, which is procrastinate harder, so by the time I actually opened the AI generator, it was nearly 11 pm. I'm not the sort to lean on AI for everything, but I'd never had a real problem with it until all this, and the job needed doing. The prompt was literally nothing, mundane as any I've ever written. 

“Edit this photo of a diverse group of students on campus. Adjust for warm lighting, aspirational. Include the following logos and text, "Your future begins here."

The kind of thing I've generated a hundred times.

She was in the first output.

I didn’t clock it immediately. I was tired, and scanning mostly for the usual problems, fused fingers, bad teeth with that weird smudged quality, that glazed expression AI gives people that makes them look freshly concussed. I picked the second image in the grid, cropped it, and was halfway to sending it in when something caught my eye.

There was a grayish blot in the top right, tucked between two of the students.

That was all it was at first, just a little wedge of dead color where the background should have been warm and green. I zoomed in, expecting one of those uncanny almost-faces these programs sometimes invent in crowds, and found something close enough to justify being annoyed: a strip of something dark and stringy, hair, maybe, and a pale curve beside it that might have been skin.

Mostly, it just made the image unusable.

So I fed the picture back in, with a prompt. 

“Remove the partial figure behind the woman in the third row, second from the right — the gray artifact and dark hair-shaped section. Only use students from the original image. Brighten the logo.”

Sent.

The second batch came back with the same blot.

Same corner. Same place between the same two students. Only now the gray had edges. The dark strip had separated into something more like hair, and the pale curve had settled into the suggestion of a cheek. One small shadow sat where an eye might have been, though it was buried so deeply between shoulders and lanyards that I had to lean toward the screen to be sure I was seeing it at all.

It was irritating, and more than a little ugly, but otherwise unremarkable, so far as AI fuck-ups go. So I fed the picture back in.

“Remove the partial figure behind the woman in the third row, second from the right - a section of hair and part of a face. Only use students from the original image. Brighten the logo.”

Sent.

Yet she was in the third batch too.

It was a woman, I could see that much now. She lingered in the same side of the frame, half-obscured by another student, but it was her. 

I knew it from the placement first, then the color – that drained grayish cast, like the color of still water. Her chin had more shape now, jutting almost at a knifepoint. Her nose sat wrong, not deformed, not exactly, but assembled badly, like the program had been given the idea of a face and only gotten halfway through building one and elected for another entirely.

The rest of the image had degraded around her. Brenna – a recent graduate, and a girl I’d spoken to once or twice - had gone murky before her, her face smudged like a thumb had dragged across it before the ink could dry smudged and scattering her features haphazardly.

I scoffed, closed the tab, and opened an older model. More dependable. The familiar dark interface loaded, I pasted the caption, uploaded the photos, and waited, drafting apologetic Teams messages to the higher-ups while the icon spun.

After a minute, it finished.

And there she was.

Not the blot, nor the half-face, but a woman…or something close. 

The image was standard enough at first glance –alll  the usual inaccuracies from a weaker model present, too much shine on the teeth, vague blurring and nonsense words in the background – except that off-center, behind Brenna, the gray patch had finally resolved into something like a person.

I could see the top half of her now. She was leaning around Brenna, not accidentally caught there, not blended into the crowd, but almost angled with a purpose that made the whole image feel staged around her. 

Her skin wasn’t pale so much as…utterly colorless, a gray that seemed natural only for dead things. Her hair caught the light wrong, hanging in thick black ropes, that made it seem wet, against a graying scalp. She was too tall for the students around her, stooped as though something in her spine wouldn’t let her stand straight.

The longer I looked, the more uneasy details seemed to leap forth at me.

On the left side of her face, one eye sat above another — two where there should have been one, the lower beady, almost birdlike. The right side had a single eye, set slightly too low. Her arms were wrapped around Brenna, in a way that made it look as though she was almost drawing her in. A thumb grew from the gray flesh of her right forearm. One hand had too many fingers. The other had not enough.

Brenna was barely there at all, her form descending into digital…muck, a blend of incongruous features and expressions that seemed more fit for a Dali painting.

And the woman…she was leaning around Brenna, or the digital massacre of her, anyways. As if to be seen.

Or to see me.

The thought arrived unbidden, and stupid as it was, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up - my skin crawling with that that specific creeping certainty that someone is behind you, and has been for a while. That thing that tells you if you look over your shoulder, just now, you’ll find someone or something lurking, something that had managed to subvert your senses until the moment that realization dawned a second too late…

My head snapped around. Only my open bedroom door and a room badly in need of cleaning greeted me. I sighed, silently cursed myself, and went back to the image.

“Why did you add the woman? Nothing in the prompt called for her. You've also blurred out the actual goddamn student. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Work had faded to the background of my mind. I watched the typing indicator pulse, my eyes dragging back to her against my will. Her gaze followed me — I tested it, leaning left, then right, and I could have sworn. The page jolted as the response loaded, and I nearly came out of my chair.

“You're absolutely right, and I do apologize for the confusion! I've gone ahead and regenerated the image with the background fully cleared and all student faces sharpened for clarity. Let me know if this looks any better!”

It did not look better. She was even closer, and Brenna was all but gone — a few colors suspended in mist where a girl used to be, the woman standing in her place with the stillness of a corpse. Heat climbed up my neck, fear with a fast, stupid anger — and under it, that seed I'd been refusing to name since the first output, spreading now like ink in water.

“Are you fucking with me? Do you not see the woman? Genuinely, what is this?”

I knew the tone was idiotic even as I sent it. I was screaming at a glorified calculator. But the unease had worn my temper to nothing, and it was starting to feel like a sick practical joke I was too tech-illiterate to be in on.

I waited. 

The reply came after a moment.

“No problem at all!  I can confirm the image contains only the students from your source photo, with no additional figures present. Occasionally a face may render with distortion, this is an artifact of the upscaling process. I'd suggest regenerating at a lower stylization value. Would you like me to do so?”

No additional figures. I read it three times. She was right there, practically dominating the frame, it felt like, close enough now that I could have described the very texture of her scalp. And yet the thing was telling me, politely, there was nothing to be seen.

I should have closed the laptop, dismissed it as a one off, freak incident and accepted the consequences of getting it done the old fashion way and a bit late. Instead, I did the thing you do at midnight when something refuses to make sense, my brain feeling muddled by the time and irritation, I kept on poking it. 

Describe everyone in the image to me, I typed. One by one.

It answered almost immediately.

Of course! Front row, a young man mid-laugh in a university hoodie. Beside him, two students sharing a phone. Behind them, a young woman in a green lanyard, smiling at the camera. To her left –

It went on like that. Six students. It named all six and placed all six, and the one in the green lanyard, smiling at the camera, was Brenna. Brenna, who on my screen had no face at all, who was a smear of frost where a girl used to be. The machine was describing a photo that didn’t exist. It described an image where everybody was fine.

It never mentioned the woman at all. Not once, and I realized so far as it was concerned, she simply wasn't there to mention.

I scrolled to the source image on my drive, the real one, the one I'd taken myself at last spring's open day, sun and lanyards and a banner nobody had bothered to iron. I’m not sure why I did it in tht moment, I think somehow I desperately needed to confirm the reality of the damn thing to myself.

And yet Brenna was gone in that one too now. The original, the photograph that had been sitting untouched in a folder on my laptop for three weeks. It was as…altered as one that had been generated, and lurking center frame as though she’d always been there and it was audacious a thought to even question her presence – was that impossible woman.

I stared at my screen, nearly slack-jawed, my eyes watering as a nauseating heat blossomed in my gut. It was like whatever this was had reached back through the screen and pressed its thumb to it.

I closed the laptop, my hands almost deciding for me.

That's about when I heard the front door, and every animal part of me flared up at once. I was on my feet with my heart thrumming in my throat before I could think clearly, standing in the dark of my room as I listen to footsteps cross the kitchen.

Then I heard keys hit the bowl by the door, and Daniel thumping down the stairs to greet my girlfriend, yowling the way he always does when one of us arrives, as though he’d been abandoned for centuries, and Cass's voice going soft and silly in the way it always does when she talks to the cat like a child.

"Why's it so dark in here, weirdo?" she called from down the hall. "You alive?"

She came up still in her work polo, smelling like the inside of the restaurant, and took one look at me and stopped in the doorway. Cass closes four nights a week at an upscale restaurant in the city, dealing with all sorts of uptight old money folk and she can read a room before she's all the way through the door; it's the only useful thing the job's ever given her, she says. 

"Okay," she said. "What."

"It's nothing. The deadline thing. This fucking programs been glitching all night."

"You look like you saw a ghost."

"Nice to see you too, babe.” I greeted her, “Actually, come here for a sec and look at this. Tell me I'm not crazy." 

I opened the laptop and turned it toward her.

She leaned in, squinting, her head tilting just a bit. I watched her eyes land on the woman. 

"Ugh." She pulled back, nose wrinkled like she smelled something gross. "That's grim. AI is so fuckin’ cursed, I don't even know why they even let you use it for work."

"Yeah sure, but Cass. Look at her face. The eyes. This is like the third time I’ve seen that woman, in different generations. Is that not fucking…weird?"

"I am looking, and yeah that’s odd, but I dunno it sounds like it's a glitch, babe. This ai shit is stupid. They get weird in on the little details, and you get like, melted-people stuff." She was already turning toward the bathroom, peeling off her work shirt. "Just do it the old fashion way. Or tell your boss to use a stock photo like a normal person, and stop worrying my girlfriend half to death."

I sighed. She'd looked right at it. The stacked eyes, the wet hair. And treated it like it was nothing. I tried to let the thought comfort me, tried to treat it as confirmation that perhaps I was overthinking something that didn’t deserve a second thought, and I let her steer me to bed.

It was a couple of hours later she had one of her night terrors. 

Cassie’s had them the whole time I've known her; four maybe five times a year she’ll sit bolt straight with her eyes open, and says something flat and certain into the darkness, and in the morning she won’t remember a second of it. That night it was something about the back door being open. I put a hand on her back, told her she was dreaming, and to lie down, and she did, the way she always does. I lay there a long time after, watching the fan throw spider-leg shaped shadows on the ceiling, the woman waiting behind my eyes every time I closed them, lurching in through an open back door.

In the morning I opened the laptop and ran the prompt one more time. 

Even now, I’m not certain why. I think some part of me believed it all to have been too strange a thing to persist. 

And yet, Brenna was gone this time. In her place stood the woman, facing front, all three eyes open, and in them was an expression that made something crawl up the back of my throat and stay there. I slammed the laptop shut.

That was the last time I opened anything AI. I didn't have a theory. And I didn’t want to look again, didn’t even want to think about it. 

My reprieve was short-lived. 

I went into the office that day, because being alone with the laptop felt suddenly worse than being around people. Around eleven, Yasmin from admissions stopped at my desk, leaning over the cubicle like some bird of prey and asked if I'd heard the news.

"No. What news?" I asked, though even as the words left me, my stomach was already turning.

“About Brena?” she said.

She'd collapsed Monday night, Yasmin told me. At home, and without a warning, she had just dropped. The school only found out after she racked up a couple of absences and someone called and got ahold her boyfriend. He was reluctant to share, it seemed, but from what he had given, the hospital was running tests and finding absolutely nothing, Brenna had gone pale, complained about feeling sluggish, then she'd collapsed and just…hadn't woken up. I spent the rest of the day finding what little there was: a post from her mother asking for prayers complaining that all she’d been given was a laundry list of medical words that all seemed to mean the doctors had no idea what was wrong with her baby girl.

And it had happened on Monday night. Monday night, while I sat at my kitchen table watching an artefact of a human drag her face into wet ink.

I didn't say any of that to Yasmin, of course. There's no version of it that doesn't end with me being measured for a straitjacket. I made the expected sounds you make when someone shares such news, muttered something about prayers, and she moved on to deliver the black gossip to the next coworker she spotted. 

I sat very still, work the farthest thing from my mind as a connection I didn’t want to see fought to be formed in my head, fingers working absently at the keys as I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, without purpose.

I tried to let myself forget, and failed. Cass watched me over dinner that night, asking what was wrong.

“Work.” was all I offered, and she frowned into her food, but relented.

That night I didn’t fall asleep till late and awoke what felt like mere minutes later, though I knew it had been longer, drenched in sweat, heart throbbing and feeling weak with a fear I couldn’t place as my eyes darted about the blackness of our room. 

I sat up, searching the darkness before my eyes settled on Cass, chest aching from the pounding within as I placed a hand on her arm to comfort myself. I remained like that for several minutes, just watching the darkness and wracking my brain for whatever horrors had assailed me out of my restless sleep, until it was clear the panic wasn’t subsiding naturally, and made for the bathroom to wash my face.

I flicked on the bathroom lights, shutting the door to avoid waking Cass, and I almost didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. The bags around my eyes had gone dark, and they looked watery and red. I sighed, running the tap as cold as it went and bent over the sink. The hiss of it filled the small room bouncing off the tile of the bowl, filled my ears, drowned out the house and whatever nightmares still danced at the edge of consciousness just beyond recollection and the week itself — until here was nothing left but the rush of water and the dark behind my own eyelids. I cupped my hands and brought it to my face, and the cold was a small clean shock, the only honest thing I'd felt in days. I did it again. And again. Each time the water closed over the sound of everything else, and I let it, grateful to be somewhere a thought couldn't reach me.

I stayed there for several seconds, eyes shut against my palms disappearing into the moment, the feeling of the water, the sound of its crackling against the bowl. I heaved in a breath, and felt as though I had exhaled all the world's suffering.

There was a familiar squeak, the sound of the faucet turning. Then silence. I felt something lurch where an instant before there had been a fragile solitude.

My eyes opened, and I choked on a scream as I saw what was coming just behind me in the mirror. She was crouched, nearly draped about me like a mother around her child.

Arms like tree branches shot out as hands that stretched like something from a funhouse mirror, with inumerable fingers that almost blended together – twisted and bending in impossible, excruciating fashions sought to clasp shut about my skull. 

I saw her then, almost all of her, behind me in the mirror. Her mouth was twisted into a smile that looked painted across a misshapen skull, her body almost picturesque in a twisted sort of way, like someone had taken the idea of a model and stretched it into a horrid, drab parody of the concept.

I spun, swinging my hand blindly as I shrank away from her clutches, waiting to feel her iron grasp close around my skull. I pressed my eyes shut against all logic, my mind refusing to confront what I knew was before me as I scrambled back, losing my footing on the corner of the bathmat and hitting the ground with a thud.

I lurched back as I felt a hand wrap around my shoulder.

“Michelle, Michelle!”

Cass’s voice was strung thin with panic. I opened my eyes, hardly knowing when I’d even shut them, glancing up to find my girlfriend kneeling before me. She wore an expression of worry that made my gut turn, my eyes darting about the bathroom, then the room behind her, finding nothing.

I was on the ground, knees curled up to my chest, and I wasn’t certain when I’d gotten there or for how long, and my throat felt raw. I had been screaming, I realized.

“What is going on with you?” she asked, and the desperation in her voice broke something in me as I fell, sobbing into her shoulder. I didn’t tell her everything, of course, just that someone from work had passed and that it was weighing on me. It was true, but not true enough, and as we went to bed, her arms wrapped around me, I felt an emptiness that made the room feel cold, and my eyes never once left the bathroom.

I went back to work the next day. I refused to be home alone after whatever had happened to me that night, and though I was coming to accept it as some waking nightmare brought on by a lack of sleep and an abundance of stress, somehow it still wasn’t enough to make me feel safe alone.

All anyone could talk about at work was Brenna. I tried to ignore it. I told myself it was a coincidence. I'm good at telling myself things, I’ve come to realize. It held until Thursday night.

I got home before Cass again. The house was dark and quiet and the laptop stayed shut, and for the first time in two days, I felt almost okay, save for the moments at work when conversation turned to Brenna, or I pressed my searches into her condition which all proved unpromising. Cass came in around eleven, exhausted, and went straight to bed, and a while later I followed and lay down next to her and watched her sleep.

She looked so completely, ordinarily beautiful. One arm thrown over her eyes, her mouth open a little. And I had the kind of thought you have in such a moment, staring at her so peaceful amidst what had been a nightmare of a week for me — that I wanted to keep her like that, soft and unbothered, untouched by the world. I decided I’d take a picture, to save the moment. One that I'd send it to her in the morning so she'd see what it is I see and love in her. So I lifted my phone off the nightstand and opened the camera. The regular one. The dumb one that's been on every phone I've ever owned.

I wasn't thinking about any of it. Not the AI, not Brenna, not the woman and her impossible gray eyes. I was looking at my girlfriend asleep and she looked peaceful and I wanted to keep her like that. I took the picture.

She was in the corner behind the headboard.

Folded under the slope of the ceiling, because there isn't height in our room for her to stand all the way up. Both eyes on the left of her face open. Looking down. Not at me. At Cass.

Cass looked peaceful beneath her. Almost untouched.

Almost.

There was something wrong around the edges of her face, a softness I could have blamed on motion blur if my hands had been moving. But they hadn’t been. Her mouth, her cheek, the line of her jaw – all of it looked just a little less certain than the rest of the room.

Every hair on me stood up at once. My hand started shaking so hard the picture juddered on the screen, and I clamped my other hand over it to hold it still and couldn't, and there was a thin high sound in the room, and I realized, after a moment it was coming out of me. I could not make myself look up at the real corner over the headboard. Still, over the phone I could see that there was nothing but empty air, and yet the very space felt malevolent now, poisoned. And yet there she was in the image, as real as anything, so close I could almost touch her. I reached out before I could stop myself, finding only empty air.

My stomach turned, and I stood up as the threat of nausea gnawed at me.

It had…followed me. From my laptop, to my phone, from the program to my camera, to my very reflection, that woman had somehow followed me, and there she stood separated only by less than a centimeter of glass – in my home.

I almost woke Cass. My hand was on her shoulder. But I stopped because I didn't want this to be her problem too. She was asleep, and she was undisturbed, and she didn't have to be scared yet when I knew I was scared enough for both of us, and what would it have done besides terrify her, when I had no answers to give? 

So I took my hand back.

Still, I needed someone who wasn't me to look at the thing and tell me it was really there, needed to know I wasn’t losing my mind. So I tried to post the picture to my Snapchat story – just put it up, let one stranger comment what is that, so I'd know I wasn't losing it. The upload bar crawled to the end, and then nothing happened. I tried again, and the app just sat there like I'd never touched it. I don’t know how long I spent trying, moving between apps and platforms and trying to text the thing to friends, and then Cass’s phone before accepting that it was a fruitless endeavour. I didn’t sleep that night, rather, I lay at the foot of our bed, curled around Daniel at Cass’s feet, my eyes never once drifting from that corner.

Brenna died on Friday.

Yasmin told me at my desk, and I felt something in me come loose and fall a long way down. It had happened the way she went under, quietly, all at once, the machines with nothing to fight. I sat at my desk shellshocked, my eyes staring at my computer screen yet seeing nothing at all, and underneath the grief was a thought I could no longer stop from forming: she did this. Some way, somehow, that woman had done this. I didn't know how, and I didn't know what she was, but she had her gray arms around Brenna in that picture, and now Brenna was gone, and I knew I didn’t get to call that a coincidence for a second time. Not now, not after what I had seen in our bedroom.

Something that had no business touching the world had reached out of a screen and touched it anyway, and a girl I knew was dead. And last night I stood over my sleeping girlfriend and put her in a picture with the very same thing.

That was when the fear shifted into something sharp, and grinding inside of me. I stopped wishing it were a glitch, because I knew it wasn’t and every second I spent wishing was time wasted, time I needed to be protecting Cass, protecting our home. And for that, I needed to know what she was — because whatever she was, she was real enough to kill, she had been watching my girlfriend.

I made myself open the last photo I'd taken. The woman, folded into our corner. And I saw that she'd changed.

It took me a second to find it, and when I did the cold went all the way through me. The low eye on the right side of her face wasn't the impossible gray anymore. It was brown. Warm, living brown, with that fleck of amber near the iris I'd looked at across a desk last spring. It was Brenna's eye, set into that ruined face like a stolen button. And the skin around it — that drowned, colorless gray — had warmed by half a shade, the faintest blush coming up underneath, like watered ink, like she'd swallowed something still warm.

Realization rose like nausea. She was wearing pieces of Brenna now. She was…keeping them.

Cass started sleeping in the morning after I took that picture. Cass, who has not slept past seven in the six years I've known her, didn't get up until eleven, and when she did there was a greyness in her face, a flatness behind the eyes, and her hand around the coffee mug was cold despite the heat.

"I think I'm coming down with something," she said, and laughed, and the laugh had no air in it. I laughed too, and I recall the sound coming out wrong, and hitched.

She had another night terror that night. Different, this time. Not like the harmless ones I'd known for the past six years.

It was perhaps just a bit past 2 am when Cass shot up beside me, eyes open on the corner past the dresser staring at the door.

I reached for her back on instinct.

"She's so tall," Cass said.

My hand froze halfway.

"Why won't she stand up straight?" It hardly sounded like a question, that flat sleeping voice, aimed at the doorway.

"There's no room for her in here. She has to fold herself in half."

"Cass." My voice shook, though I tried to sound certain, somehow my blood felt both hot and cold, and the room seemed to spin.

"You're dreaming. It’s not real. Lie down."

She looked at me. For the first time in all the years I’d seen her like this, she looked at me, and the expression she wore made my stomach twist. Her mouth hung slack as though she were staring at something from a nightmare, twitching as though she meant to speak but couldn’t recall how, eyes wide and watery.

“She isn’t yet. But almost.” She hissed, and in her tone was something playful, almost mocking and it took everything in me not to lurch away from my own girlfriend.

Then as though released from some spell she collapsed back into her pillow, sleeping as though nothing had ever happened.

My hands were shaking, but I lifted the phone anyway, because I had to know, and I aimed it at the doorway and took the picture.

She was at our bedroom door, emerging from the blackness beyond the threshold, folded under the frame to fit, that one brown eye and the gray ones all turned down at the bed. She was looking at Cass.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

In the morning Cass remembered nothing, and she was greyer, and she slept until noon, and accepted the lame excuse I offered for why all of the lights were on that morning with only a grunt.

I spent much of the day hunched over my laptop under the guise of work, while Teams messages piled up unanswered as I searched for something, anything, that might shed some light onto what was happening to us. I began practically stalking the social media pages of Brenna and any relative of hers I could find for anything, and finding nothing but wellwishes and memorial posts. Each made the chasm in my chest grow wider. I typed a message to her boyfriend, once, then twice, but never sent it – unsure of how I could even begin to ask him the questions I had, and relented to simply watching over Cass like some guard dog.

I keep taking the pictures. I realize now that it’s the only way I can track her, the only way to know when she’s close. I can't see the woman any other way. Not with my own eyes, not like Cass when she’s in that…state. I've stood in that room and stared at the corner and there is nothing there but air, and yet I know.

Somehow, somewhere she is lingering. In a place between the one in the pictures, and the where we exist, she lives. The only way to know where she is, how close she's come, is to look through the glass. So I look.

It's almost 3am, as I write this. Cass is asleep upstairs. I'm down here because I can't make myself go to that room.

I've tried to attach these pictures to this post eleven times. They won't go — not here, not to X, not to the subreddits, not anywhere.

I've been reading. I’ve been spending wasted, useless hours on it. Reading crackpot theories about whether anything can actually…wake up inside these systems. Emergent consciousness, the threads call it. Something coming alive in all that math that nobody put there or asked for. I don't know if that's what she is. I don't know if she's that, or a ghost, or something older that just found a new kind of door, and I've stopped believing the difference matters.

Here's what I think, for whatever a frightened woman’s guess is worth. I think… whatever this thing is, she takes something out of the people in her pictures. Something there isn't a clean word for, maybe. Brenna had it, and then she didn't, and when it was taken she was left a husk of herself and then a corpse. And I think — I can't be sure, it's just a feeling I can't put down — that being in our pictures stopped being enough for her. The face in someone else's photo. The shape in the dark glass. The thing in the reflection that's gone when you turn around, I don’t think it’s enough anymore. I believe it wants whatever it is we have, what it has been made to witness through the looking glass.

I don’t know, even reading that now I sound insane, and I’m starting to wonder if I might not be.

I’m sure you’ll all be certain to reassure me…

Still, the internet is a big place. As new as this technology is, I have to think, have to hope selfishly that I’m not the first to encounter something like this, and that one of you out there has an answer that can help me put an end to this and return to what my life was a week ago.

Anyways, I just heard Cass get up.

As I write this, she's at the top of the stairs. Flat shoulders, open eyes, not really awake. After six long years, I’ve seen her like this before. Every other time, she's stared at a corner, a wall, nothing at all.

She isn't staring at the corner tonight.

She's staring at me. And she has her phone up, both hands, held the way you hold it to take somebody's picture, the little lens pointed straight down the stairs at me, the screen lit with that soft glow, and behind that she smiles.

Six days I've spent terrified of what's in the pictures.

It never once occurred to me to be afraid of being the one in the frame

Cass is smiling. She's smiling down at me the way she has never, in six years, smiled at anything.

She just tapped the screen. 

Part 1: I'm a Serial Killer. Hell Just Offered Me a Job.

I pressed two fingers against my neck.

Nothing.

I tried my wrist.

Still nothing.

Then my chest.

Silence.

No rhythm.

No pulse.

No beating.

I checked again.

And again.

Three hundred and twelve times, according to the tally I'd started scratching into the motel notepad. The first thing Hell forgot to mention was that being dead is incredibly inconvenient.

For example, nobody tells you that your heart doesn't start beating again.

You'd think after the first hundred I'd accept it, but denial is a surprisingly stubborn survival instinct for someone who's technically no longer alive.

The second thing Hell forgot to mention is that corpses don't get hungry.

I'm not saying I didn't want food. I spent twenty dollars on pancakes that looked amazing. I just couldn't taste a single bite. The syrup had the consistency of motor oil, the bacon might as well have been cardboard, and the coffee... actually, the coffee tasted exactly the same. Which says more about motel coffee than it does about death.

By the time I'd finished breakfast, I'd reached a medically concerning conclusion.

I hadn't blinked once.

Not because I was trying not to. I'd simply forgotten people were supposed to. That realization bothered me far more than the whole "dying and waking up in Hell" thing. Normal people don't have to consciously remind themselves to blink. Yet there I was, standing in front of a motel bathroom mirror, staring at my own reflection while forcing my eyelids shut every few seconds like I was relearning a basic human function.

Then someone knocked on my motel door.

Three slow knocks. Not the impatient pounding of a police officer. Not the nervous tapping of housekeeping.

Just...

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I glanced at the clock.

6:66 A.M.

Nobody with good intentions knocks at 6:66 in the morning.

I slid my pistol from beneath the pillow and quietly approached the door.

"Who is it?"

Silence.

I waited a few seconds before checking the peephole.

No one.

Wonderful.

Ghosts had apparently learned how to prank people.

Keeping the pistol raised, I unlocked the door. The hallway beyond was empty. No footsteps. No elevator. No retreating figure. Just a long stretch of stained carpet beneath flickering fluorescent lights.

Then I looked down.

A black leather briefcase sat neatly on the welcome mat.

Attached to the handle was a cream-colored envelope.

My real name was written across the front of it in elegant handwriting.

That caught me off guard. Only a handful of people still knew my real name, and none of them had called me by it in years. To everyone else, I was Mara Graves.

Apparently Hell preferred legal names.

Beneath my name, embossed in neat gold lettering, were two words.

EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION.

I stared at the envelope for several seconds before picking it up.

It was heavier than it looked. The paper felt expensive, thick, almost velvety beneath my fingertips. The kind of stationery usually reserved for law firms, weddings, or organizations with enough money that they never had to remind anyone they had it. Considering it had apparently been delivered by Hell, I supposed they could afford quality office supplies.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a single folded sheet of black paper. Not dark gray. Not charcoal. Black. The kind of black that seemed to swallow the motel's fluorescent light instead of reflecting it. Across the top, written in silver lettering, were the words:

WELCOME TO THE INFERNAL RETRIEVAL DEPARTMENT.

Beneath that was a much smaller sentence.

Congratulations on accepting our offer of employment.

"I don't remember signing anything," I muttered.

The page turned itself.

I instinctively reached for my pistol, but the paper ignored me. The second page contained only three lines.

Your employment officially began three days ago.

Employee Status: Deceased.

Orientation materials enclosed.

I slowly looked back at the briefcase.

"Nope."

The briefcase clicked open by itself.

I immediately took three more steps backward and leveled my pistol at it. Nothing happened. No smoke. No screaming souls. No tiny demons wearing business suits. The lid simply swung open and waited.

"You're either surprisingly polite," I said to the briefcase, "or this is exactly how horror movies start."

Curiosity has killed a lot of people.

Technically, I'd already checked that one off my list.

I lowered the pistol and walked over. The inside of the briefcase was immaculate. Everything had its own compartment, arranged with obsessive precision. A matte-black revolver rested in the center. Beside it sat a pair of silver handcuffs engraved with symbols that seemed to move whenever I looked directly at them. There was a leather notebook, a small metal badge bearing the same goat skull I'd seen behind the desk in Hell, and a stack of neatly labeled folders tied together with black ribbon.

At the very bottom rested a small white card.

It contained exactly one sentence.

Please report to your first assignment immediately. Management is already disappointed in you.

I frowned.

"I've only been dead for three days."

I set the card aside and picked up the first folder.

COMPANY POLICIES.

Of course Hell had paperwork.

The first page contained exactly one sentence.

Please read all policies before beginning your first retrieval. Failure to comply may result in additional punishment.

There were three hundred and seventy-eight pages.

I closed the folder.

"I'm willing to risk it."

The paper immediately burst into black flames. I jumped backward, reaching for my pistol, but the fire didn't spread. It simply consumed the pages before reforming into a single sheet.

Apparently Hell had anticipated that reaction.

The new page contained only four rules.

Rule 1: Do not talk to any demons other than management.

Reasonable.

Rule 2: Escaped prisoners are to be returned, not executed.

Less reasonable.

Rule 3: Prisoners may lie, bargain, threaten, plead, impersonate, manipulate, or otherwise attempt to avoid capture. Please do not believe them.

I frowned at that one.

Rule 4: Angels are not classified as prisoners. Do not attempt apprehension unless accompanied by authorized management personnel.

I blinked.

"...Why the hell would I ever need to hunt an angel?"

The motel television crackled to life before I could read any further. Static swallowed the screen before dissolving into the familiar image of a massive goat skull.

"You read the rules."

"I skimmed them."

"I noticed."

The voice hadn't changed. Calm. Professional. Like an accountant discussing tax deductions instead of eternal damnation.

I folded my arms. The glowing red eyes remained fixed on me.

"Your first assignment has already begun."

The television changed.

A photograph filled the screen.

The young woman from yesterday.

The one the escaped demon intended to kill next.

Only she looked different now.

Her smile was vacant.

Her eyes seemed unfocused.

Beneath the photograph appeared a short report.

Subject has begun Stage One identity degradation.

I stared at the words.

"What exactly does that mean?"

The Goat Lady was silent for several seconds before answering.

"It has started erasing her."

A chill crawled up my spine.

"Erasing... her memories?"

"No."

Another photograph appeared. It had been taken only hours later. The same woman. The same clothes. The same face.

But somehow...

She looked like a completely different person.

"It is erasing her existence."

The Goat Lady's voice remained unnervingly calm.

"When it finishes, the body will still be alive."

"It simply won't belong to her anymore."

The television went black.

For a few seconds, I just stood there, letting everything sink in. Then I grabbed the briefcase, holstered my pistol, and headed for the parking lot. I'd figure out whatever Hell had packed inside that suitcase later. Right now, all I had was an address, the name of a woman I'd never met, and a demon that had already killed six people, survived being shot, worn human beings like Halloween costumes, and murdered me. Somehow, I doubted a strongly worded conversation was going to solve this one.

The motel parking lot was almost empty. I tossed the briefcase onto the passenger seat, climbed behind the wheel, and floored the accelerator. The address was the same one I'd been given yesterday. I could only hope the target hadn't moved. Traffic was surprisingly light for a weekday morning, giving me far too much time alone with my thoughts. There had to be better candidates than me. Soldiers. Police officers. Paramedics. Actual good people. Instead, Hell had hired a serial killer. Either their recruitment standards were embarrassingly low, or they knew something about me that I didn't. I wasn't sure which possibility bothered me more.

About halfway there, the briefcase gave a soft metallic click. I glanced over just in time to see the latches pop open on their own.

"I am absolutely not dealing with a haunted suitcase while driving."

The briefcase ignored me. One of the folders slowly slid out before coming to rest neatly on the passenger seat. Across the tab, stamped in crimson ink, were two words.

CASE FILE.

I sighed.

"Fine."

The next traffic light turned red, so I picked up the folder and opened it. The first page contained a photograph of the young woman. The second was a timeline documenting her condition. Every few hours, another piece of her identity disappeared. First her childhood memories. Then the names of her closest friends. Then her parents. Then her own birthday. I turned the page.

Only one entry remained.

Tomorrow — 3:00 A.M.

Subject no longer recognizes herself.

Vessel acquisition imminent.

I looked up at the dashboard clock.

8:00 A.M.

Nineteen hours.

That was all she had left.

The light turned green.

I slammed the folder shut, threw it back onto the passenger seat, and pressed harder on the accelerator.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled onto a narrow gravel road.

The house sat at the very end, tucked beside a dense stretch of forest. It was small. Cozy. The kind of cottage that belonged on a postcard rather than in the middle of a supernatural homicide investigation. Wind chimes swayed gently on the porch, flower boxes lined the windows, and a faded bicycle lay on its side near the driveway.

Nothing about it screamed demon.

I killed the engine but didn't get out.

Old habits die hard.

Well...

Apparently I didn't.

I spent another minute watching the house through the windshield. No movement behind the curtains. No shadowy figures lurking in the trees. No impossible creatures crawling across the roof.

Just an ordinary home.

Which somehow made me even more nervous.

I grabbed my pistol and tucked it into the back of my waistband. Then I opened the suitcase and picked up the revolver.

I thumbed open the cylinder.

Six rounds.

Good.

That was all I had, so every shot would have to count.

I snapped the cylinder shut, tucked the briefcase under one arm, and walked toward the front door.

Three knocks.

A few seconds later, footsteps approached from inside.

The door opened.

A girl, maybe seventeen, blinked at me.

"Hi," she said politely. "Can I help you?"

Her smile looked genuine.

Her eyes didn't.

They were unfocused, almost distant, as if part of her attention was somewhere else entirely.

"I'm looking for..." I glanced at the file.

"...Emily Carter."

The girl frowned.

For several long seconds, she just stared at me.

Then she quietly asked,

"Who's Emily?"  

I looked at her.

Then I looked down at the photograph in the case file.

Then back at her again.

Same chestnut hair.

Same freckles scattered across her nose.

Same green eyes.

There wasn't a doubt in my mind.

I slowly lowered the folder.

"You... are Emily Carter."

She frowned.

"...Am I?"

She didn't sound scared.

She sounded genuinely uncertain.

"I thought so," she said after a moment. "At least... I think I am."

She gave an embarrassed laugh.

"Sorry. I've been really forgetful lately."

The laugh didn't reach her eyes.

"I keep walking into rooms and forgetting why I'm there. Yesterday I couldn't remember where I worked for almost an hour." She rubbed her temple. "My doctor says it's probably stress."

Stress…

"Can I come in?" I asked.

She hesitated for a second before stepping aside.

The cottage was immaculate. Everything had a place. Books lined the shelves, a half-finished mug of coffee sat on the kitchen counter, and a planner lay open on the dining table.

Every page was covered in notes.

Buy groceries.

Water plants.

Take medication.

You live alone.

I stopped.

The last note had been written three times.

You live alone.

You live alone.

YOU LIVE ALONE.

Emily noticed me staring.

"Oh..." She looked away, embarrassed. "I started leaving myself reminders."

"What kind of reminders?"

"The important ones."

She walked over to the refrigerator.

Sticky notes covered almost every inch of it.

Your name is Emily.

You are twenty-four years old.

Your parents are dead.

You don't have a sister.

You adopted the cat. Don't panic if you don't recognize him.

I felt my stomach knot.

This wasn't Stage One anymore.

Emily hadn't just been forgetting memories.

She'd realized she was forgetting herself... and had been trying to fight it.

"Sorry," she said with an awkward smile. "I know this probably looks insane."

"Actually," I replied, "it's one of the more reasonable things I've seen this week."

She laughed.

It was brief.

Forced.

Like she'd forgotten how.

"So..." she said. "Who exactly are you?"

That was a fantastic question.

I couldn't exactly tell her I worked for Hell.

So I lied.

"Your doctor asked me to stop by and see how you're doing. He said you've been having some memory issues."

Emily's shoulders relaxed.

"Oh."

She blinked.

"Right."

The way she said it made my stomach sink.

It wasn't relief.

It was recognition without understanding, like she'd convinced herself my explanation made sense simply because she couldn't remember whether it did.

"Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?" I said.

She nodded and stepped aside.

"Sure."

"When did all this start?"

Emily stared at the floor for several seconds.

"I..."

She frowned.

"I don't remember."

A weak, embarrassed smile crossed her face.

"I guess that's kind of the problem."

I opened the case file.

"Have you noticed anything unusual? Anyone following you? Strange phone calls? Missing time?"

She thought for a moment.

"...Dreams."

I looked up.

"Every night."

"What kind of dreams?"

"The woods."

Her eyes drifted toward the kitchen window overlooking the tree line.

"Someone keeps calling me."

"Do you recognize the voice?"

She slowly shook her head.

"No."

"Have you ever gone outside because of it?"

She hesitated.

"I... don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Every morning I wake up with mud on my shoes."

I stopped writing.

"Anything else?"

She nodded toward the front door.

"The deadbolt is always unlocked."

"Do you lock it before bed?"

"Every night."

"And when you wake up?"

"It's unlocked."

Silence settled over the room.

Three quick knocks broke the silence, making both of us jump.

Emily frowned. "I wasn't expecting anyone."

Before I could stop her, she opened the door.

Two paramedics stood on the porch.

"Emily Carter?"

She nodded.

"We're responding to a wellness check. One of your neighbors was concerned after not seeing you for a few days."

One of the paramedics glanced past her into the cottage, and his expression immediately changed. Every wall was covered in notes. The refrigerator, the cabinets, the mirrors, and even the front door were plastered with reminders.

"Emily," he said gently, "we'd like to bring you in for a quick evaluation." 

Part of me expected her to argue.

To refuse.

Instead, she simply nodded.

"...Okay."

Then she looked at me for several long seconds before quietly asking, "...Who are you again?"

My stomach dropped.

She'd forgotten me.

Not after hours.

After minutes.

One of the paramedics noticed the look on my face.

"Are you family?"

"No."

"A friend?"

I hesitated.

"...Something like that."

Emily looked between us with growing confusion.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I feel like I should know you."

"I know."

She lowered her eyes.

"I keep doing this."

The older paramedic stepped inside and spoke gently.

"Emily, have you been eating?"

"I think so."

"When was your last meal?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Nearly ten seconds passed before she looked at him helplessly.

"...I don't remember."

He exchanged a worried glance with his partner.

"Have you been sleeping?"

"I have dreams."

"That's not what I asked."

She hesitated again before quietly admitting, "...I don't know."

That was enough.

The paramedics didn't need demons to know something was seriously wrong. They convinced Emily to come willingly while I quietly slipped the case file back into the briefcase. As she zipped an overnight bag closed, another sticky note drifted off the refrigerator and landed at my feet.

I picked it up.

If someone says they're here to help... let them.

I looked up.

"Did you write this?"

Emily stared at it for several seconds before frowning.

"I..."

She shook her head.

"I don't remember."

Neither of us spoke again as we followed the paramedics outside.

The emergency department smelled like antiseptic and burnt coffee. Emily answered the same questions over and over again—her name, her birthday, the date, and her address. Some answers came immediately. Others took longer.

"What year is it?"

Emily frowned and closed her eyes.

"...I know this."

Several seconds passed before she whispered,

"I knew this."

The attending physician exchanged another concerned look with the neurologist before turning to me.

"We're admitting her overnight."

I wanted to argue. Hospital walls weren't going to stop whatever was hunting her, but I couldn't exactly tell them a demon was slowly erasing her existence, so I stayed.

Hours passed. The waiting room emptied, and the conversations outside faded until only the occasional nurse walked the hallway. Emily eventually fell asleep—or at least her eyes were closed.

I sat in the corner of the room with the privacy curtain drawn around her bed, the case file resting open on my lap. The final page stared back at me.

Tomorrow. 3:00 A.M.

I checked my watch.

12:01 A.M.

Three hours.

The lights flickered once, then again, before every monitor in the room shut off at the exact same moment. There was no alarm and no power surge. They simply stopped.

The room became unnaturally quiet. No footsteps echoed through the hallway, no voices drifted in from the nurses' station, and even the constant hum of the air conditioner had vanished.

I stood as a cold draft brushed across the back of my neck. The hospital window stood open, even though I was certain it had been locked. When I pulled back the privacy curtain, Emily's bed was empty. The restraints still lay neatly across the mattress, buckled exactly as the nurses had left them. She hadn't escaped them.

Someone had taken her.

I rushed to the window. Fresh mud stained the windowsill, and a trail of wet footprints stretched across the parking lot toward the tree line beyond the hospital. I checked my watch again.

12:04 A.M.

Less than three hours remained.

Then I remembered what Emily had told me earlier that day. Every night she dreamed about the woods, and someone kept calling her name. I didn't waste another second. I sprinted out of the room and was already running toward my car before my brain had fully caught up with what had happened.

I reached the woods behind Emily's neighborhood just minutes later.

The moment I stepped beneath the trees, I knew something was wrong. The forest hadn't simply grown darker. It felt... rearranged. Trees stood where there hadn't been trees before, and trails twisted back on themselves, forming impossible circles that led nowhere. Every few yards I found names carved into the bark, but as I watched, the letters slowly faded until the trunks became smooth again, as though those people had never existed.

I tightened my grip on the revolver and reached into the briefcase for the silver handcuffs. They felt unnaturally cold against my palms. The case file hadn't been exaggerating. This thing didn't just erase people. It erased every trace that they had ever been here.

Then a scream tore through the silence.

"Help!"

Emily.

I broke into a sprint. Branches clawed at my jacket as I pushed deeper into the woods, my flashlight bouncing wildly between the trees and catching movement that vanished whenever I tried to focus on it. Every few seconds I caught glimpses of people standing motionless between the trunks: a little girl, an elderly woman, a woman in a business suit. Each of them slowly turned toward me with vacant expressions before dissolving back into the darkness. Hallucinations, I told myself. They had to be.

Then Emily screamed again.

This time it was closer.

I burst through a wall of undergrowth into a small clearing and froze.

Emily was on her knees in the center of the clearing, clutching her head as though trying to hold her own thoughts together. Standing behind her was a figure that looked human until it smiled. Its jaw split impossibly wide, stretching from ear to ear, and behind that smile another face stared back at me. Then another. Then another. Hundreds of human faces shifted beneath its skin like people drowning beneath thin ice, each one silently mouthing the same question.

Who am I?

I raised the revolver and fired.

The first blessed round struck it square in the chest.

The creature didn't bleed.

Instead, it changed.

The thing standing over Emily vanished, replaced by a terrified teenage girl. The bullet had torn through her shoulder, and she let out a scream that made my stomach turn before disappearing as quickly as she'd appeared. An elderly woman took her place. The next bullet punched through her chest. Her frightened eyes locked onto mine for a single heartbeat before she vanished too. Then came a little girl. A young mother clutching an infant. A police officer.

Every shot passed through a different person.

Every victim the Spine Taker had ever stolen.

Each one looked real.

Each one screamed.

Each one stared directly at me.

I stopped firing. I only had one round left.

The creature smiled as its body rippled through dozens of stolen faces every second until they blurred together into something that barely resembled a human being.

"Do you see?" it asked, speaking with all of their voices at once. "If you cannot tell us apart... how can you be certain you're not killing them instead of me?"

My finger tightened around the trigger, but I couldn't pull it. Maybe it was another illusion. Maybe every face I was seeing belonged to someone who had died years ago. Or maybe they were still trapped inside that thing somehow. I didn't know, and that uncertainty was enough to stop me.

The creature smiled wider.

It had figured me out.

I'd spent my life hunting monsters who preyed on innocent people. That didn't erase what I'd become, but there had always been one line I refused to cross. I never killed the innocent. If I started pulling the trigger without knowing who stood in front of me, then I wasn't any different from the people I'd spent years hunting.

The Spine Taker laughed as its body rippled through another dozen stolen faces.

"I don't need to defeat you," it whispered. "I only need you to hesitate."

It lunged.

I threw myself aside just as its claws carved through the tree behind me, splintering the trunk like dry wood. My revolver flew from my hand and disappeared somewhere into the darkness.

Behind the creature, Emily had collapsed to her knees. She clutched her head with both hands, rocking back and forth as tears streamed down her face.

"My name is Emily," she whispered.

She repeated it again, louder this time.

"My name is Emily."

Again.

"My name is Emily."

She wasn't reminding me.

She was desperately trying to remind herself.

While the creature's attention remained fixed on Emily, I slowly reached the revolver and slid it into my sleeve, keeping my movements as small as possible. The Spine Taker suddenly lunged. Before I could react, one of its impossibly long arms wrapped around my torso and lifted me effortlessly off the ground until we were face to face. Hanging upside down, I found myself staring into a body made of shifting identities. The faces beneath its skin rippled faster and faster before finally settling on one I'd seen only a few days earlier.

Mine.

It tilted its head with unmistakable curiosity.

"You..." it hissed. "You're the one who died in the river."

For the first time since the fight began, it hesitated.

That was all I needed.

I slipped the revolver from my sleeve and fired a single blessed round straight into the center of its face. The clearing erupted with a scream unlike anything I'd ever heard. Every stolen face opened its mouth at once as the creature recoiled, dropping me onto the forest floor. Before it could recover, I threw myself forward and snapped one of the silver handcuffs around its wrist.

The reaction was immediate. The runes carved into the metal ignited with blinding white light, and the second cuff shot across the remaining distance on its own before locking around the creature's other wrist with a metallic snap. The Spine Taker collapsed, convulsing violently as the hundreds of faces beneath its skin dissolved one by one. Within seconds, the towering monster had shrunk into something almost human. Smaller. Frailer. Afraid.

Emily crumpled to the ground behind it, unconscious.

At the same moment, my briefcase clicked open. The folders inside vanished, replaced by an impossibly deep crimson abyss that stretched far beyond what should have fit inside a suitcase. Black chains disappeared into the darkness below, and a calm, emotionless voice echoed from somewhere inside.

"Prisoner retrieval confirmed."

I grabbed the demon by the handcuffs and dragged it toward the opening. It fought harder than I expected, clawing desperately at the dirt and roots as deep grooves carved through the forest floor.

"No!" it screamed. "Please! Don't send me back!"

I didn't slow down.

"You think Hell is what they told you?" it shrieked. "You think they're the jailers?"

Its terrified eyes locked onto mine.

"They lied to you."

My grip tightened, but I paused for the briefest fraction of a second.

The creature smiled.

Then it laughed.

"You'll learn," it whispered, its panic suddenly replaced by pity. "When you discover the truth..."

Before it could finish, an invisible force seized it. The demon was ripped forward, disappearing into the abyss feet first as its screams echoed through the darkness until they were swallowed completely. The portal folded shut with a quiet click, and silence settled over the clearing once more.

A small white card slid from the briefcase.

MISSION COMPLETE.

I looked over at Emily. Her breathing had steadied, and the tension had finally left her face. Carefully, I lifted her into my arms and carried her back through the forest to her cottage. The back door was still unlocked, just as she'd said it always was. I laid her gently in bed, pulled the blanket over her shoulders, and watched as a faint smile crossed her face in her sleep.

I quietly left the cottage, climbed into my car, and placed the briefcase on the passenger seat. The latches clicked open by themselves, and a familiar voice drifted from inside.

"Congratulations on your first successful retrieval."

The Goat Lady sounded almost...

Pleased. 
The briefcase clicked softly.

Another folder slid onto the passenger seat.

Unlike the others, this one wasn't black.

It was white.

Across the front, in elegant gold lettering, were four words.

PRIORITY RETRIEVAL — LEVEL OMEGA

"...That doesn't sound good."

"It isn't."

I opened the folder.

It was empty.

No photograph.

No case history.

No victim list.

Just a single sentence.

Management escort required.

A cold feeling settled in my stomach.

Then I remembered the fourth rule.

Angels are not classified as prisoners. Do not attempt apprehension unless accompanied by authorized management personnel.

I slowly looked at the briefcase.

"...You've got to be kidding."

"No."

My grip tightened on the steering wheel.

"My next assignment is an angel?"

"Correct."

"I thought angels were supposed to be..."

I searched for the right word.

"...the good guys."

"They were."

That answer bothered me more than if she'd said yes.

I flipped through the folder again.

"There isn't any information."

"There doesn't need to be."

"That's reassuring."

"You will not be conducting this retrieval alone."

"Well, yeah," I said. "Rule Four. Angels require authorized management personnel."

A brief silence followed.

"So who's the authorized management?"

The Goat Lady answered without hesitation.

"I am."

The words hung in the air.

For the first time since waking up in Hell...

I felt genuinely nervous.

The woman who ran Hell's Retrieval Department, the one who treated escaped horrors like overdue paperwork, was leaving her office.

"...How dangerous is this angel?"

The silence that followed lasted long enough for me to wonder if the connection had died.

When she finally spoke, the calm professionalism she'd worn until now had faded.

"It has already killed three retrieval teams."

The line went dead.

I drove back to the motel in complete silence.

The Spine Taker's final words kept replaying in my head.

They lied to you.

When you discover the truth...

I shook the thought away.

One existential crisis at a time.

By the time I reached the motel, dawn had begun creeping over the horizon. I carried the briefcase upstairs, unlocked my room, and immediately reached for my pistol.

Someone was inside.

A woman sat behind the small desk by the window with her boots resting comfortably on its surface, slowly stirring a mug of coffee she'd apparently helped herself to. She looked about my age, maybe her late twenties. She stood around five-foot-eleven with the kind of lean, athletic build that looked earned rather than trained for. Kings had probably gone to war over a face like hers, yet despite the effortless beauty, there was something quietly unsettling about her. She looked completely relaxed, but she reminded me of a wolf pretending to be asleep.

She glanced up as I entered.

"Oh."

A small smile crossed her face.

"There you are."

My pistol was in my hand before she'd finished speaking.

She didn't even blink.

Instead, she took another sip of coffee.

"Good trigger discipline."

Then I remembered the Goat Lady's last words.

I will accompany you personally.

I slowly lowered the pistol.

"...No way."

The woman smiled a little wider.

"I assume you've figured it out."

She closed the folder she'd been reading, set the coffee mug aside, and stood.

"I should introduce myself properly."

She offered me a hand. "Lucifuge," she said.

I stared.

"As in..."

"Yes."

"Lucifuge Rofocale?"

“Prime Minister of Hell,” she said, sounding mildly annoyed. “The title is my father’s name, but nobody ever remembers it.”

She took another sip of my coffee.

“Most demons just call me Lucy.”

I’ll update this journal if I make it through the night.

And if I don’t..and Terry is reading this…yes, I am still dead. Currently.

I don’t know how else to phrase that so it makes sense, but I also don’t think it’s supposed to.

The demon is sitting in my chair right now.

She is looking at me as I write this.

Wish me luck.

I am a serial killer.

Not the typical kind, as serial killers go.

I don't kill innocent people. Well, innocent in the eyes of the law, maybe. The kind of innocent that comes from a lack of evidence, incompetent investigations, or expensive lawyers. If you looked at their actual victim lists, most of them should have been buried beneath prisons.

Instead, I buried them.

Officially, I'm a private investigator. Most of my clients hire me for the usual reasons: cheating spouses, missing persons, deadbeat fathers, or old debts that someone suddenly decides need collecting. The job pays the bills.

The other part of my work is what keeps me interested.

People tell private investigators things they would never tell the police. They gossip. They complain. They share rumors over drinks. Sometimes they mention a missing girl from ten years ago. Sometimes they mention a man who always seems to be nearby whenever someone disappears.

Most of the time it's nothing.

Sometimes it isn't.

It's strange, really. I don't remember exactly when I started. I was twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two.

My first was a man the locals called the Florida River Monster. He earned the nickname because of his habit of abducting women, butchering them, and scattering their remains across different rivers so the alligators could finish the cleanup for him. By the time anyone found what was left, there usually wasn't enough evidence to identify the victim, let alone connect her to him.

His preferred victims were blonde women in their early twenties.

I've noticed most serial killers have the same preferences. Women. Children. Sometimes both.

It's ironic, considering I'm a woman myself. A young woman, if being in your twenties still counts as young. According to every profile I've ever read, I should be the ideal victim. Too small. Too trusting. Too easy to overpower.

The River Monster thought so, too. That assumption lasted right up until I drugged him and gave him the same ending he'd spent years giving other people. I remember staring at him afterward. Not because I felt guilty. Not because I was horrified.

I was disappointed. For years, I'd read articles about him, watched documentaries, and followed every development in the investigation. The media made him sound larger than life—a monster, a predator, something almost supernatural. But when he died, he was just a man. A pathetic, terrified man bleeding out on the floor of a fishing shack. That's when I learned something important. Most monsters aren't monsters at all. They're just people who got away with being evil for far too long.

So I kept hunting them.

One killer became three. Three became ten. Then fifteen. Then more. I told myself I was making the world safer. Maybe I was. The truth is, I hated men like that. The ones who stalked women, hunted them, and treated them like prey. Wolves wearing human skin. And wolves need to be put down. Who better to do it than a woman?

Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. Maybe it makes me just as bad as they were. I really don't care.

Unfortunately, homicide pays terribly.

So, I figured I'd spend a few days following a rich man's wife, collect a paycheck, and head home. That's how these private investigative jobs usually went. Take pictures. Write a report. Collect the money. Move on. South Texas wasn't exactly my preferred destination, but five hundred dollars an hour has a way of making a long drive seem reasonable.

I asked Terry to send over the case file. Terry was my assistant, a meek man in his fifties who treated confrontation the same way most people treated unexploded bombs. The file showed up in my inbox before I could finish my coffee, along with an email apologizing for taking so long to send it. 

The file was surprisingly thin. The client's name was Daniel Walker. Forty-eight years old. Oil money. Married for twenty years. No criminal record. No history of domestic disputes. No obvious reason to suspect his wife was cheating. What caught my attention was the note attached to the bottom of the file: 

Client does not believe wife is having an affair. 
Client believes wife is acting strangely. 

I stared at those words for several seconds before calling Terry. He answered on the second ring.

"Please tell me that's a typo."

 "It isn't."

I sighed.

 "What does acting strange mean?" 

"I asked."

 "And?" 

"He said it's something he would rather discuss in person." I rubbed my temples. Of course he did. 

"Fantastic. Five hundred dollars an hour and I'm investigating a strange wife."

 "Still taking the job?" 

I looked at the payment agreement again. Five hundred dollars an hour. Some questions answer themselves. "Of course I'm taking the job." 

"What if he's crazy?" 

"Then he's a crazy man paying five hundred dollars an hour." 

Terry sighed. He was a genuinely kind man. If someone robbed him at gunpoint, he'd probably apologize for not carrying more cash. So, the idea of voluntarily meeting a potentially insane stranger offended every survival instinct he possessed.

I hung up.

Three days later, I found myself driving into a small South Texas town that looked like it had been forgotten by time. The buildings were rusty, the roads were cracked, and the locals had elevated being nosy into an art form. By the time I'd stopped for gas, bought a coffee, and asked for directions to my motel, half the town probably knew my license plate number. What surprised me more was how often my client's name came up. The gas station belonged to him. The convenience store belonged to him. The car wash belonged to him. Apparently, half the businesses in town belonged to him. No wonder he was willing to pay five hundred dollars an hour.

I checked into a small motel about ten minutes from the gated neighborhood where he and his wife lived. The room smelled vaguely of cigarettes and regret.

The next morning, I met my client. He was a large man with a round face and the kind of expensive clothes that desperately wanted everyone to know they were expensive. Gold rings covered his fingers—two on one hand, three on the other. Enough gold to sink a fishing boat. I immediately disliked him. Fortunately, taking money from people I dislike has never bothered me. 

He looked me up and down as I sat across from him, his eyes narrowing. "The White Viper is a woman?" There was genuine surprise in his voice. I smiled. "Oh, so you've heard of me." The White Viper was one of many names people had attached to me over the years. Most of them were ridiculous. A few of them are accurate.

"My name is Mara Graves," I said, extending a hand. That wasn't my real name, of course, but clients don't need to know things like that. He shook my hand carefully, as if he expected me to bite him.

"So," I said, leaning back in my chair, "what's the problem?"

His expression immediately darkened. "It's my wife."

That was usually how these conversations started. The details changed. The excuses changed. The tears changed. But eventually, every marriage investigation became the same story.

I pulled out a notebook. "Is she cheating?"

"No."

That answer surprised me. The report had said the same thing, but most husbands accused their wives of cheating before I even sat down.

"Then what exactly am I looking for?"

He glanced toward the restaurant doors before lowering his voice. "My wife isn't acting like herself."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. People said things like that all the time. Depression. Affairs. Midlife crises. Secret addictions. There were a hundred possible explanations, and most of them were boring.

"Can you be more specific?"

He swallowed. "She's different."

"How?"

"Everything."

I stared at him. He stared back. Neither of us seemed particularly happy with the conversation.

"Mr. Walker, you're paying me five hundred dollars an hour. Help me help you."

He nodded slowly. "She forgets things."

"Lots of people forget things."

"Not like this."

He leaned forward in his chair. "She forgot the name of our dog."

That was strange. Not impossible. But strange.

"What else?"

"She forgot where we went on our honeymoon."

I wrote it down. "What else?"

"She asked me where the guest bathroom was."

I paused. "You've been married twenty years."

"Twenty-two."

I looked up from my notebook. He wasn't smiling. In fact, he looked terrified. The kind of terrified that can't be faked. I'd seen that expression before. Usually, on victims.

"Medical issues?" I asked.

"Doctors say she's healthy."

"Head injury?"

"No."

"Medication?"

"No."

I tapped my pen against the notebook. "Anything else?"

For a moment, he didn't answer. Then he reached into his jacket and slid a photograph across the table.

A woman in her early thirties smiled back at me. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Pretty. Completely ordinary.

"My wife."

I looked at the photograph, then back at him. "And?"

He pointed at the picture. "That's not how she smiles."

I waited for him to elaborate.

He didn't.

"Mr. Walker."

"You don't understand."

His voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"She's smiling the right way."

I blinked. "What?"

"The expression is correct." He tapped the photograph with a trembling finger. "But somehow it's wrong."

I stared at him for several seconds.

Then I wrote a single word in my notebook.

Crazy.

He noticed.

"You're thinking I'm insane."

"A little."

His shoulders slumped. "Everyone does."

I tucked the notebook away. "Fine. Let's assume you're not insane. What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Follow her."

"For how long?"

"Until you see it too."

I looked down at the payment agreement one more time.

Five hundred dollars an hour.

I've ignored bigger red flags for less.

I followed Mrs. Walker for the next week. Her schedule was so normal it was almost insulting. Every morning, she attended a Pilates class. After that, she visited a boutique downtown. Around noon, she met a group of friends at a café before eventually heading home. Sometimes she and her husband went out for dinner. That was it. No secret affairs, no suspicious meetings, no hidden bank accounts. Nothing.

I was beginning to think Daniel Walker had paid me five hundred dollars an hour because he was bored. The only thing keeping me on the case was the amount of money accumulating in my bank account.

While I waited for Mrs. Walker to do something interesting, I focused on another investigation. The city next to town had a serial killer. Five women had disappeared over the last year. The victims had nothing in common. Different ages. Different jobs. Different backgrounds. The bodies were what connected them.

Every victim had been found completely drained of blood. Every organ was missing. The bodies were essentially empty skin wrapped around a skeleton. Each victim also had a single incision running from the base of the skull to the lower back. The locals called him the Spine Taker.

One of the victims was seventeen years old.

I took that personally.

I don't pretend to be a good person, but certain things make my blood boil. Children are one of them.

Mrs. Walker spent most mornings at Pilates, which left me with several hours to kill. I used that time to look into the Spine Taker case. My investigation eventually led me to the sheriff's office. Officially, I was there for information. Unofficially, I was there for the free coffee.

Side note: The coffee was terrible.

A woman was screaming at two deputies near the entrance when I walked in.

"I told you she was acting strange!" she shouted. "If you'd listened to me, she'd still be alive!"

The deputies grabbed her by the arms and dragged her toward the door. A moment later, they shoved her outside. She stumbled onto the sidewalk and broke down sobbing while they returned to work without another word.

I recognized her immediately. She was the mother of the seventeen-year-old victim.

That got my attention.

I followed her outside and sat down beside her on the curb, blonde wig and all. People trust blondes. I don't know why, but they do. I introduced myself as a law enforcement officer working on the investigation and asked what she had been yelling about inside.

By the time I left, she was still crying, and I had learned something interesting.

A week before her disappearance, her daughter had started forgetting things. Important things. Her birthday. Her favorite food. The names of relatives. According to her mother, she had become distant and cold, like she had suddenly become a different person.

It sounded familiar.

Daniel Walker had described his wife almost the same way.

I drove straight to the Pilates studio.

Mrs. Walker's class wasn't supposed to end for another hour.

She wasn't there.

Neither was her car.

That bothered me.

So I committed a crime.

As usual. 

The security office was empty. The guard always left for lunch around that time. I knew because I'd spent the last 2 weeks watching the place. I pulled up the security footage and started reviewing the cameras.

At 11:03 a.m., Mrs. Walker entered the women's restroom.

Nobody followed her.

Nobody came out.

The hallway remained empty for almost an hour.

Then, at 12:01 p.m., an elderly woman exited the restroom.

I frowned and rewound the footage.

The elderly woman had never entered.

I checked every camera angle.

Every hallway.

Every entrance.

Nothing.

Mrs. Walker went into the restroom.

An old woman came out.

That was it.

I took screenshots and headed to the restroom myself. There were no windows, no maintenance tunnels, and no secondary exits. It was just a bathroom.

I stood there staring at the empty room, trying to figure out what I had missed.

I couldn't.

An hour later, I found Mrs. Walker exactly where she was supposed to be, sitting at her usual café, drinking coffee and laughing with friends.

Her car was in the parking lot.

That night, I followed her again.

At midnight, she left her house without warning, got into her car, and drove away. I followed from a distance. About twenty minutes later, she turned onto a dirt road near a lake and parked beside the woods.

Then she got out and started running.

Not jogging.

Running.

Fast enough that I almost lost sight of her.

I chased her through the trees until she stopped in a clearing.

I ducked behind a tree and watched.

Mrs. Walker bent forward.

For a second, I thought she was sick.

Then something stepped out of her.

I don't know how else to describe it.

Something unfolded from her back. Something impossibly tall.

Mrs. Walker's body collapsed onto the ground while the thing that had been inside her remained standing.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't even process what I was looking at. It ran towards the car again.

A few minutes later, it returned carrying another body.

An elderly woman.

The same elderly woman from the security footage.

When the creature finally disappeared into the darkness, I approached Mrs. Walker's body.

She was dead.

And empty.

No blood.

No organs.

Nothing.

Just skin.

And a long incision running from the base of her skull to the end of her spine.

I recognized the wound immediately.

I had seen it five times before.

The Spine Taker wasn't human.

That realization hit me about half a second before the creature came charging out of the darkness.

It had tricked me.

I barely had time to raise my pistol before it slipped into the elderly woman's body. The corpse jerked upright like a puppet yanked by invisible strings. I fired immediately. The bullet tore through her chest. The creature didn't even flinch. I fired again. Then again. Nothing. The thing simply kept walking toward me, wearing the old woman's skin like a poorly fitted costume.

"What are you?" I shouted.

The creature tilted its head. I heard bones crack. Its neck bent farther than any human neck should have been capable of bending. Then it spoke.

"You... wil...l be... my next... ves...sel."

The words sounded wrong. Not an accent. Not a speech impediment. More like something trying to imitate human language without fully understanding how it worked.

I am not becoming anyone's vessel.

I'd rather die.

I turned and ran.

Branches whipped against my face as I crashed through the forest. Behind me, I could hear the creature moving through the trees. It wasn't trying to hide. It wasn't trying to be quiet. The thing knew it was faster than me.

A few moments later, the trees opened up and I nearly stumbled into a river. Dark water rushed past below me. Behind me came the sound of snapping branches.

I turned around.

The creature stood at the edge of the treeline.

For the first time, I got a good look at the body it was wearing. In the moonlight, I could see it clearly now. The old woman's legs bent at impossible angles. Her arms hung too low. Her neck twisted sharply to one side as though every bone inside it had been shattered. Yet somehow she remained standing.

The thing smiled.

Then it lunged.

I stepped backward.

Unfortunately, there was no ground behind me.

I fell into the river.

For one brief moment, I thought I had escaped.

Then my head struck something beneath the surface.

Pain exploded through my skull. Red flooded my vision. I felt the current dragging me away as darkness closed in around me.

The river swallowed me.

I remember the impact. I remember the pain. Then everything disappeared.

When I opened my eyes again, I was falling.

I don't know how long I fell for. Minutes. Hours. Years. There was no wind rushing past me. No sensation of speed. Just endless darkness stretching in every direction while I plunged through it.

Then suddenly I crashed into something soft. Black mist.

Strangely, it didn't hurt.

I climbed to my feet and looked around.

There was nothing.

No sky.

No ground.

No horizon.

Just darkness stretching endlessly in every direction.

And a desk.

A single wooden desk sitting in the middle of the void.

With absolutely no better options available, I started walking toward it. 

There was a creature sitting behind the desk.

At least, I think it was sitting.

The thing was enormous. Even seated, it was taller than a bus. A massive goat skull concealed its face, its horns disappearing into the darkness above. Beneath the skull was a surprisingly human body dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit. If I ignored the skull, the size, and the fact that I was in a bottomless pit, it looked like an accountant.

"Welcome to Level One," it said.

The voice caught me off guard.

Female.

Calm.

Professional.

Like a receptionist greeting someone who had arrived slightly late for an appointment.

I looked around at the endless darkness surrounding us.

"Level One?" I asked. "Am I dead?"

"Yes."

The answer came so quickly that it took me a moment to process it.

No sympathy.

No dramatic speech.

No ominous thunder.

Just yes.

Dead.

I considered arguing. Then I remembered smashing my head against a rock while running from a skin-wearing monster.

Fair enough.

The creature reached beneath the desk and slid a thick binder toward me. It landed with a heavy thud. Curious, I opened it.

My stomach sank.

The pages were filled with names, photographs, police reports, witness statements, and dates.

The Florida River Monster.

The Butcher of Pensacola.

The Red Lake Strangler.

Every serial killer I had ever murdered.

Every victim.

Every crime.

Every body.

All neatly organized into a single file.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Your record."

I turned another page.

Then another.

The binder seemed endless.

The creature's eye sockets suddenly ignited with a deep red glow.

"After review of your actions, you have been sentenced to two hundred years of punitive suffering before retribution."

I slowly closed the binder.

"Two hundred years?"

"Correct."

"That seems excessive."

"You murdered seventeen people."

"Nineteen."

The creature paused.

Then it looked down at the file.

"You murdered nineteen people."

"See? That's the kind of mistake that gets organizations sued."

For several seconds neither of us spoke.

Finally the creature sighed.

"I liked you better when you were unconscious."

I shrugged.

The truth was, none of this surprised me.

I had always known this was how my story would end.

I knew what I was.

I knew what I had done.

I wasn't a hero.

I wasn't a vigilante.

I was a serial killer who happened to choose worse people as victims.

There was a difference.

Just not enough of one.

"I see," the creature said.

Then it leaned forward.

"But."

I frowned.

"But?"

"We can make a deal."

That got my attention.

"A deal? What kind of deal?"

The red glow inside the skull brightened slightly.

"The kind that allows you to repay your debt."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Repay my debt?"

The creature nodded.

"There are souls on Earth that belong here. Murderers. Predators. Monsters wearing human faces. Some escape justice. Some escape death. Some are taken by things that have no right to claim them."

I stared at it.

"So you're offering me a job."

"In a manner of speaking."

"You do realize that I have spent years murdering people, right?"

"That is precisely why you're being considered."

I wasn't sure whether to feel insulted or flattered.

The creature folded its hands atop the desk.

"You have contributed greatly to Hell. Many souls currently suffering below would never have arrived without your assistance. Only a few mortals possess such a record."

"That might be the worst compliment I've ever received."

The creature ignored me.

"In exchange for your service, your sentence will be reduced. Continue long enough, and it may eventually be erased."

I glanced down at the binder.

Then, at the endless darkness surrounding us.

Then back at the creature.

"So let me get this straight. My choices are two hundred years of torture..."

"Among other punishments."

"...or I go back to Earth and drag damned souls down here for you?"

"Correct."

I considered the offer.

Honestly, it sounded suspiciously similar to my previous hobby. The only real difference was that this time I had an employer. Unfortunately, that employer was Hell.

"What happens if I refuse?"

The creature leaned back in its chair.

A moment later, another binder appeared on the desk.

This one was significantly thicker.

It opened by itself.

Flames spilled from between the pages.

Screaming followed.

I immediately pointed at the first binder.

"I'll take the job."

The creature nodded.

"A wise decision."

"I've been told I don't make many of those."

For the first time since I had arrived, I could have sworn the thing laughed. Then everything went dark. I woke up lying on the riverbank. For several seconds, I just stared at the sky, trying to figure out where I was before the headache hit. It felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through my skull. Slowly, I sat up. The river was still rushing past beside me. My clothes were soaked, and dried blood clung to the side of my face.

The last thing I remembered was falling into the river. The creature. The rock. Then the desk. The goat-skull woman. Hell.

I pulled out my phone. The screen lit up, and my stomach immediately dropped. Three days had passed. I checked again, convinced I was reading it wrong. I wasn't. The battery icon flashed red. One percent. "Fantastic," I muttered.

I staggered to my feet and followed the river until I found the dirt road. My car was still parked exactly where I had left it three nights earlier. Nobody had touched it. Nobody had towed it. Nobody had even broken a window. Apparently, even criminals had a line they wouldn't cross, and that line was trespassing on private property.

The drive back to the motel passed in a haze. The moment I got inside, I plugged my phone into the charger. As soon as it powered on, I discovered over four hundred missed calls from Terry. I called him back.

He answered before the first ring had finished.

"Mara, what the hell is wrong with you?"

I pulled the phone away from my ear. "Terry—"

"No. Absolutely not. Do you have any idea what I've been dealing with for the last three days? I filed a missing persons report. The sheriff has been looking for you. I've called every hospital within a hundred miles."

His voice got louder with every sentence.

"You vanished."

"I noticed."

"Where were you?"

I considered telling him the truth. I decided against it.

"Long story."

"You're damn right it's a long story."

I rubbed my temples. The headache was somehow getting worse.

"I'm alive."

"Clearly."

"Mostly."

There was a long pause. Then Terry sighed. It was the exhausted sigh of a man reconsidering every career decision he had ever made.

"Call the sheriff."

"What?"

"Call the sheriff and tell him you're alive before they waste another three days looking for your stupid ass."

"Fair."

After reassuring local law enforcement that I wasn't dead, kidnapped, or buried somewhere in the desert, I finally collapsed onto the motel bed and turned on the television. The local news was covering the Walker case. I sat upright immediately.

Behind the anchor was a photograph of Mrs. Walker.

My stomach sank.

Her body had been found.

Authorities believed she had been murdered.

A second photograph appeared on screen.

The elderly woman from the security footage.

Police had identified her as a suspect in the murder.

Then another photograph appeared.

Daniel Walker.

Dead.

I froze.

According to the report, he had been murdered inside his own home. The estimated time of death was shortly after midnight. The same night, Mrs. Walker had driven into the woods. The same night, I had followed her. The same night I had died.

Then the report got worse.

Investigators believed the Walker deaths were connected to the Spine Taker killings. The similarities were impossible to ignore. Mrs. Walker's body had been found drained of blood. Her organs were missing. The same incision ran from the base of her skull to the end of her spine.

The sheriff's department was treating it as another Spine Taker victim.

I knew better.

The Spine Taker wasn't a serial killer.

It was that thing.

And the creature knew I was following it from the beginning.

It knew I was watching.

Daniel Walker had hired me because he suspected something was wrong with his wife, and the moment I started getting close to the truth, everyone connected to the case started dying.

I sat there staring at the television long after the report ended. Then my phone suddenly buzzed, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The screen displayed an unknown number, and for a moment, I seriously considered hanging up, but instead, I answered.

"Hello?"

For several seconds, nobody spoke. Then a familiar female voice sighed.

"Congratulations on surviving."

My blood ran cold. The goat-skull woman. The manager of Hell. Or whatever her official title was.

"Thank you."

I wasn't entirely sure how one was supposed to respond to congratulations for surviving their own death.

"I suppose you know who your first assignment is."

"The Spine Taker?"

"Very good, little bug."

I frowned.

"Did you just call me a good bug?"

"I called you an intelligent little bug."

"That's somehow worse."

"Humans are very sensitive."

I decided not to argue with the giant demonic bureaucrat and looked back toward the television. The news report had changed. A young woman's face now filled the screen. Light brown hair. Hazel eyes. Maybe twenty-three. Twenty-four at most. Only a few years younger than me. Then the television crackled. The anchor vanished, and the screen filled with the image of a goat skull.

"That is its next victim. Protect the innocent soul."

I stared at the photograph on the screen.

"I still don't know what that thing is."

For the first time since the conversation began, the demon was silent. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost its usual amusement.

"It is a prisoner."

"A prisoner?"

"A demon."

I felt my stomach drop.

"It escaped."

The words hung in the air for a moment.

"It escaped Hell?"

"Yes."

"That seems like a serious design flaw."

"It was not designed to escape."

"Clearly."

The demon ignored me.

"It was undergoing punishment. Somehow, it found a way out. Since then, it has been stealing souls that belong here."

I remembered the empty bodies, the missing organs, the thing climbing out of Mrs. Walker's back, the thing wearing people like clothing.

"You want me to bring it back."

"I want you to drag it back."

There was a noticeable difference in her tone. One sounded like a request. The other sounded like an order.

"What happens if I fail?"

For several seconds, there was only silence. Then laughter erupted from the television.

Not human laughter.

Not even close.

It sounded like earthquakes, screaming, and church bells all happening at once. The motel room shook. The television screen flickered. A crack appeared across the glass. When the laughter finally stopped, the demon spoke again.

"Then you will serve its remaining sentence alongside your own."

"That's not fair."

"Hell is not fair."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Fair point.

"Someone must return the souls it has stolen," she continued. "And unfortunately for you, you're the most qualified candidate available."

The television immediately went black. A second later, my phone vibrated. A new message had arrived. An address. A photograph. And beneath it, a single sentence.

"YOUR SENTENCE REDUCTION BEGINS NOW."

I opened the photograph.

It showed the girl—the future victim. The picture had been taken at night through a window, from somewhere outside her house. At first, it looked innocent enough.

Then I noticed the red circle.

Someone had marked a shadowy figure standing in the darkness beyond the glass.

Watching.

Smiling.

If I'm going to survive this, I need to find her before the Spine Taker does.

I'll update this journal if I make it through the night.

If I don't, Terry will probably end up going through my computer trying to figure out what happened to me. If that happens, this journal is all I can leave behind.

Everything I've written here is true. I know how insane that sounds because I thought it was insane too until I checked my pulse.

The only reason I know any of this is real is because my heart isn't beating as I write this.

And you really can't keep calling something a hallucination when you're already supposed to be dead.

Jade pushed open the glass door of her favorite convenience store just after 11:00 p.m. The familiar chime echoed through the nearly empty building. After a long shift at work, all she wanted was a snack before heading home.

​

She wandered down the aisles, staring at the shelves, trying to decide between chips, candy, or one of the pre-made sandwiches. The store was quiet except for the soft hum of fluorescent lights and a television playing somewhere behind the counter.

​

Then the door chimed again.

​

Jade glanced over her shoulder.

​

A ragged figure stepped inside. His clothes were filthy, his hair tangled, and his face hidden beneath layers of grime. The clerk looked up and immediately frowned.

​

"Get out," the clerk snapped.

​

The man's head tilted.

​

Without warning, he grabbed the nearest object and hurled it across the store. It smashed into the clerk. Before Jade could process what was happening, the figure vaulted over the counter.

​

The beating began.

​

Jade froze.

​

She couldn't move. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even turn away.

​

She stared at the same sandwich she'd been considering while the sounds echoed behind her—hit after hit after hit. Each impact made her stomach twist. Seconds felt like hours.

​

Then silence.

​

The violence stopped.

​

Only the faint television remained.

​

Slow footsteps approached.

​

Closer.

​

Closer.

​

Jade's heart pounded so hard it hurt.

​

The figure stopped beside her. Neither of them looked at each other. They simply stared at the sandwiches.

​

Finally, in a rough, guttural voice, he pointed at one.

​

"Those are pretty good," he said. "But they make 'em in the morning. Usually stale by now."

​

"Thank you," Jade whispered.

​

She picked up the sandwich, walked to the counter, and saw blood splattered across it. The clerk was nowhere in sight.

​

With trembling hands, she laid down cash, took her change, and walked quietly into the darkness outside.