CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 3+ Hours of CHILLING Horror Stories to listen to while slowly realizing that Christmas is coming

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "They Say My Town Is Cursed. But the Truth Is Much Worse" Creepypasta►52:13 "I Record Nature Sounds. I Think I Caught Something That Wasn’t Supposed to Be Heard" Creepypasta►1:24:45 "I Got a Call About My Sister’s Body Being Found. The Problem Is, I Never Had a Sister" Creepypasta►2:06:19 "My Job Is Clearing Satellite Debris Falls. A Beacon Transmits From Underground" Creepypasta►2:39:53 "Our Town Has a Tradition- On Your 18th Birthday, You Get the Box. No One Talks About What’s Inside" CreepypastaCreepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"-    • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep web" ...  ►"Personal Favourites"-    • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher, and...  ►"Written by me"-    • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creepypasta  ►"Long Stories"-    • Long Stories  FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter:   / creeps_mcpasta  ►Instagram:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Twitch:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Facebook:   / creepsmcpasta  CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

I never thought I'd see half the town show up to bury a man nobody actually liked. Ricky Haldon wasn't a monster or anything. He was one of those loud, broad-shouldered firemen who made every story about himself. The kind of guy who'd tell you about a house fire he'd put out in 08 like it was Vietnam. Still, he'd been part of the fabric of this place. And in small towns, even the people you don't love feel like pillars. But the mood at his funeral wasn't grief. It was fear.

There were no tears. Instead, people watched on, whispering, glancing over shoulders at shadows that weren't there. To the side, Mrs. Harlan kept repeating. It's earlier than last time. Two older men stood behind me near the treeline, speaking low as the pastor droned on. It started again. 27 years like clockwork, thought it would get more time. I pretended not to hear.

I grew up listening to this kind of nonsense. Stories about the black cycle, about the curse, about how every 27 years someone would die in a way that didn't belong to the world. To me, it was always just superstition layered over tragedy. Small towns loved patterns, even if they had to invent them. But this time... This time felt different. Because nobody had an explanation for how Rick burned to death inside an empty grain silo. There wasn't an investigation, no state fire marshal, nothing.

All he got was a closed casket funeral and a quick burial before anyone outside town could ask questions. and the silo itself. I drove past it on the way to the service. The whole structure had been reduced to a perfect black circle of ash on the ground, like someone had dropped a giant branding iron on it. Rick had been in the centre. I was left of him anyway. After the service, people lingered in clusters, talking like frightened cattle.

Then the whispering started. It's the vault, the vault's waking up. That's when I knew I wouldn't sleep if I didn't see the sight myself. I waited until sundown, until the sheriff's car was gone and the road was empty, then drove out to what was left of Haldon's silo. The fields were quiet, the air unnaturally still. The ash circle felt wrong. It didn't look charred in the way you'd expect, more like the ground had melted.

I crouched, brushing my fingers across the surface. The concrete was glassy and smooth, fused into a dark, rippled shape. And in the centre, where Rick had died, the scorch marks curved into an oval, wide at the ends, narrow in the middle, jagged around the edges, almost like teeth, a mouth, an open one. I stood slowly, feeling a cold bloom in my chest, like recognition, though I didn't know why. I left before my mind could make sense of what I'd seen. That night, I dreamt till I was underground.

I wasn't buried in dirt, buried in bone, in a coffin made of interlid, locking teeth. And above me, something massive exhaled, something waiting, and hungry. I didn't go to work the next day. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that shape burned into the silo floor, those jagged edges, that impossible symmetry, like a fossil of something that had taken a bite out of the world. So, instead of clocking in at my job at the hardware store, I drove. to the town museum. It was like an overgrown attic, cold, dusty, full of things nobody wanted to throw away or remember. I told the curator, I needed to do some genealogy research. Archives are downstairs, she muttered, barely looking up. If anything bites you, it's not our liability. Nice.

The archive room smelled like yellow and paper and mildew. rows of metal filing cabinets containing stacks of old town ledgers and newspaper reels older than anyone alive in town. I started with obituaries, 1890s, 1910s, 1930s, 1950s. A pattern began to emerge before I even wanted to admit what I saw. Every 27 years, the death count spiked. An old man wiped out in a house fire, a pastor found hanged in his own church rafters, a child drowning in a lake during a drought. Just like the stories. Then I found the 1998 folder.

It contained detailed council minutes, and they were terrifying. There were references to a selection committee and a recipient list. The names were blacked out with heavy inkstrokes, but the phrasing was unmistakable. When entry read, Consent acquired, the vault remained sealed. What vault? What consent? I flipped page after page,

hand sweating, until I found a single note clip to the inside cover. If the list is incomplete, notify the elders, no cycle can begin without unanimous selection. That was the first moment I felt something twist in my gut. Something had gone wrong this year. I pulled an old town survey map, spread it across the table,

and started comparing landmarks mentioned in the minutes. A creek that dried up in the 60s, a road was rerouted in the 40s, an old settlement boundary. Then I found it, a place marked only once in tiny faded letters. Voltmouth It was deep in the woods, far beyond the main trails, so remote it wasn't on modern GPS. A place nobody talked about.

A place meant to be forgotten. And, judging by the council minutes, deliberately avoided. I was stuffing the documents back into the folder when a chart slipped out. A folded piece of thick, brittle paper looked like it hadn't been touched in decades. On it was a family tree of the original settlers of the town with dozens of names and dozens of branches. Most of them were crossed out with red pencil, and when I saw my own last name, my stomach dropped. my family's branch wasn't crossed out it was circled hard several times

deep enough to bring up the fibres of the paper and next to it written in the same red pencil next to seal the mouth the room felt suddenly smaller the air grew colder and the hairs of my arms studded attention sending chills down my spine I stood there staring at that circle, that message, feeling like a hand had reached out of the past and grabbed the back of my neck.

Whatever was happening now, my family hadn't just been a part of it. We were at the centre of it. There were only two elders in town who had lived through the 1971 cycle, and one of them didn't talk anymore. The other was Dolores Kint. She lived on a faded yellow house on Birch Lane, the kind of place that looked like it should have caved in years ago, but by miracle stayed standing. I'd seen her at the grocery store sometimes, pushing an empty cart, mumbling to herself. Some said she had dementia, but I also heard she watched her entire family die through a single October. I figured both could be true.

I knocked on a door, but there was a little. no answer. I was just about to leave when a shadow moved behind the curtains and the locks clicked. One, two, three, four. She opened the door just wide enough for one eye. You're the Moorcroft boy, she said. I didn't correct her. I wasn't sure if she meant my father or me. Her living room smell like dust, medicine, an old, damp carpet. She shuffled around in slippers, muttering, Tea, tea, do I make tea? When I told her I had questions about the past,

she stopped moving. Just stopped. Her back stiffened, and she turned her head in a way that made my saliva taste like despair when I swallowed. What year is it? she asked. Two thousand twenty-five? She sucked in a sharp breath. That soon, she whispered.

She wondered to a recliner and sat down hard, hands trembling. I pulled the chair across from her. Delores, I said quietly, I need to ask about 1971, about your family, about the deaths. She didn't react, until I said the word. Voltmouth. Her eyes snapped to mine, clear as crystal, like the fog lifted all at once.

You shouldn't know that name, she exclaimed. Only the chosen and the choosers know that name. I found documents, I said. Council notes from 1998 mentions of a selection committee. She let out a shaky laugh. No one chooses anymore. She said, that's why it's angry. Then her voice dropped to a rasp.

It doesn't want a person. It wants the choice. That's the pact. I swallowed. What happens if there's no choice? She leaned forward, gripping the edge of her chair with white-knuckled fingers. If the town does not give,

it takes, and it will keep taking until the mouth is full. Her eyes suddenly darted to the window, like she expected something to be peering in. Then her expression changed, went blank, fog rolled back in.

She looked lost. What were we talking about? She murmured. Do I know you? I stood to leave, but before I could make it two steps, her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, hard. Her voice was clear again, sharp, urgent. Say it out loud, a name with intent. It listens.

Then, like a switch flipped, her grip loosened, and she sank back into the recliner, staring at the far wall. A mouth moved silently like she was praying to something that wasn't God. I left a house trembling. As I stepped onto the walkway, the sound of screeching tore down the street, then a horn followed by a sickening metallic crack. About 50 yards away, a car had slammed into a telephone pole. The front end was crumpled like an aluminium can, steam billowed from the engine.

But what shocked me wasn't the crash. It was the open driver's side door, swinging gently. No one was inside. There wasn't a trail leading away. No blood or body from the impact. A shiver crawled up my spine. This wasn't the first death. This was the beginning of something feeding.

The map said it was called Vaultmouth, but the land around it had no name, no roads, just a thinning tree line off Route 19 and a path that felt like it hadn't been walked in decades. I parked where the road turned to gravel and followed the rest on foot, shouldering through brush, slipping down embankments, boots snagging on hidden routes. The air got heavier the deeper I went. Eventually, I found the fence, or what was left of it. Rotting woodpost spaced unevenly around a clearing, warped with crumbling barbed wire, and rusted iron nails, half driven in, half bent outward.

Faded signs dangled by one hinge, words long gone, but symbols still visible, circles, spirals, a mouth full of triangles. Latin etched into the boards, almost burned in. Non-elegamous carnam, carnam elegant nos. We do not choose the flesh. The flesh chooses us. It wasn't just creepy. It felt deliberate, like a warning whispered by dead hands.

I stepped over the boundary. The trees stopped, all life absent. The soil turned out. The centre of the clearing was perfectly flat, ringed with pale stones half sunk into the earth. And in the middle, it was a hole. At first glance, I thought it was a well. But on closer inspection, it was a smooth vertical shaft, wide enough to drop a body into without folding it. The inside was black, no bottom in sight.

and around the rim the stone had been carved in a tight spiral grooves that curved downward like something had dragged claws around the edge a thousand times just clean, dry stone and the faint hum of pressure

like the air was breathing in and out I picked up a pebble, held it for a second then dropped it in nothing No click or bounce, just... Gone, like the earth swallowed it before it hit the bottom.

Near the lip of the shaft, embedded in the ground, was a slab of metal, iron gone orange with age, bolted down with thick rivets, names etched across the surface in uneven, hand-carved rows. Dozens of them. I ran my fingers across the grooves, reading aloud. Many I didn't recognize. Then, near the bottom, one I did. Walter Moorcroft. My father.

The last name on the list. My breath caught in my throat. He'd never mention this place, never said a word, but somehow he was part of it. He knew. I left the clearing as fast as I could without running, like turning my back on that hole too quickly might give it permission to reach for me. The sun was starting to set by the time I got home.

I opened the door to my trailer. And there he was, sitting in my kitchen. No call or warning, just there. His eyes were sunken, shirt still half-buttoned, knees jittering. His voice came out flat and shaking. You shouldn't have gone there. I hadn't seen him in months. We weren't as strange exactly.

We just moved around each other, like planets on a different orbit. He's only ever showed up when something has gone wrong. And something had gone very, very wrong. He looked older than I remembered, drained. His shirt was unbuttoned and crooked, hands shaking, eyes bloodshot with tiredness, like he'd been waiting for something. Sit down, he said. I did, because the tone wasn't optional.

He lowered himself into the chair across from me, elbows on his knees, breathing slow and heavy, like he had to convince his lungs to keep working. I know what you've been looking into, he said. The archives, Dolores Kint, the vault. Hearing him say it out loud felt like ice water poured down my spine. Dad, what is it?

What's in the vault? He looked away, jaw clenching. Then he said the words that would ruin everything I thought I knew about this place. The town isn't cursed. It made a deal. He rubbed his face with both hands. Back in 1890, he said, the founders struck a pack. with whatever lies under the ground.

They call it the mouth. The deep, the listener. It doesn't matter what name you use. He swallowed hard. We promised it a life every 27 years, just one, chosen willingly through the vote. And in return, it left the rest of us alone. Something horrible was happening to the settlers,

something so horrendous, it wasn't even recorded. The deal was the only way to survive. My stomach twisted. You're telling me, this town has been sacrificing people? He didn't flinch. Willingly, yes, always with consent, always someone who accepted it. A quiet death, a clean one.

And the vault stayed sealed. I must have made a face because. he added. You think they wanted to make a deal? That they didn't try a leaving. He shook his head slowly. People did leave. In the early years,

whole families packed up wagons and tried to outrun it. Didn't matter. Wherever they went, something followed. Things would start to happen. Their crops would rot. The ground would go dry.

Children would get sick. And then... He held up one trembling finger. One death, always won. Something final, like the mouth needed to remind them. You can't cheat hunger. You can only feed it. He leaned back, jaw tight.

That's why they settled it in 1890. Not to keep people in, but to keep something from following them out. I shot to my feet in shock. I know what it sounds like, he snapped. I know, but you weren't here for the years when the vote didn't happen, when people doubted, when they resisted. His eyes had gone distant. Those years were hell.

I paced the room, trying to process it all. So what happened this time? I demanded. Why did the firemen die? Why are people disappearing? What changed? My dad leaned back and stared at the ceiling as if the answer was written there. This year, he said quietly.

Nobody could agree. I stopped moving. The council argued for months. Half the elders died off. The younger generation doesn't believe. They think it's all folk tales. He let out a bitter laugh. Turns out, belief doesn't make it.

matter. Responsibility does. Then softly, there was no vote, no selection, no name offered. I felt my mouth go dry. So the fireman was taken, Dad said, but it doesn't count. It wasn't a willing offering. He leaned forward, eyes burning. It has to be chosen. Not just a death. The word sank into me like hooks, because suddenly the pattern made sense. The random vanishings, the crash, the way the air felt charged and wrong.

The pact had been broken, the vault was hungry, and there was no offering to stop it. I sat back down slowly. He watched me, something unreadable in his gaze. Okay, I whispered. So what now? If the sacrifice wasn't made, what does the vault do? For a long moment, he didn't speak.

Then he inhaled sharply, like the next part heard to say. Then, it's up to the collector, I frowned. What does that mean? He didn't let me finish. He looked at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before. Terror, grief, and something like an apology. The collector isn't a person, he said. It's a roll, passed down a bloodline.

Every generation has one. His voice cracked. And if the town won't choose the sacrifice, the collector must. A cold pressure settled behind my ribs. No, I said, Dad, no, you're not saying, he closed his eyes. And then he said it, voice barely above a whisper. The words I didn't want to hear.

It's you. After my father left, I didn't sleep. I sat at the kitchen table, thinking about the name etched into that rusted iron place. Walter Moorcroft, my father, the previous collector, now passed onto me. And I couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd looked at me, like I was something he was sorry for, not something he loved. I knew he hadn't told me everything, not even close, so I broke into the locked foot locker he kept under the guest bed.

He always kept it bolted shut, like he'd. he thought someone would try steal his old hunting gear, but I knew the combination, same one he used for everything. Inside, not weapons or tools, just journals, stacks of them, weather-warked and yellowing, page after page in my father's tight, careful handwriting. Most of it was nonsense at first, where the reports, council meeting notes, obituaries with names underlined and circled. He'd been tracking every cycle since I was born. But then the language changed. He stopped writing like a man and started writing like a witness. One page read, it speaks in symbols now, dreams, the hum in the trees isn't the wind, it's waiting for its name to be spoken.

Another. When the collector is called, the chosen cannot offer themselves. The collector must choose. This is the pact, the old way, not by death, by right. The words collector and vault mouth appeared again and again, sometimes capitalised, sometimes underlined in red. And next to them, crude diagrams of the vault. The shaft, the spiral, the concentric rings of trees around it,

marked with strange glyphs. Some look like runes, others like teeth. One diagram showed a person standing at the edge of the vault, with arrows pointing inward, as if their presence activated something, opened something. then came a section I hadn't expected, returning back to the style of a journal, detailing day-by-day beats of a tense time in the town.

It spoke of apocalyptic symptoms, the lake changing color, the sky casting strange hues, and the wildlife losing their minds. People disappeared and families were torn apart. All the biggest Walter, my father, could not choose. It mimicked the current time,

the council not choosing, and the decision falling to the collector, an impossible choice of life and death, one to die for many to live. That night, the vault came to me again in dreams, but this time I wasn't inside it, I wasn't falling. I was standing above it, at the edge,

looking out at a crowd of people, kneeling, hands clasped, heads bowed, whispering something I couldn't hear. And I was speaking, my mouth moved, my voice was not my own, and the vault opened. It started with a bird. Every morning my poor trailing used to be dotted with crows, the smart, spiteful rascals that lined every wire in the town like little black judges. Then one morning, they were all just... Gone.

That same day, a field of cows in the western of town was found standing in perfect formation, heads lowered toward the ground, unmoving. Every single one of them, dead, bloodless, organs folded inside out like paper crafts. Two nights later, I heard something boil, but not from the kitchen. from outside. I looked out and saw it was the lake. An entire body of water roiling like a pot left on too long. Wakespond, the old reservoir

where we used to swim where we were kids, steamed for ten hours straight. The water turned thick and red, fish floated to the surface, split open. The air changed after that, smelled wrong, sweet but spoiled, like rotted peaches or burnt teeth. Something was opening,

and I wasn't the only one who noticed. The few remaining town elders, the one who still remembered how this thing worked, called a secret vote. They held it in the old stonehouse outside Mill Creek, the kind of place built with no insulation and too many locks. Only six of them showed up. They tried to vote.

They tried to choose a name, but the vault didn't care anymore. It had waited, being ignored, denied its due. Now, he wanted me. Not as a meal, as a mouthpiece. I didn't hear this second hand. One of the elders, a retired judge named Hal Vessa, came to my door at dawn. His eyes were bloodshot, his knuckles scraped like he'd punch something harder than he expected. He sat on my porch swing, hands trembling as he lit a cigarette.

We failed it, he said. I didn't speak. You're the last stop, you understand. I just stared. He flicked ash onto the ground. The collector exists for a reason, in case a breakdown. When the people can't choose, the blood must. You're not a sacrifice.

You're the priest. Just speak a name with intent. That's all you have to do. If you need suggestions, I can... I told him to get off my property. Told him I wasn't killing anyone for a town too cowardly to face its own history. You're offering. That's different.

I slammed the door, but the ground kept humming. That night, it got worse. The sky turned the color of old bruises. The clouds spiraled low and fast, like water being sucked down a drain. My neighbor's trees bled sap that smelled like iron. Dog stopped barking. In fact, dogs stopped moving. A low bell began to ring from nowhere.

No visible source, just there, vibrating through the soles of your feet. Something was uncoiling. The vault wasn't stooping. sealed anymore, not fully. At 3.21 a.m., my phone lit up with a message from an unknown number. Just one line, choose, by morning. Delores Kint was dead. She'd been found in a bed, peaceful, no wounds, no trauma, but her face was smiling, hands folded like in a church pew, and between her palms A yellowing card

handwritten addressed to me Name the chosen I knew where they kept the records It wasn't a secret The room was beneath the old town hall Not in the modern wing But in the original limestone foundation

With a smell of mildews soaked into your tongue And the light burst like an insect Was trapped behind your eyes It was still unlocked They hadn't even tried to hide it Maybe they wanted me to find it The selection ledger was a thick cloth-bound book That looked like it belonged in a courthouse or a church

Heavy, frayed, smelling of dust and smoke and human oil Inside Names Page after page Each handwritten in looping cursive some dated over a century ago. I flipped forward to the most recent year, this year. The first few pages were normal,

just names, birthdays, occupations, handwritten summaries of each candidate's community standing, financial status and family size. Then I started seeing the red circles, suggestions for choice, a short list for them to vote on. Alongside them were stern judgments marked with phrases like,

approaching end of life, or minimal surviving kin, or historically low civic contribution. And then added on were notes, not from the elders. No, their handwriting was firmer, direct, but younger handwriting, softer language, correctional even. Marlene Gillard, 84. She still tutors at the library. Her great-granddaughter just got accepted to college.

She brings hope to the family. This would destroy them. Thomas Harvey, 58, disabled vet. Still teachers, woodworking, mentors, troubled kids, has PTSD, wouldn't be ethical. Alicia Norris, 41, chronic illness. Started the grief circle after the 1998 death. still manages the town website, would send the wrong message to others with chronic conditions. George Amblin, 71, ex-convict. He served his time, runs the food pantry. His death would confirm every stereotype the town's trying to grow past. Every single name was paired with a counterpoint.

Every sacrifice was dismantled by empathy. The deeper I read, the angry I felt. Not at them, but how familiar it was, how easy it is to rationalize inaction when action when action feels monstrous. This wasn't corruption, it wasn't bloodlust. It was compassion. They had tried to be better, but better didn't stop the vault from waking. Better didn't boil the lake.

Better didn't spare Dolores. Or was it ignorance? A new wave of leaders. who wrote off tradition as ignorance, something to move past. The final page wasn't even finished, just a handful of names with red ink scratched through, like someone had grown furious and thrown the pen across the room.

In the margin, one line of newer handwriting. There are no perfect deaths, another in pencil. Then maybe we stop pretending it's worth choosing. And under that, scrolled, in dark pen, pressure piercing through the paper. Then we died together. I closed the book.

The vault was right. This wasn't a sacrifice anymore. It was a failure. That night, I dreamed of the spiral again. Only this time, I descended. No ladder, no rope, no footing. I just fell, gently, as if the air below me had turned. to water. The stone walls pulled away as I went, becoming ribs, then roots, then rows of open

mouths, all breathing together in rhythm. And at the bottom, where sound should have vanished into nothing. There was light, soft, living, like a heartbeat under skin. I didn't hear anything, but I felt it. Behind my eyes, in my gums, in the marrow, of every bone. The town agreed to the cast, it said. I turned, and around me were reflections. Other towns, other timelines. Each one was different, and in all of them, the vault had gone unsealed.

One showed spirals of fire coiling up into the sky, turning birds inside out in flight. Another, a town square full of kneeling peering. mouth sewn shut with golden thread, trees grown backwards through their skulls. In one, the vault was gone, not sealed, but absorbed, as if it had eaten the land around it and kept growing. They were all worse than anything I could imagine, and every one of them had something in common. No choice was made. I woke up with my pillows soaked in sweat, and my tongue head.

heavy in my mouth, like it had been speaking without me. Despite all I had seen, in what I could call more a vision than a dream, I still couldn't pick one name. I didn't call a meeting, but they came anyway. One by one, the elders filed into my living room. Some looked resigned, some looked angry, some looked like they hadn't slept in days. and behind them the younger council members slunk in

with a stink of guilt on their faces no greetings or small talk just expectation Judge Vessa was the first to speak it has to be now he said we've run out of time another Miller ran a hand through her hair shaking

you've studied the list you've seen the sky you know what happens if we don't? My throat tightened. I'm not choosing. I said, not one, not any of them. A long silence. Then something changed in the room. The faces of the younger members, those who had written all the gentle notes in the margins, all the reasons why each circled name shouldn't be chosen, shifted. The sympathy drained, the humanity dimmed. A man named Devlin. A man named Devlin stepped forward, jabbing a finger at the ledger on my coffee table. Just pick someone from the marked list.

He snapped. Anyone. Marlene is old. Norris is sick. Elroy's basically retired. It doesn't matter. Just choose. These were the same people had written.

She's a pillar of her family. He volunteers more than anyone. She gives hope to the community. Now they spoke like accountants. balancing a ledger. It's between them or us, Devlin said. Don't act like it's complicated.

Something inside me curdled. I shoved the ledger away, sending it skidding across the floor. If you want a name so bad, I said through my teeth, pick one yourselves. We can't, Vessa whispered. It won't listen to us anymore.

It only listens to the collector. Well then, you're all screwed, I said, because I'm not playing priest for a monster. The idea of getting blood on my hands to save these people, ready to condemn another, with a responsibility I didn't ask for, was too much. The room went dead quiet. Everyone stared at me like I had just set the house on fire. But nobody said a thing.

Nobody argued or moved. They just stood there. waiting, hoping fear would make me fold, and then the door exploded inward. My father stormed in with the force of a man who had been running for miles, eyes wide, hair slicked with sweat. His voice hid the room before he did. You stupid boy, he roared. You think this is a joke, you think you get to refuse. I thought he was just going to yell. Maybe shove me, maybe tried to scare me into it.

I did not think he would tackle me to the floor. My head hit the hardwood so hard, stars burst behind my eyes. Before I could breathe, his hands were on my collar, dragging me up and slamming me back down again. Say a name, he barked. Just say the goddamn name. At first, I thought he was bluffing, losing control and panic. but the weight of my chest didn't lift, and his fists didn't stop. My vision blurred, white at the edges, my teeth rattled with each blow. Behind him, the elder stood frozen, not intervening, not helping, watching things play out,

not knowing which sight to take. Some horrified, some relieved, watching action they must have dreamt of doing, but didn't have the guts. My father leaned close, breath hot on my cheek. You're supposed to keep it sealed. You're supposed to be better than this. He snarled. I had to do this too.

Just do it. Another blow. My skull screamed. No wonder your mother left. No wonder I left. You were always weak. Always a disappointment. Just like now.

He wasn't. trying to scare me anymore. He was trying to kill me. My ears rang, blood filled the back of my throat, the world tilted sideways. I felt myself slipping, consciousness slipping, dissolving, like the vault was already tugging at me. And in my delirium, one thought surfaced. I didn't have to choose from the list. I could choose the one trying to kill me. My lips moved before I fully realized what I was saying. I whispered. My father's name.

Barely audible, cracked, broken, but true. The second the consonants left my mouth, the weight vanished, gone. My father wasn't sprawled over me anymore. A soft death like a heart attack or stroke. He wasn't in the wrong. room, he wasn't anywhere. A moment ago he was beating me into the floor. Now, there was only air and silence. A few of the elders gasped, one crossed himself, another woman looked away, trembling. No one said a word, because they knew what I had done. And worse, they knew what it meant. The room emptied a minute.

No goodbyes, no reprimands, no condolences. Just fear. They fled like they expected the house to collapse the second they crossed the threshold. I was left, lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, my heartbeat hammering in my teeth. Eventually, I stood, walked to the window. The sky was clearing, the clouds unraveling, colours. colors returning. The hum in the earth, finally quiet.

It was over. Just like that. My father was the sacrifice. The town was safe. For now. The town healed fast. That was the strangest part. In the weeks that followed, life returned to a rhythm.

Not the same rhythm, maybe, but something close enough to pass for normal. The sky lost this bruised hue. The trees stopped leaning in. The power lines stopped whispering. People got up and went to work. The butcher reopened. The school held a bake sale.

The lake was still red, but no one talked about that. The selection committee resumed their meetings. Quieter now, fewer members, and fewer words spoken when they left those rooms. Once, I used to see them as elders, guardians, wise men and women holding ancient truths. Now, they looked like exhausted survivors, scared of what might come next. I never went back to their meetings. They never asked me to. But there was one thing left to do.

One door I hadn't opened. My father's house sat just off the main square, tucked between two identical, ranch-style homes. I'd driven past it a hundred times without thinking. I don't know what I expected, but when I stepped inside, it was exactly what I'd feared. Sparse furniture, a sink full of old dishes, frozen dinners stack like bricks in the freezer, a recliner with an as groove too deep to undo, facing a TV tuned permanently to the sports channel.

It was a life half-lived, lonely, mechanical, grey. I stood in that room for a long time. It smelled like dust, coffee, and a man who didn't know what to do with silence. And then I saw it, a folded piece of paper sitting on the coffee table. My name was written on the front in my father's blocky, stubborn handwriting. I opened it. If you're reading this, then I went through with it.

I'm sorry you had to see it. Sorry you had to be a part of it. I didn't want that for you. Not ever. That's why I left. But I had to make sure you'd do it. I couldn't risk you freezing up the way the others did. I know you.

I raised you. You were always the good one. even when you were little you gave away your Halloween candy to the kids who were too scared to trick a treat you used the cry when you saw road kill that's the kind of heart you have

big honest kind but a heart like that won't save this town it never has I said things I didn't mean did things I never wanted to do you have to know that I needed to make myself into

the enemy, I needed to give you someone worth condemning. If you hated me enough to speak my name with weight, then you'd survive, and the town would too. That was always the deal. One name spoken with intent. That's how the mouth knows the offering is real. It had to be me. I was already halfway gone anyway. I've been watching the sky for years now. I can't. I can't feel it, the teeth behind the clouds, the pressure of my bones. It was coming, and you were going to be the one it turned to, so I gave you something to aim at. Me, I'm proud of you, not because you did what I wanted, but because even after everything, I think you hesitated. Don't let this town break you. You're not like the rest of them.

Keep being the kind one, even if it hurts. All my love. Dad, I sat down in his chair. It didn't feel right, didn't fit me, but I sat there anyway. And I cried harder than I had in years. Not because he was gone or because of what he did, but because... I understood.

And I hated that I understood. I record nature sounds for a living. I don't make them from merging royalty-free soundscapes found online. I mean literally. I haul gear out into the wilderness, set up field recorders, and capture eight hours of wind through trees or frogs in a swamp, or whatever someone wants in their earbuds at 2 a.m. to sleep to. A few weeks ago, I hiked out to a.

stretch of forest in the Pacific Northwest. It was far from any road or town to avoid sound pollution from passes by. There wasn't even a foot trail, just trees, ridge lines, and a stillness that messes with your sense of time. I'd scouted the spot online. There was minimal wildlife and no nearby power lines

to cause interference, perfect for what I needed. I set up the rig just before, a shotgun mic on a carbon tripod paired with an unintended recorder tucked into a pelican case, all wired for battery life and max sensitivity. I set it to run overnight and hiked back out with my overnight pack. The next morning, I picked up the gear, packed everything up and drove back to the cabin I'd rented for the week. Standard routine.

when I dumped the files onto my laptop. It sounded clean, real clean. You could hear a soft wind tugging through the pines, some distant wood creeks, a lone owl. It sounded like something I'd barely have to touch in post. No clipping, no signs of animals or interference. It still needed scraping in case a low hum of an aircraft ruined a segment. So, I slowly scrubbed the whole.

thing, but then I hit 3.41 a.m. I didn't catch it the first time. I was playing it at four time speed, but even at high speed, something about that section, jarred. So I went back, played it in real time. That's when I heard it. The whole atmosphere buckled inward, like a vacuum pop. A sharp inhale, followed by a dead. deep, groaning creek, like wood twisting under strain. Then, nothing. All sounds stopped. The wind died, insects ceased in unison, no underbrush rustling.

I've heard forests go quiet before, when a predator moves through or a storm's on the way. But this wasn't that. This was dead silence. Even in a perfectly quiet night, your mic still picks up something, ambient hiss, high-end drift, gear noise. But here, there was nothing for exactly 63 seconds, like the world forgot how to make a sound. And then, just as suddenly, it came back. There was a faint crack, like a tree stretching. Then the wind returned, the chorus of nightbugs, a creaking canopy.

I marked the section in my door and cut it out of the final mix, labelled it 341 anomaly, and saved it with the raw files. I figured it was a bizarre environmental event, maybe a weird pressure drop or a shifting fault line under the soil. At least, that's what I told myself. I couldn't stop thinking about the 341. anomaly. The silence wasn't a recording issue. The waveform didn't flatline. It just dropped into a void. The environment stopped generating sound. And that inhale, it hadn't come from a mic.

So, two nights later, I went back. Same trailhead, same clearing, but a different set-up this time. I swapped the shotgun mic for a parabolic dish with a matched stereo pair new recorder, fresh cables, no chance of interference or hardware glitches if the anomaly happened again I wanted to rule out bad gear I set everything up before dusk

hiked out and repeated the routine back at the cabin the next morning I scanned through the files again The waveform jumped out at me Before I even press play At exactly 3.41 a.m. Same shudder, same sucked in static, Same 63 seconds of total silence.

But this time, There was more. The creaking noise was slightly louder, Like something massive and straining was close to the mic. After that, a new noise, just barely audible, but it was there. Something grinding, like roots twisting under dry soil, or teeth. I checked every logical explanation I could think of.

Local seismic activity, nothing on the USGS feed, weather, perfectly still, not even a pressure dip. And besides, neither of these would repeat so big. perfectly like I had seen. I ran it past an engineer, I know. She thought it might be RF interference from military aircraft. Or, she said, your recorder caught Bigfoot scratching his back on a cedar tree. I laughed.

Then, I uploaded it. Well, I meant to upload the cleaned version. Just the gentle forest ambience, with the odd 63 seconds cut. and cross-faded. But when I packaged the files, I must have left the original by accident. The raw take, with the 341 segment left intact.

I've got my fair share of weird listener emails over the years, people claiming to hear voices in waterfalls. Someone once swore a raccoon whispered Bible verses in their sleep track. Ambient audio and overactive imaginations go hand in hand. But this one felt different. The message came from a guy named Nolan.

It was a short email. No pleasantries or emojis. Just this. Subject. Your latest upload. Need your opinion. I use your app to sleep with Tinnitus. Played your new Forest Loop last night.

Around 3.30. I woke up gasping. No nightmare. just this pressure in the room, like something leaned on my chest. I checked the audio file to see if anything caused this, and found this. Screenshot attached.

Let me know if you see it too. He attached this spectrogram screen grab from his player, a frequency waterfall of the 341 segment, right in the center of the silence. It was a shape. It wasn't obviously human. but it was symmetrical, made of low, barely besetable frequencies, hollow of the centre, with long vertical streaks running from top to bottom, almost like arms or legs, but far too long.

I stared at it for a long time before I closed the tab. Just audio pareidolia, like seeing faces and tree bark, I told myself, and moved on. But the following emails were harder to ignore. Someone in Oregon reported that their power cut out for exactly one minute at 3.41 a.m., somehow attributing it to my video. Easy to dismiss as bad timing. Another said their dog barked to the speaker, then refused to enter the room where the track was playing.

One woman saw all four of her houseplants were dead the next morning. They didn't just wilt a bit. they were fully blackened, crispy, like they'd been flash-dried. I still didn't panic, but I got curious. I reloaded the raw file and Reaper, this time pushing deeper. Noise reduction, spectral isolation, half-speed playback, then reversed. I tried every which angle. There was more under the distortion than I'd realized, a single,

deep knock. And then, wet footsteps. Soft, spaced far apart, pine needles crunching under something that walked like it didn't need to. I froze the waveform. The pattern was there. A gate, something with weight. I pulled up night one's raw file at the same time stamp, the same silence. I overlaid them.

The knock was identical. But on night two, the footsteps started sooner. And they were closer. I didn't go back to the forest because I'm brave. I went back because my name was on that file. People had started commenting, messaging, accusing. One user posted a TikTok claiming the track gave their boyfriend's seizures. Another said the sister collapsed while it played and hadn't woke up since.

Some said it was a hoax, others, a curse, what even called me a murderer? So, I packed the best gear I owned, a parabolic mic, a battery recorder, and a pre-amp with real-time monitoring. I brought my field laptop too, so I could listen live, not just hope I caught something after the fact. I also brought a flashlight, three backup batteries, and a hunting knife I'd never actually used. I arrived just after 2 a.m. The clearing looked exactly the same. The pine spirals still there, like the trees had grown in deliberate concentric rings.

No animals, no signs of people. I set up the tripod, calibrated the mic, and began recording. At first, it was peaceful. Crickets, faint wind, occasional owl hoots drifting from the canopy, clean audio, nothing strange. But I get to my eye on the clock. 3.40.59 seconds. 3.41. Gone.

All of it. Sound just ceased to exist. The LED in my recorder flick at once, then held steady. The waveform when my laptop froze into a flat bar. I tapped the mic. nothing, not even a pop. The only thing I could hear was my own breath, louder than it should have been, sharp, exposed, like it didn't belong in this stillness. What the hell? I muttered.

The words felt intrusive, wrong, like I just shouted during a funeral. Then, crunch. A twig, directly behind. me, close. I spun, flashlight up, and that's when the noise came back, but it didn't return the same. It surged in like a recording played through broken speakers, echoing and unsinked. The trees creaked on delay, the wind hiccpped. And something was moving. Not straight toward me, around me, circling fast. I whipped the flashlight left and right, catching glimpses of limbs between trunks, slender, too long, moving in bursts, blurring between shadows.

Then, I saw it. A head, upside down, hanging from high in the trees like it was suspended by its legs. Wide, black eyes, like oil pool reflections. stringy hair clinging to a crumpled grey face, skin like soaked paper, wrinkled, smiling. Its mouth was too wide. Then a hand began to reach. Slowly the hand approached and never stopped.

The limbs stretched slowly, impossibly, the shoulder never moving from the tree, elbow bending the wrong way, fingers lengthening by the inch, despite how high up the thing was. I was in shock. I couldn't move, stunned by the abnormality of what I was witnessing. It reached toward my neck and brushed a leaf beside my collarbone. That was enough. I ran. Branches tore at my arms, roots caught my boots. Every few seconds I'd, I'd. Every few seconds I'd I nearly trip, catch myself, and push harder. I could hear it, behind me, above me, so fast that I couldn't pinpoint where it was.

It wasn't chasing on the ground. It was moving through the trees. Something heavy thudding from branch to branch, like a gorilla made of wood and tendon. Every impact sent down a shudder, a sound that wasn't just in my ears. It rang in my teeth. I didn't scream I couldn't My breath was fire in my lungs

My chest locked tight I just ran That was all I could focus on I didn't want to be led astray I had one goal in mind Locked on And speed was my only chance Because trying to outmaneuver this thing

Would only push me into unknown territory The tree started thinning. I saw the glint of moonlight on glass. My car. I vaulted over a stump, skidded onto the gravel, and yanked the door open so hard it cracked the hinge. Leaving it unlocked was my only saving grace, knowing there was no one around for miles. The keys were in my coat pocket. Of course they were. I scrambled, fumbled, handshaking. Then... Bang. The hood buckled under the impact.

A single hand slapped down onto the windshield, long fingers, bone white skin, unkempt black nails dragging, screeching lines across the glass like it was trying to peel it open. Its face leaned in, neck so long, it had a twist a few times that peer in. Inverted, grinning, eyes like oil pulled over bone. The keys hit the ignition. The engine coughed, then caught. I slammed it into drive and hit the gas. Gravel exploded behind the tires. I clipped a tree as I peeled out.

The thing blurred past the rearview mirror, arms trailing like ropes of wet muscle. I didn't look in the mirror to see if it followed. I just drove, fast, stupid fast. The trees are blur of blood. black and silver, the trail nothing but instinct. I didn't breathe until I saw the welcome sign for the next town. When I got home, I locked the door behind me, deadbolt, chain, even with the chair under the knob. Then, every window, one by one.

I knew it was pointless, but it felt like doing something, like I still had control. My laptop was still on the kitchen table. I opened it as I walked past, booting up the file system before I even kicked my boots off. The plan was simple. Pull the upload, scrub it from the app, maybe even write a warning, something vague that wouldn't get me laughed off the platform. But then I saw the notifications. Dozens of emails, subject lines in bold. Something was in my hallway last night.

I saw her. She watched me sleep. It knocked until 3.42. Then it started climbing. My hands went cold. One message had an attachment. A blurry phone photo. The edge of a blackened head blurred from movement.

Too familiar to dismiss. Sixteen floors up. I sat there, staring at it. This was my fault. Not because I recorded it. That was a fluke, an accident. But I'd uploaded it. I'd left it public, ignored the early warnings.

I doubted myself because the alternative was accepting something I couldn't explain. I should have pulled it days ago. Now I had my chance. I didn't know if deleting it would undo anything. Maybe the damage was already done. Maybe whatever this was had already spread. but if I left it up, more people would hear it, more people would see it, more people would bring it back. So, I made the call.

I pulled the file from the content manager, sent takedown requests to mirror sites, deleted the raw uploads from the app queue. Everywhere I could find it, I wiped it. It was over. I sat back in my chair. My phone lit up in the dark. I reached for it with shaking hands. New notifications from listeners. Whatever you did, thank you.

It's quiet again. The notifications kept coming in, all from people who'd messaged before, the ones who'd said they were being followed, stalked, haunted. Relief washed over me, feeling like I'd at least salvaged something good from this whole thing. But my night was just getting started. I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Instead, I stayed on the hallway floor, legs cramping, back pressed against the wall.

Every light in the apartment blazing. I kept the laptop open on my knees, the inbox still flooding with new messages. strangers thinking me, telling me the knocking had stopped, that they were finally safe. But inside my own apartment, something was beginning to stir. It started subtly, like a change in barometric pressure. The temperature dipped, the buzzing from the fridge stuttered. I heard a soft creak in the ceiling above me. It wasn't a pipe or settling joist,

with a deliberate sound of weight shifting across old wood. I froze. For minutes, nothing. Then a whisper of motion against the far wall, the sound of something just brushing the paint with the tips of his fingers. When the tapping came, it was so faint I almost missed it. Tick, tick, tick. I turned toward the sound and my stomach sank.

It was coming from the living room window. I stood cautiously, slowly, just enough to catch a glimpse through the frosted glass. Just a faint impression of movement like someone had passed by a moment earlier. I backed away, heart hammering. The tapping shifted, now coming from the back door. then from the ceiling hatch. Every surface of the apartment seemed to carry the sound like a tuning fork, as if something was circling inside the walls, growing bolder by the second,

testing the house for the weakest point of entry. The lights dimmed as if the apartment itself were exhaling. I couldn't tell if it wanted to come in, or if it was already here. That question answered, it itself a moment later. The lights above me dimmed again, not in a flicker,

but in a slow, deliberate pulse, like the apartment was breathing. Somewhere deep in the walls, the plaster shifted with a muffled thud, and then another, each one closer than the last. Something large was crawling its way toward the center of the room.

I stayed perfectly still. Then, the dry, wall to my left bulged outward. Just slightly, a shallow swell, like someone was pressing a hand against it from the other side. I stared as the bulge drifted along the wall, dragging down toward the floor. Something ran his fingers across the baseboard,

slow and lingering, tracing the shape of the apartment. A soft hiss followed, the unmistakable sound of breathing, sliding from behind paint. I backed up until my spine hit the opposite wall. The thing in my home shifted directions, scuttling up toward the ceiling. The plaster bowed overhead, dust drifting down in thin gray streams. Whatever it was, it wasn't bound to floors or gravity.

It moved like a spider through insulation and beams, pushing against the structure, testing how thin the barriers were. The ceiling vent rattled, then the metal grill bent outward. Long fingers had hooked into the slats and was prying them apart. One slats snapped, another warped. A black, knuckled-shaped silhouette pressed through, skin stretched thin over something too sharp to be bone. I scrambled across the floor, heart hammering so hard I heard it in my ears. The vent split wider.

A hand slid out. Long, grey, wrinkled, nails like splinters of obsidian. It curled slowly, searching the air, the way someone might test water before stepping in. It rotated toward me, knuckles cracking, reaching, and then... It stopped. Frozen, mid-motion. Because it was listening. the same way it listened to the silence in the woods.

I covered my mouth with both hands, shaking so hard, my teeth clicked. Then, a sound. It wasn't from me or the thing, but from the table. A sharp ping. My phone still face up near the door, lit up with a notification.

The sound cut through the silence like a siren. instantly something shifted a blur of motion too fast a process shot across the room the hand or part of it lashed out from the dark and struck the phone with surgical precision crack the screen shattered inward like it had been struck with a mallet the phone skidded across the floor buzzing once before dying i covered my mouth with both hands paralyzed. Then another ping from the laptop, an email. It shifted again, a thing in the walls. I saw the hand jut out once more, just inches from the keyboard now, fingers twitching, hovering.

But this time, it didn't strike. It paused, almost curious. The same force that crossed the phone in a single blow now hovered in silence, tense with restraint. There was a recognition in the stillness. The hand flattened its palm on the ground. I didn't dare move, scared to even just stir the air. Once flat, the arms swept around in wide arcs around the room. It was searching.

large motions, sometimes far away, but suddenly inches from my heel. If it were death, I could have jumped, rolled away with good timing, but I was still frozen to the spot. And soon, it bumped into my body. On contact, it went frantic, sweeping motions over me, mapping me, until it figured out who I was, my angle on the floor, the direction I was. was looking. It latched onto my wrist tightly, but didn't crush my limb like I expected. It pulled, a taut motion that gave me no choice but to follow, less like a dog on a leash and more like an escalator I couldn't leave, unwilling, leading me to what I was curious about before. My laptop. All the while, thoughts swam in my head, piece in

together context from this absurd situation. It hadn't come when I uploaded the audio, not when people listened to it, not even when they started writing to me, terrified. It only came after I took down the video, when I broke the chain, when I tried to stop it from spreading. That's when it noticed me,

I looked over at the laptop, now glowing in front of me. And for the first time, since this all started, the idea of dying didn't seem like the worst option. If this thing could be stopped by ending the transmission, by letting it end with me, maybe that was the answer. Maybe it was worth it. But the moment passed, survival dug its claws in. I sat down, and the moment it felt that it released its grip of my wrist.

but hovered near my head in a threat that was easy to read. Upload or die. Fingers trembling, I opened the app dashboard. The deleted video was still there, sitting quietly in the recycle bin. I hovered over the upload button. Then I clicked it, restored all the metadata. The upload bar crawled. From the wall behind me, I heard another creek, louder now, closer.

I didn't turn around. I kept my eyes on the screen as the progress bar climbed. 30%, 50, 72. The air around me felt like it was pressing inward. It was still here. It knew. It was waiting to see if I'd go through with it. 94%

a pause then complete the video went live and in an instant everything stopped no more tapping no more movement

no more pressure in the walls the lights brightened as if a film had been peeled away from the bulbs it was gone and for the first time in what felt like days sound beautiful living sound I exhaled really exiled like I hadn't in days

and I hated how relieved I felt life went on people forgot moved on slipped again but I didn't not really I still wake up every day and open my laptop

it's automatic now muscle memory I don't check emails don't check socials just the view count 318 322 338

every number feels heavier than the last I don't see them as just numbers each one is a person A victim I still record sometimes To keep myself sane Short trips close to town

Never at night And I never Upload the raw audio I listen to every second I triple check the waveform I scrub the background for anything that doesn't belong And when the clock hits 3.41 a.m.

I make sure I'm in bed Ear plugs in lights on, eyes shut tight, because I know now. It's not the silence that gets you. It's what follows. The call came on a Tuesday morning, just after I poured my first coffee. It was an unknown number with a rural area code I didn't recognize. I almost let it ring out.

Nothing good ever comes from a stranger calling before 9 a.m. but something in me picked up anyway. Is this Ethan? A man asked. His voice was steady and official. Yeah, I said. Who is this? This is Sheriff Talbot, Redwood County.

I'm sorry to contact you like this, son. We've recovered a woman's body in the state forest. Your sister. You're listed as the closest next of kin. I actually laughed. One short, confused breath. You've got the wrong guy. A pause.

Then pages rustling. Her name was Sarah Moorcroft. My last name. I sat down a little too quickly. My coffee sloshed over the rim. Okay, well, that's definitely not me. I said. I don't have a sister.

I've never had a sister. He paused for a moment. Your mother was Angela Moorcroft, correct? Was, I said. She died three years ago. And your father? Alive, but he lives in Nevada now. We don't talk much.

Talbot cleared his throat. Well, sir, I understand this is difficult, but our office already ran a preliminary DNA test. The state lab sent the results 30 minutes ago. The deceased woman is a full biological sibling match, 99.99%. The room tilted. For a second, I thought the sheriff might have misread something, mixed up files, contaminated samples, or maybe there was a glitch in whatever software they used.

Look, I began trying to keep any panic from my voice. I'm an only child, always have been. My dad would have mentioned something like this, like a dead daughter. My mom... I cut myself off. She wasn't here to clarify anything. I understand, Talbot said, but the state doesn't normally get these things wrong.

I'm afraid it will need you to come down and formally identify the next of kin. My brain snagged on the phrase like it was written in another language. Formally identify the next of kin. How was I supposed to identify someone? I didn't even know existed. Identify her how, I asked quietly.

In person, he said, When you see her yourself, we'll know more. His word stuck with me long after the call ended. When you see her yourself, we'll know more. The implication wasn't subtle. Whoever she was, whoever I apparently shared blood with, they thought, I would recognise her.

I drove six hours to Redwood County. It was a nowhere town that didn't even bother with a welcome sign. It was surrounded by forests, littered with gas stations, and a stretch of road that looked like they'd been forgotten by time and funding. The sheriff met me outside the building. He was an older guy, with a drooping moustache and a wrinkled face that looked like it had been whittled out of pine bark. He nodded and led me through a side entrance into the coroner's suite. I'd expected it to be like what you see on TV, with high-tech equipment and bright white tiles.

But instead, I was greeted with a concrete floor, lillonium walls, and the smell of preserved meat and bleach that assaulted my nose. She's in draw six, the coroner said quietly. A woman, mid-50s maybe. her badge read Dr. Elkins. I followed her to the wall of refrigerated units. She glanced at me, like she was waiting for me to give her a reason not to do this. I didn't. She pulled open the drawer.

The moment I saw the body. My stomach turned cold. She was about 30, maybe 35, skin pale, lips drawn back, dark, hair brittle and sunken around her jaw. There was something about her face that wasn't quite... Alien. If anything, it was worse than that. She looked like my mother.

Close enough that I instinctively took a step back. Same nose, same curve of the cheekbones, same slightly off-center parting of her hair. But there was something wrong beneath the familiarity. Her frame was frail, like she'd gone years without proper food. Her ribs rose like piano keys beneath her skin, fingers bone thin and curved, like they'd been clenched for too long. And her skin, greyish, waxy, was marred by little patches of what looked like hardened scarring around the nose and mouth. Elkins noticed me staring.

Calcified scar tissue in the lungs, probably long-term exposure to mineral heavy dust, could be a fungal build-up. Honestly, we haven't seen anything like it outside of old mining accidents. She paused. Do you have any idea how this happened? I shook my head. I hadn't even known she existed a few days ago. Sorry, she said gently, didn't mean to. to push.

The sheriff stepped closer and handed me a sealed evidence bag. Inside was a small, water-damaged polaroid. It looked like it had been clutched tight for years, creased, torn in one corner, yellowed at the edges. I turned it over. It was me. Five years old, ball-cut, missing front teeth, standing in the grass, somewhere with a toy plane in my hand. next to me was a girl about my age, smiling, holding my hand like we'd done it a hundred times. The background was a blur of summer, the corner of a house I barely recognized.

I didn't remember taking that photo. I didn't remember her. But there we were, like siblings, like we belong together. I told myself a hundred times. I was going to sell the house. After Mom died, I even had a realtor on standby, keys in a manila envelope, business card, paperclip to the top. But I never followed through. Every time I tried, something in me locked up.

My chest became heavy, and it was like I was abandoning my parents, my childhood, everything that used to feel solid. It wasn't logical. I knew she was gone. I knew the house couldn't hold onto them. Not really. But some part of me still believed that as long as I had the keys,

as long as the furniture stayed where they left it, I hadn't lost everything. So, when I got back from Redwood County, that's where I went. The house was still how I'd left it. Sheets over the furniture, a faint trace of mom's perfume still lingered on the carpet. every room carried a memory like wallpaper. But now, that wallpaper felt thinner, brittle,

like if I peeled back the right corner, something else might be underneath. I started in the living room. Her storage tops were still stacked behind the couch, labeled in neat cursive, Xmas, important papers, Ethan's school, and... Photos.

That was the one I grabbed first. I sat cross-legged on the floor, a plastic tub between my knees, and flipped through album after album. Baby pictures, birthday parties, school photos, smiles and crayon drawings, and easter baskets. But somewhere around age three, the timeline blurred. Photos were missing, whole pages. they'd been ripped out, slices of times gone without explanation. No photos between Halloween of 93 and the summer of 97. Just blank spots, torn stops where glue once held something real.

I checked three more albums. Same thing. Age 3 to 7. Erased. Gone. I had to wonder. Had my mom done this? Was she trying to hide something?

Or had it been Dad? I could almost hear his voice in my head, annoyed, impatient. Why dig up the past? Nothing good comes from that. The thing is, I wasn't digging. I was remembering. Or, trying to. It was nearly midnight by the time I finished tearing through the boxes and albums.

I didn't want to stay the night. The house didn't feel like mine anymore. It was still the same layout I grew up in, the same walls and corners. But without them there, it felt hollow. But I hadn't slept much since the morgue, and the highway back to the city was all curves and blind turns. I didn't want to risk it, not with the rain starting to spit and streak the windows. So I stayed. The air mattress I kept rolled in the trunk was still there,

along with a sleeping bag and a half-dead flashlight. I inflated it in what used to be the den, hardwood floor, high ceilings, and the dusty ghost of where the couch used to be. The smell in the house had turned damp, like wet cardboard and neglected drains. I had to wipe the floor down with a dish towel just to make room. The silence pressed in once I lay down.

I left the hallway light on just in case. I don't know when I fell asleep. I just remember waking to a voice. It whispered my name, faintly, softly, almost playful, coming from somewhere down the hall. I froze for a moment, holding my breath to listen out, but there was only silence. I sat up, reached for my phone to check the time. It was 3 a.m. That was when I saw them.

There were bare, muddy footprints tracking across the wood floor from the kitchen, leading from the back door. They were small, too small to be mine, too wide apart to be a child crawling. They ended at the edge of my air mattress, right at the corner where my head had been moments earlier. and there were no prints going back. I stood slowly, not breathing, heart smashing my ribs and backed into the kitchen. I flicked on the overhead light. The back door was locked, deadbolt in place, no windows broken, no wind, no creaking. I pulled out my phone and opened the app for the old security cameras.

I'd installed them right after Mum passed. They were cheap, motion-sensitive ones, just enough to spook off any squatters or drifters. The house had sat vacant too long, and I didn't trust people not to take advantage. The feed from the backyard loaded first. At 2.50 a.m., the camera glitched for just a frame. Then the back door opened slowly. No one in sight. Then something entered.

Small, crouched low like an animal, its outline shimmered like heat on pavement, and then the feed glitched again, static blooming across the screen, and the door was closed, nothing else. I scrubbed back and forth, pausing at the exact frame where the thing stepped through. There was no shape to it, but there was a shadow, and the shadow reached out to touch the, the doorframe like it was routine. I turned, half expecting something to be standing in the room behind me. Empty. Except the footprints were dry now, crackling, like they'd been there for hours. I went still.

The whisper came again, closer this time. You forgot me. I spent most of the morning sitting in the same chair I used. used to eat cereal in as a kid, staring at the window like I expected the trees to spell something out for me. When I finally dialed, I already knew what it'd say, but I needed to hear it. He picked up on the third ring. Yeah, Dad, I said, it's me. I pause. Is everything okay? No, I said, not even close. I could already hear the defensiveness loading behind his silence.

I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. No nonsense. He sighed, heavy through the receiver. It's about your mother's house again. No, I said. It's about my sister. That word landed hard. I heard it hit him.

Something shifted in the way he breathed, but his voice didn't break when he replied. You don't have a sister. There was a body found in Redwood County, a woman. I was listed as the closest knicks of kin. The state ran a DNA test. She was a 99.99% sibling match. That's not possible, he said instantly, too quick. It's a mistake.

They mix things up all the time. You know they don't, and you're dodging. I'm not dodging anything, he snapped. There was no sister, there was no other kid. If this is some scam or some prank, I don't want anything to do with it. I forced myself to stay calm. Then explain the photo, I said, the one she was holding. It's me, five years old, with her.

And all the photo albums in the house have the same years ripped out. like someone wanted to erase her. Silence. Longer this time. Then. Jeez, you sound like your mother. He muttered, digging into things I don't matter.

She was always like that, making stories out of shadows. He was unraveling. Dad, I said, just tell me the truth. I am telling you, he said, louder now. There was never a daughter,

just you, that's it. You understand me? I opened my mouth, but the line went dead. He hung up. I stared at the phone in shock. Part of me hoped he would call back, but he didn't. I opened my laptop and started digging. The county clerk's website was a mess,

but with the right filters and an address I'd memorized decades ago, I found what I was looking for. It was a public record dated 27 years ago, filed under Angela Moorcraft. Report type, missing person, minor. Name, redacted, juvenile protection, relation, daughter, age 5. Case status, closed, withdrawn by father, child safety accounted for, signed Richard Moorcroft time elapsed

48 hours she tried to report it he made it disappear just like her around sunset I heard a small sharp tap from the back hallway then another

then a third closer like someone drumming their fingernails along the wall while they walked I froze and listened But there was nothing. Then there was a whisper, so faint I wasn't sure if it was my imagination. Soft, curious, as if testing the air. I grabbed my keys and went straight to the front door, twisted the knob.

But it didn't budge. I threw my shoulder into it. Nothing, not even a rattle. Cold crept up my back. I tried the back door, then the wood. windows, I even hold a dining chair and smashed it against the largest pain. The chair just bounced. The glass didn't even tremble. On the final impact, the room exhaled, a low vibrating groan from the walls that felt

disappointed. That's when the house went quiet, a sealed space quiet, like someone had wrapped the place in cotton. And then came the second way. whisper, closer, don't leave yet. I backed into the living room, chest tight. The lights dimmed, and that's when everything started. More taps, faster, sharper, scratching, racing along the walls in erratic loops, then pounding, pounding hard, like fists beating from the inside of the walls trying to break out. The lights flickered with each strike.

I stumbled backwards and something cold wrapped around my ankle. I screamed and fell, kicking instinctively. Nothing there, but the imprint stayed. A perfect child-sized handprint, pale against my skin. I scrambled under the couch, panting, clutching my shirt. Then the ceiling above me began to weep. Water, thick drops falling hard enough to splatter against. the floorboards, a metallic smell hit me instantly.

I gagged. Through the dripping, I heard something else beneath the floor. Sobbing. A child sobs, muffled but unmistakable, shaking the wooden planks beneath my feet. I didn't want to move, but the house forced me to feel it. Suddenly, the back door creaked open. It wasn't forced open by. anything, just wide open, like it had been waiting for me to notice.

I didn't think. I ran. The yard was still wet with rain, grass slickened my shoes as I cut toward the shed. It was pure instinct, some half-formed belief that if I got outside she couldn't follow, as if ghosts respected thresholds. Behind me, I swear I heard her footsteps match mine. I ran too, she whispered. The footsteps kept pace, so I changed tact and looked for somewhere to hide.

I remembered my old spot, the place I'd go to when I was overwhelmed as a kid. The shed. I threw open the shed door and slammed it shut behind me, latched it, even though the wood was soft from water damage, like that would stop anything. inside the air was thick with rust and dust everything smelled old and sour i tried to catch my breath but she kept speaking i hid too she said i thought it would keep me safe something in me recoiled i was running on pure instinct but according to her i was doing everything as planned following a route she had as a child. Outside, the footsteps returned, slow, deliberate, circling the shed. If I was being predictable, then I needed to throw things off. As a kid, the tool closet was my go-to spot,

big enough that you could sit in there for hours and out of the way for anyone not looking too hard. It was the first place I'd run, so I made sure to dart past it. He was relentless. The game would stop if I asked, but this time he was determined to catch me. The footsteps paused at the door. I scanned the shed. There were crates along the wall, old reinforced toolboxes. I moved toward them, desperate for something, anything that might buy me seconds. If I was still a kid, I'd fit in with ease, but it took me a few attempts to squeeze in.

I slipped the lid over and held my breath. I thought I was being smart when I avoided the tool closet. We always used that spot when we were desperate. In total black, my heart raced. I felt like there was nothing I could do to avoid this predetermined path, forced into following her steps before her demise. He walked in, called my name. I didn't answer.

The footsteps softened. I couldn't hear where she was. Then... Bang. A strike rang out across the wood. I felt like my heart would stop from the shock, thinking it was her way of saying, I got you.

But then another bang sounded on the crate, then another. I didn't know what was happening until she carried on her tail. He said, that's better. she murmured and started sealing me in the reality of what she was doing kicked in when i felt the tip of a poorly placed nail dig into my side i screamed and threw my shoulder against the lid it didn't move i kicked pushed the crate wouldn't budge no give like the walls were holding me down not that i could get much perch with how cramped the crate was i begged, she whispered.

I told him I'd be good. I told him I'd be quiet. He didn't listen. The crate shifted, tilted, then lifted. I was moving, jolted across the shed floor, the world tilting. He drove me far, she said. I don't know how long. I couldn't scream anymore.

My voice was gone. tears blurred everything, scraping from inside the crate, something that wasn't me, something with too many fingers. I felt the little space I had in the crate fill, impossibly, with something that felt like skin, ice cold against my face. And the voice that I'd only been hearing muffled from outside the crate, spoke clearly from inside so that I could feel the cold breath of my nose. When I couldn't scream, I started dreaming.

And when I dreamed, they heard me. It's hard to say how long I was in the crate. Time didn't pass normally in there. Seconds stretched, hours collapsed. I started counting breaths just to keep my mind from breaking. But I lost track somewhere. around 500. The air went stale, my knees ached from being folded too long, sweat soaked through my shirt, and every few minutes something inside the wood would twitch or creak, not like old wood

settling, but like it was breathing with me. Please stop, I begged. The voice that came back wasn't sympathetic. That's what I said too, before I was buried. Her voice croaked, speaking low an inch from my ear. The weight above me got heavier. I could hear the shifting of packed soil, the sound of roots pushing in through cracks. I started to cry, quietly, bitterly. And somewhere in the grief, the truth settled in.

My sister was buried alive by our father, and no one had come for her. I had lived a normal life, birthday parties, road trips and a decent college. She had died in a box, forgotten by everyone. And now, I was in her place. And the worst part, I couldn't even say she was wrong to put me here. That's what gutted me the most. You didn't deserve this, I whispered, none of it. The crate creaked.

You were just a kid. I should have known. I should have remembered. I paused. Tried to swallow the lump in my throat. My chest was shaking. But it wasn't me who did this to you. It was him.

Silence. But I could feel her listening. It should have been him inside this box. Not you. Not me. The dark. Hald his breath. You want someone to suffer for what happened?

Fine, so do I. I pleaded. I waited. A long silence passed. He's still alive. The voice came from just above my head. Clear. I hesitated.

Yes. Another silence. And then the silence. the weight started to lift, the pressure above me, eased. Her presence dissipated from the crate. I could feel the top of the crate, which was bowing inward from the pressure easing. Then, I'll make you a promise, she said. I'll let you live, if you give me him, I paused. Even with everything I'd been through, some small part of me still clung to the idea that I was betraying my father. But then I remembered the missing child report, the photo albums, the sound of nails being driven in, and the silence that followed.

He's in Nevada, I said, Desert Ridge, using the name Edward Fox. I'll even give you the address. The crate split open, just opened. Cool night air hit my face like a slap. I gasped, crawling out into the damp grass under a sky I hadn't seen in what felt like days. No one was around, but I knew she'd heard me. When I pulled myself out, I expected to see the backyard. I didn't.

I was in the woods, deep enough that the trees blocked most of the sky. Wet leaves clung to my shirt, my knees buckled as I stood, legs stiff and shaking from being curled up so long. For a minute, I just stood there, breathing. I was alive. I turned slowly, taking in my surroundings. That's when I saw the yellow police tape, fresh, Still tied to the trunks.

It sagged between two trees like a cautionary whisper. There was a shallow pit nearby, half filled with disturbed earth. This was it, where they found her. She hadn't taken me to some memory or symbolic grave. She'd brought me to the exact place her body had been unearthed. And somehow, she'd made the journey feel like a memory instead of miles. She'd retrace the path. It took me hours to hike back to the road,

longer still to find someone willing to give me a ride into town. Every step I took, I thought about him, my father. Part of me hoped she was already there, that it was done, that the next time I checked the news, I'd see a report about a man found dead in his trailer in Nevada, cause unknown.

But part of me did, didn't, because he was still my father. And even if he deserved it, I needed to understand. Why her? Why bury her? Why make me forget? I borrowed a phone from the gas station clerk. It took me three tries to dial the number. He answered on the second ring. His voice was groggy, probably drinking, maybe sleeping. I didn't care. Hello? I said nothing at first, not knowing what to say. Then, I simply decided to be blunt.

She's coming. Silence. What the hell are you talking about? He snapped. Who is this? You know who this is. Another pause, a rustle of movement, like he was sitting up straighter. Look, you never had a sister.

Drop this nonsense. Do you understand me? You're being manipulated. I could hear the panic under the anger now. You can tell her that yourself, I said, flat. She's on a way to you. The silence that followed didn't stretch. It snapped.

Jeez, he whispered. It didn't stop. I didn't say anything. He started breathing heavier, not scared for himself, but scared of something bigger. Listen, I didn't kill her, he said, not really. I tried to stop what she was becoming, what she was bringing through. He spoke like the dam had broken, like he'd been waiting to say this for years. She was born wrong, he said, not deformed or something genetic, just,

off, like her eyes saw something the rest of us didn't. And when she talked in asleep, the walls would sweat. Do you understand? Water, condensation, like something was breathing on the other side. At first I thought she was just disturbed, maybe even gifted. But the older she got, the worse it got. Birds stopped nesting near the house, mirrors warped around her. She stopped aging for almost a year.

I felt the blood drained from my face. She told me things she had no way of knowing. She started to whisper names at night, names that weren't real, not in this world. They weren't even pronounceable. And one night, I checked the baby monitor and... His voice broke. Something else was whispering back. I sat down on the curb outside the gas station.

The world felt suddenly too big, like it was press. pressing in from all sides. My grandfather left journals, old country stuff. He always believed some people could act like, like doors, not possessed, just born open, not even on purpose. Sometimes something just slips through. She was one of them. A breach. I tried everything. prayers, locks, psych wards, but she kept getting worse and then one day she just stopped, he paused.

I could hear him swallow. She came to me, calm, smiling, she said, it's ready. I couldn't risk it, not the world, not you. So I dealt with it and it worked. I felt hollow.

Until I told her where you were, I whispered. He led out a sharp, shaking breath. You don't understand, she said. That thing needed closure, a story that ends. You gave it what it wanted. It doesn't end with me. I'm just the final ritual, the finishing nail. before she begins.

If I die, it's loose. There was a single crackl of static on the line. And then he said something, I'll never forget. It wore your sister like a mask, but it's not her anymore. And it's not done with you. Click. The line went dead. The trip home felt like a punishment.

I walked for miles before I found a bus stop, then another hour before anything came. Transfers, delays, cold benches, paper coffee cups with films skimming the top. No phone, no way to check if it had happened yet, if he was still alive, if he had won. Each hour that passed pulled me in two directions. Part of me prayed it was over. Part of me prayed it hadn't started yet. When I finally reached the house, it was nearly three in the morning. The place looked the same, an assuming, quiet, like none of it had ever happened.

I opened the door with shaking hands, stepped inside, and quickly closed it behind me, like I was afraid of what might follow. The silence hit me first, waited silence, like the kind in old churches and deep caves. I found my charger plugged in my phone. The screen took longer than usual to wake, the battery icon pulsed red like a dying heart. I waited. When it powered on, I opened the call log. No new calls, no texts, no missed voicemails.

Just blank space and time stretching too long. I sat down on the couch, phone balancing in my palm like I might summon an answer. I stared at the screen, waiting for it to light up, waiting for a message that said, I'm okay, I stopped it, everything will be okay. But all I got was static pings, old notifications, junk from apps I never used,

a weather warning from a county I wasn't in anymore. And in the stillness, I noticed something else. The air was... damp. I touched the wall beside me. Wet. Not the usual humidity.

Dripping. The same slow weep I remembered from the nursery, from the crate, from her. And in that awful, heart-sick moment, I realized I wasn't watching my phone for news anymore. I was watching it for the reflection,

because the glass on the screen was the only place I could see the window behind me without looking directly. And something had started to whisper again. Soft, high, sweet almost, a lullaby in reverse, like something humming a song that hadn't been written yet. I turned the phone just slightly. angling the reflection toward the far wall. And there she was, just outside the window.

Smiling, her face didn't move like a human's. Her skin looked brittle, like porcelain stretched too thin. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren't. They were watching me. Not in a malicious way, not fully, just... patient, like she'd been waiting her whole life for this moment. My brain clung to a hope because I made a deal, gave her what she wanted, thought I'd be free. But I also remembered what Dad said.

When I die, it's loose. It's not her anymore, and it's not done with you. And now, it's my turn. They sent us to the ass end of the Kazakhstan step, a bleak, unforgiving stretch of wind-scout land where rusted fences led nowhere and the horizon buzzed like a tuning fork. The wind still bit through two layers of thermals.

The roads were barely roads at all, just tire-gouge scars in frozen soil. No birds, no herders, no villages, just empty land and silence for miles. When satellites fall, they're supposed to burn up in the atmosphere or land in the ocean, far away from anything that matters. That's how they're designed. But sometimes things go wrong. A miscalculation, a failed thruster, or a misfire in orbit.

When they come down on land, it's our job to make it go away. We're contractors, a cleanup crew that log the telemetry, recover anything that did. vaporize and flag what might belong in a black box. Most of it's worth a slag by the time it hits Earth. Once or twice we've pulled out something interesting, sensitive, usually gets taken off our hands before we can even ask what it was. This mission? Standard.

Eight of us were assigned with two trucks, fold out tents, portable uplinks, satellite relays, a drone, and a ground-penetrating radar unit. The site was flagged by orbital trackers. Something had come down hard and fast. We expected scorched wreckage and a couple long days shoveling sand and mud. Maybe a bonus of anything survived intact.

But something was off from the start. The telemetry was jittery. GPS would lock, then drift. The terrain didn't quite match the coordinates. It was like the maps themselves didn't want us here. And it was quiet. We got to work anyway. Carson, our team lead, oversaw the equipment set up.

The techs calibrated the radar. I was helping drive rebar stakes when the beacon came through. It wasn't a dead ping. It was active. Short burst, compressed, repeating on a tight interval. stronger than any beacon I'd heard on a recovery job. That got everyone's attention. Usually, those signals stop the moment the hole burns.

But this one, it was transmitting. We thought maybe a hardened core had survived. Blackbox, guidance unit, who knows, but the signal didn't triangulate at surface level. We ran a GPS scan. The data came back clean. Beneath the topsoil, maybe ten metres down, was a structure, possibly a shattered hunk of metal,

not just scattered debris, but maybe a whole chunk of fuselage. That's not possible, Carson muttered. The signal was coming from inside it. Whatever it was, it had survived orbital descent, impact, and burial. The surface showed the usual debris scatter. Scourge panelling, shattered fins, a few fragments warped beyond recognition. All standard stuff for a satellite crash.

But beneath that, buried deeper than expected, was something big. The text figured it had to be a telemetry core or maybe a reinforced payload container, the kind that's designed a survivory entry in case of failure. They would explain the signal too. Maybe it had been programmed to ping even after a crash to make recovery easier. Hell, maybe we get a salvage bonus. So we started plotting the dig. First, we measured soul density.

Then we checked the frost layers and runoff paths. The permafrost was thick here. Excavating it would take time and precision, especially if we didn't want to crush whatever was buried beneath us. We'd be digging by hand or close to it. Slow work. Then, mid-conversation, Jacob's radio flared up. A burst of static broke through his headset, followed by a strained, stuttering voice.

Is anyone up there? Hello? Please, I'm trapped. I don't know where I am. Everyone froze. We stared at Jacobs. then had each other. He looked as surprised as the rest of us.

Carson took over immediately, checking the frequency. Say again, identify yourself. A pause then. I can hear you. Please dig. It's dark. I'm alone. Help me.

The blood drained from my face. That satellite wasn't manned. No satellite ever is. They don't send people up in those things. They're too small, fragile. That wasn't their purpose. Even the military ones are remote-operated. There's no room for a cockpit, no reason for a crew.

So who the hell was talking to us? Recycled frequencies, check the relays. The signal wasn't bouncing from anywhere else. It wasn't interference. The origin point was right where the beacon. was 10 meters underground. We tried asking more questions. Where are you from?

How long have you been down there? What's your name? But the voice never answered directly. It just kept begging. Please, help me. Please dig. It's getting harder to breathe. At one point, it sobbed.

It didn't ask who we were or ask how we'd found it. He just begged to be freed. Carson called it in. Protocol. Any anomaly, especially one involving unexpected transmissions, had to be logged immediately. We huddled around the portable satellite uplink, the signal cutting in and out as he explained the situation to the contact rep on the client's end. Some mid-level handler for a private aerospace firm, whose name I couldn't even pronounce. He kept it professional, calm, said the beacon was still active, that the internal casing might have survived impact.

And then, almost like an afterthought, added, There's been a... Voice on the radio. Claims the one's alive down there. The reply came back after a pause. A dry chuckle, then a sigh, like he'd just been asked the dumbest question in the world. Yeah, no, that's not possible. The unit was unmanned.

All of them are. You should know that. We check the source, Carson said. The signal lines up with the buried object. The voice on the other end turns slightly sharp. Radio's bleed. You're hearing feedback. Crossover, maybe.

Who knows what kind of interference you're getting out there. We asked the direct questions, Carson said. It answered. Well, the rep said, his tone already checked out. Get the telemetry core, tag the wreckage, file a report, leave the ghost stories out of it. The line went dead. We stood there for a while, just looking at each other. Nobody said it, but the unease had started to spread.

If it had been static, we could have ignored it, or if it had been nonsense, we could have blamed the radios. but the voice was clear, panicked, and human. We tried to reason it out. Maybe it was bleed from another channel or someone nearby using the same band. It could have been a prank, some ham operator screwing around. But that all of this was unlikely in the middle of nowhere. Carson finally broke the silence. All right, we keep moving.

we have a job to do. Officially, we're recovering materials. That's it. And unofficially, someone asked. Carson didn't answer, but everyone knew. Some of us wanted to get the job done and go home. The rest of us, we wanted to know who was down there. That night, the wind picked up.

The temperature dropped hard and fast, like something had sunk its weight. into the air. I sat in my bunk trying to sleep. The low murmur of radios carried between tents like distant breathing. Then, mine lit up. Just for a second, a flash of static, a voice no louder than a whisper. You heard me, didn't you? By the next morning, the crew had started to split. Not outwardly, just subtle shifts in tone. People stood in small clumps now, muttering over breakfast, side-eyeing the radio sets. Some of the team were convinced someone had to be alive down there, had to be. They couldn't shake the voice, the cadence, the fear. It didn't sound artificial or like a recording. You don't

fake the way someone chokes back a sob. But others weren't buying it, the rational ones maybe, or just the scared ones in disguise. They said it was interference, that even if it was real, even by some cosmic fluke, a person had ended up inside that thing, there was no way they'd be alive after the fall. No food or oxygen on a satellite,

no explanation could reasonably explain what we heard. Carson tried to keep things grounded. He was a by-the-book's kind of guy, and by the book, we were here to recover orbital debris not perform search and rescue missions for impossible voices. Whether it's a person or a beacon, he told us flatly, we're here to dig, get to it. So we did. The GPR scans came back with more detail this time. The object wasn't just a dense cluster or some tangled core of junk metal. It had shape, defined edges, corners, symmetry,

A technician squinted at the readout and said, half laughing. Looks more like a room than a chunk of fuselage. Nobody laughed. Lucas started acting strangely, quieter than usual, twitchy. He was one of the older guys, wore his faith like a second skin, always had a rosary looped around his wrist, even when running cable. When the scan came through, he just stared. at it, lips moving, but no sound coming out.

Later, someone overheard him saying it wasn't a crash at all. It's a demon, he muttered. When pressed, he shut down completely, wouldn't explain, just shook his head and return to work, but slower now, twitchier, mumbling prayers under his breath whenever the radio crackled. That night, I couldn't sleep again. The wind had died, but the silence somehow felt louder than ever, like the world itself was on mute. As I passed Lucas's tent, I heard his voice, low and shaky.

Don't talk to it, he whispered. Don't look at it. It's not stuck. It's waiting. The digging was slow. The ground didn't want to give. Even with the right tools, it felt like it was scratch. scratching it something that didn't want to be found. I took my break past the camp perimeter, just outside the flagged boundary. The air was sharper out there, more open, the quiet that makes you feel like you're being watched by the land itself. I was stretching my back when I heard it. A voice, low, muffled, careful. I followed the sound around one of the supply trailers, quiet.

as I could. That's when I saw Kyle crouched behind the tires, hunched over a handheld shortwave radio. He was whispering into it, as if it were a lifeline. I know,

I miss you too. Soon, okay? I promise. He jumped the second I stepped around the corner and spotted me, fumbled the radio off like a kid caught smoking behind a gas station. "'Geeze, man,' he said too loud.

"'You scare the hell out of me.' "'Who are you talking to?' I asked. "'He gave me a crooked smile. "'My wife, missed our checking last night. "'She gets anxious when I'm off grid. "'I look down at the radio. "'Shortwave, no satellite link, no repeater access. "'It wasn't even on the same band we were using.'

"'You can't read. anyone on that, I said. He shrugged like it didn't matter and stood. Guess I got lucky, he said. Then he walked off, casual, like it wasn't the creepiest thing I'd seen all day. That night, I couldn't sleep. Some time past midnight, just as I was slipping between thoughts, the radio on the shelf above my bunk came to life.

Just the soft click, like someone's picking up a line they shouldn't have access to. Then a voice, calm, familiar but not quite. You're tired, it said. I sat up slowly, didn't answer. You don't have to pretend. Not out here, not with me. There was something soothing in the cadence,

like the voice of someone you'd known for years, softened by time. I know what you've lost. I swallowed hard, but said nothing. The wind outside pushed against the tent in slow, steady pulses, like a heartbeat. That pain you carry. I could take it from you. I pause, almost the breath.

Not erase it, just hold it for a while. So you can sleep, so you don't have to keep walking up with your jaw clenched and your hands shaking. I never told anyone about the panic attacks, the insomnia, not even Carson knew. I kept my personal out of the professional. I don't want much, it whispered. Just help me out. My hand hovered over the radio's power dial, but I didn't touch it. You wouldn't be the first, it said softly, and you won't be the last.

But you, you listened. better than the others. In silence, like it knew, it had said enough. By late afternoon, the soil had begun to shift. The upper layers were dry and crusted, but now we were hitting compacted earth,

dense loam that cracked in slabs as we dug. The resistance had changed. It meant we were close. The GPR confirmed it. The full shape was now visible in the scans. A large object, maybe 10 metres long, half buried, one side jutting up like a broken tooth. It didn't look like any satellite component we'd ever pulled. It was too whole.

We were close, but darkness was settling, which meant another night before we could fully uncover it. Dinner was quiet. Most of us were too frozen to talk. The wind had picked up again, blowing grit into every fold of clothing and crease of skin. Kyle, the one I caught whispering into the shortwave, was sitting near the mess tent entrance, grinning to himself. He looked like a man waiting for someone special to walk through the door. Every now and then, he glanced toward the crater and smile, like he just remembered a private joke. Lucas didn't eat.

He stood near the mist tent wall, arms folded, eyes down. He looked like someone trying not to throw up. That night, back in the bunk tent, I lay staring at the canvas ceiling while the wind rattled through the steel pipes. The day was starting to weigh on me, not just the fatigue in my body, but somewhere deeper. My thoughts kept circling around the voice, around the shape under the ground. I didn't know what I believed anymore.

I was just starting to drift. When I heard something. Boots, careful steps. I eased out of my cot and followed the sound through the flap. The night was moonless, only lit by the amber glow of the perimeter lamps. A figure moved along the edge of the excavation pit, hunched and deliberate. It was Lucas. I called out to him in a whisper and he spun around, eyes wild.

In his hands he clutched something. At first I thought it was a crowbar, but then I saw the edge, sharpened, improvised. We can't leave it in there, he hissed, we can't bring it out either, you understand? I took a step closer. What are you doing, man? His hands were shaking. They think it's talking to them. Maybe it is.

But it lies. That's all it does. I looked at the weapon, then at his eyes. There was madness there, but also conviction. Stopping him would be dangerous. He was committed to this. You really think it's dangerous? I asked.

He nodded slowly. It's not a person. It's not trapped. It wants to be found. That's not the same thing. I looked at him for a long time, then said the only thing I could think to say. Well, not my monkey, not my circus.

He stared at me like he was trying to decide whether I was worth arguing with. Then he turned and walked off into the dark, down toward the edge of the crater. I didn't follow. I told myself I didn't care and went back to bed. The morning fell off before we even reached the crater. Lucas was nowhere to be found. He hadn't returned to his bunk,

hadn't shown for breakfast. I figured he was laying low, maybe hiding out in the equipment truck until things blew over once we saw what he'd done. Or maybe he was ashamed. I wasn't the only one tense. When we arrived at the site, we all stopped short.

The crater looked... Wrong. The soil we'd fought against for days was now loose, uneven. It looked freshly turned. The marks from our excavation, careful layers carved out with heavy tools, were gone, replaced by an uneven, sunken sprawl, like the earth had shifted overnight.

No one spoke, until one of the new guys muttered. Did a storm come through? Another said, no win that's strong last night. Carson didn't waste time on theories. If it's loose, we'll count ourselves lucky, he said, slapping a glove against his thigh. Let's get it done. We grab shovels and picks, no need for the...

the power augers now. The ground peeled away like dry skin. Only a few minutes in, someone hit something solid. It wasn't just another scorch fragment or support strut. It was smooth, rounded, a faint gleam under the grit. We worked around it carefully, clearing layer by layer, until the shape came into view. A long curve, then another. The lines connected, forming a capsule or pod, fused into the chunk of satellite fuselage we'd been chasing all along. Except, this didn't look like any satellite module we'd ever seen. The material caught light in strange ways, like it wasn't one surface, but several folded into each other. Parts of it looked engineered, ripped panelling, beveled edges, even what resembled cooling vents.

But between those features were smooth, organic forms, soft iridescence beneath the grime, veined like tissue. You look at one corner and swear it was moulded titanium, blink and it was cartilage. It was seamless, almost. Then someone pointed it out, a faint line running along the side of the structure, about four feet long, thin as a wise shadow.

A seam. It's not latched, someone said, hushed. The air felt still. We didn't open it, not yet. We just stared. And for the first time, I realized we were all hoping. It was empty. No one spoke at first.

We just stared at the seam like it might blink back. Eventually, Carson stepped forward, brushing the dirt from his gloves. We're too far out to wait for anyone, he said. We open it, log it, report what we find. I glanced at him. That wasn't true. We had uplinks, emergency priority channels. If this was truly alien or even just anomalous,

a dozen agencies will be salivating to send a team. But Carson didn't want oversight. He wanted to see what was inside. Maybe it was valuable. Maybe he just couldn't help himself. No one volunteered. Carson turned to us. Someone, he said, forcing casualness into his tone.

It's probably empty. Might not even open. But the air said different, and so did the sight. silence. No one moved. It was in defiance. It was in consensus. None of us were opening that thing. If he wanted it open, he'd have to do it himself. His jaw flexed. I could see the calculation behind his eyes, how it would look if he didn't step up. He looked back at the pod, then down at the seam. Then he sighed, deep and shaky. like he was psyching himself up for a dive. All right, he muttered.

I'll do it. We all backed up, fast. Ten feet, then fifteen. Nobody wanted to be near it when it opened. Even the ones who'd scoffed earlier were watching like it might explode. Carson stepped up to the pod with his shovel in hand, slid the edge into the seam, just enough to leverage. Dirt shifted off the surface, falling in slow trickles.

The sun caught the damp sheen of the hole. He hesitated. Then... Twisted. With a soft metal clunk, the hatch flicked open. Carson stumbled back, catching himself with a shovel. He didn't speak, just stared. Nothing came out.

No smoke, no light, no movement, just stillness. After a long moment, the rest of us edged closer until we could see what had stunned him. Lucas. His body was slumped inside the pod like it had grown around him. His limbs were twisted, broken in ways that didn't make sense. One arm was curled tight around his chest, the hand still clutching what looked like his make-shyift. weapon. No one spoke for a long time, confused by what this meant. Finally, I stepped forward. I saw him last night, I said. My voice felt dry, foreign in my throat.

He was sneaking out, said he had to stop it, that we weren't taking it seriously. Someone asked what I meant. I hesitated. Then told them everything. About Lucas's rant, his fear, how he believed whatever was inside was evil, that the thing he said right before walking off into the dark. It can lie. That's what it does. The silence was pure dread.

Lucas had gone down, thinking he could stop it. Maybe he thought it was a demon. Maybe he thought it was a test of faith. Either way, he tried to fight it And lost But that wasn't what made my stomach drop What made it worse was the realization We all arrived at, silently,

Almost in sync Whatever had been trapped inside that pod Was no longer there It had escaped Every word it said to us Every promise had been a lie to get out. And Kyle, who'd always been the most eager to dig, to defend it, to whisper into dead radios,

now looked like the air had been sucked out of him. His mouth opened once, then again. But... It told me, no one answered. Carson didn't even pretend to report what really happened. He stood a few paces from the... the pod, pale and shaking, and keyed the sat-up link. The site is compromised, he said. On no materials present, possible contamination or national security breach, I can't elaborate

overcomes, request emergency response ASA. He didn't mention Lucas or the voice. He didn't have to. You could hear it in his voice. Something was wrong and it wasn't just debris. It took hours, but they came. At first, there was two men in plain black vehicles, no insignias, just questions. They arrived expecting radiation leaks or experimental tech. They left red-faced and calling in reinforcements. Then, came the flood. Hazmat suits, drones, surveillance trucks, people flashing badges none of us recognized.

Every agency you could name and a few you couldn't. Just as one group claimed jurisdiction, another would come in and supersede them. The entire dig site turned into a battlefield of departments. Our camp was torn down and replaced with pop-up tents and gated perimeters. We were herded, interviewed, separated, re-interviewed. Some of us were interrogated. Some departments weren't sharing information, so we were... made to tell the story dozens of times over.

Only, after exhaustive checks, psych evaluations, chemical swabs, hours of surveillance footage, did they seem to accept that we were just workers. We'd been caught in something much larger. They didn't thank us. They gave us papers the sign, heavy NDAs.

We were told we'd be monitored indefinitely. Whatever we saw didn't happen. Lucas died in a ground collapse. There was no pod, no transmission, no voice. We were put on planes

and sent home one by one. I haven't seen Kyle since. Carson's number is disconnected. A few of the others still answer texts, but no one talks about what happened. And me? I moved, switched jobs, different name on the ID.

badge now. Still work remote sites. Nothing satellite related. I thought if I kept moving, kept my head down, maybe I could forget. But sometimes, in the quiet hours just before sleep, I wonder, what was it? What had been locked in that pod, twisting its voice to match what we needed to hear what had waited in the dirt, whispered promises, manipulated a team of hardened workers until it was free. And more than that, what now? Because it's out there, and it spent a very, very long time learning how to lie. It said our town was founded on an unspoken promise. It's the kind of place that looks wholesome from the outside. Neat fences, tidy lawns, church bells on Sundays,

curfew that people actually obey. But underneath it all is a current. Something old, something everyone feels but doesn't name. That's where the box comes in. In Doorvale, when you turn 18, you get a box on your doorstep at sunrise. always the same hand-carved wood smooth as bone

no latch or lock inside is your role the word that tells you who you are now it's not symbolic you don't get a say once the box names you

that's it everyone says it fits that the box always knows my cousin got caretaker now she runs the infirmary, even though she used to faint at the sight of blood. My friend Leo got stonelayer, even though he couldn't hammer a nail straight,

but now he restores gravestones like an artist. They say the box finds the path you were meant to take, that it doesn't make mistakes. I wanted to believe that, but as my 18th birthday crept closer, something in my gut twisted in apprehension, worried that I'd somehow be the only one it gets wrong or sent on a path that would lead my life into misery

and fear I'm guessing a lot of people have At dinner the night before My parents acted like it was a graduation My dad grilled steaks My mom made that awful potato salad she thinks I like They kept smiling too much Afterward I met up with some friends around the fire pit near the lake Everyone made predictions, cracked jokes.

They said I'd be a brewer, since I always brought the best drinks, or maybe an archivist, because I kept a dream journal when I was 12. Then someone, I don't remember who, raised their cup and said, Just hope it doesn't say shepherd. Everyone laughed. Even the adults who were passing by smiled, as if it were an inside joke. Yeah, someone else said, added with a grin. If you get shepherd, you have to go to the clearing.

More laughed, a little forced. I smiled too, but the joke stuck in my teeth like a seed I couldn't swallow. We don't have sheep in Dorvale. No one farms, and as far as I know, there is no clearing. But everyone knew the joke, played along, like it had been passed down with the same care as our lollabies and town ordinances, a tradition missed in my household. That night, lying in bed, I stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about it, about the word, about what it would mean if the box made its first mistake. At home, I brought it up to my parents, but they brushed it off. The way they saw it, it was a legend at this point.

It was a warning given in case Shepard came up. but no one had gotten it in decades. So, it was thought to be a relic of the past, a job no longer needed in the town. In bed, I kept thinking about it. I imagined opening the box to find something normal, manifesting market like my dad maybe, or chef like my mom.

Something safe, something people would nod and smile at, something that would let me fade into the background, At midnight, I heard a soft thud on the porch. I waited five minutes before opening the front door. The wind smelled like damp earth. The street was empty. And sitting neatly on the welcome mat,

with no signs of a deliveryman, no tracks in the frost, was the box. It was handcuffed, polished smooth, corners slightly rounded, like it had been passed down. for generations, exactly like it had been described. No hinges, lock or markings. I brought it into my room and placed it on the desk, sat there for a while, just staring at it. I was alone. My parents knew it would be here, but opening your box is a special and private

moment. People knew to leave you in solace. It was nerve-wracking. My hands didn't want to touch it. I thought back to the fire pit, to the laughter, to the way everyone had grinned when they said, if you get Shepard, you have to go to the clearing, like it was a game with a way to lose. I lifted the lid. Inside, on soft red velvet was a single folded piece of paper. I enfolded it. One word. Shepherd. Everything in me went still. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room

and I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I read it again just to be sure. Same word, same tight ink, printed clean, centered. I closed the lid and hid the box beneath my bed. The next morning I didn't say a word. My parents didn't ask. But my mom watched me too long. closely over breakfast. Her fork barely moved. Her eyes didn't leave my face.

She must have thought I'd gotten something I hadn't expected. But deep down, it felt so much worse. It was common to let someone process what they'd received. It's sometimes a shock, but the fact that it was always right gave parents a credence not to push. Nothing makes a situation worse than making someone defensive. I packed my bag like normal, said I was going to school. I didn't. I cut through the edge of town where the woods started creeping back in, past the old feed shed, past the berry thickets that no one picked from. People of this town never venture far.

Hiking trails only circle near the edge of town. There's water close to fish. It's drilled into everyone. not to go far into the thickets, a warning that worked here. Part of me felt like it was delusional to find answers out there, but nothing I saw while raised in this town

matched the idea of a clearing. So, it had to be out there. Eventually, the GPS and my phone froze, then shut off entirely. After hours of searching, at the end of a forgotten trail, I found it, the place I was never meant to see. The trees opened into a clearing, animal bones littered the grass in tangled spirals.

I don't know what I expected to find in the clearing, what I didn't expect. It was a man. He stepped out from behind one of the crooked trees, slow and deliberate, like someone long unused at being seen. His skin was dry and colorless, eyes yellow to the edges, thin, trembling hands held nothing, but still twitched like they were used to carrying weight. He looked surprised to see me. You lost, he grumbled. No, I don't think so, I stumbled back. This was true.

Though I didn't know what I was looking for, I knew I was looking for something. and I could only guess that I'd found it. He paused at this, weighing what I'd meant, maybe even doing some threat assessment. He looked like he hadn't been around anyone in years. I could have stood there trying to ramble an explanation, but instead I reached slowly into my pocket and pulled out my note. Once he saw what was neatly written in the centre,

he sighed and sat down on a stump, like standing took too much out of him. He weren't supposed to be chosen, he said, not yet. I asked him who he was. He gave me a look like I should have known. I'm the shepherd, he said, or was, or still am technically. That didn't make sense. I never seen him before in my life.

He explained, he has a little bit more. the role. It's not like any ordinary job in the town. Only one can have it. Most people assumed he left town after his box arrived, but he didn't leave. He'd been hiding, skirting the boundaries. He looked at me with a kind of grim curiosity. If you got your box and I'm still breathing, he didn't finish the thought. But I got it. Whatever full, force governs the boxes, whatever makes them accurate, infallible. It shouldn't have chosen me. Not until he was dead.

And yet, it had. He didn't speak much after that. Just led me through a twisting animal path behind the clearing, deeper into the woods than I thought they went. The trees here rolled and gnarled like fists. The sky disappeared above us. everything smelled like copper and wet ash. We reached what looked like a collapsed shack, tucked into a hollow.

This disgusting place is where he lived. I tried to imagine calling that place home, but the idea sickened me. Inside, buried beneath the tarp and stacks of mold-darkened crates, was a journal. He set it on a stone, opened it to the first. first page. The pages were warped, some torn, some stuck together. The cover was stained with something reddish-brown and long-dried. I didn't ask what it was. Maps, names, drawings, instructions, a lineage of entries, different handwriting, dates going back, generations. This is the shepherd's record, he said. Your job now.

He flipped to a marked section, a diagram of the town perimeter covered in strange symbols and notations. Beneath it, a short, tight sentence scrawled in angry strokes. Maintained the boundary. I asked him what that meant. He didn't answer directly. Instead, he turned the page, showed me a list, dozens of entries. It detailed a busy schedule. Every day there was an entry, sometimes two or three.

The details were cryptic, only listing an amount of tasks completed. Nothing on what happened. But pressing inferences proved fruitless. All that was stressed was the importance of the job. Was this it? Living alone and working every day? Some thankless job in the middle of nowhere? I would have preferred to be a janitor.

At least then I'd be able to see my friends have a social life. But if I ignored the role, the boundary would apparently fail, whatever that meant. If I left, the town would somehow suffer. And if he died, if anything happened to him, it would fall to me. No backup or replacement. A life of solitude. Just me. He gave me some parting words for me to figure out.

If you see one, come to me. I left, dissatisfied with what I was hearing. My curiosity turned sour, making me want to see if I could somehow change my role. That night, I woke to a sound like leaves being raked across the porch. I got up and looked outside. There was something standing in the yard. My fingers stiffened against the sill. My tired eyes slowly adjusted, my mind desperate to make the shape into a tree or a shadow.

But it remained as it was, upright, pale, with a huge grin. It stood there as still as a statue, watching, waiting. The longer I stared, the more I became aware of the fact that I was standing directly in front of a lit window. If it hadn't noticed me yet, I was giving it every chance. I backed away from the window slowly, trying not to make the floorboard speak. When I finally reached the bed, I eased myself under the covers and stayed perfectly still. My heart thudding so loud it felt order. I lay there staring at the ceiling, listening for any shift outside.

By dawn, it was gone. No signs that something was rummaging in the yard. I ran back to the clearing. The old shepherd was already awake, waiting at the fire pit, like he knew I'd come. I think I saw one, I said. He nodded slowly, then grabbed a canvas bundle from behind a tree. Inside, rusted tools, something like a branding iron, and a long iron steak carved with symbols I couldn't decipher. He seemed to be able to track it like a bloodhound.

We found the thing skulking near the edge of the woods. It was still in the shape of someone, almost human. Same size, same build. but its knees bent wrong and its eyes were all pupil, no white. It smiled when it saw me, spoke in the voice of my childhood best friend, a girl who moved away years ago. Hey, it said, want to play?

She had it with a smile. Her cadence was just like how she sounded many years ago. My blood ran cold. The old shepherd didn't hesitate. He charged, drove the stake straight through its gut. It shrieked, curled backward like a snapping twig, but didn't die. I don't want to go home yet, it whined, twisting his neck toward me. Please, just a bit longer.

It laughed as the old shepherd pinned it to the ground, an elation that didn't match what his body was going through. Despite what it was saying, its actions didn't match. Its hands clasped over the shepherds, pulling the stake further in, like it was welcoming death. Thrashing, death throes that looked painfully stronger than a human that size. It took two full minutes to stop moving, catching the shepherd a few times, causing a few nicks and bruises. We burned it. The smoke smelled like copper and roses, but even that acted strangely.

Instead of billows and clouds, pushed around by the wind, it rose like a thin pillar into the sky, until it dissipated. I was done pretending this was normal. I demanded answers. Okay, what the hell is going on? I yelled. The sheep usually move as a flock. But sometimes a lamb gets astray, he retorted, like that somehow answered my question. Tears welled in my eyes, overwhelmed by taking in so much. No, enough with being cryptic. This is insane.

Why did she sound like my old friend? Am I connected to this? I jabbed. This seemed to catch his attention. He turned to me. You knew her? Yeah, we grew up together, played every other day, until she moved away, I answered. Moved away, classic, he muttered.

Just explain, I demanded. She's dead, died a while ago by the sounds of it. I guess you were too young for your parents to tell you straight. But she didn't move on, he replied bluntly. I was stunned, soaking in what he said. The body was a shambling husk, but it held what remained of my old best friend, something which we excised into smoke

that moved on into some unknown afterlife if what he was saying was to be believed. I just stared at the embers, at the reality of the situation. I didn't sleep after the whole ordeal I'd witnessed. Not even for a minute. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the things I had no way to process,

nothing earthly I could relate it to, so I could comprehend the gravity of what was going on. I kept telling myself it didn't make sense that this was insanity creeping in, my mind snapping after opening the box. But deep down, I knew better. I remembered the creature's voice, the way it smiled like it had teeth behind its teeth.

Still, I was resolute. I'm not doing this. So, I decided to leave. No packed bags, just a coat, my ID, and a lie to my mom about heading to the library. I walked to the gas station on the highway, where the delivery truck stopped, found a guy loading his flatbed, asked for a ride to the next town.

He barely looked at me, just said, Sure, hop in. We drove in silence. Ten minutes out of town, the trees started to thin, and I saw the county line sign ahead. I actually smiled. I was going to make it out. Then the driver made a weird noise.

A kind of sharp, choking hiccup. He leaned forward, fingers twitching on the wheel. Hey. He made a gurgling sound and slumped sideways, foot pressing the gas hard. We veered onto the gravel, then off the shoulder completely. The truck slammed into a ditch, flinging me into the dash. I blacked out. I woke up in the town clinic, same floor of wallpapers.

paper, same scent of antiseptic and old paper, a place I'd been to a few times as a child. My head throbbed, my shoulder was bandaged. A nurse leaned over me, pressing a cold cloth to my cheek. You're lucky, she said gently, only a mild concussion. I tried to sit up. She placed a hand on my arm to keep me still. You don't get to leave, she whispered. you've already been written in.

And just like that, I knew that whatever path I was forced onto, I was locked in. After the crash and waking up in the clinic, I was sent home the same evening, no follow-ups. No one from town asked if I was okay, only if I was ready, whatever that meant. I tried to pretend everything was fine, that I could still choose a normal life.

But that night, I heard something outside. A knock. Slow, deliberate, repeating three times. Then silence. I peeked through the curtain and froze. No one was on the porch or the street, but just at the tree line, black against the sky.

A figure was waving. The next day he came limping up my driveway. The old shepherd, gaunt and twitching, cuts along his face, shirt torn like he'd gone through thorns or worse. You need to listen, he said. His voice was different now, no longer cryptic, no longer in control. He looked scared. I need your help. I found another one, wondering the tree line.

Figured it'll be another easy catch. But it turned on me. It... Attacked. They've never done that before. I demanded he explain. All of it. I was sick of been left in the dark for so long.

He wiped blood from his cheek and slumped down on my porch step. This job isn't easy, but if you were chosen, I guess I have to accept, you can handle it. He resigned. Around the world, death is commonplace. People die, move on, and that's it. But here, it's a bit thin. The veil beyond isn't always one way. Sometimes things slip back.

I nodded, curious to what he meant. They wonder aimlessly, clinging onto relics of their past life, old routines or nostalgic areas. But they can't stay here. They can't find peace. So we help them move on, shepherd them to where they need to be. I was breathless at this. Despite the absurdity of what he was saying, it kind of made sense. It's not easy sometimes.

You froze up the other day, recognized your friend. That will happen a lot. People you love, people you grew up with will pass. And sometimes, they'll linger behind. They will recognize you and greet you like an old friend. But the routine never changes. No matter how hard it is, you have to do what's necessary. This made my heart sink.

A stranger I could maybe deal with, but someone I know, a friend or a family member, would tear me apart. It made sense why he chose to live alone. Fewer connections meant fewer attachments, able to dispatch them with more ease. Despite what they say,

they don't fight back, ever. You saw with a husk, Its mind wanted to wonder, but his body knew it had to move on. All we do is guide them there. But, I started not knowing how to ask, looking at his banged-up body. Yeah, I know. But I wasn't lying. They don't attack.

I think they just, for whatever reason, rejected me. He looked at me directly. with sincerity in his eyes. I need you to finish my task, one I found near the treeline. That's all, just one time, and I'll take back over. I stared at him, weighing what he asked. It still felt too much for me, but a one-off I could maybe do, and seeing how banged up he was, knowing that he'd try again if I didn't.

I felt like I had no choice. But to say yes, I set off for the woods. Before I left, the old shepherd pressed two objects into my hands. A short, wooden stake scorched black and etched with sigils I couldn't read and a sealed satchel tied shut with wax twine. He held eye contact too long before letting go. Stay on the marked path, he said. Don't speak first.

Don't run. and don't ever lie to it. He didn't elaborate, just turned and left. I was left alone, facing the tree line, the sky behind me turning red. I stepped deep into the forest, further than where the townsfolk walked. The trees were close together, crooked. The air changed fast, damper, smelled like turned soil and copper. As I walked, I started noticing.

in carvings, jagged spirals and almond shapes, like stretched eyes. Some had shallow notches across them like lashes. Finally, I reached a hollow, a sunken depression in the earth, maybe 30 feet wide with a stone basin at its centre. Next to it was an emaciated looking figure, a husk of a person slapping his hand on the stone. When I got closer, I could hear him saying something. Last two bowls are pears. Last two bowls. He was saying it like he was running a market stall that was about to close.

When I remembered Mr. Martin, who passed away a number of years ago. The old man was part of my childhood. He used to give free fruit to kids to, quote, make them grow up big and strong. I approached slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements, but he carried on like it was still doing business. When his hollow sockets locked onto me, recognition spread across his face.

Ah, dear boy, did you want an apple? They're fresh, he beamed, just like he used to when he saw me as a kid. My eyes welled as I slipped out the stake. heart beating in the highest gear. My breathing picked up as I stopped in front of him, unsure if I should go through with the grim task I was given. I stared at the stake, willing it to move on its own. The idea of driving it into something that appeared living

was beyond what I felt capable of, let alone the familiarity of them. The seconds droned on into minutes, as he continued slapping the rock like his old market stand. I can't do it, I muttered to myself, readying to leave. It wasn't causing trouble. What was the harm in leaving it there until the shepherd got better, I thought to myself. But before I could leave, the thing snuck up on me.

Its hands clasped over mine, hard, gripping the stake I still held pointed forward. Or would you prefer a banana instead? He muttered. But his voice didn't match his actions. He stepped towards me while pulling my arms in, driving the stake partly into his chest. Shark froze me, but as soon as the adrenaline pumped, I followed through, pushing forward as hard as I could.

The husk fell backward, pulling me with it, and I straddled it. keeping the stakes position true until I could drive it deeper one last time. It thrust around before finally falling still. I rolled off it, breathing so hard I thought I would pass out, but composed myself before getting back up. I slowly unwrought the satcheworth to see what's inside and recognise the contents. It was what the shepherd used to start the fire.

To honour Mr Martin, I set it on the stone he seemed to perceive as his market stall and lit it. It didn't take long to roar to life, and with some effort heaved the husk onto it, watching the smoke pillar seep into the sky. I paused for a moment to silently remember Mr. Martin before cleaning up and heading back home. I made my way back to town under a sky that felt. felt different, lower somehow. Even the stars looked like they were watching me. People passed me on the street, but something else caught my attention.

The rooftops, the shadows between buildings, the gaps between streetlights. In those spaces, I saw them, figures. Tall, narrow things, just watching. Their eyes didn't glow. But I saw them anyway, like impressions burned into my vision. I didn't know what was happening. I wasn't ready for this.

Why were there so many? I needed answers, so I went to the old shepherd's house. I knocked. Nothing. I waited and still nothing. But I couldn't walk away. My skin itched like something wanted me to understand. So, I opened the door.

The house was dim, smelled of dust and cedar. I called out, but there was no reply. I found him in the back room, slumped in a worn armchair. Peaceful, pale, a single candle burned low beside him, almost out. He was gone. I don't know how long I stood there. I don't know what I said, or if I'd. said anything at all. My stomach was hollow, not sad, just stripped, worried that all the answers

died with him. But as I looked around, the markings on the walls, the dozens of stakes lined neatly by the door, and I saw the scattered journals, clicked through some, and everything was in there, what he told me, and more. The scale of the task, the targets that end. And I was the for, and the eyes, seeing all those who remain. And it clicked. He had seen the figures too, saw them while I was naively worrying about the one that I had seen. He knew the scope of the job.

That's why he didn't take me in, not wanting to burden me with this monumental task. And now... He was gone. I walked home without trying. to hide anymore. I met the town's eyes when they glanced up. I saw the way the shadows shifted behind their curtains. I heard the slow rhythm of something breathing beneath the dirt. And for the sake of this man, who would thanklessly done this job for decades, working so long that this role was only a rumor in my generation. I decided then that I would be the new shepherd.

for this town.