CreepCast - I Wrote Myself A Letter, I Got A Response | Creep Cast

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Trigger Warning: This story includes discussions of r*pe and child death. Scott receives a letter from himself. This Scott claims to be from another world. Soon, he will find out just how different that world really is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Creepcast. How are you guys doing today? We are reading a story called I wrote a letter to myself and I got a response. Got a response. Which if I wrote, if I wrote myself a letter, I would respond. I would say, you know what? Hey, nice to, I would, I would carry a nice, pleasant conversation with myself. Is that because that's the only one who will write you back?

That is the only person that will write me back. And I'll tell you another person that will write me back are you guys about this new merch we're wearing. Merch. We got new merch. Beautiful new merch. It's the, uh, we're both wearing the eat me like a bug shirt. It's beautiful. Like a buck. We also got a long sleeve, uh, shirt as well where Isaiah's the Jeff Goldblum.

I'm in the tumor on the skin. We have a beautiful crew neck. We have a beautiful crew neck sweatshirt with a ghastly little ghost. And then a nice pair of shorts because it's a springtime. Put out your legs. Play ball. Get out there. Stay comfy.

So just want us to let y'all's know, creepcast. Dot store. Go there, grab some beautiful merch if you want to support the channel. And if you just want some new kicks, new to look fresh, feel free. Also, for all of our audio listeners, thank you for listening on Spotify and Apple Podcast. If you haven't done that yet, please go to Apple podcast or Spotify and check out Creepcast where you can give us a five-star rating there and listen on the audio. It helps us out a lot.

Isaiah, who writes this beautiful, beautiful story? This story is written by Verestal, Verstall, however you pronounce it? That sounds familiar. Now, we have covered his work before. His real name is Brandon Faircloth. He has several different stories on Amazon, one of them being Roadside Sarcold. which I believe we shouted out last time but there's several more they'll be linked in the description be sure to show brandon some love uh Brandon has some stories that we've covered before

one of which being my job is watching a woman trapped in a room and I understand that hunter and I had a bit of a crash out of that story okay Thomas that's what I'm here to tell you things aren't like you think they are they never have been I need you to tone down the alley girl accent by like two notches. Just a little bit. Because I can tell, I can tell, I know you, I can tell that you are trying to

drive this into the realm of parody and we're not there yet. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. But that was kind of unfair considering my jobs watching a woman trapped in a room was like a fifth part of some interconnected

story that we were coming in midway through so we didn't understand a lot of it. So today we're going with a one-off like a single story not attached to any others it's five parts to itself uh because the author certainly shows talent as a writer and we want to give him a fair shake i think that's only fair to give him a fair shake i want to give him fair shake i don't know what hunter wants to do hunter may want to want him to suffer no i think it's i think you know what we we obviously the idea of the story for my watching a woman trapped in a room whatever that cool concept but it just went into an angle to where obviously there was more to the story we didn't know about.

So I think it's only fair that we give somebody, like you're saying, a fair shake. And this is a nice, this is a five part, a five part series that is, it isn't connected to anything else. At least that's what we looked up online. So I think this is a better representation. Yes, I agree. And also, I just want to say to the audience, we really appreciate you guys being so supportive. Again, Brandon's links will be in the description.

Be sure to show them some love. But it's been really cool that every time we cover an author online, we normally see posts about the author, sometimes even in the Creepcast subreddit, talking about how supportive the audience has been, how their books are doing better now, how they're getting more traffic on their websites. It's really cool that being featured on Creepcast

has become a thing that a lot of authors are looking forward to instead of dreading. And that's all thanks to your guys support. So it means a lot coming from us and it means a lot to them. So thank you guys for that. You guys are an amazing, amazing audience. We appreciate you. And thank you for directing that love to the people that are writing these stories. In doing so, it does nothing but help keep the horror writing community afloat and happy.

So just know that just keep giving people love, man. It's all you can do. So without further ado, let's get into it, man. I wrote a letter to myself and I got a response. Kick us off, dude. I've been on my knees trying to scrub up all this blood and the scraps of paper. for the last half hour. I'm making some progress, but it's slow,

and I keep having to stop, and my hands start shaking too much. I'm out of my apartment for the moment, sitting on the floor in the hallway, and I can feel my nerves settling some. I'm going to write this out so I'll have it all recorded, and also so I can wait a bit before having to go back in. It started when I was bored yesterday.

The internet was out of my apartment, and after casting about for a couple of hours, trying to read or do some cleaning, a set of ideas to entertain myself. That's when I saw the box of stationery on my desk. My aunt Emma had given me the stationery as a birthday gift the week before. And there was nothing inherently wrong with such a gift. It was a box of high quality paper and envelopes,

personalized with my initials at the top of the sheets of paper and on the backfold to the envelopes. As a 20-year-old, as a, oh, sorry. As a 70-year-old man, I don't know why I said 20, whatever. As a 70-year-old man, I would probably have thought that's... okay i don't know why i can't read all of a sudden the gift of um uh what is the literacy the gift of literacy has been taken for me as a 70 year old man i would probably have thought they were the cat's pajamas but as a 25 year old man not so much but still i was very bored so i sat down

to my desk and started messing around with it first i tried writing as neatly and fancily as i knew how my handwriting is horrible and my best efforts looked like a slow force crater as opposed to a slower second grader, but it was something to do. Then I do a little bit, but my drawing skills are equally lacking. I was feeling myself getting drowsy, but then the thought occurred to me of what to do with the stationary. I'd write a letter to myself. It was a stupid idea, but I thought it was kind of funny too, so I took out a clean sheet of paper and set to work. Hey, Scott, how are you today? My day is okay, if kind of boring. Christine's out of town visiting and her parents in the internet's dead.

I have zero ideas of what to do with myself. This is lame. Goodbye, sincerely Scott. I was supposed to say right now I've done, I've done shit like that before. Oh yeah. Like if the power's out or whatever,

it's like, well, I guess it's time to set up a calendar for the year, even though I don't use paper calendars. Yeah, it's like, or even just like writing something to myself in that way. I do that a lot in my sketchbooks.

Just like writing some weird thing. I wouldn't even say it's note-taking. Sometimes it feels like a direct like, like trying to almost conversate with yourself in some weird way of like some I don't know I'm just saying

I'm curious if other people who are listening to this if they've done something similar in some weird way yeah I've done I've done strange stuff like that I've left pranks for myself before like I've been on an old laptop

what does that even mean what do you've been I've been old on old laptops and stuff like that and it'll be I've like found passwords that are like there's not password it'll be a document that's held like bank account passwords and I'm like why did I have to save and I'll click on it and it'll just be like a word doc that just says like idiot or something like that oh I see I see like at some point years back I was like I'm going to leave a file that just says idiot but I'm going to title it's something important just so years later I prank myself or prank somebody else stumbling upon the computer or something yes but it's always myself it's always me sure it's pranged by my own my own thing so and then you kick your feet

feet and you giggle. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm like setting on my bed doing this and like my feet are in the air. I'm going, yeah. Wow, I'm so funny. I'm so creative. Then you go to the bank and then they're like, hello, Mr. idiot. And you're like, huh?

What? And you're actually, your entire account is built on that name. I like call Kayla. And I'm like, sweetie, what's going on? She's like, I don't know, idiot. What's happening? I don't know, you fucking idiot. What do you think's happening?

Oh. No! It's like an end of a Twilight episode or so, Twilight Zone episode or something. Like Rod Sterling walks in. He's like an idiot in his own world. Yeah, a complete and total fucking moron approaches and realizes that he has the dumbest fucking name imaginable.

He's so stupid. He forgot he made his name idiot. Yeah, he's so fucking stupid that idiot fits the name. Of course, this can only happen in the Twilight Zone. That would be a great episode actually. only only a man a man this foolish was tricked by everyone but one day he decided to trick the only person he could himself it happened here in the twilight zone it happened here in the twilight zone in the twilight zone i want to make a video about the twilight zone it was such a cool series oh man especially for the time it's on um i think if you have an amazon prime the old series is on there and it's like it holds up so well it's such a fun watchman it's really really fun i want to i was talking to uh some of the my editors and stuff like that about if we could set up

like a little set to look like one of the sets from the Twilight Zone and if we could do like black and white and like grainy effects so I could like do a review of the Twilight Zone and as Rod Sterling. You should. You totally could do that. And I could just do the voice, the whole video like this. The entire time.

Imagine a world where you're being called a fucking monkey brain idiot. Imagine a world where you're a YouTuber and imagine a world for your YouTuber and everyone hate you. He's like, well, you'll probably meet Kenyon a windegoon. Two fucking simple brained idiots, mouth-breathing assholes who, uh, he's like, what am I even reading? What is this?

Imagine being so stupid that everyone cries and they hate you. And I'm like, wow, Rod Sterling. Thanks, Ron. I can almost picture it's almost like it's my life every day. Where were? The novelty. The novelty of the idea had clearly worn off quickly.

But I did fold it up and stick it in an envelope at least, even going so far as to address a letter to myself. Standing up from the table with a sigh, I laid down and fairly soon I was fast to sleep. When I woke up, it was early evening. And the room was

only dimly lit by the fading twilight outside. I reached over and turned on my bedside lamp, blinking blearily at its brightness. I hated taking naps. I always felt groggy afterwards and had trouble sleeping later in the night. Rubbing my eyes,

I rolled discontinuantly onto my side and began getting up. When my eyes lit upon my desk, I sat back down. The envelope with the letter I had written was different now. It was in a different spot for one, but I could tell from the bed

that it was also a different color and looked like it had a small stain in one corner. Standing up and going to my desk, I looked at the envelope closer before picking it up. My name and address was still on the front, but hadn't I written it smaller and more sitter than that? Regardless, the envelope itself was definitely different. So clearly, I hadn't written this at all.

My next thought was that someone had come into my apartment to either prank me or try and scare me. The obvious answer was Christine. It didn't really seem like something she would do, but she was the only other person with a key. after I had a quick sweep at the apartment for intruders, I texted her. She swore she was still half a state away and even sent me a picture of proof. She also seemed worried and asked if I called the cops, but I wasn't to that point yet.

I needed to look inside the envelope first. I pried it open carefully and peeked inside, seeing a light blue piece of paper that matched the envelope and was wholly different than the cream-colored paper I'd used earlier in the afternoon. When I unfolded it, I was surprised to see it really did look like my handwriting but it wasn't the same letter instead it seemed to be responding to mine good to hear from you i've been watching you when i can for years and it seems like universes have finally given us a way to talk i'm guessing that you have apartment 3b on nespite street in baltimore right and your uncle tom gave you the box of stationary for your birthday it's so weird

i guess things have to line up just right if this actually works and you're reading this i know it will probably come as a shock i don't think your side knows about us like we do you. But that's cool. We can swap stories. I'll keep it short for now. I hope to hear from you again soon. Glory and peace, Scott.

I read the letter three times. I really couldn't tell I didn't write it other than the content itself, which was decidedly weird. Whoever was doing this was either a very good prankster or I had a dedicated stalker that had taken the time to learn my handwriting. Either way, I was calling their bluff.

Hey man, good to get a response. So are you like me and some other world? That's crazy. Tell me some facts about your world and we can compare. And if you have some kind of souvenir you can send next time, that'd be awesome. Looking forward to the next letter, put the new letter in an envelope, addressed it and sent it on my desk. I then took out my tablet, plugged it in and set the camera to record at an angle where I could see my desk in the door to the bedroom. Thought about just sitting and waiting, but the idea was too tedious and would make it less likely anyone would come back. That was assuming this wasn't some kind of one-shot joke or

harassment, but time would tell. Either way, I decided to go grab something to eat and see a movie. Four hours later, I returned home to another blue letter. I understand you being skeptical. I think it's all a joke, right? Well, here's some info like you asked, and I sent along something that might help convince you. Our world is a lot like yours, though it's different in some ways. About 40 years ago, we had a lot of animals started dying off. Not all of them, of course, but most of the birds, all the dogs, and a few other species here and there, still don't know why. But around that same time, we lost our mirrors.

What I mean is our mirrors stopped showing our reflections. A lot of them just went dark. And some of them, where they have twins in your world, will show us your reflections instead. We knew it was reflections, because all the writing is backwards. And I can tell from the letters, you don't actually write backwards anyhow. Lull! But after that, a lot of people started changing, getting weird or violent. It's stabilized some now, but it was really bad when I was younger.

A lot of people died. Anywho, like I said, things are better now. Though we do have odd stuff pop up and people go missing some. Is your world like that? For what I've seen and what I know of studies, people on our side have done observing active mirrors. It seemed like things are a lot better over there. If so, I'm kind of jealous.

But in close, you'll find one of our nickels. It's got President Robert Kennedy on it. He was president from 1969 through 1977. That's kind of funny. timing of what's going on to the world I don't know for sure I think he's I don't know for sure

but I think I read he's one of one of the differences between your place and mine right back soon I just want to say this really quick too if that first message came I would crumble that paper I would not give a fuck what do you mean if I saw somebody right back through hey man I'm like

okay and throw it I would assume it was a prank you would be afraid you wouldn't be afraid Listen, if I got the response Like now at this stage, it would It would fuck me up This is like some Twilight Zone shit I'm saying the very first one

Where I was like, okay I would seriously Probably disregard it Mm-hmm But this would be This would be fucking me up I would not respond anymore Keep the world separate is what I say

Yeah the Robert Kennedy thing's funny You never got murdered by Sirhan Sirhand Sure did I looked back in the envelope and found a nickel tucked into the corner on one side it had a man's profile with the name Robert F. Kennedy

listed under it. On the other side is what it looked like a large turkey glowing over glowering over a shield bristling with spears and covered with stars and stripes. Oh, that's funny.

Yeah, so originally the United States bird was going to be a turkey. It was going to be a turkey, but then they changed it. changed it to the bald eagle yeah that's funny what the uh i don't know what's the frick what the frick there you go thank you it actually stopped recording over two hours but it was enough at the 42 minute mark i washed just my cream envelope gave a shutter and disappeared 30 minutes later the blue

envelope it faded into existence a few inches over on the desk i wasn't sure what to do at this point i thought about asking christine for advice but it would be hard to explain over the phone and i didn't want her to worry. I could call the police, but what good would it do? Even if I showed them the video, they would think it was fake and I was a jackass wasting their time. I didn't know if I believed everything the letters were saying, but I couldn't deny the evidence was compelling. And if the guy really was another me, could wind up being something really great. Might even become famous for discovering some parallel dimension. First things first, I needed to write another letter. Wow, so this is big news, right? So you're saying you can see us through mirrors.

That's kind of embarrassing. Can you hear us too or just see us? Do your people have any theories on how this all happened? Have other people on your world had this happen where you can talk to people from my world? Very curious to know more. This time I watched this my letter disappeared, only to be replaced with another response a short time later. Yeah, you've got a lot of questions, I understand. No, we can't hear you, just see.

And I don't know about anyone actually communicating like this before. No one knows why the world is changing so much. when the other things started appearing last year people said it was the end of the world that we were being judged but people are just going crazy you know I don't believe in all that stuff

things are changing and we have to change with it hey did you say you have a Christine is she a hot blonde girl there too she her girlfriend I didn't like the tone of the new letter the fuck are you talking about I mean that that is the way of phrase that they've discovered

interdimensional communication and the guys like, you've got a lot of questions. It's like, yes, I have a lot of questions. But yeah, yeah, I know. I get it. Hey, so is your girlfriend hot? You do you fucking that chick that we like? You got a babe. I let I got one too. You want to have a little switcher rusky if you know what I mean. Immediately it makes you think that yeah, he's going to try to swap out. Yes. Oh yeah, that's where it's going because he's talked about how terrible his world's been. That's how people have gone insane and it's monstrous. I don't even think it's an alternate him. I think it's like a demon or something like that line about being him uh but if it is an alternate version of him it's going to try to switch places yeah yeah i didn't like the tone of the new letter and i had even more questions now

but i wanted to keep him talking so i tried to respond in a way that would make him happy yeah she's my girlfriend she's great we're planning on getting married next year you have a christine too tell me more about your world when you can my letter shuttered away fairly quickly and i waited for an answer but uncame it's getting late so eventually i went to bed though i would wake up periodically and check the desk. Around 6 in the morning, saw the blue envelope, and I jumped out to bed to read the two lines were in there.

I did have a Christine. She was a fucking whore. I had to punish her. I hope yours isn't a whore too, lull. Okay. Uh-oh, all right, so we're finding... All right, hold on.

Oh, boy. Oh, okay, all right. We have a... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. And then we have a little red pillar here, huh? I think we've got a man going his own way so to me. I believe this does feel

like a parallel protagonist here is a bit of a migtow red pillar. A little bit. Also, there's a lot to impact. There's a lot to unpack there. I did have a Christine. She was a fucking whore. I had to punish her. I hope yours isn't a whore too.

Lull. So this is what I'm killed her. Yeah, well, exactly. So he definitely killed her. But I read that also like him saying like, I hope yours doesn't a whore too like it still i'm getting that that feeling of he's this motherfucker's playing on swapping yeah yeah 100% that's where this is going he's going to try to swap with him uh he talked about everyone from his world got super violent and it's getting better now uh it did not he is still super violent yeah well yeah definitely it is uh yeah well this can only go in good directions i'm sure

so i will say you've uh with the red pill angle you have piqued my interest oh that makes you like the story no no no not not like you, but I'm like, okay, I didn't know we were going to be dropping some fucking whores here, dude. Yeah, yeah, just like the hard, hard W. Have we, have we had a mig towel story yet? Uh, I mean, we've made jokes. We've made jokes about characters in there. I don't think it's literally an in cell horror story. I think it's just like everyone's hyper violent in the world. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying it was just, yeah. I mean, have we? Maybe. I don't know. I feel like we have. I feel, I feel I feel a hundred percent like we have. Like there's been a story. I barely fucking remember any of the

guys. I know because you hate any time that you spend with me and you can't stand my company or presence. I understand. And you're just my friend for the show. You've made that clear several times off camera that you want nothing to do with me aside from this. Thank you.

Hold on. Let me look at my page. Maybe we. I mean, there's David King. Yeah, I mean, I guess David King is probably pretty red pill-coded, whatever. It's whatever. Yeah. Let's keep going.

I'm getting, I'm hooked in. You're waking up a little bit, getting a little. I'm waking it in my bones. Yep. Skip. Enough to make my system blow. We'd like to take a minute to thank our sponsor for this video, Rocket Money. You can spend so much time trying to cancel subscriptions.

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So smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your overall confidence from head to toe when you use Mando. Don't forget to let them know we sent you, and thank you so much to Mando for sponsoring the show. We are now back to the episode. I was done. I didn't know what this was, but I knew it had to be real, and it was feeling more and more like it was dangerous. Throwing the letter down, I started looking around the room. I saw the small mirror. I had hanging on the back of my closet

and I yanked it down quickly hearing it crack as it hit the floor. I tried to think of any others and the only ones that came to mind were in the bathroom and the one Christine had hung over a mantel in the living room. Christine! I looked at my phone

and saw it was almost seven. She was going to be back in town this morning, probably coming straight here. I tried calling her, but it went straight to voicemail like it was powered off. I didn't... Uh-oh.

I didn't have her parents' number, so I had to resort to leaving her voicemail and text message. telling her not to come to my apartment, that I would meet her at hers when she got back. I debated what to do until she arrived, but ultimately decided I couldn't stand being in the apartment myself, so I left a note on the door saying, Christine, don't go in the apartment, call me instead, I'll explain to meet you, and left the building.

For the next few hours, I basically drove a circuit between our two apartments, occasionally parking outside one place or the other. I was sitting outside her place when I got a call from her phone. It was her mother. She said Christine had knocked her phone to the toilet, getting ready to for bed last night and they had put it in a bowl of her eyes to dry out christine left to come back home a few hours ago she must have forgotten it i felt my mouth go dry her mother was asking what she should do to get christine the phone but i told her i'd have to call her back and hung up based on when she left she should have been back at least an hour at that point i knew she wasn't at her apartment so i sped back over to mine saw her car parked down the street from the place my head started pounding running up the

stairs, I reached my door and saw the note I had left was gone. And its place was a blue sheet of nice stationary bearing a drawing of a red ink cart and the words, come on in my handwriting. Oh no. I started yelling her name as I fumbled the door open, but as I entered, I could tell she wasn't there. The apartment felt empty and lifeless. I ran to the bedroom, stumbling to a stop at the doorway. My mind had difficulty making sense of what it was seen at first. On the wall next to my desk, there were strips of paper plastered to the wall and making the outline of a small door about three feet tall. The strips seemed to be some combination of blue and cream paper, speckled here and there with spots of crimson and soggy near the baseboard, where there were

partially bloody handprints on both sides as though someone had been trying to hold on. Oh, God. Being getting pulled through the hole in the wall or where the door would be. Yeah. Leading away from the paper door, the floor was covered with more blood, and as I look closer, I could see several thick runnels in the wood that I thought at first were scrapes or cuts of some kind by something heavy being drug. But then I saw

one of Christine's bloody fingernails tore off at the nail bed and ragged, jutting out of one of the grooves she had raked into the floor in her fight to get away. God damn. Good Lord. That's rough. Take what this is just, this hit the gas. Good God.

I collapsed to the floor and began crying. After a few minutes, I pulled myself together enough to look around the room for any other clues or some means of helping her. That's when I saw the blue envelope on the desk. You were right. She's a hot one. Better than mine even.

But I can tell us she has those same slutting ways. Oh my gosh. What I tell you? I said in-sill horror film. Oh, you were right. Oh, you were right. Oh, bear trap. Oh.

You were right. She's a hot one. Better than mine even. But I can tell she has those same sludding ways. It's in the eyes. But don't you worry. She'll find less tolerance for that over here, and I'll be sure to keep her corrected. Don't bother trying to come across either, bud. I figured out how to do it, but I'm going to have to keep it close to my vest. I have to apologize for not being completely honest before. Things are worse here than I let on. Maybe this Christine can

keep me happy and satisfied with my life. But who's to say? Like I told you, some people are really losing it over here. Might be I have to come visiting again sometime, more permanently. Tell then, glory and peace. Or as you

would say, sincerely, Scott. Oh, no. Every implication is horrible. The implications are heavy. It's pretty rough, dude. Ugh, that's uncomfy. As I'm finishing writing this, I dread going back into that room. I know I have no way of getting her back,

and I know I can have her blood being found in my apartment. Even without hard evidence, there will be questions when she's reported missing. But all of that is in the background at the moment. I can't shake the feeling of being watched. I look around and see no one. Then I notice the dingy brass door of the elevator across the hall from where I'm sitting. The reflection there is dark and distorted.

but I can still see myself in it, or at least a version of myself. It looks like me, but I can tell that it isn't because that version of me is laughing. That is the end of part one. That is, I will say,

ramped up. That is, we're, it's a little bit of rough pumpkins, I'll be honest. We're, you know, getting a little in there.

I will say, I think it's interesting the idea of parallel, um, parallel worlds. You know what kind of reminds me of is that, uh, VHS short,

where the guy opens that portal between worlds. I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. And it goes over there and it's like a weird demon worshipping. Yeah. And like the, they're like genitalia or like monsters or whatever. Yeah.

You know, I still like this idea of contacting your parallel live self and he's able to interact in your world. It's just it's going to set up a lot of kooky moments. But this idea too immediately that his girlfriend got dragged off like that. I mean, we don't know for a fact, but we have to assume she's probably probably dead, right? Or no?

No, he's still got her. That's why he said, like, we'll see if this one can keep me satisfied. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're going into a little oopsie daisy territory. Yeah. That's such a funny way to describe what's happening to her. Yeah.

Oopsie. No, no, no. No, no, my read on it was an oopsie daisy. I thought she was dead. Oh, oh, no, no. That's not. I mean, she may wish she was dead, but that's not. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying.

I picked a big bouquet of oopsie daisies. This is what I did. And I'm sorry about that. I see, I see what you're saying. Let's just keep it rolling, though, into part two here. Part two. Oh, boy. Scott, I know you're a good guy at heart.

I know that because, well, you're me. And despite my flaws, I like to think I'm a good guy too. I understand that your world's different than mine. And that has to have affected you a lot. Who's to say what you would be doing, who you would be as a person. if you had grown up like I did. My point is, I don't blame you for anything. I just need you to listen to me.

I spent a lot of time with my dad growing up. I don't know if that was true for you or what your version of dad was even like, but mine was great. He was always there for me, and not just out of some sense of perennial duty, but because he really loved me and wanted me to succeed in life.

One thing we did a lot was go hunting. Sometimes for wild pig or rabbit, but mostly deer. I remember the first time I killed a deer. It wasn't a clean shot We had to track it over a mile Before finding it dead in some underbrush At the edge of an empty field Father took out his knife

To show me how to field dress it But before he handed it to me He stopped Put his hand on my shoulder We never kill things or hurt things Unless it's necessary for your survival Or some greater good The deer is clean

Healthy meat that will feed us And your mom for several weeks Us being willing Are able to kill this deer Doesn't make its life unimportant It just means that we have value ourselves above others while still trying to live a good and virtuous life.

You understand? I said that I did and I was being honest at the time but of course that was the understanding of a child. The world has taught me to more fully appreciate the importance of his words now. How do we also not know that this isn't bad Scott or evil Scott? Because it's in the italics

from what the story said so far. Yeah, but he could just change it over though. You know what I mean? Like... I mean, he could but I'm assuming they're not breaking that rule yet at least. Okay. this sounds to me like our scott is desperate and because he can't get to the other world yeah yeah yeah he's trying to get christine back

and he doesn't know how else to do it other than plead he's begging here yeah he's on his knees begging for sure yeah my father would also tell me stories about his own childhood my father my favorites were always about the dog he had growing up named wrecks hunting dogs is that remind you of anything Connor that tell you of anything I close my only for a moment and the moment's gone

my dog is dust in the wind my little popper is still dust in the wind every time I opened up the subreddit it's still just post of like wheelchairs with machine guns mounted to yeah dude yeah you big lips son of a bitch you're ruining my life welcome.

You couldn't get out if you wanted to. You know, but you're sounding very much like a evil Scott right now. Yeah, well, look, you're my Christine. Hopefully you can satisfy me on this life. Jesus.

Come on, man. You're the one who said you wear the leather dress. You're the one who said to wear the leather dress. I can't, I close my house. Only for a moment. gone

my asshole is dust in the wind how's that pleather feel Christine you feel good daddy yeah I know we're cutting all that uncle uncle uncle uncle we're cut we're cutting all that

my father would also tell me stories about his own childhood my favorites were always about the dog he had growing up named Rex dad had gotten him when he was eight and he loved that dog more than anything think. They really were best friends, I think. They would play together, explore the forest around the farm where my dad grew up, and were generally inseparable as much as life allowed. When dad got

old enough to drive, Rex would ride everywhere with him. He was big for a dog, apparently, so he could easily sit in the seats and stick his head out of the window to catch him else as they drove to town or out to go camping. My version of our father never went to college, but he was a smart man and a hard worker. He opened up a little hardware store at 19, and within a couple of years, he had bought a house and was saving up ring money for that girl that is our mother. One night, as he was closing up shop, he heard Rex start growling. He turned to see where the dog was and found him at the back door. Hackles raised and teeth bared. At first, my father thought it was a raccoon, or another dog, maybe. Grab Rex by the collar and open the door to look out. It was dark and he couldn't see much,

but suddenly he was knocked down and being attacked. He would never say by what, although I've always suspected that was more to keep from scaring me too much than because he didn't know. Rex broke free of his grasp and charged the thing, whatever it was. He snapped, snarled, bit, clawed, and after a moment, my father was free of it. He was preoccupied by Rex, who was fighting it for everything he was worth. He was an older dog now, but no one was going to mess with our dad.

Rex drove the thing off into the woods, but he was hurt badly. too badly to make it in fact the father held him crying as he died the first time dad told me that story I was 15 I was horrified I've been hearing stories about Rex for years

I loved Rex but like I knew him even though he died before I was born truth be told Rex wouldn't have lived that much longer anyway but still it was so sad said there crying my eyes out and I remember my father started crying too as one of those few times I ever saw him cry reached over and hugged me

before explaining why he was telling me this story in the first place. Scott, this world is a hard place and it's going to get harder. Rex and me, we loved each other with everything we had. And he sacrificed himself to save me.

That's the lesson. If you're going to live a life worth living, you can't be afraid to make sacrifices. Whether it's something that's important to you or someone else, sometimes the cost has to be paid and you have to be willing to pay it. Being too afraid or too weak to do what needs to be done is greater sin than trying and failing

or making the wrong choice. Always remember that. And I have, Scott. I've tried to make the best decisions of my life. And all things considered, things have turned out well for me. For instance, I remember the first time I saw our Christine. I felt such a strong surge of excitement and anticipation that I didn't even know what to say to her. Later, when we made...

Oh, he's going into, okay. When we made love for the first time, I remember she cried. Okay. What, what, what the hell are we doing here? She cried. Bro, you got to get out. Yeah, honestly, same. Same.

That's me too. That's me too, man. I feel you. That's, that's just what's like 58 minutes of me crying, you know, talking about, you know, how I'm sorry, how I'm scared and stuff like that. That's typically how it goes. Yeah.

She cried. If I'm honest, I cried a little too. What? Oh, oh, you're right. Bear trap. Oh my gosh. Fucking, fucking bear trap. How do I do it?

How do I fucking do it? You know what? You know what? This one time, that was a bear and you caught it in your trap. That was. I just don't even. That was a, did you look ahead? No, I did you like scroll to the end?

No, I swear. That was a hell merry pass. That was. fucking fade away three-pointer buzzer beater dude that's what that was that that was actually ridiculous that was actually that that

okay good job wow okay so I was like why she cried why would you even mention that I cried a little too and then the next sentence and I think I was too hard on her initially Scott I thought she

was a whore like the old Christine God this I think living in this This story is brutal, by the way. This is rough. This is rough. But yeah, you're right. The entire time it's been bad Scott. It's been evil Scott writing this.

Man. I'm honestly so upset that you were right that I, it's hard for me to continue. But you were that right about something that about something I set you down and was like, no, no, Hunter. That's not what's happened. Well, I was just sitting there and I was like at what point, even like right now when he's writing notes and stuff, we've established that the guy can. change it evil scott could change it right so i was like well what's the difference between that

and him typing i i just figured at some point it would happen but i but part two i was kind of the same boat as you though where i was like maybe it's too early but that's a that's a great twist because it's great because it reads like it's him pleading but really it's like that's what sounded like it's an earnest way of yeah it's an earnest way to be like i only take life that mean that i need to yeah like him yeah yeah i think i was too hard on her initially scott I thought she was a whore like the old Christine, but I think living in a softer, kinder world kept her from developing some of those rough edges

that I was trying to wear her down on the old Christine. She still got a slut look about, oh my gosh. This is a rough. Good fucking Lord. I need to call my wife and tell her I love her. Still got to look about her face at times. So she bears watching. But I do think she can be rehabilitated if you are firm with her.

Okay. All right. You know what? You've had a couple. You've had some dubs here between the, the red pill. I told you. I'm like it's a red pillor fucking, I'm telling you. That's become more true as the stories go on.

Wow. Oh, dude. Okay. I want to apologize. Go ahead. Well, I want the fucking evil Scott. I want, I want our regular Scott to man the fuck up at Dr. Strange a doorway and get this motherfucker.

That's what I want. Come on, Scott. That'd be so funny if like he's about to kill, if like bad Scott's about to kill Christine. and he's like any last words and then a Doctor Strange portal appears and like our shot was I would have apologized to you too Scott Scott and I came back and took you

by surprise and you what okay okay okay okay okay took you took you was in kidnapped that's what because if you go to the end of the He means kidnapped.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. That's what it means. I was about to be like, God. I was good. I was going to be like, people are going to fucking are going to be pissed that we're reading this. They're going to lose their mind.

Oh my God damn, dude. Tommy Taffy. Tommy Taffy, you can, you pretend there's a wrestling match happening, but I tell you what. Evil Scott's not being so generous by going to the next room. That motherfucker is coming in. Tommy Taffy had the decency of shutting the door.

Good God. Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out. Oh, we haven't talked about it on the podcast yet, but yeah, that's being made into a film. Yeah, I, yeah, we, well, I was just, I was going to say we should, whenever it comes out, we should watch it and talk about it for sure. Yeah, 100%. I want to apologize to you, too, Scott. When I came back and kidnapped you by surprised in your bed, well, I'll be honest. I was disappointed.

I expected more of a fight, but you were half asleep, just like our current. Christine, you've had the luxury of a softer life than I've had. I don't think less of you because you couldn't stop me from forcing you through the door. I also want to say I'm sorry because I know from your perspective I may seem like a bad guy. I took your girl and then you from this cushy life and pushed you into a world that, well, from your point of view, might seem a bit like hell. I want you to know I didn't do that out of some ill will towards you or even Christine, but I had to get out of there.

And sacrifices had to be made. and those sacrifices are valued by me Scott it's important that you know that don't worry about trying to get back either I know from the peaks I've managed to get in the last couple of weeks that you were trying and you had figured out that

combined in our two papers was part of it but you won't get the rest and I made sure to not leave any of your letters or envelopes on my side anyway this letter and envelope will be the only paper from your old world you will have trust me it isn't enough

I don't say this to trick or discourage you, but because I don't want you wasting time and energy chasing some impossible goal when you should be focused getting your feet under you and making a new life. I really hope you two crazy kids make a go of it over there. L.O.L. Who's to say? You might be better at that life than I ever was. As for me, I just got back from walking in the park across from your, I mean my apartment. It seemed like I could hear birds singing everywhere and I saw a woman walking a dog. Can you believe it? A real live dog. Fuck this guy. That's cool.

I know this world isn't perfect. I can already see a lot of impurity and corruption. Maybe I can help correct some of that in time. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy my new life. I won't be right in you again, I'm afraid. But I'll think of you often. I'm going this afternoon to buy a puppy. I name it after you, but well, that'd be weird.

L.O.L. Have a good life. Sincerely. end of part two so that was so wait let me let me ask you let me ask you this did he kidnap both his own like his new christine and new scott or basically good scott good christine or however you want to look at it just to make it easier to say uh so that he could cover up his murder in the other world or do you think murder is like not a huge issue in that universe murder's not a huge issue because he said while describing his dad he said something attacked him and my dad never told me what.

And then there at the end, he says, can you believe it? A real live dog. Impline in the other universe, dogs are gone. Like some cataclysmic events happened. So I don't think murder would be that big of a deal. I think it was because both

other Scott and Christine were probably the only two people who would see through his illusion, right? Like if you, if someone wanted to replace you who looked exactly like you, Hunter, they would have to probably replace you and your wife, right? Because your wife could tell. Yeah. I mean,

your scenario, they'd also have to replace Harry and Nick, too. Like all the people, you'd have to like replace your family and stuff. I'm wondering. I'm wondering. But if you faked it enough, I feel like you could, someone could probably trick your parents as an adult once you moved out of the house. That's probably true.

Yeah, I just didn't know. I didn't know if it was something where it's like, oh, here, to cover my tracks and like this murder I did, here's these things. Well, they just made, yeah, I don't know. It's odd. It's weird to me that he would. It has been dialed in this episode. So maybe that's what's going to happen. Well, I don't, I don't know. all I'm saying is that I thought the whole idea would be he's like yeah my Christine sucked yours is better and he was going to basically basically be like okay I'm going to steal your life and I'm going to like date this new Christine and like this world that's where I thought it was going to so that's why I'm kind of confused of like well why the fuck would he so I mean maybe the moral be offered in obviously but I also didn't know if he's like hey I feel bad for taking you from your world but here you can have your girlfriend with you or this like that way if it was a crime then it's like well at least people won't be looking at

people won't think that you murdered her because she still is here, et cetera, but that would make a problem for him in his actual world. Because now evil Scott has to deal basically with her parents who we've already established are like, hey, she dropped her phone, you know, does she make it over to your house? Okay. All that kind of stuff. So I don't know. Part three. Let's just let's keep going. Part three. I'm enjoying this so far. This is pretty unique. It's a fun take on parallel universe is for sure i like the idea too of uh notes like notes being doorways basically yeah yeah they're like writing back and forth to each other and it's like do you still like the do you still like the mirror idea i feel like i could do without the mirror um i mean it was fine in the first part but i think

we've gone beyond it now i think i think the mirror thing was being used as it set up to get us that payback or to get us the payoff of seeing himself laughing in the mirror but yeah even then i was like that's all it does we could do without it yeah yeah well i even just i understand the idea of like your reflection is like reflecting into another world all that kind of stuff yeah other than that's it's fine or whatever but i do like the idea of creating like almost a how would you say that it's not like it's probably like an incantation or something but like writing on a paper to yourself uh can be summoning like a summoning or a ritual there you go like a ritual you know but you would never even think to do it's like anybody can do it but

who who's going to write a letter to themselves would do that yeah yeah like it's a gateway that's always there for everyone, but just no one's done that, right? Do you think in this, in this universe when people do that, people who have diaries, do you think that they connect in that way? No, because it's not addressed because he made a big deal about the address and everything, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I bet that that may be the deciding factor because otherwise, then yes, anyone with a diary would have, this would have happened to.

The twist of that part was really nice, though. That was great. That was very well done. That honestly, like, elevated the story several levels for me. like the turnabout if you hadn't predicted it I would be much more excited about it I have to be upset

yeah I mean I don't know it's just for people who don't know when we're rating this in the first part it's just italicized when we're talking about our protagonist normal Scott and then it's bold letters when it's referring to evil Scott but in this one it was basically all italicized

so it immediately reads like a a letter like just a super long plea for hey please open this fucking door and give me back my girlfriend or whatever but that's how I just you know even reading like that that's just the great thing about this like writing format

is even being able to trick the audience in that way you know because that's you know I mean now if you look at the formatting as italicized as our world and bold as their world then it's like of course you would be italicized you know like that kind of vibe yeah I woke to Ash

fluttering down onto my face like sullen snowflakes, covering my skin and a hundred gray kisses of burned down yesterday. A coughed as I set up, pulling in another spasmodic breath as I wiped it my eyes. The ashes had cake there because I had apparently been crying in my unconsciousness. My hands came away black and running as my eyes began to water again. And blinking through the smut and the tears, I could see the flakes falling down on me through a hole in the roof, or rather the ceiling, because Scott's apartment wasn't on the top floor. Yet, looking around, it was Scott's apartment, or a very close approximation of it. I was far more run down and dirty, and some of the decorations were different, but the layout

in the general appearance was similar. My head was still drifting through a fog so thick I could scarcely tell I was even in a fog, but I was starting to remember myself and Scott parts of what had happened. I looked up again and remembered that there should be. be at least three floors above this one, and at the edges of the hole in the ceiling, I could see parts of those ruined rooms hiding in the shadows up there. It seemed that the top part of the building had been destroyed somehow at some point in the past, and through the hole that was left behind, I could see the ashes, and beyond that, the stars. I came back to myself as I remembered Scott attacking me. Well, not Scott, but someone that looked like him. A lot, like some older

crazy twin brother. He had dragged me into Scott's bedroom and I had seen the floor and wall were covered in blood. He took his finger in the blood and traced the outline of a rectangle inside the perimeter of a strange collage of colored paper pasted to the wall. I felt amazement pushed through my tear as I saw a crack appear in the wall where his finger had traced and at his touch swung open as a door. I had known then what was coming next. However insane or impossible all of this was, I fought harder to get away, but he was bigger and stronger. And when he slammed my head against the floor the second time, I couldn't fight the darkness that rose up around me any longer.

I felt the back of my head at the memory and gasped at the pain as my hand found a clotting wound in my sweaty tangle of hair. I started looking around again, and I could see I was in the living room of this place that is like Scott's apartment, but not. My brain had been screaming a thousand things that are wrong since I first woke up,

but I could only process a few at a time. Just as I realized that not Scott was coming back, from the bedroom, my hand found its way up to my throat, and the dog collar there. Oh, oh. Oh, gosh. Hello, Christine. His grin was so like Scots that its familiarity

made it all the more ghastly on this man. I just want to say, I love how he's introduced, like you keep thinking that it's going to be at one thing. So now we're all from the perspective of Christine. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's what this has been. Yeah, yeah. I think that's sick. You don't know who's talking at any given point.

Yeah, and not in a bad way. And like a mis... No, it's great. Yeah. Which is great for a parallel where it's like, I don't know who's real or who's the... Who's who, you know? Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. Hello, Christine. No, no. It uses the medium to play well into itself. I agree. Yeah. His face was thin and his eyes were two bright pieces of glass and sunken pits, glittering with intelligence and ill will.

I can now see that it somehow was Scott, despite the longer hair and the harder, harsher lines on his face. It just wasn't my Scott. I didn't know how it was possible. Once the thought was fixed in my mind, I knew it was true. Hello. Where did you take me? I tried to sound confident, but it was a weak attempt given I was sitting hurt and confused

in a dog collar in some bizarre place with some bizarre version of Scott. His smile widened. That's a fair question. This is my world. I brought you from yours after hearing good things about you from Scott. Well, the other Scott. raised his hands in a placating gesture. Look, I know what you're thinking.

I kidnapped you, knocked you out, and brought you to this place. Hell, I put a collar on you. I guess this all looks really bad, huh? This guy is such a jerk. I know. He's like just an awful man. He crouched down on his haunches next to me.

I brought you here because I miss my old Christine. See, we were together here too. Things didn't work out too well. I'm not saying it wasn't selfish to take you away, but it was with love in my heart. And as for this, he pointed to the dog caller. I just want to make sure you didn't run out if I wasn't awake or paying attention when you came to. My world is pretty different from yours. And it's not safe out there a lot of the time.

I wouldn't want you getting hurt on my account. I stared at him trying to keep any scorn out of my expression. He was clearly insane. and I didn't want to risk setting him off especially when I really didn't know what was going on or what this place was like that was the key I needed as much information as possible

and I needed to see how much latitude I could get before trying to escape so you'll take the collar off now he chuckled and shook his head I can already tell I'm going to like you better signed wistfully he went on no not yet honey it'll take some time for you to acclimate and until you do I'm afraid you'll be your own worst enemy

for now just rest and I'll bring you some food your chain goes far enough for you to reach the bathroom over there but just remember do not flush it during nighttime hours okay that's very important this building is fairly secure but the neighborhood has gone to shit lately lots of home evasions at night and they target buildings where they hear noise or see lights

the blinds keep the light in pretty well but the pipes in this old bitch keep a fuss when you when you flush so just save that for the morning and we should be shiny golden The next few days, I do like how, like, even though it's not the focus of the story, there is some attention given to the alternate world. Like, there's no dogs. There's creatures.

It makes them more compelling, I think. It does. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I feel like that's like, like, there's obviously something odd that happened to where all dogs died or something, but it almost just feels like. I think it just means animals are wiped out. Yeah. It's like just a fucking weird dystopian future or something.

Or parallel, yeah. It reminds me of, uh, the road, uh, yeah, yeah. feels like that world. That's why I was, it almost feels like it's, I don't, I still know if I'm thinking creatures as much as just like,

you know, I mean like fucking homeless gangs or like new barbaric tribes are forming in cityscapes. The next few days were a cycle of sleeping, eating, and trying to figure out the best way to escape and where exactly I would be escaping too.

Last part was primarily facilitated by not Scott. He spent hours each day talking to me, seemingly star for conversation and human contact. He had some kind of job, and depending on something he called occurrence reports, he would be gone working for periods of time most days. But whenever he was there, he was usually talking to me. He would tell me stories about himself sometimes,

but a lot of his time was spent asking me questions. What was my childhood like? What had my life been like before he took me? What kind of things did I like to do, like to eat, etc. It was also strange. He had this aura of discord and violence around, to him so palpable the air fairly vibrated with minutes when he was in the room but he was never rough or even rude to me aside from the obvious of holding me against my will it was made stranger

because parts of him did remind me of my scott the way his face would light up when he was telling a story or the way he would look at me sometimes when he didn't know i was looking it somehow made it all worse instead of better seeing those glimpses is something i love for being choked to death by whatever sickness had taken rude to him i tried to find out more about the world I was in from him, and he told me some, but not much. He said that years ago, before he was born, things had started changing. A lot of animals had started dying off for no discernible reason, and all at once. This had led to the partial collapse of a number of ecosystems around the world,

which led to disease and famine and death. According to Not Scott, things stabilized some eventually, but they were never really right again. Strange things would happen. People would disappear, go on murder sprees. Lots of dolphins started killing off large portions of the shark and the whale population in the Pacific. Then in 1998, over 200,000 people across the globe committed suicide within 10 minutes of each other for no apparent reason. People called it the awakening now, because that was when the world governments and media began admitting that there was an ongoing major problem that they didn't know how to stop it.

Not Scott told me with a laugh that it wasn't like the world was ending, but sometimes it sure felt like it. after the awakening a lot of fanatics started popping up religious zealots doomsay preppers militant groups itching for a fight he said those groups caused disorder and could be dangerous to be around but mostly they were just scared people looking for an answer for the most part civilization was still chugging along governments existed people went to work as time went on strange became the new normal then people started going insane Not the normal's scared I'm going to wear a bulletproof vest to the grocery store insane but more the I'm going to eat the bus driver's face insane

He said that actually happened to him when he was riding the metro one day People turning crazy didn't happen a lot at first But in the last five years it was building There were more random acts of extreme violence A teacher chopping up her third grade class A little boy stabbing out his father's eyes while he slept But there were more subtle versions of it too people would develop strange obsessions or fetishes.

They'd become paranoid or have wild mood swings for no apparent reason. Not Scott said that most days at work, there would be at least one or two people crying or laughing uncontrollably at random times throughout the day. I think he's got a snap to it sometime, right? Well, he killed Christine, so I'd imagine he already has. Well, I meant to our new Christine. He's got, I mean, there's got to be something that is going to, I don't know.

I'm just wondering, yeah, what kind of statistic thing? Well, because I'm wondering if he's going to lie and be like, you know, oh, she tried freaking out on me and she was did this or that. Or, yeah, she's just like, oh, she was having sex with the other guy and I killed her. That's what I'm thinking. Or he thought she was doing that. He thought that she was sleeping with another guy, yeah. He had tears in his eyes when he told me that last,

and I felt my heartbreaking a little at what he said next. I know it's happening to me. It's happened to me already. I've done terrible things Not just what I've done to you And to your Scott and I've done much Worse than that I used to not be like this

I reached forward and took his hand I can't imagine what you've been through And I'm not saying you can fix everything But you can make it better Let me go back You come you come too If this world is what is making you do these bad things Maybe you'll be better away from it

Now Scott pulled his hand away His face heartening I should have expected this kind of cozening from you. You're not as different as I'd hoped. Standing up, he wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands, and as he stared off, his expression hurt and almost embarrassed. You aren't leaving, and there's no real hope for me either beyond embracing this world as is.

Letting it reshape me so I can survive it. He looked back down at me. You must get to accepting your reality, too. It's a hard world, and it's going to get harder. After that, he talked to me a lot less, though some nights he would sit with me for a while, saying very little, but seeming to not want to be alone. Other nights he would seem different. The dark look on his face more kin to when I first saw him upon waking.

Those nights, I just tried to stay inconspicuous and small. He didn't tell me much more about the world outside. Other than that, there were worse problems now than just people going crazy. I could hear signs of the chaos outside. Gunshots, screaming, the orange glow of distant fires, a regular part of life. I asked about what had happened to the building, and he set a television helicopter.

crashed into it a couple of years back, taking out most of the top three floors. It only put the small hole in not Scott's ceiling and caused minimal structural damage to the rest of the building, so he had stayed. He grinned and said he negotiated the rent down and decided to look at it like a skylight, and the days moved on. I need to stress again that after he got me here, he never hurt me. He was generally kind, in fact. He didn't threat me, didn't try to force himself on me or even come on to me sexually. And the things were. we talked about, they seemed harmless. Combined that was the fact that in a lot of ways,

not Scott was Scott, and it made it easier to be taken in. Looking back on it now, I see that peppered into our conversations were questions that would prompt me to talk about my Scott, to talk about my world. To told him stories of my parents or my ninth birthday or my college major,

I was giving him information and insight into a place he was desperate to learn more about. He was smart about it, subtle. But over time, I was handing him everything he wanted. I let myself forget I wasn't dealing with my squad, but just afflicted with some strange mental illness. I was dealing with a stranger.

I remembered that fact when he brought her in, screaming and crying, snobowing from her nose as he tracked her by the arm across the living room and into the bedroom. He tried to shut the door back when they entered, but in her flailing she kicked it and swung back open as he brought the knife down across her stomach. His blood welled out of the wound, she raised her head, and her eyes met mine. She couldn't have been more than eight years old.

God damn. Rough. Oh my gosh. Nod Scott followed her gaze and saw the door was open. He looked at me, his face pale and stricken. I'm sorry you saw this, Christine. I'm just doing what's necessary to survive. Tom, I left the key to your collar in my closet. With that, he slain the door shut.

Muffled the girl's last gurgling scream, but not nearly enough. I screamed at the door, begging him to stop, but I knew it was no use. It was more just to make myself feel better and to vent my frustration. For the hundredth time, I strained to my collar and tugged in my chain, but he had secured both well. I finally gave up, my throat hoarse and my body exhausted. Even amidst my struggling and thrashing about, I had noticed that the bedroom had fallen silent. As I lay there panting, I strained to hear any sound. There was nothing for several minutes, and a series of small scuffling noises followed by the sound of something being

truck and silence again i debated yelling but i knew it was too late for the girl so i stayed quiet and the door suddenly burst open i let out of scream scott was standing there his face and clothes smeared with blood he was squinting and seemed unsteady on his feet but when he saw me his eyes widened christine well end of part three so that is so that was leading up to the moment where not scott pulled scott through the portal yeah now they've switched places yeah and he had to kill that eight-year-old girl because he needs blood to make the portal it sounds yeah he yeah he had to like cut her he didn't an excessive amount of blood i'm guessing to like actually paint the doorway to paint a door open yeah yeah this door i'm i'm enjoying it i'm enjoying it it is rough

admittedly but i'm enjoying it's much much more graphic than i wrote myself a letter you know i did not expect this to be uh i wrote yourself a ledger and i got your response the eight year old had the blood pour yeah exactly exactly yeah i've tracked yeah yeah yeah You're going to wear this dog collar and I'm going to fucking bite my own fingers off. I'm so glad it did not go a sexual route because that's 100% what I was expecting when he put her in a collar and he's talking about weird fetishes. It didn't do that. So you know what? I'm happy.

If the eight year olds got to die, they got to die. But as long as it doesn't become some weird sex thing, whatever. Part four or five. We're moving right along. Part four. Let's go. Okay, so my assumption is going to be, this is back to our Scott when he got pulled through. Yeah, I think it's time to be back with regular Scott, or at least I hope it is.

I woke to hands around my throat, choking off my air as I swam out of the black currents of sleep and opened my eyes to see a face eerily similar to mine staring down at me. The other Scott was straddling me, bearing down hard as I started trying to flail and get free. His arms prevented me from getting a good hit in on his head, so I tried punching him in the sides. He grunted at each impact, but was unmoved. I tried to make eye contact. mouth something to him but he wouldn't meet my eyes

seemed to be avoiding them in fact just stared at his hands around my throat lips skinned back from his teeth in some kind of snarl or grimace below eyes that looked almost sorrowful that somehow scared me even worse I started fighting back harder

trying to buck him off while slamming an elbow into his arm hoping to break his grip but he was too strong and I could already feel myself slipping back into the icier waters of unconsciousness as I faded out I had time to worry if my shoes were still on and to hear him say he was sorry

when I woke next I was faced down on the floor the left side of my head wet with some kind of viscous liquid I wiped at the left eye and then opened them both experimentally I was in aversion of my bedroom but I could tell it wasn't mine

I looked around slowly my throat aching with every breath as I set up room was empty and the door was shut and I had to fight the urge to rush out and search for Christine. I needed to be smart. Take my time and take everything in. With revulsion, I noticed my hand was wet with blood

from where I had wiped my head. My entire side was soaked in it, in fact, as was the floor. Filled a lurch of fear of my stomach, he had killed Christine before he came back across to get me, but I tried to hold it at bay as I studied the rest of the room. Nothing that note worthy other than that he had five mirrors hanging in different spots in the room,

all of which were dark. I looked at the corner of the ceiling above the bed and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw no mirror there. To the wall, I saw that he had stripped away the paper he used to make the doorway on this side. I guessed he had replicated it on the other side so it would stay open while I destroyed this side, but aside from the paper, I still had no real idea how it was done.

Given the fresh blood, it seemed likely that was part of it. Again, I had a thrill of fear for Christine. This time I couldn't resist it. Standing up stiffly, I went to the door and yanked it open. The woman screamed, and as I looked across a dimly lit living room, I saw it was Christine. She looked terrified, and she was chained to the wall by some kind of collar, but she was alive. Christine? She blinked, her mouth slowly closing as she took me in.

After a moment, she started to stand, her face shifting between fear and hopefulness. Scott, is that really you? I wanted to run to her, but I could tell she was freaked out, so I approached slowly. it's me baby he hurt you are you okay her face frumpled as she ran to me almost knocking me over with the force of her embrace thank god oh god oh god oh god i stayed quiet and hugged her back after a minute she pulled back her expression serious and more composed is he gone i nodded i think so he jumped me when i was asleep and drug me here i was unconscious but i didn't see any sign of him when i woke up he didn't

come back out of the room did he she shook her head then he must be over on our world. The fucker wanted to take my life and now he has. I caught myself and smiled sadly at her. It'll be okay. We'll figure things out. I reached out to stroke her hair, but she pulled back. I'm sorry, Scott. I'm so happy to see you, but he looks so much like you and I've been stuck here for two weeks with him. It's going to take me a bit to readjust. That's all.

Took a couple of steps back. Her hands holding her elbows as he smiled apologetically at me. But I'm okay. I'll be okay. What about you? Trying to hide the pain and guilt, I felt at her words. I turned away to take in the living room. I'm fine. He choked me out, but I'm okay other than a sore throat.

Glanced back at her. I'm so sorry for this. I know this is all insane and out of our control, but it's still a version of me that's doing it. I wanted to ask about the details of how he may have mistreated her, but I didn't want to make it any harder on her than it already had been. We could talk about it later when she was ready. So instead I added lamely.

I know he's crazy and I hope you know I'm not anything like him. Christine reached out and touched my arm. Hey, I know that. You're not him and I know you're not like him. And honestly, I'm also sorry for him at times. I haven't seen it, but for what I can tell what he's told me about it, this place is really fucked up. Dangerous fucked up.

He said people are going crazy here. And I think that's part of his problem too. She pulled her arm back, her voice trembling slightly. Do you know how to get us back? I shook my head as I turned away again. Shame to look at her any longer. I've been trying to figure it out ever since you were taken. But I don't know yet.

I communicated with him through that stationary my aunt gave me. He did the same thing with something an uncle on his side gave him. That paper, the two combined together, is how he makes the doorways. But no matter what I do, nothing seems to work. At the corner of my eye, I saw Christine's face fall with despair. I pointed into the bedroom, and went on. There's blood in there. a lot of it

and there was blood in my bedroom when you were taken too I was afraid it was yours but it wasn't was it

she hesitated and then shook her head okay that's what I was thinking the blood has to be a part of it then did you see how you did it

again the strange pause and then she gave a quick nod I saw him draw the shape of a door in blood inside the paper outline like you talked about is the paper still there she looked past me

into the bedroom. Did he take it when he left? Finally, I had some good news. He did, but I have more. When I realized I might not figure out how to get a cross on my own,

I started hoping he would come back for me. I took to sleep with my shoes on every night. And I kept the strips of paper. I had saved tucked into the bottoms of them. If we can figure out how to create the doorway, I have the paper to do it. Well, that was smart of him.

That's very smart. That was incredibly well thought out. I wouldn't find to do that. He's like, the dude's probably going to come. The dude's probably going to come at some random time and get me. He's got the upper guy. I'm going to get switched because he threatened that. I need to prepare for it, yeah.

Her expression brightened for the first time, and she grabbed my hand, pulling me into the bedroom. Try it. Maybe it'll work. I took the strips of paper from my shoes, and for the next few minutes, we pasted them carefully in an alternating pattern of cream and blue. As far as I could tell, it was close to exactly how he had them arranged

when he took Christine. Then, dipping a pencil eraser in the thickening blood on the floor, I traced the outline as she directed. I did nothing. After a couple of minutes of waiting, I tried again. No change. Suddenly, Christine pushed past me, her fingers dripping with blood. She frantically traced and retraced the outline over and over, but to no avail.

Screaming, she punched the wall and fell back in a heap on the floor. I realized that her hand wasn't covered in the blood from the floor, but was bleeding itself. What happened? How did your hand get hurt? Started to reach out to her, but her dark look stopped me. I bet it just now. I thought maybe it needed fresher blood or something, other than that fucking eraser wiping it on the wall. I don't know. Not Scott is the only one that did this bullshit.

Not, not Christine. She sighed deeply and seemed to regain control. I'm sorry. I know this isn't your fault, but we need to get out of here. Your bloody hand touched her collar. Fuck. This thing's still on. You said the key is in the closet.

I can't reach it. I swallowed and nodded. Jumping up to check the closet. Inside I found a small assortment of clothes and a couple of pairs of shoes, but the rest of the closet was devoted to books. They were stacked on a shelf at the top, in a neat piles along the closet's walls. Most of them look to be fantasy or science fiction.

Many by authors I had never heard of. A few by authors who had never written those particular books in my world. On top of the closest book stack was a key. After Christine was free, we searched the apartment over for any clues on how to reopen the door. 30 minutes later, we were back in the living room.

Christine staring at the floor forlornly while I tried to figure out something comforting to say. Look, it'll work out. We'll figure it out. but it may take some time her expression didn't change and i went on i need to go out and get us some supplies figuring out if this place is even anything like he said it was maybe it's not half bad he's just a crazy liar i knew the unspoken subtext of what i was saying was that hopefully it would be nice because we might be stuck here but i couldn't quite bear to say it instead the

idea of being marooned in this place just hung between us like some kind of noxious cloud slowly killing the little hope we had left so i was thinking this i realized christine was on her feet you're right let's go and see what this place is even like i thought about protesting asking that she stay at the apartment in case the outside world was dangerous but i could tell she was determined to go and it would be good if there were two of us between us we managed to find a pair of long kitchen knives and a flashlight along with the light jacket with pockets i could store the items in while we traveled and we were off stepping out of the apartment the ill repair of the hallway matched the hole in the ceiling of the apartment. The only thing in sight that looked clean or well-maintained was

the elevator, the brass of which carried a mirror-like sheen. Stopped and looked at the reflection there, but saw nothing. Her questioning look, I explained my encounter in the hallway to Christine. She said, not Scott, she called him, had told her some about mirrors, but not a lot. She asked how I'd been able to see him back in the reflection on the elevator, and I realized I didn't know. By then, we were pushing out of the downstairs outside door. stepped out the first thing that struck me was how quiet the city was still it was still early but in our world there would already be people out of cars and bustling along the narrow lanes of the street that ran in front of the apartment building there'd be sounds of nature mixed in as well even if it was

just the occasional bird song or dog bark here there were a handful of cars driving down the street and people driving them seemed to either be staring straight ahead so their gazes were welded to the road in front of them or constantly looking in every direction it seemed to be seemingly terrified of some surprise attack. It's hard to say which was the better idea. We turned to the left and made our way down to what would be a corner grocery store in our world. Along the way, we passed only a couple of people.

They were both walking determinedly on the far sidewalk. They shot us wary glances, but that was all. My attempt at waving hello to the second person was ignored. At the end of the block, we found that Patterson's grocery store was now Patterson's Package Shop. But when we entered, we found that aside from a large volume of alcohol, the place still sold various food and drinks. Sicking close to each other,

we selected a small variety of items and headed towards the front. Money didn't seem to be an issue for the moment, as not Scott had left a small stack of bills and a debit card with a pin taped to its setting on the kitchen counter. The bills were red and reminded me of monopoly money,

but when I handed the cashier a hundred dollar bill, he took it without complaint and gave me a handful of strange change in return, including another RFK nickel. On the way out, we were almost run over by a, large teenage boy barreling into the store past us as he cleared the threshold he started yelling about how he needed fresh tickets for my mom get them up for her you cozening fucker i propelled christine

out onto the sidewalk but not before i heard the cashier scream back that the boy's mother had been dead for three years we exchanged a look and i debated suggesting we head back to the apartment but christine was already opening a bottle of water and cutting across the street there was starting to be more traffic now but the flow of people was still anemic i made the comment that this was what the world would be like after some plague in a movie where half the people had been wiped out christina shot me a glance her face hard i don't know that's what's far from the truth she pointed ahead to bristow park which was actually called the same thing here as well let's go in there and see if there are any people out our version of bristow park was always bustling with people in the morning on the weekends it would be

families and casual games of football or frisbee but even the weekends day saw a steady stream of joggers, dog walkers, and miscellaneous others. At first, we thought this version of the park was largely empty, but then Christine heard singing. The outer pass of the park followed cultivated hedges and trees, curving and winding along the park perimeter with inlets into the more central areas every hundred yards or so. Even when you start down one of those inner paths, it takes more than a few steps before the large open spaces that at the center of the park are revealed. As we are walking along the outer path, Christine suddenly cut onto one of the inner paths.

murmuring that she heard music. I followed, but at first, I heard nothing. It was only when we were stepping onto the dying grass of the central field that I heard the faint singing or chanting that was coming from the throng of people clustered around the enormous bonfire in the distance. So I'm no expert in this world, right? But I would say don't walk towards that.

No, no, sir. I would say, uh, no thanks. People here aren't saying. They kill others sporadically. And there's a bunch of religious elias. Yeah, come on. chanting at a bonfire in the park. Yeah. It's cool.

Come on, let's go. It's going to be a great time. It's a campfire. Christine was walking towards the group quickly, and after a few more paces, I grabbed her arm and stopped her. She turned to me, her eyes fierce, and her voice low and trembling when she spoke. What are they doing? Do you see that? I'd been more focused on Christine as we had drawn near.

As I looked again, I saw exactly what they were doing. The bonfire was not really a bonfire. It was a 20-foot metal frame in the, shape of an X. The lower half squatter and much thicker than the top. Inside the frame, wood had been carefully inserted throughout instead of blaze. That was all very strange, but I only noted it in a perfunctory way as I watched the man catching fire. The man had been stripped naked and changed at each wrist. The lengthy metal bindings trailing off into the crowd on each side of the burning X. The man was in the middle between the burning effigies' legs. The top of the

white, hot metal only inches from his head. The air around him shimmered with the heat. His skin blackening and peeling off as he was jerked back and forth from one side of the X to the other at the whims of the crowd pulling the chains. We were still 50 yards away, but when a breeze shifted direction, I could smell the pungently sweet smell of his flesh cooking, even as I heard him scream. I was about to start pulling Christine away when I stopped, my skin growing cold. The man wasn't screaming.

He was laughing. man well god damn what a crazy visual it's a guy being also on a giant ex but the crowd gets to pull him from one side of the other the uh christine's been here for two weeks how do we know she's not going to start getting all fucking that's what i had that thought i had that thought my other thought was that uh maybe at some point maybe this isn't his christine this could be other christine and she cannot be dead but i don't trust christine fully yeah i don't know that's that's what I'm because he still has not even seen his own christian in the real world like I don't know there's there's a lot going on yeah there's a bunch of there's a bunch of like unknowns going on yeah this world's insane though like just a few people walking around there's like a public burning in the park no shit I tugged weekly at Christine and she glanced at me her eyes went and wide began it back away slowly and I was terrified at any moment we would be noticed but the crowd was transfixed and even when the man stopped laughing and slump forward kept him aloft and dancing like he kept him aloft and dancing like he was like some kind of a cob tug of war.

We had to our way back to the perimeter of the field. And in my last look before we headed back to the path and out of the park, I saw the cooked meat of the man begin to pull apart as the mob ripped him into. I swear, I could hear the wet gasping of his skin as it ruptured. Greasy crackle, his weaker bones as they flexed and snapped. But it seemed impossible at such a distance. Reel or imagined, I'd stop and vomit on the path. She seemed patting my back and telling me to please hurry.

Ooh, that's a crate. I like that. That's such a brutal description. That's awesome. Fucking gross, yeah. The wet gasping of his skin is it ruptured, the greasy crack of weaker bones. Like the way you'd imagine like a burnt turkey, like when you pull it apart. Yeah, it's like, you know, like the human, yeah, like a popping open and like the water kind of juicing out of it and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. We exited to the park, wasted no time, returned into the apartment. I can feel Christine's terrible. and knew my own matched it, but I felt no closer to an answer than I had before. We didn't talk about what we had seen, but Christine did take my hand and sit silently with me for a while. I could tell we were both starting to slip into shock or some despondent form of madness. We had to do something. Getting up, I started searching the apartment again for anything

we might have missed. That's when I found a cream-colored envelope on the bedroom desk. I opened it and read it and read it again. My heart pounding. I gave it to Christine. She studied it for a long time before looking up at me. She was about to speak, but I couldn't hold it any longer and blurted out. Did he rape you? Well, gosh, Scott. My goddam.

You're telling me. Calm down. Maybe that was not the time to talk about these things. So I imagine the cream colored envelope is the one that we read in part two, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, because it hyperlinks to part two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So they read that entire one. And then he says, I opened it, read it, my heart pounding, gave it to Christine. And he's like, did you do it? Scott's face was worried, hurt and scared. So I imagine this is now Christine. Yeah. Scott's face was worried, hurt and scared at all the same time as he asked.

And I could feel myself loving him and hating him for asking the question. I do like this position switch. And it does play pretty well. I knew he was concerned for my well-being, that he loved me. and I knew that he felt guilty because of who had taken me, but there was still something so selfish in him asking, so childish in him needing to be comforted. If I had been raped, this is a crazy conversation,

or even better, him hoping I could reassure him that whatever brutalities I had endured it, not Scott's hands weren't as bad as all that so he could start pretending this wasn't his fault. Because it was his fault. I saw that now. Not necessarily because it was an alternative version of him, but because he had talked to not Scott

responded to him told him about me I was trying not to be angry with him but I was so hurt and scared and we had to get out of this place okay I think she's starting to slip too I think I think also you can I don't know if it's corrupting I think it can be I think that's

I don't think that that's totally you think she's like a fitting level of mad I will say it is a fitting level of mad after he asked that question well it's like imagine I mean because it is it's a parallel a version of you right but imagine like a stranger you're gassing up your wife to some guy that you've never heard before and then she gets kids it's like she gets kidnapped or whatever to me i'm like i think

that there's also something to about yeah i think that it's a selfish play i don't think that he's like a horrible person or anything but i do i can understand the frustration i guess from where she's coming from yeah yeah i had already been towing with the idea of lying to scott after reading not scott's letter i had no idea why not scott had lied about raping me did he say that in the letter was there a line about that I don't remember him saying anything at that I just remember the crying line remember the crying that suggested it

oh was there a line about that yeah Christine I just want to say I'm sorry yeah I mean I assume there is if she's saying if they're talking about that now yeah I'd already been touring the idea of Linus Scott after reading Not Scott's letter I had no idea why not Scott had lied about it

whether it uh it was due to his insanity natural cruelty or just to make scott hate him more didn't matter if it could drive scott's guilt and his anger long enough to force him to do what had to be done it was a blessing oh my gosh and if scott's sad face of worried toe made it easier to tell the lie so be it i could ask for forgiveness when we weren't in hell anymore so he didn't do it he lied about no he didn't he didn't yeah he lied about it but she's about a lie too. Yeah. Okay. So maybe she is fucking crazy. Yeah. Because that's, that's insane, right?

That's, because she's saying like, if it motivates him to get us out of here. Like, Jesus. Dang. Yeah. So, so we were right. We were right about that. Okay. So she says here, she says, yes, he did. He started the second day and it got worse as the days went on. More

extreme. Wow. Whoa. I was going to try and fake tears, but I found there is no need. After everything, after what we had just witnessed, tears were going to come easily for some time. Okay, that's, okay, this is fucked.

That's, that's insane. That is insane to be like, I know what will motivate him. I mean, he also shouldn't have asked it, but that doesn't justify, whatever. I saw Scott's face darken as his fist bald at his size. That's the response I was hoping for. I waited a moment for him to stew,

and then I went on. Then I lied before. I do know a bit more about how to make the door work Not Scott killed a little girl Used her blood to open the door Some of that was guesswork on my part But I had seen enough to make an educated guess Scott's eyes wide in some

But he still looked hard and determined Then that's what we'll do I'll find someone and take blood from them I winced and he stopped What is it? What's wrong? I looked to my lips Ask for forgiveness when you aren't in hell. Or Scott, I mean, not Scott told me that it had to be from a child and the blood only

worked as they were dying. I didn't want to tell you because it's so horrible. I don't think there's any other way to get us, but I don't think there's any way to get us home. Okay, yeah, she's told, she's slipping. Listen, I think my girl Christine's kind of, I think she's slipping mentally a bit. Well, I don't know because she's saying, ask for forgiveness when you are to know because he's like, she's thinking like we have to mimic exactly what not scott did yeah i understand the rationalization but it's an interesting way to start showing the the uh the deconstruction the mind yeah like the mind evolving basically who this too was a lie of course as not scott had never told me any such thing but it made sense leftover blood of the girl hadn't worked and neither had my own fresh blood

so we needed to replicate what not scott had done as closely as possible as soon as possible I didn't We didn't have time for Scott to moralize Try to think up humane alternatives Let the edge His emotions were given him now Grow dull with time and equivocation No we

We have to get out of here I have to make this right And get you out of here If I have to do something horrible to do that That'll be on me His eyes were glimmering But his voice didn't falter We'll go find someone right now

So we can get done with it I reached out and squeezed his hand I'll help. Man, end of part four, end of part five. So see, okay, so we're starting to get the idea of, at least from how I write it. I think me and you are on the same page as Christine is kind of, I think that the world is starting to affect her in whatever way. But even in some kind of way, there's desperation happening with Scott, where I'm, it's bordering on, it's bordering to me. on desperation, but it also is hints of

like, is he slowly kind of getting there, too? Yeah, I can't tell if it's like the world's doing that to them or their desperation's doing it and ergo the world does it to them or what, like, yeah. I'm not sure the specifics, but they're not doing too hot. I would argue.

Man, that's rough. Like, and he said it had to be a little girl. Whew. All right. Well, I'm ready for part five. The final part. Let's get it. Final part. I woke to something licking my face. Reached out of my sleep, fog, and feeling short, soft fur.

I realized that Trixie somehow made it onto the bed. So this is now bad Scott, I'm guessing. Yeah, not Scott. Yeah. Opening my eyes, I saw as I was happy, smushed face as he gave me another lick, clearly proud at having gotten up on the bed somehow. The girl at the pet store had said he was called a pug. And from the moment I saw him, I knew he was the weirdest and cutest thing I'd ever seen.

I'd always been fascinated by dogs growing up. only in part because of dad's stories about wrecks, but I had never seen a dog like this in any of the old pictures. An hour later, I had him home, getting his bed and food ready while he explored the apartment with a manic, bouncy determination. Ruffling his fur, I pondered trying to go back to sleep, but I knew it was a lost cause. In the five days since I wrote my last letter to the other Scott,

I've been having more and more trouble sleeping. A lot of guilt for what I had done to him and Christine. The longer I was out of that place, the more I felt it. Yeah, I was going to say, because I feel like the more he's in this world, the more less insane and less violent he's going to feel. more human he gets. Yeah, yeah. Living in that other world, my old world, I had come to feel like I was trapped inside myself. And I at first started noticing the change of myself a couple of years back. I was worried, but also strangely intrigued. It was like I was standing at the edge of some newly formed cave. And each day I went into it a little deeper and a little more frequently.

Over time, the light from outside didn't penetrate the darkness nearly as well. And I would get lost in the black. I would blindly traverse jagged rocks as unseen. seen things crept around me, and when I finally found my way back out, I would swear it was the time that I would go near the thing, but then I would go back in. That's the funny thing about madness. It makes you feel like you have a choice, like the options you pick are reasonable or justified, and when you look back in horror at what you've done, you feel completely responsible for everything. And I am. I'm not trying to make excuses or pawn off all that I've done on whatever corruption slowly eating that other world. I earn this guilt, this taint.

honestly and through my own works and I'll carry it with me always but that's part of why I love Trixie so much aside from him being sweet and cute and generally awesome he also doesn't know what despicable piece of shit I really am for the thousandth time in the last few days I look at the wall

next to the desk I both fear and hope to see a doorway open there most of the time I'm terrified of going back and if they ever made it through I'm sure that other Scott and Christine would either try to kill me or send me back through at first my response to that was that I would just kill them if they came back.

Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe we can all survive in this world. I can take Trixie and move away somewhere, and in time they can forget that I even exist. I know I'm still crazy, but at least now I can recognize it. I do feel like I'm out of the cave and in the sunlight more every day. And I love this world so much. I figured out how to work Scott's cell phone after an hour or so on the second day I was here.

Most people don't have cell phones where I come from because they're so on reliable. One of the side effects when things started changing for the worst a few years back was that most wireless transmission stopped working with any regularity. It's like sunspots or solar flare, but all of the time. But I did have a cell phone years ago, just not one of these fancy touchscreen things. I poked around in it until I figured out where the other scott worked and then I called in sick. I needed time to get acclimated, but I also needed money, so the following day, I gave a sad trixie a hug and headed in. The job was at a company that made greeting cards, oddly enough. Greeting cards weren't much of a thing anymore where I was from,

but apparently other Scott wrote them for a living. The first couple of days were rough. I could tell by the odd looks I got from some of my coworkers that I wasn't producing the same kind of material they were expecting from Scott, so I went through all of his old work to get a feel for it. Most of it was saccharine, idiotic, but there were some good ideas in there too. Some of them I felt like I could see other scott in, and it made me know him more, see him more as a person rather than just an obstacle. Or maybe that was just my crazy starting to wear off and my guilt starting to kick in. Either way, it didn't stop me from loving going to work. Living in that old world, even when I was deep in the cave, it felt like everyone you met was a high voltage power line,

just humming with dark impulses and brimming with potential for violence. Not everyone was, of course, and I certainly fell into it. that camp myself, but none of that made the constant tension of daily life any easier to bear. Here, people aren't always happier or nice, but they are normal, the way I remember being when I was younger. Yesterday, I just sat at my desk trying to think up a way to say, happy birthday, was an overly off-putting or strange. I marveled at the sounds around me. People gossiping, eating donuts, talking about what they are doing for their vacation in two weeks, or about their daughter's wedding last month. Even the work-related stuff was done in such a mundane and

civil manner that it felt surreal. Much as I enjoy it, though, by the end of that day, I have to get home and be alone. Being around people too long, even normal people that probably won't suddenly start screaming or trying to kill you, it's hard for me. I'm not used to that anymore, and I may never be again. I don't know, but I already have more in this world than I ever thought I'd have again. New movies. I've been spending a lot of time. when I'm at home watching movies. They made movies out of Tolkien's, the Red Book of West March trilogy over here.

They called The Lord of the Rings, which is a dumb name, but the movies are great. It's a great name, Dick. Hey, Hey, watch it. Don't you talk about Tolkien that one? That's fucking Tolkien, man.

My favorite has to be Ghalem. I read they did him with computer graphics, which is amazing, a more advanced than anything I've seen in my world. I even named Trixie after him, albeit indirectly. he looks a little bit like a bug-eyed gallum anyway. He's asleep on my lap as I write this out.

As stupid as this sounds, I think he's part of the reason I'm having so much trouble with what I did. I love the little guy, and it's the first time I've loved something since my Christine, just thinking about her what we did to each other as it got bad. I'll always hate myself for that. The question is, how much sin do I want to add on top?

How much more do I want to hate myself? I decided to write this all out as a way of working through all of these thoughts and feelings. Although, as though I was writing it to other Scott, but with no intention of actually sending it. But I'm coming to realize I should send it to him. Not just this either, but instructions on how to get back or a message on setting up a time when I can open the door on this side

if he's not up to doing it on his. I better wait to send the extra paper until I know what he wants to do. I hope I'm not too late for either of them. And yet, I still hear a voice calling from that deep, dark cave. That voice says I have to look out for myself, but they will kill me or force me back if I help them. I know that I can't trust that voice, but I also can't shake the feeling that it is part of what has kept me alive as my own world turned into some kind of hell. I need to think about this. I don't want to lose this life, but I'm not sure it won't be poisoned if I leave them condemned to that terrible place.

Trixie just woke up and wants to go outside. I think I'm going to take him for a long walk and see about sending a letter. Now we switch back to R. Scott. Abducting a child isn't as easy as you might think. The fucking parallel there. It's so crazy. I think I'm going to take my little pug's trixie on a walk. I'll talk to you guys later.

My little pug gallim on for a walk. Maybe I'll send this letter. Getting a kid isn't as easy. You think it'd be. This is a really fun story. I'm having a great time For sure But this is fun

This is good Especially in this place There are fewer people for one thing And everyone is much more guarded Especially with their children First few days me and Christine went out We only saw a couple of children at all We had a plan of only going out

For two hours at a time in different directions We wanted to make sure that if we saw something Like what happened in the park We could get back to the apartment relatively quickly And this way we were exploring Different potential places every time we went we saw a number of things in those days much of it was relatively mild

people talking to themselves or arguing loudly acting erratic or strangely twitching and emotional we saw a couple of fights one guy ran out into the street and started stabbing a woman who was just quietly making her way along the crosswalk most troubling thing was very brief and I don't think Christine saw it speaking of fights that was you I was with

in New Orleans and we watched a fist fight on the, in Bourbon Street, right? Yeah, we'd, uh, no, we were walking out of that restaurant. It was after the show, it was after the show. And there were the two guys rolling around in the street on Bourbon Street. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep. Yeah, he's like yelling good times. Fucking swing at me. Yeah, they were like tussling back before. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Remember they could also shout out those guys because they're just like, they came out to me. They're like, dude, I love your videos. And then like, I'm not joking.

We went into the restaurant. And then I, like, looked out the window. And yeah, that same guy was the guy like rolling on the ground with another dude. Didn't we go out after the fight and like after he was talking to the cop and he looks over and he's like, can I get a picture with you? I don't. I don't remember all that. All I know is all I know is I was just like, well, God damn, dude. I'm like, these young bucks.

Not anymore. Also, that's just, I'm like, Bourbon Street is just such a, uh, the French quarters. That's just a place. I'm like, it's, it has to be, it has to be its own layer of hell. I mean, it's just nothing but alcohol and everything. I don't think we've ever talked about, uh, me and me getting you stuck there till midnight. On another time.

If it was a, if it was a David King kind of story, I would keep it. I'd love to direct, but I'm, I'm so hyped. All right. Let's, let's finish the story. Let's finish the story. Yeah. We were walking south that day, debating if we should push out further than normal and the hopes we could reach a school that was supposed to be a few blocks away.

There's a big risk. to take a child from a school, particularly when we had to go back all that way on foot with them in tow, but every day we were getting more desperate. And the more time we spent here seeing this place, the more the question of should we do it faded away as the question of how we do it became more and more pressing. As we talked, I happened to glance into an alley we were passing, saw a woman and a child of about 10, hunched over a man who like slumped against a dumpster. At first, I thought they were leaning down checking on him, but then the little boy turned and looked at me with deep-set green eyes,

twinkled with madness. His mouth was covered in blood, bits of flesh, from where they were eating the man. As my mouth fell open, he smiled at me and licked his lips. I try not to lose my stride so it was not to alert Christine,

and the last glimpse I saw was the woman's hand on the boy's shoulder. It may have been my fear or a trick of the shadows, but I swear I saw her hand going into him slowly. Whoa. Oh, I swear I saw her hand going into him slowly as though they were running like as though they were running together like

pink candle wax so it's like they're like morphing yeah into each other that's a lot better than what i thought i told christine we should keep going decided in the back of my mind we should be taking a different route back to the apartment kept looking over my shoulder but to my relief i saw no sign we were being followed was that is that the first uncanny thing is that or like i guess otherworldly thing that we've seen is like people that is the second mention because earlier uh when he was when not Scott was talking about his dad he said my dad was attacked by a thing some presence

he would have come to what it was but this is the first time that we've actually had someone be like we I'm seeing it with my own eyes yes yeah there there's like some supernatural thing yeah because there's there's been hints of stuff but this is the first time we've actually heard someone be like oh this is like bodies morphing together it's like yeah it's like

a supernatural presence has corrupted this world yeah it's just kind of rotten over it's giving it's the parallels with this in the VHS short it's it's the parallels are you know yeah yeah it actually is uh very close i'd be so curious to see if that was at all inspired by this uh what was the story written this was seven years ago seven years ago and i want to say that bHS was more recent right uh you let me see that was a spanish director right he was spanish yeah something like yeah it was um let me see because the show the i remember hearing an

interview with or no James A. Janice talked about it on Deadmate that he said he just used a lot of the satanic imagery because he thought it was cool so it looked creepy. He was like,

no, it's not actually Satanism. I just think it, it's like an evil aesthetic. Yeah, parallel monsters is what they're sure is what the short is. Yeah, I don't know. It's just,

which you know, very similar. There's horror visuals and stuff, but still it was just one of those things I keep coming back to it. Just like the doorway and all that kind of stuff. It is what it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. there's supernatural stuff happening yeah yeah that was the day our luck changed mile down the road we found an elementary school and already let out for the day but the next day we were back bright and early after watching most of the morning we had a plan most of the children came in by school bus who were dropped off by parents but there were a handful that walked there in the morning assuming that was true in the afternoon as well we would just wait for a small child who was walking alone preferably a girl since that's what not Scott had used and that would be that it was terrible and I still hated the idea of doing it but it had to be done I had to try and make all of this

right even though I had to do some wrong to do it do some wrong is a very subtle way to describe butchering a child yeah exactly well I think that's also I think I like that that's part of it that's part of it that they're justifying it yeah exactly I like that here of him just being like had, you know, sometimes you have to, it's like a fucking, he's like acting like a Robin Hood moment, you know, steal from the rich or that kind of vibe. That's it. You got to clock in. A justifiable evil that I have to do. Yeah, yeah. And I told myself that these children had no real future other than a short life filled with pain and fear. I couldn't quite convince myself that killing one of them was a mercy, but it did take the edge off my guilt at least. School let out

and it soon became clear who we were following. While many of the children who were walking had left in pairs or groups, there's one little girl who had headed off on her own immediately, so she couldn't wait to be away from all the laughing and shoving and joking around the rest of the children were doing as they got picked up or struck out on foot. She was overweight, with long black hair that was stringy and unkempt. Clothes were clearly old and dirty in spots. And as she walked, I could see that the soul was starting to separate on the back of one of her red sneakers. This is so sad.

Dude. just oh man oh she looks sad and unloved and I had to fight the urge to tell Christine that this was a mistake but when I looked at her all I saw was the grim almost manic determination

I had been since we had started this days before she was past any mercy or equivocation at this point and how could I blame her and all she had been through so we followed the shot man this is brutal like

man of just a poor a sad girl so we followed the child until she started down a route different than what would lead in the apartment's direction at which point we approached her and told her she needed to come with us she asked why and we gave our pre-plan generic response of a member of your family has been hurt we were told to get you we don't have all the details yet that's so this is so messed up because that's like the classic like child predator thing right yeah yeah 100% every child predator PSA's like if if someone tells you that mommy or daddy got hurt use the

code word like you know like uh it was vague and lame but we hoped it would be enough to at least get her down the road a mile or two before she started asking more questions she seemed to weigh our words considering and i could tell she didn't really believe us for any of a dozen good reasons still to my surprise she just shrugged with a resigned look on her face okay i'll go it occurred to me the children were likely going crazy in this place just like the adults and given what i thought I had seen in the alley. My appreciation for how potentially dangerous this little girl might be was exponentially greater. But as we walked, she didn't try to attack us or even complain. She moved along docilely. After a couple miles, I began wondering what her life must be like that she was

okay with being abducted. Pushed the thought away. Less I thought of her as a person, as a sad little girl, better. The trip back was taking longer than expected, not because of any problems with her, but because we had gotten lost. As Twilight came on, the semi-familiar landmarks became less familiar. And somehow, in my rerouting, we took a wrong turn. We made it to the apartment without incident,

but well after nightfall, and the resolutely stoic little girl had started to murmur about being hungry and eating the bathroom. When we got upstairs, I shared a look with Christina as I told the girl we'd fix her some dinner after we showed her something in the other costume. God damn.

You can't make the girl ham sandwich much before fucking making your door way. Oh man. The paper and knife were already set up in the bedroom so it should go quickly enough. Then the girl asked again about going to the bathroom. I relented her telling her to go on but to make it quick.

She nodded and went with dutiful haste into the hallway bathroom closing the door behind her. Christine was giving me a hard look to which I just shrugged. It's five minutes. I think it's the least we can do. She's just a little girl. Gosh, this is brutal. Her expression softened a little.

Her voice mimicking my hush tone. I love, I like how her expression soft a little. I guess she's just like, all right, fine, but the pinky better be quick. They better, look, that little, that little blood bag in there better hurry up. That little, that little fat fuck better be quick. Sorry, I'm going crazy in this world.

I know. I just want it over with. We have to get back. I nodded and thought about reaching out to comfort her, but now it wasn't the time. We had to stay focused and get past this. Then we could work on helping each other get back to normal. After another minute, the toilet flushed. Oh, yeah, remember, don't flush after dark.

Oh, you dumb son of a bitch. Yep, I totally forgot about that. I totally forgot about that. That came back. That actually came back. Wow. Immediately the pipes began to squeal and rattle with the level of noise that still amazed me after nearly a week of using them. Christine had warned me about them about not using them at...

It's after dark. Christine's eyes were wide with panic. He's set to never flush after dark. I felt fear fluttering in my chest and tried to ignore it. I'm sure it'll be okay. We're the odds-some roving bands patrolling outside right now. Just waiting for a sign of life to break in. Well, that's a fucking way to go, dude.

Seen caught to roving band patrolling outside. Yeah, giant hordes of people sprinting in the building right now. I am legend shit, whatever happened. It's more people for the metal cross. Still, I could feel my heart racing And I was about to hammer on the bathroom door When the girl came out looking confused at our excitement Grabbed her arm and pulled her

You're definitely getting butchered for this Yeah, exactly, you fat little son of a bitch She's like, I did it, no I grabbed her arm Pulled her across into the bedroom She was still quiet, but she was starting to physically resist now Fortunately, Christine was there and grabbed her from behind wrapping her arms around the girl's chest

I've got her. Do it. Hurry! I let go of the girl's arm and looked into Christine's face. She looked 10 years older and like a different person than the woman I knew and loved. Her easy smile and bright, intelligent eyes have been replaced with the grim slash and dull stones that bored into me as she waited for me to grab the knife. I baked it up and had time to think about how heavy it felt. How wrong it felt in my hand. Next moment, there was a crash.

It sounded like it was coming from the front door of the apartment as someone tried to bash their way in. Christine's eyes widened as her grip on the child tightened Do it now, fucker! You fucking do it now! Before they're on top of us! Being careful to avoid the child's face, I move my gaze down to the knife. Taking a deep breath, I shoved it into the girl's stomach.

Oh, goddamn. Come on, not Scott. Or Scott, regular Scott. Even then, she didn't complain other than to make a woof sound. She'd been punched in the gut. Oh! I was starting to cry, but the splintering sound of the front door

finally gave way spurred me on. Put my fingers in the blood pouring from the knife wound, turned to trace the rectangle inside the paper door. Immediately a crack appeared and at my touch the door swung over. Wow, so it fucking worked. It worked. I shuffled away

and told Christine to go through, seeing two men and one woman coming into the living room and looking at me across the distance. I jumped and slammed the bedroom door shut, twisting the lock, but knowing the door would only hold for seconds. Turning back, I saw the last of Christine disappeared through the door and I dove behind her,

scrabbling through and back into my world. The first thing I noticed when I passed through was barking. I looked up to see Christine standing nearby, the knife we had used on the girl in her hand. A standing a few feet away at the doorway to the room was Not Scott. And bizarrely, it looked like he was holding a small pug puppy that was furiously barking at us. Get back, motherfucker!

Christine growled at him. Not Scott was about to say something in response, but then I was getting pulled back through the door. rough hands had me pulling up my clothes and yanking me away from my way home i looked up and saw strange faces with small symbols tattooed between the eyebrows of all three of them they didn't seem angry or even upset as they began to punch and kick me instead they were placidly calm almost bored looking as though what they were doing was just part of their daily routine most likely it was i tried to ball up but i was hurting badly already protecting my stomach only exposed my back more i closed my eyes tight i knew i was going to to die here, beating a death by strangers in a strange world, but one of them started screaming. When I opened my eyes, I saw Knott Scott pulling the knife Christine had been holding out of one of the man's eyes. As the man began to fall, the woman left off kicking me to jump on Not Scott's back with a furious howl. He pushed backwards, slaming her into the wall and jamming the knife

back and into her side. Her howl turned into a yell of pain. As he yanked the knife free, he twisted around to drive it home into her neck with a wet, popping sound that made me wins. I realized that the other man had run out during this, and I was going to say so to Not Scott, but he was busy looking at the tattoo on the woman's face. Fuck. Okay. You have to get out of here.

Get back to the door. I'm going to destroy it. As soon as you go and then try to catch that fucker and his buddies. I was so confused. But I suddenly felt sure I shouldn't be leaving Not Scott here despite everything he had done. Why don't you come back with us? You can pay for your crimes there.

He stared at me for a moment that shook his head. I can't. These aren't regular criminals. They're part of the one big... They're part of one of the big cults that have sprung up in the last few years. Call themselves the house of the claw. If they figure out how to make a door,

there's nothing stopping them and God knows what else from pouring into your world. There was running packs of four or five. So I have to try and get the rest of them now. But thank you for offering. And please take care of my puppy. His name is Trixian. He's a very good boy.

I could see it was crying, but I knew we didn't like it when people commented on us crying so I left it alone I promised Scott if you get them and I almost said survive

but I couldn't make myself say the word you want to come over use one of those scraps and send me a note I'll send you more paper to make a door I left out the unspoken step of him having to kill another child but I saw in his eyes

he was thanking it he shook his head don't worry about that we have to be willing to make sacrifice sacrifices for what matters. I understand that better now. Just go. Have a good life, both of you. And I'm sorry. I nodded and rolled back onto my stomach, crawling as quickly as my pain would allow. As soon as my feet cleared the other side, the door was gone. I looked up to see Christine holding the shaking puppy, who looked at me for a moment before starting back to barking frantically and squirming.

It's been six hours since then. I found and read what the other Scott had written and have included it above. To her credit, Christine was honest after reading his letter. She told me she had lied about him abusing her and told me what she says is the truthful account of her time there with him and with me. I plan to include portions of that in this or earlier postings as well. She left a couple of hours ago to go home and clean up, get some rest. We hugged when we parted at my door, but I can tell everything's different now. Something has broken between us. I'm too fragile or too rigid to bear the weight of all we have seen and said and done. The saddest part is that I'm okay with that. Last month has given me a great deal of insight into what I can to survive. Right now, I'm trying

to make friends with a small puppy named Trixie. He's a cute little guy, but he rolls his eyes at me with mistrust whenever I try to go near him. I'm not the right scot for him. I'm starting to think I'm not the right scott for a lot of things. I've been checking the desk for a sign all night, but there's been nothing. So finally, after taking a second, long shower and giving Trixie some more water, a tumble into bed, and a deep slumber. Start awake, and I can tell it's either early morning or early evening, but I have no idea which. Trixie is what woke me up, barking at something. A roll over and see he's jumping and barking at the desk. On it is a single scrap of blue paper. Leaving out of bed, I wipe

sleep from my eyes and read it. Got them. Fortunately for me, the house is afraid to recruit young. I'll be over shortly. Tell Trixie he's my precious Laughing and feeling stupid I read the note to Trixie He was bouncing excitedly against my leg As though he knew what was coming So then I saw it

The door was opening one last time That's the end If I wrote myself a letter That is the end So I guess you do have to I was okay so what I was expecting to happen Is there's going to be a revelation at the end That like any blood will work

like you could use an animal or something and it's like oh you jump to the kid thing or like but I guess her lying to him turned out to be the correct thing to do because if it wasn't a child because in that final note he says good thing the cult recruits young implying he used the blood of a cult member so like I guess she was right to lie and say that he needed to kill a kid that she knew that I mean I mean I don't know if it was right I think that I listen I think that through what was happening I think both Christine and regular Scott we're being affected by the world, I think, wholeheartedly. And I even think,

a 10-year-old child to death, yes, I would say so. Well, I just mean in terms of, like, being like, is it justifiable what she was saying to get a riled up? No, I don't think so. I think that, like, it's unfortunate. I think that you had to, like, to emotionally have to be in that spot to kill a chubby child, whatever. It's so insane.

It's so crazy. I mean, like, I cannot believe it went through. I don't know. know how you're going to live with yourself after that like it's it's crazy and the idea too i don't how do you feel about that ending of like the door opening again uh i'm not crazy about the ending unless unless you kind of read it as a difference maybe someone else found out how to come through because we don't know that that's not scott coming through you know it could be anything hypothetically so yeah but no one else would remember of the cold or something no one else would know about the writing

aspect. To me, to me, it's like it's an, it's an awesome character growth how much I ended up liking not Scott and everything. Yeah, yeah. So almost sitting there to where regular Scott, obviously him and Christine, they're probably broken up and not going, when you just went through hell and back and you don't know how you're going to live with yourself with some of the stuff you've done, right? But it's almost a thing of like where it's like wanting solace and himself almost. Like he's just like maybe like, you know, him with this dog and the dog still doesn't even really. you know, it understands that's not his real Scott and then like it would have been interesting if it would have ended with him like looking at his desk being like every day I kind of wish that a blue letter would pop up or like because I think by him

coming back it kind of cuts that character growth he had in the story in my opinion. When at the end we're just like you know what yep you have to make personal sacrifices I get what my dad meant now. To me that's important and this is my world. I'm not going to like take I'm not going to jeopardize other people in this world

for the sake of myself, right? But at the end, when he's just like, you know what? They recruit you. And then like everyone doing like, you know, look around in his end and a bit. That kind of song. It feels kind of, it feels like, yeah, freeze frame.

And it's just like both the Scots ended up opening a bakery together called Scott's Bakery. It just felt kind of a bit like, I don't know. But all in all, I will say, I had such a great time with a story. No, I agree. I'm not crazy about that ending, but I did enjoy it. It was fun. It was very brutal at parts, but I think a lot. The, the mention about like the sexual abuse and like killing the child was so brutal. But it was a very dreadful world that depicted. And I think it was interesting. In a parallel world that is like basically hell. Like if you're going to go that route, like go there. explore it in a fun way and make it a fucking roller coaster ride. And trust me, it was.

Like having to be with these characters where you hate, not Scott at the beginning, then you start rooting for them and then the people that you were rooting for, you're kind of like, what are you doing? That character dynamic into bouncing back and forth and the way that the story read where it kept changing perspectives of who was talking to us, the reader, was just really fun. And it was done in an effective way where it was seamless. Like, it didn't feel clunky or anything because there's other stories that do that.

like there's stories that will be like no i don't know like my my wife is peeking at me from around corners or so not that that not that particularly but then it would be like my husband's doing this and it's like a different sequel but it's all from that perspective so to see a story where it's like we don't have any of those other breaks it's like it's the same cohesive story but we're jumping around um per character and time you know it's like almost like fucking memento or pulp fiction It's like that plays with time in a really interesting way. Hopping back and forth and getting all these different characters' perspective. So I just had a great time in.

So going off of my job's watching Women Trapped in a Room, if you remember, that was like a super interconnected story. Yeah. And when we got to the ending with the House of the Claw, I was like, um, this,

the House of the Claw seems like a super specific thing to just mention at the end of a story. Yeah. So I go to his Reddit. page and then sure enough house of a claw is a theme thing from another from a bunch of other stories and then it turns out this dude has a map that I just sent to you Hunter

yeah that is a giant flow chart Jesus fucking Christ yeah this is how all the stories connect to each other okay so I don't want to make assumptions here okay but Verestall might be a schizophrenic guy this is insane

we'll drop a link to the diagram I mean, but this is insane. And you know, here's the thing too. And like, this is impressive. This is very impressive. World building in this way is incredible to have thoughts that interconnect in this way. You could,

you could also completely get rid of the exposition dump of like, yeah, well, apparently it's a cult that does this. You can get rid of that. But it being in there was not as distracting as like going through Narnia at the end of a story. It was a 1% as bad as I think it, affected the ending of the other story.

But then I think the other story was never was never even meant to exist outside of being a collaborative story. Exactly. Whereas this one just kind of this one's more so like an Easter egg thrown in at the end. So readers who are really into Verstahl's work. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. If you know Veristall and you like his work,

it seems like all of his stories connect together in a way where they can be standalone to where if someone had never heard of it before, they would probably not think much of it. But it's just a little other Easter egg. where I'm sure it makes reading his work as a whole a lot more rewarding and how those things play off each other and yeah this is super impressive

looking at this flow chart right now there's a couple that look like pure standalone but most of them connect into each other one way or the other which is pretty wild when are we gonna get the varistall iceberg dude that's what we fucking need for that's what that's what we need from you dude fucking deep dive then we're gonna

then we're gonna come back I'll come back to an episode to be like I didn't like my job's watching a woman trapped in the room because what I didn't realize it's the opening of a third act of the greater universe of yeah I just slip into a seizure and I just like dropped the floor literally the way people talk about Marvel movies right now

yeah yeah like they're like no no no the 14th spinoff show is good because it gives a connection it connects between the fourth and eighth movies it connects and that's what happened to the one character from the first Captain American movie it's like I can't I literally cannot care less man I had such a

great time and i'll be honest like i wrote myself a letter i got a response is it the strongest hook we've had in terms of titles probably not but i will say it did well just uh i really really enjoyed the invent like the creative like the creativity of hopping between characters like the revelation in part two was just so fun like i really enjoyed that man and then even getting like in part three when you're like oh now this is christine it just it kept revealing itself in this fun time and i don't think it overstated it's welcome to with making it like some self-mastatory schlock fest of like we're in this fucking world and people are yeah they stab this woman to death and it was just

enough to just be like well yeah it's a horrible fucking place we get to experience it and get and get and get and get and dip our toes in and be like Jesus I do want to get out of here to where when they come to the conclusion of being like well I guess we're going to kill this little girl kill a child it's something that in their moment as their fucking minds are being twisted. Yeah, they're probably going to justify, but that's one thing, too, in this real world that it's like, you're going to live with that forever, which also makes sense to me where I was like, oh, they're going to break up, obviously. And like, probably be like, the justification for it's interesting as well, because he kept being like, I mean, like, everyone here's insane.

So this little girl's probably insane. So we're probably doing her mercy, like the way, because I don't want to be here. Like, justification was interesting. I wish the ending kind of leaned into that a little bit more of being like, like he, I wanted the end of like he becomes not Scott, which is kind of what it did by wanting him to be like evil in the other world and like not Scott's kind of the protagonist now or whatever. Like whoever's in that world becomes corrupted, you know, I mean, I'm not super furious at the end or anything like that. And the rest of the story was good that I really don't mind it. Yeah. Well, I think, um, I don't even think not Scott was necessarily evil. I mean, here's the thing. Yes, he's a murderer. He's definitely a murderer. I'm not saying he's a good guy.

I'm just saying that he is conscious enough of, he is not insane. I think he knows that he's going, I think the world made him evil. What's what I mean is like, I think that he realizes that he's, his mind is being corrupted and he cannot help the things that he's doing. And an act of desperation did this horrible thing, you know, and all that stuff as well, which I just don't know. It's, it's an interesting, it was just interesting back and forth. And there's really no, there's no character who didn't do something fucking horrible in the story. And regular Scott, I mean, everybody did some fucking horrifying thing to try to get back to the normal world. And the normal world is basically heaven if you've been in that other world.

Yeah, yeah. It's simple. We killed the child. Yeah. It's simple. We kill the child. You want to know how I got these scars. That's Scott.

You know how I got these scars. I stabbed a 10 year old girl. I stabbed a morbidly obese child. she was she was pre type one anyway it's fine she was pre type one and she shit all in this bathroom and it smelled like hell she flushed the toilet after midnight yeah she flushed the toilet midnight because where this is also kind of like gremlin's what an absolutely brutal i love how that i love i love that connectivity of i wonder if he was like writing it and he's just like how do i get the colton here and he's like yeah what if i just say that you can't use the shitter after

this time or also it basically sounds like the fucking blue man groups playing in your apartment building or something it's also really funny that it's like um it's like the little girl's like okay i'll come with you guys and she goes to the bathroom they're like what what why'd you do that idiot and then they stab her to death well they got the uh i like that part too actually whenever uh christine like gives him a look like are you fucking stupid and he's like dude she has to take it's a can she should not take a final shit come on It's just a kid, it's just a kid, which I think is funny because he can justify, he could justify not feeding her. He can justify letting her shit.

And then because of that, he's like, come on, she's a girl. But then he's also like, I'm going to stab you to death. I'm going to fucking stab you to like, come on, Christine. You mean, fuck sakes. She has to take a shit. Come on. Yeah, it's like, hey, be nice to the girl. Yeah, exactly.

Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. And she's like, read, read, read. I'm kidding. Okay, so here we go. So that was the story. It was fucking awesome. Be sure to check out Veristall stuff. You made fake noise.

You made fake noises, you animal. Yeah, I know. I hate myself. I hate myself. The, um, so check out Veristall stuff and also, I mean, like, I don't know. If there's any viewers or listeners here who have done a deep dive into the rest of the stuff. I'm super curious to see comments of like how else the stories interconnect in that way. Uh, because it's, it is fascinating.

And like, I do think that I have. have an appreciation, more of an appreciation for that universe after reading the story. I just really, really like the story. I think even, I like it more than obviously I'm watching a woman, uh, trapped in a room. But I think that's just because also I like Scott as a character more. I think that like just a really, really fun character piece with three, uh, characters going through hell and back. So, um, a lot of fun.

Also, once again, crepecast dot store. Check us out there. Get your merch there. Uh, if you're watching this on YouTube, consider checking us out on Spotify and Apple Podcast. all that shit giving us the ratings. We have to plug it. It just helps us out. So please.

Thank you guys so much for watching the episode. And Isaiah, we'll see them in the next one. We'll see you all in the next one. Be sure to get the merch, get the merch, get the merch way you can, eat me like a bug or any of that other stuff.

And be sure to remember kids. Hunter made fun of a small overweight child that was stabbed to death and made people. Fictitious, fictitious child. Fictitious. No, I don't think that part's important.

Fictitious child, not real. I think history. remember you as it will off the information was he's gone so i can say that he does that off channel too anytime it's me and him alone loves to talk about children especially the big ones um you all can't hear but he's like he started screaming at me with that one that's great bye I'm You know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to. And... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and...

...and... ...and... I'm a little bit. And... I'm... ...that... ...there...

...that... ...the... ...you... ...the... ...the... Thank you. Thank you.