CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 3+ Hours of SCARY Horror Stories that's not as good as Elden Ring, but you can listen while you play

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORYIES-►0:00 “They are everywhere” Creepypasta►16:33 "Never revive your Tamagotchi" Creepypasta►38:41 "02/22/2022" Creepypasta►58:01 "My Father Left Me A Dangerous Inheritance" Creepypasta►1:11:13 "People In My Family Don't Just "Die", We Go To A Better Place" Creepypasta►1:27:55 "I returned to the treehouse from my childhood" Creepypasta►2:05:41 "‘Mr Sunny’s Fun House Retreat’. The Ruins of a Long Abandoned Amusement Park" Creepypasta►2:46:30 "My girlfriend and I discovered an abandoned factory. We've decided to explore it" 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...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►https://www.billelis.com/-necro-maria-SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA 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-

This weekend I'm in a while I'm not as I'm not on think. Oh, that dossier that morning off must be more as I'm too

I'm too much as I'm on moose as I'm on too much as I'm on think. Have you it to move to come? Give yourself then a boost

with BioCure Maxshot Liquid. Three opepending plants, magnesium, iceer. An energy booster to make sure to can't

get back backshot liquid. Fooding supplement forcriag by the apotheker. Hey, young, that I'm in three days. I'm a moor as I'm more on think. Oh, that dossier that morning

off must, I'm all mooh as I'm just on there's just a little bit. Oh, van Navelle Tournoe. Oh, I'm a moose if I're not on thinking. Have you it mollick to come? Give you self then a boost with biocure maxhot liquid.

Three opeped plenty. Magnesium, Izer. An energy booster to immediately again to can clallet. BioCure Macshot Liquid. Foodingsupplement, forcry,

A couple looking for their first home together finds one that's perfect and cheaper than what is currently on the market. It's a little worse for where, but with a little TLC it would be a home they could raise a family in. That's the start to most horror movies you'll see nowadays, but somehow not too far-fetched, right? My girlfriend Sarah and I were that couple. We're young, in love and wanted to live together so badly, that we gathered up what little money we had to find our own place. Honestly, I was content with an apartment in the middle of town, but she convinced me that a mortgage would be cheaper

and assured me that it would be worth it in the long run. I wanted to rip my hair out as we searched for a house that we wanted within our price range. Everything was so ridiculously overpriced that we almost gave up until we got a phone call from my mom. She had heard from a friend of a friend who knew who knew someone that was putting their house up for sale. We called the number that she had texted us and we talked to the previous owner, Joseph.

On the phone, we were met with a jovial husky voice of a man who told us that the house had originally belonged to his uncle. Joseph's uncle had left the house to him, but he had no need for it and wanted to sell it. Sarah and I were trying to contain our excitement when he told us how much he wanted for the home, so we quickly made a range. to check the house out before we made any deals.

The following morning we went to the address he had sent us. The house was in a rural area about 30 minutes away from town, and when we got there, we were in awe. It was so picturesque with this long gravel driveway that led us to the beautiful faded white farmhouse. To be honest, I was still in shock of the price Joseph had set. This was a lot of house and land. There had to be something wrong with it, right? When we reached the house, there was a

small red truck parked at the end of the driveway. A burly man dressed in jeans and a red flannel shirt stood at the front steps looking up towards the house. We got out of our car and we called out a greeting to him, but he didn't break his gaze until we got a couple of steps away from him. He turned to look at us and shook his head a bit, as if he was. He was shaking himself from a trance. Oh, sorry about that. I haven't had my coffee yet, he said as he turned to face us,

flashing us a cheerful grin. So, what do you think? Quite a beauty, eh? Oh, it's so cute, Sarah answered as she stepped beside me. I let out an awkward chuckle as I responded. Yeah, it's almost too good to be true.

Joseph looked at the both of us, then back towards the house. Yeah, well, it'll be a shame to let such a good house go to waste And I know how hard it is to get a house these days Anyway, come on, let me show you around We followed him up the couple of steps and through the front door He gave us a bit of the history as he showed us around the house It was built in the mid-80s by the family of his uncle's wife

They moved in after they married to take care of her parents Up until they had passed They stuck around, didn't have a family, family of their own, and Joseph told me they'd both also died here. I turned to look at my wife, to see, she was as pale as a sheet. So, people have died here? Sarah said in a low voice. Joseph's smiling face suddenly dropped as she asked the question.

He forced to smile and asked, Oh, is that a problem? Before she could respond, I cut in with a shop. Oh, no, not at all. Her face looked up at me with a mix of shock and anger as she grabbed my arm to pull me to the side. Are you serious right now? She shouted at me under her breath.

I wanted to say that she was overreacting, but I didn't want to dig my own grave, so I responded as calmly as I could. Listen, babe, we've been searching for months and this this is the best deal we could possibly get. Sarah's face turned to full anger, and I brace myself for impact. We excuse ourselves from Joseph

for about ten minutes as we walked outside to wear options. Ultimately, we decided to go on with a tour and decide from there. We went back inside the home and looked around to find Joseph, but we couldn't find him. We figured he must have gone upstairs,

so we went up to look around the few bedrooms and still no trace of him. At this point, we'd given ourselves her own tour. That's when we stepped into the kitchen to find a door that led down to a basement. He had to be down here. The lights were on, so, with Sarah behind me, we cautiously made our way down to the basement. Each of our steps caused the old wood underneath to creak so loudly, it was as if they were screaming as we made our way down. When we finally made it to the bottom, we turned to find Joseph standing in the centre of the empty basement, staring at a dirty wall.

I slowly stepped behind him, calling out to him as I got closer, but he didn't respond. I took a hand and placed it up on his left shoulder to grab his attention. Hey man, are you okay? I asked wearily. Again, he jolted out of a trance and looked back. at me. Oh, sorry, I was doing some math in my head. I found a bit of water damage on the walls here, so I was going to take it off my asking price for you. I looked at the wall, and sure enough, there was some discoloration on the pale white surface. It didn't look like mould. I'm not sure

how else to explain it, aside from faint black splotches of... ink? I looked back to Joseph, and he offered to continue the rest of the talk. of the home. Sarah seemed a bit more reluctant, but we agreed and he continued showing us the rest of the home. The only thing that felt off was Joseph's odd behavior. Every now and then his words would trail off as he shifted his attention towards the walls. The three of us walked outside and Joseph turned to us. So what do you think? Sarah looked at him, then looked at me. Well, honestly, the fact that a few people died here is a bit unsettling.

Joseph's grin quickly shifted into a frown. Oh, I can assure you, this old place is worth a buy. On that note, let me change up the offer a bit. Our jaws nearly dropped when he told us the much, much cheaper price than we first talked about. He told us that he noticed this place would definitely be a fixer rubber and that he'd be more than happy to know that his place would be going to good hands. Sarah and I talked a bit.

With our budget and the price of the house, we'd be saving so much money. I shook Joseph's hand, and we quickly got the paperwork situated. A couple of weeks later, everything we owned was packed into a moving truck, and we headed towards our new home. We didn't have much,

so Sarah and I did everything by ourselves, we were so excited to finally move in that maybe that gave us strength thanks to all the money we saved from Joseph's generous offer we were able to get some furniture delivered but that was going to take a bit longer so all we had was my mattress we decided to drop off all our boxes into the living room

then decide where everything goes afterwards as I was placing a box down I couldn't help but notice something on the wall I stopped Sarah as she dropped off a box behind me Hey are you seeing what I'm seeing I asked as I pointed at the wall in the living room She followed the direction of my finger and saw that on the wall What looked like a very faint black stain that looked eerily similar

To a face I stepped closer to the wall and sure enough there was what looked like the outlines of a face I There was what looked like the outlines of a face head, long hair that stretched like tentacles, two beady eyes and purse lips. I know that the human eye tries to find shapes in things, but this was uncanny. I placed my hand upon the image of the wall. I felt a cold sting underneath my fingertips. Sarah let out a little chuckle. Fix her up, right? We'll paint over it or something. Yeah, absolutely, I said, as if I felt a wave of unease,

as I stared at the stain on the wall. It looked as of the face or what looked like a face. Its eyes was staring at me. We continue the rest of the day, unpacking and putting things in their new spots. It goes without saying

that we were completely exhausted. That afternoon, we went back to town to grab dinner. We raised our glasses to a job well done and chowed down on some food. I tried to shake this feeling of unease. but in my mind I kept remembering that damn stain

on the wall that face it was around 8 o'clock when we finally returned to the house to see that the front door was wide open and all the lights are on I told Sarah to call the cops

and I rushed inside the house to see if there was an intruder I looked through every inch of the house nothing seemed out of place and I didn't find anyone at all I went down the stairs into the basement, and I froze in place as I looked on the wall. The stains on the wall, there were now faces. About six of them now formed onto the wall of the basement that Joseph was staring at.

Despite being a faint outline, I can make out the same feature on each one. All of them were staring at me, and each one of them had their mouths open in a silent scream. Honey, Sarah called out to me from upstairs, and I heard another set of footsteps with hers. I went back upstairs to see Sarah with a police officer. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me that I'd been gone for so long that she and the officer looked around for me. The police officer stuck around for a while as I told him what happened, and that despite what we found, nothing seemed to be stolen.

He assured us to call him if ever, Anything came up and told us to have a good night. After that scare, a good night was the last thing we would have. Sarah was upstairs taking a shower, and I sat on the floor of the unfurnished living room, staring at the walls. The face that I'd seen earlier there was now gone. I didn't tell Sarah about the faces I'd seen. I'm sure I was just tired from all the moving.

I even went back to the basement, and sure enough, there weren't any. any faces on the walls. I laughed to myself and went upstairs to the master bedroom. I saw Sarah standing in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. I tried to be cool and walked towards her, wrapping my arms around her. When I noticed that she was shaking. I spun her around and saw her eyes were wide with absolute terror.

I asked her what happened and after a couple of minutes, she told me that while she was taking a shower, she felt someone was watching her. She thought that it was me, but when she turned around, she didn't see anything. She dropped a towel to show me where she felt something grab her, and, on the midsection of her back,

there was a faint black outline of her hand. Sarah asked if I saw anything, and I did my best to assure her that things would be okay. and that we must be really tired. She reluctantly agreed. Maybe we'd feel better in the morning after a good night's sleep. I gave her a hug and I looked behind her into the bathroom. And I saw another face staring back at me.

But it was smiling. In my sleep I dreamt that I was laying atop the mattress when I started to feel cold. I look down to see the outlines of hands within the darkness of my bedroom, wrapping their fingers around me. Each bony finger pressing into my skin, squeezing me. My legs, arms, torso and throat, are gripped by the countless cold hands. I forced my neck to turn towards Sarah, but the icy grips that were on me forced my head to look up towards the ceiling. Cold fingers pry my eyes open to see. On the ceiling, staring down at me There were so many faces

No longer outlines They were so vivid Each face with a different pain expression on them With one man's face looking down at me with a smile I awoke the next morning My body was shivering as I lifted myself up from the mattress I looked over to Sarah I was still fast asleep

I tried to take in the tranquil sight of her resting until I looked around the room. It was as if someone had covered their hands in black powder and pressed their hands all around the walls. Handprints of all sizes, pitch black sprawling across every corner of the bedroom. I looked back up towards the ceiling to see that it was completely covered with the dark outlines of screaming faces. I shook Sarah awake.

I couldn't keep this to myself any longer. and when she opened her eyes I told her about the faces I'd been seeing her face turned into such a pain look as she told me to look around the room the walls were completely empty I went to the nearest hardware store

and bought so much white paint as soon as I got back to the house I picked up a roller and started frantically painting the walls we spent days painting the entire inside of the house But those damn stains Those damp faces kept coming back Every night that I slept I'd have the same dream of cold hands gripping onto me

Lately I've been hearing something Whispers coming from the walls Telling me to stay in the house To be with the house Have I finally gone crazy Sarah suggested that we move out But we'd put so much money into this

and I refuse to let whatever this is to keep coming back. I am not going to let go of this house. It's mine, right? Sarah is telling me that she's afraid, but she doesn't understand that I'm afraid too. I see them everywhere. They're constantly watching us. And I'm more afraid of what happens to us

if they hear us talking about leaving. There's nothing like my. Moving back into your childhood bedroom to kick-starter aggression. I was 27. I'd lost both my job of five years and a relationship of six. One of those fires precipitated the other, but before I could figure out where the blazers started, my adult life was cinder,

and I was back in a cramped room with a racetrack carpet. I had not seen my memory box since leaving for university, but after two nights of witnessing how ages worse in my father's solaceous. sonic snoring, and I found myself sentimental. Beneath my bed, covered in a thick layer of dust, was a cartoon container filled with a rag-tag grouping of mementos from my youth. Most of the phones had chargeboards that dated back to the early Stone Age, and I knew

that reading through any of the old love letters would tear me apart. But, nestled in the remnants of paper waistbands from parties I couldn't remember, sat a monolith of the late 90s. My old Tamagotchi. Well, it wasn't a Tamagotchi per se. What I had was Cyberstwantini, roughly translated from Polish as cybercreature. A toy identical to a Tamagotchi, in all but the fact that no money from its sales traveled back to the Bandai Corporation.

Instead, the proceeds from the sales of Cyberstwantini were split between some enterprising pole with no regard for copyright law, and is a source of. who sold the toys at Zachopane open-air market. Trademark infringement or not, my pocket-sized digital animal was a steady companion for the early years of elementary school. In a world of 4K YouTube videos, it was difficult to imagine how a collection of pixels and a keychain could mean so much to me as a kid. But, sitting on my racetrack carpet, as a kid, I yearned for a return to that simplicity. the plastic toy didn't respond to any input presuming that the batteries for the Cyberstallenseney

might be dead I fished around the mementos for something salvageable at the bottom of the box gifted once but never worn was the digital watch I received after my first communion the button batteries that the watch ran on fit snugly inside of the Cyberthornsony but even then the toy refused to turn on Back in the playground days, most of my friends had a digital creature of their own. The nationality of our knockoffs ranged from Vietnam to Ukraine, but they all function the same way.

With the help of the plastic key that came with a toy, any amount of neglect could be undone. For a good four years, I carried the small bit of plastic in my pocket on the off chance that disaster struck. But when I truly needed it, the key was nowhere to be found. I emptied out the whole memory box in hopes of finding the resuscitation device, but it soon became clear that the key had fallen victim to a vacuum cleaner a long time ago. The piece of paper I tried sticking into the CyberSwanzanese resuscitation hole nearly got stuck inside. The edge of my cigarette pack didn't do much better. The only material that seemed to be able to replicate the plastic key

was the passport photo of my now ex-partner that I still still was. that I still carried in my wallet. I had to fold the photo a couple of times so that it would fit the toy. All that I could see was one big green eye watching me. The folded up photo seemed to elicit a click from the plastic innards

of the cybers fontany, yet the screen remained dormant. My need to regress the childhood quickly turned into an impotent, infatile rage. I was angrier about my situation in life rather than the Tamagotchi not turning on. But the big green eyes staring at me from my palm made any self-reflection far too painful.

It was around 3 a.m. on a Wednesday. The walls on my cramped bedroom were vibrating under the strain of an inhuman snore and I was furiously slamming a picture of my ex into a knock-off Tamagotchi. Just before the realization that I should go to sleep dawned on me, however. The screen,

top. It was a dim white light at first, but it grew at a worrisome speed. Soon enough, the Tameroguchi's screen rivaled the shine of my bedside lamp. Soon enough, it surpassed it. Like a teen trying to hide a portable DVD player, I shoved the toy under my covers. My bedding was thick enough to block out the light, with a couple seconds for which I'd observed the absurdity were enough to cause concern. For about a minute, I laid in the light. bed, listening to my father's snore, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then my curiosity got the better of me. In an instant, the light enveloped the entire room.

My bedroom was wiped away by a blast of bright, blinding white. All went silent, all ceased to exist. The smell of McDonald's takeout and sweat dispersed into the abyss. For a moment, I was stuck in a purgaret. of nothingness. I did not stay long. The first thing I felt was the coarse plastic grass beneath my palms. As the white blindness left my eyes, I was able to see my surroundings. The faux grass quickly became irrelevant. All I could feel was hair-raising terror. I stood on a square of plastic greenery suspended in a baby blue sky. Above me there were clouds and beneath the

The floating mass, there was fog, but the island of neon green plastic was the only thing that existed near and far. The space was no bigger than someone's backyard. A blocky shack sat in the center of the landmass with a clean looking outhouse as stones throw away. Outside of the shack there was an egg twice the size of my skull. It was wet and covered in zig-zag lines, and it scared me most of all. tried to convince myself that I was having a dream, or maybe a seizure, but I was never

good at convincing myself of things. It all felt too real. No amount of pinches to the arm or bites of the cheek brought me back to my room. Not being able to satisfy my urge to escape, I tried to hide. As I made my way into the shack, the wet egg gently swayed from side to side. I did my best not to think about it. about what it could hatch into. Inside of the shack was Spartan.

Pressed up against the wall was a large shelf, filled with dozens of identical burgers that looked like the platonic idea of fast food. In the middle of the shack sat a lonely soccer ball. Propped up next to the window, rusted and worn, was a giant battle axe. I started pinching myself again,

hoping to return to the coherent world of my bedroom. With each peck of the arm, I grew more concerned I was trapped. From beyond the window, I could see the egg sway from side to side. It had grown considerably. The countdown to the egg hatching in my cybers fauncerny was my first real experience with the concept of time. Prior to that, if I ever asked my parents how long something would take, they would simply tell me to count to 100 or 200, and that would occupy me enough to stop being restless. The timer read five minutes. Sitting in the back of my grandfather's car,

crossing the border from Poland, the five minutes it took for the cyber swanita hatch lasted in eternity. Watching the slimy egg bloated up from inside my surreal shack, the five minutes went by in a snap. The wet egg swayed from side to side, bloating bigger and bigger until its shell could no longer contain the bean trapped inside. With horror, I watched the zigzag pattern split aside.

New life burst from the strange egg. Crooked. A mess of red hair, a flash of pink skin. I barely saw the animal before it ran from the window. Crooked!

The creature had stomped its way behind the wooden shack, but I could still hear it snorts. The sounds were deep and guitaral, but they didn't sound like they came from an animal. They sounded strangely human. Krokt! Thinking their confront of the creature would shorten the absurd nightmare I was stuck in, I opened the door of the shack. The moment I spotted the beast, I slammed the door shut and grabbed the axe. The thing outside was beyond comprehension. The memories I had concerning the Tamaguchi never revolved

around the actual toy. My digital pet was just a collection of pixels. What truly brought it to life was my commitment to its well-being. Every morning, before I even got out of bed, I would make sure that my service-forsenny didn't need to go to the bathroom. My math classes, my social studies classes. Hell, most of my elementary school existence was spent with a plastic keychain hidden beneath my desk, making sure my digital friend was well-fed and not bored and comfortable. The creature itself was just a collection of two dozen pixels. It was my imagination that sharpened the image. Crocked. Outside the wooden shack stood a monster. It had the plump body of a well-fed pig, but its face was well out of the realm of nature.

It looked like an old man who had far too much skin on his face, a tuft of hair that was far too red rested on the beast's scalp. From behind the folds of flesh, two small black eyes stared back at me. The animal seemed to have no interest in me, but I refused to let go over the axe. He just roamed around the plain of fake grass, occasionally sniffing at the plastic with this oversized human nose. I picked in my skin until I drew blood, but my body refused to wake up from the nightmare.

After a solid 30 minutes of sheer terror, the world turned even more confusing. Kroached! There was urgency in the animal's call now. Something was wrong. The creature was unhappy, and his discomfort was sending ripples to the strange world I was trapped in.

The bright blue sky outside started the crack in the streaks of bloody red. The earth shook. Croached, crouched! The animal was looking at me through the window. Past the flabby skin, I could see the creature's black eyes. It wanted something from me. It didn't take long to figure out what. It was like an optical illusion.

The moment I tried to focus in on the floating object above the beast's head, it disappeared. Yet, when I looked at the hybrid pig in the eyes, I could see it. An image of a burger floating above its head like the halo of an obese saint. The animal wanted to be fed. The pig's demand echoed through the strange world.

My wooden shack quivered under the weight of the animal's tenor. Not wanting to see the full extent of the creature's anger, I grabbed one of the cold burgers. off the shelf and stepped out on the plastic grass. I didn't realize I left the axe inside of the shack until I was standing in front of the beast. As the rolls of the pig's face parted to reveal a row of dull square teeth,

I found myself fearing for my life. Yet, when the creature ate the burger from my hands, it was gentle. By the time it had gobbled up the meal, the universe had calmed. The world I inhabited was still deathly confusing, but its blue sky had returned. Kroached.

The creature went back to wondering through its limited world. With nowhere else to go, I sat down on the rough plastic grass. With no sun in the sky and no watch on my wrist, the concert of time eluded me. For what felt like at least an hour, the animal roamed around the plastic lawn, completely ignoring me. I had gotten lost in my thoughts when it spoke to me once more. Groached. Much like the image of the burger,

the three jagged lines above the pig's head refused to appear on direct observation. Looking into those dark eyes, I knew exactly what the animal wanted, though. Unsure of the creature's dynamics, I opened the door to the outhouse. The beast stood unsteadily. on its hind hoofs as it ended the latrine,

and the sounds that it produced were beyond discomforting. Yet, when the pig had finished his business, the outhouse was surprisingly clean. I recognised the burger that floated above the animal's head, I recognised the stink lines. I'd seen the signs of my youth. Back when my entire world could be diluted into a handful of pixels hiding beneath my desk,

the signs would guide me in caring for my cyber-slaughts. The floating burger meant the creature was hungry. The stink line signaled the need to use the bathroom. There was a third signal that I didn't need to wait for. As the creature roamed around its small patch of plastic greenery, I retrieved the soccer ball from inside of the shack. Kroached! There was a hint of joy in the pig's throaty cries.

A big red heart shined above its head. We kicked the ball back and forth. back and forth until I got tired. The animal didn't seem to mind our game ending, but it was thankful for the attention. As it laid down on the grass, it nozzled me with its wet human nose. I slept on the plastic lawn. I slept hoping that I would wake back up in my childhood bedroom in a world that was discomforting but understandable. When I woke, all I saw was baby blue sky. The burgers liked any semblance of taste or smell, but they fed me. The outhouse provided a place to relieve myself, but it never showed any signs of use.

My existence in the strange digital world still made me uncomfortable, but I no longer felt the need to pinch my arms. I knew it wasn't a dream. I knew. I was trapped. With no sun in the sky, there were no days that. count. At first I made an effort to keep track of how many meals I'd eaten to gather some semblance of the hours that had passed, but I quickly lost count. Time was passing, yet with no way to quantify the passage, it quickly became irrelevant. The thoughts of my unemployment, my housing

situation, my broken heart, they all quickly became irrelevant as well. Somewhere in the back of my head. I remembered my old life. I remembered the hurt. Yet, with nothing to remind me of my sorrow, the thoughts quickly drifted away into the realm of the abstract. My responsibilities had changed. I no longer had to win a paycheck or balance a social life or make something of myself. All I had to do was take care of my cyber-swartney. With each burger that I ate, with each kick of the soccer ball, my old existence grew distant. All of the responsibilities and pressure of adult life had dissipated into an elaborate version of the imaginary world of my childhood. My digital pet was my only companion, and after a while it felt like I could live out the rest of my existence with nothing

but its dark eyes and cold nozzles. There was no sun to track the days with, yet eventually my body made it impossible to ignore the passage of time. I was far too heartbroken to shave when I first moved in with my parents, yet the light scruff I had entered the digital world with had turned into a beard that reached down to my chest. My nails had extended far longer to look more like claws. There were no mirrors in the strange realm that I was strapped in, but when I touched my scalp,

I could feel the hair on the top of my head growing thinner. For a couple dozen meals, I tried to ignore the fact that I was aging, but as my back started the strain under my games with the Cyborg Schwarzeny, my body's degradation became unavoidable. I found peace in the strange block of false greenery, yet a lifetime of peace was not what I wanted. The breather from reality of the resurrection of my Tamagotchi afforded me

was a welcome respite, but I found myself longing for the real world. I wanted to make something in my life. I wanted to have an impact, I wanted to love again. For what felt like weeks, I roamed by the edges of the floating cage trying to figure out how to escape. Leaping down into the bright blue abyss was the first option that came to mind, yet I felt more like death than a plan of escape. The first couple of times the thoughts sprung up in my mind, I tried to push it away.

But as I paced around my wooden shack, the image of the rusty battle. axe refused to leave me. I kept on trying to find a different solution, but I kept on circling back to it. The digital realm was based rather cyber-sworch than he. If there was no digital

animal for me to take care of, there would be no need for me to be imprisoned. Once my nails started getting too long to comfortably hold the weapon, I retrieved it. Crouched! From beneath the flaps of moist skin, its dark eyes watched me.

There was no emotion in them. The creature wasn't scared or disappointed. It just watched me. When I was a kid, the decision to stop feeding my Tamaguchi was not a decision. It simply happened. One day, I was hyper-fixated on my plastic toy, and the next, my attention was elsewhere. The toy spent months, if not years, trapped somewhere in the dust beneath my bed. When I finally found the artefact of my childhood, it was dropped into my memory box without much ceremony.

Standing above the strange creature of pale flesh with a battle axe was different. I'm sorry, friend, I said, my voice hoarse from not being used for what felt like years. Crutched, my digital friend replied. The animal did not understand, and thus was not angry. It just watched me, completely ignored. ignoring the axe of my hands. I did not wait for my companion to make sense of what I was doing. I brought the axe down.

The blade cut through its neck as if it was room temperature of butter. Before the axe hit the ground, reality came crashing down. It was around 3 a.m. on a Wednesday, and the walls in my cramped bedroom were shaking under my father's snores. I woke up in my bed, covered in sweat and blood, and looking like a castaway. The cypress-sworchthony was still in my hands, but the screen was dark.

I handled a plastic toy with a sort of care reserved for faulty nuclear warheads and hid it back in my memory box. With the cardboard safely tugged beneath my bed, I crept over to the bathroom and got rid of all the excess hair and nails that I developed in my digital prison. Not a day had passed,

but I feel like I'm on a stung as though, done being sad about my heartbreak and misfortune. For this peace of mind, however, I've paid with years of my life. I do not feel my age these days. I know the explanation is absurd, but also, in the depths of my bones, I know I am much older than my driving licence suggests. It didn't take long for the visage of the strange Pigman hybrid to leave my mind. Some things are far too disturbing to remember.

What I stuck around, however, is the sound. Sometimes, when I'm having trouble falling asleep or feel overwhelmed with a task at hand, I hear it. I hear the creature, and I immediately appreciate the freedom. I have. February 22nd, 2022. This is the date I chose to win things. I figured the date would look at it. cool in an obituary. I have two middle names and a double-barrowed last name. Maybe someone

looking in the papers would think it was a sign or something. All my affairs were in order. I sufficiently given up. I was ready. The last few years have been hell for me. My already dwindling social life was completely shut down during the shutdown. My job finally figured out I wasn't actually any use and my roommate went on to do bigger and better things. So, there I was, left alone in an apartment I couldn't afford with a life that had nothing going on. Now, don't get me wrong. I tried, I really did, but life always threw a curveball when I was swinging straight. My last decision now is, how do I do it?

What's the way I want to go? My perfect idea was the lake by the hills. Near a main road, not too far from my old house, sits a beautiful lake, one that is surrounded by some grassy hills with small roads that take you into town. The other side is a beautiful front where families gather in the good weather. If you looked at it and said it looked straight out of a catalogue, that's because it is. It was on the cover of the catalogue the estate agent used for the house I'd bought with my fiancé, soon to be wife. Her name was Lucy, and we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together. For months, we'd saved up to move into a house together.

The only issue we had was where. We met at uni and loved the sea, and for a long while, we were happy there. However, as the years passed, we started to grow out of what we found fun. The noise that we used to be a part of began to grate on us. The activities moved way too fast for us. we were growing up Once we realised that we were in the settling phase that we'd outgrown the student-rich area of our life

we decided to leave the nest When we found the house in the town near the lake We did everything we could to get it We both worked doubles to build up just enough of the deposit We borrowed help to move When we were handed the keys We worked hard to move in as fast as possible The moving arrangement

was simple. Because we were moving from an apartment to a small house, we didn't have heaps of stuff. We had two friends that had small trucks that we borrowed, and our idea was the split-up and move them out each until we were done. This is where we had a split in opinion. She wanted to keep the loads minimal, make several trips, and get it done over the course of a few days. But to me, I wanted to get it done as soon as possible. It was a four-hour drive each way. so to keep going back and forth was a mind-numbing thought. I figured out that with enough straps we could load all of our stuff on both trucks, with the seeds filled to the brim, and we could do it in one trip.

My synapses were firing off of the idea of moving in one go. Always the cautious planner, Lucy was apprehensive, but when I presented her with the idea that she does her half in two trips, she gave in and agreed to do it my way. The winter wasn't very harsh in her apartment area, but I didn't realize how bad it was around the area we were moving to. Some other rural roads gave me a bit of trouble. The weight of our stuff not helping were the sharper turns

that you never run into when driving in the city. There were a few close calls, but eventually I made it to the house. I got there first, which is worth a gloating text. I waited for Lucy to arrive. During the first hour, I figured she'd pulled over at a shopping area. There's a reason I called her a leaky tap with the number of bathroom breaks she took. After the second hour, I thought she might have been taking the road slow to avoid an accident. When three hours hit, I started to grow worried.

None of my calls went through and my texts were left unread. I didn't know if this warranted a call. to the emergency services, so I was stuck in a limbo of not knowing what to do. All the while, the weather was ever getting worse. After five hours, I couldn't wait any longer and decided to call the police. I let them know of the situation, and they told me they'd keep me updated if they found anything. Then, all I could do was have a restless sleep alone in the cold new house. the day after I looked outside

and my heart sank nothing I was at a loss of what to do I called my friends who lent us the trucks and they said they hadn't heard anything from Lucy I inquired with the police to see if there was an update and they simply told me that if I wasn't contacted then no

I tried to go about my business as usual but my mind was fogged up with worry and anxiety. A whole day went past, and nothing came about. On the second day, I received a call. It was the police. They found her. A farmer took his tractor down some of the small rural roads just outside a town.

Because he was driving slow enough, he noticed some red scrape marks on the edge of the road. This particular turn had a small bank that led towards the lake. Usually there was a small barrier that you couldn't see through to the thin layer of snow. But when the farmer kicked the snow away, he realised it was gone. Once he let the police know, they immediately investigated and saw what happened. Lucy must have hit a patch of ice and gone through the barrier. They found the truck crumpled at the bottom near the lake. Lucy must have survived the tumble because she was found a ways away from the vehicle

and crawled slowly out of the crash. However, she didn't make it far in the harsh cold of winter. The authorities determined that the truck was too top-heavy, and though she reacted in time, the weight pulled her too hard and took her over the edge. The barrier could have stopped her, but it snapped under the weight of the load. I had lost her, and it was my fault.

Can life carry on after this? This was a question I contemplate. I'd like it alone. In a house I could no longer afford with a mix of half our stuff. Sure, I made a bad call, but it was from good intentions. If a higher being was watching,

this was far too harsh a punishment. Let me off with a warning, hurt us, break our stuff, take me. But why her? It didn't take long to default on the house. The arrangement relied on both of us working hard to keep up with a mortgage.

With her gone, and me too grief-stricken to work, I was quickly kicked out. Work only tolerated so much of my tardiness before they let me go too. So much happened around that lake, and the face of what killed my wife, perfectly reflected in the water. A reminder of the life I should have had. I'd arrived with some rope and heavy stones in my car. My plan was to walk in with enough weight around my waist to still move but not full, simply walk in and let nature take its course I pulled everything out and checked

YouTube to figure out the best knots to use this is when I heard a scream I paused the video and made my way over apprehensive about what was across the way then I heard another scream then another followed by giggles it was a family having a day out by the lake. I watched, curious about what was going on. The mother sat a ways away as the kids played by the water. It was pretty cold out,

so the sister screamed every time a brother splashed some of the lake water at her. She acted like she hated it, but that was overridden by how much fun she had. The father was setting up a small grill next to a cooler full of food. This sight warned me,

but soon ran cold, through my blood. That should have been me. This is where I wanted to raise a family. Lucy and I should have been here, right now, grilling food with our kids, maybe a dog, laughing together to build memories that would last a lifetime.

Moments talked about in graduation speeches of our kids, thanking us for the blessed upbringing we planned all those years ago. This taste sat bitter sweet in my mouth. Then a voice ripped me from my thoughts Hey! I jumped to the start, looking to see who it was. It was the brother having noticed me in the shrubbery. This got the father's attention, who briefly stared at me before calling me over.

At first I wanted to refuse, but realized how weird it looked if I was standing there, watching his family, then disappearing when caught. so I bit the inside of my cheek and made my way over What are you up to bud? He asked me I'm just I'm parked just past the bushes Came here by myself Didn't expect anyone else to be here

I replied hoping that was enough He looked at me for a second Thinking it over Then smiled Not many people come to the lake this time of year Everyone says it's too cold but not us, we love it. I see, I replied,

letting the silence hang before feeling it to make it not awkward. I like your family. As soon as I said this, I realised how weird it sounded, but the father chose not to take it that way. Thank you. You know, if you came all the way out here,

you're more than welcome to stay with us. There's plenty of food to go around. I tried to politely decline, but I relented after he insisted several times. So, there I was, now part of a nuclear family in the fringe of winter, having a barbecue with a pile of rocks and rope sat in my car just a few bushes over. I was introduced to everyone. There was Randall the father, Susie was the mother, Bonnie was the daughter, and Ben was the son. They were the picturesque image of an ideal family, something that would complement the picture of the lake

if another brochure was made of this area. I was riddled with small talk. We weren't familiar enough to let the silence hang, so questions were thrown about to fill the void. We went back and forth, but eventually Susie brought up the one thing I hoped no one would. So, have anyone special in your life? She asked with a wry smile.

It's complicated, I muttered in response. She cooed at that, just shy of an elbow nudge of wanting to know more, but I didn't want to elaborate. When she couldn't get a peep out of me, she huffed and moaned but stopped pushing. Instead, Susie and Randall went through a charade of spitting out random bits of relationship advice, hoping to land on the answer. Something I've learned, son, is never. to sit on a lie. Once they find out, it's ten times worse than if you just told them. Randall

shot out. Never go to bed on an argument, sort it out before you sleep. That always worked for us, Susie added. Always have at least one date a week. Even when you're busy with kids, you have to maintain the bond you have. Randall said with joy in his voice. Trust is the number one thing that makes or breaks relationship. Once it goes, it's tough to get back, Susie lectured. Everything hurt. Each thing brought up, we'd bring up pain from the past. Conversations I'd had with Lucy, our ups and downs that we fought through to make things work. We'd both made mistakes, but saw past them to still be together. Our bond was too strong. This made the loss hurt all over again. This built up until I couldn't take it much longer. Just as I was about to

reach my breaking point. I heard laughing coming from the bushes. Ben and Bonnie came running out. Bonnie was swinging a rope around or Ben was throwing a rock around. Both parents immediately went to take it from them. While they ran off, my eyes just bulged at what they'd found. They were obviously too dangerous to play with. I heard Randall asking Ben sharply where it found them, and all he said was They were in the back of the car just past the bushes I hoped Randall would just reprimand

Ben and Bonnie for rummaging in a strangest car but it was worse He inspected the rustic, ominous looking rope looked at the size of the rock and immediately thought the worst His eyes flicked a mine and I had guilt written all over my face

There was no doubt that they were mine But what were they for, he must have thought. Randall approached while Susie stayed with the kids, telling them to stay back. Susie watched like a hawk while Randall stepped slowly closer. I was stiff as a board, and made no attempt to move. Hey, buddy, what were those things doing in your car? Randall cautiously asked, slowly closing the distance.

In a panic, I tried coming up with a good excuse. I, they're not for you if that's what you're thinking. This very much made it sound like it was for them. Randall was losing faith in me each step he took and fear flashed in my eyes and I saw his eyes flick at the knife on the edge of the grill. This could get ugly, fast. I figured now would be the best time to come clean.

There for me, I said. With that, he stopped. What do you mean? Why? he asked. I couldn't hold it in any longer. She's gone. I couldn't finish the sentence without breaking down into tears. Susie immediately came over and they both comforted me as I explained everything. When I was done, they both just stood there in silence, thinking over my tail.

Randall sat down next to me, uncomfortably close, and sighed in thought. Susie reacted like she knew what he was thinking, almost like they were having a conversation with no words. I gave them all the time of the world, which they ate up. When enough courage was built, Randall finally piped up. Bonnie and Ben, they ain't my kids. I looked at him in surprise. Without a word from me, he continued. Susie was married before but wasn't happy.

Susie looked away in embarrassment at a life being exposed. I had a sweetheart but illness, sucker. He carried on. Cancer, he added, as he looked into my eyes. We met two years ago and hit it off at this lake and a cold February morning. They looked at each other, but their expression changed

to one of adoration this time. We both came out to clear our heads with no big plan. When we both realized we were just hanging around here, we got to talking. We eventually spilled out about our lives. All the bad we were in,

but realized it was something we had in common. So we agreed to meet up again and talk more, Randall said We realized when one story ends A new one can start Susie added Look, Randall chimed in

We're all the protagonists of our stories But just because a chapter has ended Doesn't mean the story has You just have to look for the next start I just broke down And sobbed When I finally stopped wailing Randall looked at Susie

And she nodded For all my time since losing Lucy I'd been trying to push hard with a life we wanted A family-sized house, a well-paying job This sounded like what I needed But I never looked inward to see what I wanted I never realized I needed to doll back And refresh my perspective

At the end of the barbecue I said my goodbyes I went back to my car to empty it And realized I left the stuff that the kids had taken. When I turned around. Nobody was there. The grass wasn't pressed down where the grill was, and the car was gone.

The air was silent with the absence of giggling and play. The smell of smoky meats was gone. I took this as my sign to leave with a message they gave me, rather than trying to figure out what had just happened. My life ended at that last. lake today. But my new one will start tomorrow. One other thing, Harry, the lawyer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. My father's will spread out across his massive desk. I was instructed to give you this. The envelope he

handed me felt surprisingly sturdy. What is it? I asked without thinking. The immaculately dressed white-haired man in front of me blinked like I'd insulted him. I was instructed to give it to you, Harry, not to look inside. I don't know why I waited until I was back in my father's silent study before opening his package. Maybe I just wanted some doors between myself and the rest of the world, with their platitudes and their pity. Besides, I felt closest to him here. The study was my father's sanctuary and the walls told his story. musician, stockbroker, author, sailor, inventor, artist.

One of those lucky people who just seemed to have a knack for everything he tried. I did my best to tell myself that he'd led a rich and varied life, that death was a natural thing that happened to everyone. But I couldn't quite believe it. Whenever I looked at a photo of that tanned face with its salt and pepper stubble, an enigmatic grin, I just wanted to feel it Nuzzled into my neck

In one of the boozy bear hugs That he always gave when I visited It was like a veil Had fallen between us And the only thing still connecting him to me was The envelope I tore it open And pour the contents into my hand

A note and a small Silver key Simone de Beauvoir Fifth Shelf Third from the left Your legacy My eyes leapt to the bookshelf I traced my finger along the leather-bound volumes

and the list stopped at all men are mortal. I pulled it out, leafed through. Nothing. No documents hidden in the binding all between the pages. I saw a keyhole in the wall through the gap to Bufour's book had left. I slipped the silver key and with a click the bookshelf swung outward.

A secret door. Dad always did have an eccentric side. Not just the secret door, but a giant safe, I realised as I stepped over several feet of thick metal. I looked over my shoulder, paranoid that the bookshelf might slide shut, trapping me in here. I felt along the wall and on my fingers grazed a light switch. Pale faces and black eyes glared at me from every angle. Wait, not faces. masks. At least 50 of them lined the walls of the closet-sized room.

Fascinated, I reached out to touch one. A half-mask with a hooked nose and thick browsed that, for some reason, made me think of an elderly mathematics professor. Its surface was as cool, smooth and hard as marble, yet paper thin. The masks weren't made out of any material that I recognized, nor did there seem to be any way to attach them. Even so, I brought the professor to my face. There was that strange sensation of disappearing beneath another set of eyes and features. Then, nothing.

It balanced perfectly. Still concerned that the mask might suddenly fall, I sprinted up the stairs of the house to the mirror in my father's old bedroom. At first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. No mask appeared on my face. in the mirror. I took it off. The Professor mask appeared in my hand. I placed it on my face. The professor disappeared. I repeated this trick several times with the same result. While I wore

the mask, it seemed, it couldn't be perceived by anyone but me, almost as if it had melded into my face. I shuddered. Then it occurred to me that the mirror hung at an 88 degree angle. I nudged it back into place, then wondered through my father's quiet halls, thinking. Oil stocks historically shown a 12% growth at the end of the quarter. Shouldn't I be investing? I could use the money I made to buy a new timing chain for my car, since the make and model I owned statistically experienced timing failure at around my mileage point.

I had some idea of what was happening. Sitting excitedly at my father's desk, I started scribbling on any piece of paper. paper, breezing through all those equations that had been so painful in school. Halfway through one, I removed the mask. And once again, I was lost in the wall of numbers. Mask on, I solved it easily. How can I explain the next few weeks?

Not only had I found the keys to my father's success, but I could even use them myself. Questioning what the masks were or where they come from hardly crossed my mind. I could do that later. After seducing Emma Shackleford at the country fair using the mask of a playboy dancing champion, for example, the words I'd always struggle to say flowed out confidently enough through the dancer's mask's cold lips.

My feet glided effortlessly across the polished floor and for the first time I understood why the professionals described the tango as walking on air. I felt the presence of the dancer on my face but knew that it was my eyes Emma was staring into, completely smitten. Was that sneer and the urge to let my hands wonder, mine or the dancers?

I couldn't say. I would have looked into the mystery then, I'm sure of it, except I found the chubby-cheeked, good-natured mask of the handyman, and my college rental apartment was in shambles. I'd always wanted to do my own plumbing, and it was so simple after all. insert pipe A into slot B Nothing more Why hadn't I seen it sooner?

After a long day of plumbing leaks Rehanging stuck doors and sealing drafts I swapped the handyman for the sharp-gined perfectionist chef An hour later I enjoyed a fine three-course meal With a glass of wine Thanks to the chef I could finally appreciate its delicate notes and finer qualities Curiosity got the better of me

not curiosity to know the truth about the masks, but rather curiosity to try them all. In the few months since I'd had access to the masks, my life had improved dramatically. It felt like the world was at my fingertips, and I'd only tried the first 15. I wondered what the other abilities I'd soon find at my disposal. As far as I could tell, every mask was unique.

The only thing they had in common was a strange material they were crafted from. The subtleties in their features sometimes seemed to speak to me, telling of their powers. The square-jawed, lumpy-full mask of the fighter, for example. The one I used to pummel my high school bully

while Emma screamed for me to stop. It was true, I, or the fighter thought, crushing weaker people with brute strength was too fun to just quit. I suppose at some point I allowed someone to pull me off him. I really can't recall.

Yet the later masks felt different somehow, more complex. When I looked at them, I got no sense of what their speciality might be. Yet, when I touched one, I felt a kind of electricity jumped through me, like it wanted me to wear it. I looked deep into their empty eyes, trying to get a sense of what would happen if I did. But I found nothing. They had something, those last 20-odd masks. Something that made me reluctant to put them on. But eventually, I felt like I didn't have a choice.

You see, I needed a face of a lawyer. Emma had been demanding a wedding, but by then I was done with schoolboy fantasies. I'd been to New York, Tokyo, Paris. I'd known a better class of woman, the kind who understands that marriage has nothing to do with anything so pathetic as love. Rather, it is a union of bloodlines, along with all their economic and political power. I couldn't tell whether the thoughts of marrying a girl from my unimportant hometown made me blush or scoff, but it was all the same to me, until Emma asked her brothers to talk with me. I couldn't stand the sight of those uppity Higgs and my own father's front stoop.

I had to use the fighter to push them off, and I suppose I did more harm than was strict necessary. Two brothers were hospitalized and one stayed in a coma for the rest of his short life. A warrant was coming. I was sure of it. And so, I panicked. What did I know about the law? I ran through mask after mask searching for a hint of legal expertise until I finally reached the final 22. The moment the mask touched my face, I knew something was different. I was different. I held my hands up and turned them in front of my face, as though I was looking at them for the first time. I laughed with joy from the bottom of my guts, although I couldn't imagine what was funny about the situation. Then I watched in horror as my own fingers moved to the side of my face and lifted me away,

just to be placed on the wall alongside the others. Well, young sir, good day to you. I suppose you might be my great-great-grandson or some such thing. The thing wherein my body said to me, played out the rest already, have you? But goodness, that was quick. It paused, seeming to taking the information from my body. Seems you've gotten yourself in a spot of trouble.

No matter, I'll hire a fine lawyer, as you ought to have done. But never fear. One day, another young inheritor will come round to take you down from the wall. And in the meanwhile, the others will impart great secrets to you, while you wait your turn. I watched my own body walk off to go about my great-great-grandfather's business. If the sounds from the rest of the house were any indication, he rather enjoyed being young again.

Of course, it wasn't all fun in games. there were those blind men he hired to help him dig up my father's coffin, and the gruesome ritual he performed in order to hang Dad's face on the wall besides mine. Then there was the way I watched my own body kill those four blind workers to keep our family's secret safe. Occasionally, a supremely talented individual was brought in to join the other masks, the ones outside the family, only used for their talents. At first I was sickened by the sacrifices, but by my own grandson's generation, I was even looking forward to them. The light, the bright, innocent faces, the sudden splatter of red, so brilliant that not even God could make a color so intense.

Anything was better than the darkness, and the whispers. It seems that my great-grandson, or rather the great-grandson, or rather the great-grandson, of the body I lost control of when I was 21 is even more prolificate than I was. He'd burned through the masks by the time he was 16. It was pure chance that he grabbed me down off the wall when he needed a face that could fix his phone instead of any of the others.

No matter. All this new technology is fascinating. I can't imagine how far it will have advanced by the time Mike grandson gets a shot at a warm. living body again. Just imagine an electric machine that types all of humanity's knowledge

at one's fingertips. I wish my father could see this. But not enough to trade places with him on the wall. People don't just die. I remember yelling at Carmen in third grade. They go to a better place.

Nah-uh, Carmen sneered. When people get old, they die. D.I. Then they get put in the ground and you never ever see them again. I covered my eyes and ran away crying, thinking about grandma under the dirt with the dark and worms.

It was just too horrible. Mama had said, Grandma is in a better place now, and Mama wouldn't lie, would she? When my mother explained that I wouldn't be seen my grandmother again, she gave me a chain bracelet with a tiny key on it, a steel one in the shape of some weird animal porprint. I held it to my chest like a talisman

until I got control of my breathing and the tears stopped. As my friends and I got older, death crept into our childhoods. We learned the meaning of words like hospitals, hospice, nursing homes, funeral homes, visitations and cemeteries, and a lot of us learned the hard way. It was after a candlelight vigil of a slain high school classroom. classmate that I finally got the nerve to ask.

Mom, I asked, where is grandma buried? What kind of talk is that? Mom scolded. You know that your grandmother's not in some nasty graveyard. She's moved on. I rolled my eyes, but I didn't push it. The thing was, this better place was a constant theme in our lives. My mother was a doctor, even though she disliked medicine and found

patience twice as irritating. When I asked her about her career though, she just smiled and shook her head. If you work hard for your family, you'll be rewarded when you get to a better place. It was the same story she used to soothe me when I was bullied or failed at something important to me. Just think about how temporary and unimportant this stuff is, she'd say, squeezing my shoulder. When all is said and done, you're going to spend eternity somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, I thought bitterly, in a better place. When I was in college, my best friend Hunter's father died unexpectedly. A heart attack, even though the man was barely 60.

It tore Hunter up inside, having to juggle the funeral arrangements, the inheritance paperwork, and his own struggle to graduate. But it did give me the push I needed to finally talk to my mom about the first. future. I confronted her after Thanksgiving dinner that year. Look, I sighed. We need to have a plan for if the worst should happen. She looked at me with a blank stare. I groaned. I'm not a child anymore. I know that one day you're going to move on and it helps to have some things prepared. A grave plot, embalming or cremation options, a will. You won't need any of those things. My mother waved a hand.

everything this family owns already has your name on it, and when I get old, well, it'll just be my time to go to a... Mom, I shouted, losing my temper. I'm talking about something real, not just some imaginary better place. But honey, my mother whispered gravely, there is a better place. You're old enough now. I suppose it's time for me to show it to you. I stared, dumbfounded as my mother stood up. Slowly, age was making a stiff and used a poor-shaped key like mine to unlock the wall safe beside a desk. The key emblem matched the lock perfectly. How had I never noticed it before? A symbol must have been Mum's fail-safe in case she moved on before she'd had a chance to tell me the truth.

Mom showed me the maps of a huge patch of land about an hour outside of town. It was in the middle of nowhere, and at first. First, it looked like nothing but forest, until I saw a tiny structure in the middle of all those trees. A Better Place Lodge read the caption. This is what your great-grandmother, your grandmother and I dedicated our lives to, buying this land so that you and your children will have someplace peaceful to go when it's time to... Take the next step. I hope you'll be able to contribute as well, adding to the land for our descendants.

There's like a couple thousand acres here, I gasped. I finally understood. By investing in land, my mom was creating a legacy for the future. And with the lodge, where I suppose the cemetery was as well, she was creating a sentimental gathering place for our family. I was touched. Can we visit? It isn't time for that yet.

Mom cut me off. It's a world in a place. us out there, dangerous if you're not ready. She looked out the window, with a look in her eyes, that was almost like longing. Trust me, when it's time, you'll know. I nodded, but I couldn't let it go. The knowledge that my family owned an enormous tract of land,

barely an hour away that I'd never visited, ate away at me like worms, chewing through an apple. Maybe it was dangerous for someone my mom's age to go, creeps into the forest, but I was young and healthy. I'd invite some friends just to be on the safe side. Matt was my boyfriend, so he was practically obligated to join our little expedition. Sarah and Hunter were always down for an adventure. Sarah wanted to work for parks and wreck after graduation, and the pile of topographic maps that I snuck out of mum's safe made a lot more sense to her than it did to me. There's not a lot here.

Sarah had frowned at the map. Rolling hills covered with trees, a few creeks. This pond right by the lodge might be a nice camping spot though. Even with Sarah navigating, we drove past the tiny turnoff twice. Finally, we made the sharp downhill turn and were confronted by a gate over the gravel. A better place lodge. Private property, family only. Danger.

No trespassing. I recognise the symbol on the... padlock. Using the poor key around my wrist, I swung the squeaking gate open. The way was unblocked, but I had doubts that Hunter's car could make it. The dirt track was pitted, overgrown, and obviously hadn't been used in years. We exchanged the glance. Hunter sighed, pulled up the parking brake, and the four of us set off through the shoulder-high weeds with our camping gear. It was a good thing we hadn't taken the car. The brush was so high at times that all I could see of my friends ahead of me was Sarah's silly ranger hat,

bobbing along like a strange ship on a sea of grass. The car disappeared almost immediately, and after an hour of trudging, I began to get a tight feeling in my stomach. This wasn't a place for humans, I thought. There hadn't been a single trail, signposts, or other sign of life since we left the gate. Is it much further? I broke down and asked Sarah.

It's your land, she rolled her eyes. Shouldn't you know? I took out my maps, but couldn't make any sense of them. Matt slapped a bug on his sun by neck and glared at me as if to say, this is your fault. Hunter was holding his fingers to the sun, although he knew as well as the rest of us that we only had a couple of hours of daylight left. Finally, Sarah sighed and came over to help.

If we keep the same pace, we should be there in about two out. Ah! Matt had gone on ahead. And as he screamed, three black shapes burst through the undergrowth. He'd frightened a group of wild boars. Look if they didn't goar you, Hunter chuckled. With a final glare in my direction, Matt stunted onward down the trail. The lodge was closer.

than we'd expected. Its enormous logs were ancient, predating even my great-grandmother's generation. A chill ran up my spine. I wondered just how long my family had been interested in this place. And why? The brush all around the lodge had been beaten down and flattened, almost like some sort of field-sized nest. I walked up the centuries-old wooden steps as if in a dream.

my key fit perfectly into the pore-shaped lock. What could have done that to the grass? Matt wondered aloud as I stepped into the cool darkness of the lodge interior. There were no lights, of course, but when I pushed open the thick shutters, evening light poured in. It caught hundreds of bits of glass, bead, and crystal that hung against the far wall. It was a kind of shrine, a shrine to my side. family, to those who'd gone before. I saw a black and white photo of my grandmother, another of my great-grandmother, and the garatipes or painted portraits of others I'd never met.

They had two things in common. They were all women, and they all looked at least a little bit like me. Beads, feathers, bird claws, bones, coins, and countless other objects hung like dream catchers around each photo. They clattered and jangled as I ran my fingers over them, like they were trying to whisper a family secret. Before I could investigate further, the sun disappeared behind the black pines and plunged the lodge into gloom. Smells like wet dog, Hunter grunted from the doorway.

Hey, we're not sleeping in here, are we? I heard Sarah calling to him, probably from down by the pond. With a last long in look at my ancestors, I closed and relocked the door behind me. I swore to myself that our family's secret, whatever it turned out to be, will be safe with me. Golden evening light danced on the black water of the little lake beside Better Place Lodge while we set up our camp and a little cook fire. Hunter cursed as he banged poles together. Sarah lost the boot to the mud by the water.

and Matt burned himself making soup. But I just looked back at the trees with an uneasy feeling in my gut. There was more than just sunstroke and hunger. As the twilight deepened, it got harder and harder to convince myself that those movements between the trees were just the trick of the light. I had mixed feelings about the laughter and catcalls from around the bonfire behind me. I felt responsible for bringing them here, and I was pretty sure that if I forced them to march back to the car in the dark because of a feeling I got,

I'd lose my friends for good. On the other hand, there was definitely something strange about my family's better place, something that made me feel the pull of the woods as strongly as the call of my name from our campsite. I sighed. The soup was getting cold, and besides, everything would be clearer. In the morning. I wasn't sure what woke me up that night. When I reached out for Matt, all I touched was his unzipped sleeping bag.

The tent flap was open as well, letting in the light of the full moon overhead. It was like a dream. I stepped out into a misty field that glimmered like silver, dodging the ashes of the campfire. I followed my boyfriend's footsteps toward the trees. I was deep in the shoulder-high. grass when I noticed the broken stalks and blackish stains around me. It looked less like footsteps and more like something had been dragged. Something that bled.

I leaned forward for a closer look, peeling along the damp dirt like a blind man, but a howl from the tree stopped me in my tracks. It was the lowest, deepest, longest whale that I'd ever heard. No dog even came close. Sarah and Hunter burst from their tent behind me. What the hell was that? Sarah hissed. I don't know, I muttered, but we need to get to the lodge. We ran blindly toward the black structure on the horizon.

I wasn't looking behind me, but I heard the tiny yelp as Hunter disappeared into the undergrowth and felt Sarah's shoulder slamming to me as she sprinted up the steps to pound, like on the locked door. Somehow I got her out of the way and inside, putting thick wood between us and whatever was out there. We had no flashlights, and it must have been pure instinct that made us back away from the door and into the pitch-black room behind us. What are those things? Sarah whispered. I don't know, I murmured. I only saw shadows. That wasn't exactly true. I'd seen long, hairy limbs. sharp teeth flashing in the moonlight, something twice my height hunched over and charging through the grass.

But what was the point of scaring Sarah further? Heavy steps made the lodge porch creak and groan. We both stopped breathing for a moment. The silence was absolute, until I heard the unmistakable sound of a key, turning in a lock. I'd never seen anything Like the thing that locked on all fours into the lodge A steel key like mine Clutched in its claws

But it had my grandmother's eyes Four more followed Too tall to stand up Even in the high-roofed lodge My grandmother's enormous jaws Climped around Sarah's face Snapping her neck and flinging her out of the door Like she'd never been standing by my side

Another monster with eyes like mine shook its head at me reproachfully before it slunk outside that joined the feeding frenzy. It felt like ages before the sound of ripping tendons and crunching bone finally came to an end, and dawn's grey light crept through the shutters of the lodge. I walked through the open door and down the overgrown track with my eyes straight ahead. I did my best to ignore the red patches of grass and the dark shapes following my progress beneath the trees. It gave me a lot of time to think about monstrous yet familiar things that hunted this better place, about what that meant for my family and I.

I rolled Hunter's car into a ravine and locked the gate behind me. When I called Mom from a nearby gas station, I didn't have to explain anything. It was like she already knew. We drove home in a complicit silence, thinking, I suppose, about our future in a better place. Of course, all that was decades ago. Time enough for me to watch my own mother go through the changes, just as she did with her mother before her.

Time enough to prepare myself for what was coming. It won't be long now. I can feel my old bones lengthening into something stronger. And, no matter how much raw meat I eat on full moon night, It never seems to be enough. Picture this scene, if you will. Place yourself in my shoes. I stand alone.

The surrounding fields are vast and sparse. Oceans of sickly yellow grey grass ripple in the breeze. Waves roll across them and out over the gentle hills, shimmering towards the horizon in all directions. It comes up to about knee height, this grass, and there is little else. Above the rolling grass is the evening sky, grey, tinted with purple, and its clouds are dark and cold as they rumble slowly by overhead. My bike rests against a section of broken fence just behind me, does swirls about my shoes.

I'm still wearing my work clothes. My tie blows out to the side and I make no effort to try and straighten it. It's cold, but I do not shiver. And ahead, about 20 or so paces into the field and fixed in the centre of my vision, stands the tree. Like myself, it is alone. It towers up above, the trunk twisting slightly around before branching out in all directions. The leaves are thick, and they rustle and shine. The rungs that my friends and I once hammered into the side still there,

though many are in the process of being absorbed and swallowed by the experience. binding trunk. The tree house itself, if any part of it has survived all these years, is hidden. I reach into my pocket and withdraw the note I've stashed there, the contract, and I read it over. I hereby promise that if we are both unmarried by our 30th birthday, then we shall marry each other. This is a binding contract. The agreement and ceremony will take place beneath the treehouse at 7 p.m. on the day of our birthday. Signed Thomas Evans, Lauren Bright. Lauren and I have the same birthday, you see.

It was always a running joke that we would get married. We made and signed this note when we turned 11. And today is my 30th birthday. Our 30th birthday. So I guess I'm here to fulfill my end of the deal. I folded the paper up and returned it to. my pocket, and with a sad sigh I pushed forward, making my way through the grass as I approached the great tree. The wind blows in my ears. There are a series of hearts carved into the trunk,

hearts that have survived the ears. Some are cruder than others, but there must be about a dozen in total. I count them. Yes, a dozen hearts. They're all ancient. You can tell just by looking at them. Most of them have initials inside. S plus R, J plus J, etc. But one of these hearts only has a single initial inside. It reads L plus. This was our heart. I never did add my own initial.

I was too shy, too self-conscious. I played along with all the marriage jokes sure. I signed the contract, but the carving of this heart was too much, too personal, too real. And so, my 11-year-old self laughed the moment away, acutely aware of the hurt in Lawrence expression, but pretending not to notice.

I waver where I stand. Perhaps coming here tonight was a mistake. I'm not okay. I'm not okay. I always knew this day was going to be difficult. I don't really know why I came here, to be honest. Maybe for some hope at closure, I guess. for something. I've long since given up on a normal life.

My memories haunt me, and I dare say they always will. I lock back up to the treetop. The greenish rungs of the ladder disappear into a cloud of leaves overhead. I close my eyes as the breeze blows past my skin. I remember my little group of friends, the five of us.

We would cycle here all the time, back when our houses were all within distance. I live across the country now but it's nice to know that the tree still stands I remember the adventures we used to have the ideas and plans we'd plot right here in this treehouse the games we'd run and the stories we'd make up together Lauren and myself

Jake Jasmine and Wully all gone now of course all dead all except for myself our time together runs like a river through my head. I see myself with them all. I see our greatest shared memories.

I remember the construction of this tree house. We didn't have the internet to guide us back then, so we copied instructions from an old magazine. I remember Jake hammering into one of his fingers and using a swear word we hadn't heard before. We thought we were going to get in trouble when a farmer rolled by in his loud and angry tractor, so we heard ourselves up in the leaves,

giggling quietly and pretending to shoot it as he passed us by. The memory blurs into the next. I remember our school trip to the City's Science Museum. It was themed around the four classical elements, fire, water, earth and air. The teachers allowed us to work as a group and we explored that place from top to bottom. Different goddard flames reacting to various metals,

huge water cylinders and cyclone displays. There was an earthquake simulator, I remember. Jasmine was terrified, but I convinced her to join us. There was a wind tunnel and miniature lightning. The memory drifts into another. We're standing in front of the school, the night of the summer performance. We're all terrified, of course. Beneath the watchful eyes, everyone is watching us, judging us.

I remember stumbling one of my lines, faltering, but Wally was on stage. too. He kept us going without skipping a beat. I don't think anyone even noticed. And once he was over, the elation, the celebration, we never felt so powerful. I remember our first trip abroad, Lauren's parents allowed us all to join them. We were so lucky, visiting a foreign country together and at so young and age. There was a water park there. It was incredible. We got shouted out by some lifeguard. But, of course, we couldn't understand a word he was saying, so we simply ran away, laughing and splashing.

And I remember the night of November 5th. Bonfire night, the fireworks exploding overhead, red and green and gold, the warmth of the great burning bonfire and the drifting embers. Jake and Jasmine and Woolley firing off sparklers, and once it was over, that night, back at Jake's house. That's where Lauren and I

had our first kiss. Our only kiss as it happened. The memories sting. I open my eyes and I wipe a hand across them. The leaves rustle in the rising wind and the waves roll out across the grass. I cannot change the past. I reach into my other pocket

and I draw from it a small carving knife. Stepping a little closer to the tree, I rest one hand on the cool, rough bark, and with the other, I finish the decades-old inscription. I complete it, the way it was always meant to be completed. I cut away at the wood, until the heart reads, L plus T. Then I sheathe the blade and step back. Oh, not some deranged lunatic, by the way, just for your own. your own peace of mind. I'm not some grown man in love with a ghost. I loved Lauren, sure, but in the same way that I loved the others, that I loved all of them. I just could have done better

by her back then, that's all. And this carving is as much an apology to her as it is a favor to my 11-year-old self. I'm sorry, Lauren, I say, my words quickly disappearing into the wild. I'm sorry for the heartache I caused you I reached into my pocket for another look of the note My hand trembles and I collapse to my knees Stricken with a deep and sudden ache A pain in my heart that is kindled across the ears I'm sorry I force out

I'm so so sorry What are you sorry for stupid Comes a voice A voice that I would recognize at the ends of the earth My sorrow is shocked to oblivion As I snap my head up to look at the voice's source Above me in the tree And peeking through the leaves

Is Lauren I stare up at her Terrified and unable to move Lauren? I manage at last choking on my words She looks just as she did Still wearing that same pink hoodie She kicks her legs idly against the trunk

watching me expectantly. Well, she says, sticking her tongue out, are you coming or not? And she suddenly lifts up her arms, grabbing something out of sight and hoisting herself into the leaves, vanishing with a rustle. Wait, I scream, throwing out her hand.

And before I know it, I'm scrambling up the tree behind her. My foot slips off the second rung. Too much of it has been swallowed by the trunk. I try again, forearms. strained as I grab to what I can, hauling myself up the side of the mighty tree, heart racing. I'm losing my mind, I think, as the wind bows against me. I'm losing my mind. But I don't stop climbing. Up I go, ascending into the leaves. But the ladder keeps going.

I lock all around through the branches, but all I can see is a world of rustling green. Lauren, I shout out desperately. Wait, where are you? I hear her giggles up ahead. I cram my neck to see it disappear through another cluster of leaves. So up I climb, higher and higher through this ancient tree.

We never built it this high. We couldn't have. We were just kids. But it certainly feels high now as I forced my way up. I glanced below, but I cannot see the bottom anymore. I am fully enveloped in the green of the tree.

Twigs snap against my arms, against my face as I keep pushing through, until at last the ladder comes to an end. I hold myself up onto the platform, and, catching my breath, I lock all around. Our treehouse had always been impressive. We worked hard on it, and it was a real labour of love. But this, this is something else. The platform I find myself on is colossal. Leaves and branches wind their way around the wooden pillars and arches.

I stare in bewilderment at rope bridges, extending away through an impossible treetop canopy, onto other platforms and levels in the leaves. On the opposite wall, where I remember carving my name along with the others, where I remember five, not quite in line names, scrawled in quick letters, There are now only works of art. The names are there, sure, but they are intricate, carved with care, beautiful and dramatic. They'd be better placed in a museum or a cathedral. But my eyes are drawn now to the owners of these names.

Because there they stand, all around me, just as I remember them. Jake, Jasmine, Wully. And Lauren. Jake has his arms crossed, an eyebrow raised. Jasmine has her hands be on her back. Wally has his thumbs hooked into the straps of his backpack, and Lauren has her hands on her hips. What took you so long, Tommy? she asked. I fumble for words, stuttering and spluttering as she laughs.

Wally holds out her hand to me. We've been waiting for you, bro, he says with a grin. Guys, I begin, how did? But Jasmine interrupts. There'll be time for questions later, Tommy. We need you. You need me? Woolie's hand is still extended towards mine.

He waves it. Of course we do, Tommy. The tree house is under attack. Now, come on, soldier. Get up. I reach for his hand and I realize they're the same size. My hand and Wollies. He grips tight and pulls me up to my feet.

And I find that we are always. all the same height. I looked down. My shirt, tie, my work shoes, all replaced with the clothes I wore as a kid. My battered jeans with a hole in the knee, my blue jacket. I don't understand, I whisper, looking between their faces. The faces of my ghosts. What more is there to understand?

Thuron asks, reaching out and squeezing my arm. This is our treehouse, Tommy. we will let the enemy take it from us. A grin spreads out across a face. Come on. And with that, she leads us away through one of the arches. Wally follows, raising his fist with a battle cry, and Jake and Jasmine follow.

Jasmine looks back at me. Tommy, come on! And so I do. I stumble on after them, and together we run through the treetop complex. Beneath arches and over the bridges, The wood clacking as we race from platform to platform. We reach a series of platforms at various heights, all within sight of each other.

There are wooden weapons here. We'd always talked about constructing things like this, but we never got around to it. One looks like an enormous catapult. Looking down to my right, there is what appears to be a massive rifle. It's wooden, of course, so I don't know what it fires. And there are gaps in the leaves there too. They show us the endless fields beyond. Though they are green now, green streaked with gold from the light through the clouds.

To your stations, men, Wally suddenly shouts, and women. The others salute him, and I feel compelled to do likewise. Fix up those weapons and defend the treehouse. The first wave will be the farmer. He comes from below. Those are your orders. Sir, yes, sir, we say. I find myself chanting it along with the others.

unable to hold back a sudden rush of elation. We run to the various platforms. Mine has one of the wooden rifles on it, but it isn't quite complete. I watch as the others hurriedly fix up their own stations, passing each other tools and lifting planks of wood over their heads. Tommy? Jake shouts at me, and I turned to him just in time to catch a wooden wheel he is thrown,

recently carved. I furrow my brow and looked to my weapon, realizing at once where this next piece has to go. I attach it in place and move aside some of the wooden boards, angling one, so as to rest the barrel of the weapon upon it, for a more sure aim, of course. Damn it, Jake shouts suddenly, and we turn to him. The idiot has managed to smack himself in the thumb by the looks of it. We laugh, but Jasmine checks that he's all right.

I'm fine, I'm fine, he says. Get back to his station, the enemy approaches. and the enemy approaches indeed here we go my adrenaline surges as a monster rises up from behind the hills a tractor perhaps I think at first but no it's a behemoth of metal and smoke chuntering and growling as it roars to the field towards us

two sizzling yellow eyes glowing in the dusk stare right at us up here in the tree fire at will while he commands and the weapons are launched what is happening a voice asks me inside my head thomas what are you doing but i ignore it there are more important matters at hand with one eye closed carefully aiming i pulled the wooden trigger on the rifle i feel a surge of recoil as the weapon thunders out a beam of light like a laser direct towards the oncoming metal monster. I feel the blast of the heat against my face. My hair is blown back from my forehead.

Whoa! I shout out loud as the beam blasts into the side of the rumbling machine. I hear the cheers of my friends as their own weapons are launched. Further blasts and beams. I fire again. The truce shakes and the monster roars. Great black clouds are sent up from the machinery of its body

as it stumbles and staggers. And at last, defeated it alters its course the rumble of the gaze is loud in our ears as it turns aside fleeing the scene trundling away across the fields and out of sight i laugh with elation but there is no time now to revel in this victory lauren has grabbed my sleeve come on she shouts dragging me from my station what what is it i respond breathlessly that was only the first wave tommy Wally calls from the front of the procession, and we can't do this without you. So on we race, across first one bridge and then the next, and this second bridge is far, far longer than the others.

It stretches over a great yawning chasm of leaves and branches. It swings and creaks in the wind, and it's a long, long way down. The group falters. I can't do this, Jasmine mutters, paled and shaking ahead at the end. the bridge is beginning. I can't do it. Yes, you can, I find myself saying, looking into a face, reassuring her with my expression, nothing can stop you. You've got this. She bites a lip,

and then she nods, and we set out together across the bridge. The second we've all stepped foot onto it, however, that's when the storm begins. Like we're in a wind tunnel almost. Hold on, Wally roars above the rising gale. his trademark woolly jacket trying to escape from his shoulders the storm brings with it streaks of pocket lightning all around us are crackling in the air the lightning flashes against the leaves bursts of different coloured flames leap up all around us

we run the length of the swinging bridge fire water air it becomes harder to see but the others are all still there hang tight Lauren cries out, gripping to the side of the bridge and turning away from a sudden cyclonic barrel of rain blasting around us and drenching us through.

The trees rumble and the bridge shakes. Beset by tremors, it feels like it could collapse at any moment. Keep pressing forward, Jake shouts, and we do. The group continues its advance through the elements, huddled together. And there, through the water and storm, is the opposite side The next platform

Wully steps off first and helps us all onto it and we leave the thunder behind us as we start to push through the leaves pushing through deeper and deeper into the canopy as the noise of the storm begins to fade behind us You guys still there

Jasmine calls out as he grows darker and darker We're all still here Follow my voice Wally replies And we continue to push aside the walls of leaves heading further and further into the treehouse until suddenly the leaves all clear we stumble out as five still immersed in darkness and are breathing echoes around the space the sounds of the storm are distant now a faint backing rumble a beat passes and the rumble rises into a round of applause it's wave three is a tap, Jake exclaims as lights appear before us.

Great mechanical thuds and judders as they blink into life, blinking and bright and burning. I can feel their heat against my skin. I can feel it drying the rain from my clothes. We are standing on a wooden stage. The light before us multiply into dozens, then into hundreds, hundreds of pairs of glowing eyes,

watching, judging, staring to the darkness all around. Beneath the watchful eyes, just like before, all those years ago. This is how it felt. I can feel my throat start to close up. I can feel the panic rising. I cannot remember what to say.

There was something I need to say to defeat these intruders, but what is it? What are my words? Wully steps forward, unaffected like the rest of us by this spell. This twisted enchantment. This tree house is ours, not yours. You'll never take it from us.

Here? You'll never truly take it, for we'll never truly leave. He looks back to me. His eyes fierce in the reflections of the light. Right, Tommy, isn't that right? And he is. He is right. I say so out loud.

I join my words to his. This is our place. I cry out. This is our home and this magic, this magic is ours, and you are not welcome. The eyes widen and rage, the heat increases, but only for the briefest moments. I shield my face, but watch as the eyes retreat, as one by one they disappear back into the darkness, as the cool of the air returns. And already, my friends have begun to move onwards to the next platform.

The final traces of lights from the eyes have revealed the door in the wooden wall to our right, a passageway through the treetop. Jasmine pauses at the entrance to this passage and looks back at me. Come on, tummy, we can't go on without you. I nod, determined to drive on. I reach out for her and she pulls me through the passage. We stumble for a minute in the dark, until at last the shadows disperse, and we are once again surrounded.

by the deep, dark, fresh green of the treehouse leaves and branches. Ahead are a series of platforms. Built into these platforms, I will look like tunnels in the wood. They look almost like slides. I slip and stumble where I stand. Glancing down reveals that water has begun to rush past our feet. The scent of chlorine rises thick into the surrounding air. Step carefully, Lauren.

warns as Jake slips over in the rushing stream. Willie grabs him by the collar and hauls him back up before he falls. How's this possible? How is any of this possible? I murmur out loud, grabbing onto a branch as the water flows past us. It pours from the platforms and between the branches. Some of it rushes across the wood and down the tunnel-like slides ahead. What are you talking about?

Wally replies, grinning. The tree house is under attack, Tommy. Weren't you listening? And with this his eyes widen, his mouth drops open as he stares behind me, past my shoulder. The others do the same, and I swivel where I stand, still holding onto the branch for support. A monster approaches. Pushing aside the branches, he has the stoop as he is too tall. With every step, he kicks up great slashes and waves from the running water.

His eyes are like red calls in the gloom. his limbs are long, much longer than they should be, and a shining silver whistle hangs from his neck on a chain. It clinks with every one of his great and heavy footsteps. The platforms rattle and the water is sent rushing in all directions. He turns to us, bellowing, bellowing loud in a foreign tongue, and he increases his pace, charging right towards us. Quickly, Lauren shouts, down into the tunnel.

She grabs me and hauls me back, and we support each other as we run and splash through the stream, careful not to slip, ducking beneath branches as we hear them snap behind us. Go, go, go! Wally shouts with a mad laugh, urging us down into the slide. Lauren goes first, and then Jasmine and Jake. I shoot one last look behind me as I leap into the tunnel. And I see the monster slip and stumble in the rushing water. He roars and crashes down hard with a rumble, vanishing outer sight as the slide turns a sharp, sudden corner.

Wully is not far behind. I seem laughing and whooping, the water rushing past. I turned to look the way I'm going, picking up speed as the tunnel and the water shoot past. The hollying laughs of the others reverberate around me, building to shouts of triumph as the slide ends with a great and torrential splash. Jake pushes his fringe out of his eyes and raises his hand for a high-five. I meet it and grin as he helps me up. Lauren runs over, laughing,

shouting and pulling me quickly out of the way as Wally zooms down just behind me, splashing us all yet again. We spend the next few minutes just screwing around, splashing in the water as the leaves rustles softly in the breeze. Lauren at last draws back

and looks down at a watch. The level of light has changed. She's highlighted in beams of silver that have broken through the branches. We all are. It'll be time now, guys, she says, looking around. We did it. Woolly stands suddenly to attention, bringing his hand up to a salute. We all do likewise.

Stand down, men, and, uh, women. Mission accomplished. Sir, yes, sir, we respond, and he turns, pushing aside some leaves to reveal a ladder, must-lined, but in otherwise great condition. Up he goes, wrong by wrong, clambering up through the tree, then Jake, then Jasmine, then Lauren. She looks down to make sure that I'm following. Time for the big finale, Tommy.

Yes, I reply, right behind you. And I put my head. ends up onto the ladder and begin to climb. Up we go, us five, through the treehouse, higher and higher. The light filters through where it can, illuminating the tips and the edges of the leaves in that glorious shining silver. Higher and higher, until we break through the very top of the tree itself. I breathe in a deep breath of fresh, night air, and look up to the sky,

feeling the natural breeze against my skin. There are perches up here, and bows of the tallest branches, natural seats and resting places, and the group spreads out just a little, finding their places, settling in, breathing easy and enjoying our victory. I take a seat next to Lauren. Lauren, I begin, what? Shh, she interrupts, smiling. It's about to start. She turns to look up to the sky, and I do like a way. It is beautiful.

The moon is bright, the stars glimmer, a shooting speck flits across my filter vision, and soon the stars are joined by great bursts of colour. Fireworks, of course, like I've never seen them before. Great dazzling, dreamlike explosions of red and green and gold, tipped with fiery orange or with shining silver, like the leaves. They whizz and spin. and cascade like spirals within spirals. They are celebration incarnate.

And you know, thinking about it, perhaps I have seen fireworks like this before. This is exactly how they appear to me, once upon a time. The warmth rushes over me, a familiar glow. Lauren reaches out for my hand, and I take it in mine.

The fireworks burst and shine. And just like that, I feel myself. start to cry. I cannot stop it, and the tears flow. Lauren squeezes my hand just a little bit tighter. I'm sorry, I mutter, and then louder so that everyone can hear. I'm sorry, all of you.

I'm so, so sorry. I wasn't there. I wasn't there for you. Things could have been different. They are beside me now, and I'm sobbing. I remember it all. I remember why I came. The note, the marriage contract between Lauren and I.

And I remember how they all died. These ghosts that now surround me. When we were 11 years old, we'd all signed up for a school trip in the winter. We were due to spend three nights at a campsite, a school excursion, fun, games, camping, expeditions, and all that good stuff. But I knew how Lauren felt about me. me by then. I was struggling with my own feelings. I was just a scared, dumb young kid. And I couldn't face it. I couldn't face the intimacy of almost four days together in so

exciting an environment, and I knew the others would just egg me on and pressure me. So I faked being sick. I faked an illness and convinced my parents to let me stay home. So that's what I did. I just stayed home, because I didn't want to see my friends. because I didn't want to spend this trip with them, because I just didn't want to go. Well, they never ended up going either, as it turned out. The bus driver was not qualified. It was a parent volunteer, a volunteer with little experienced driving in the snow, and I'll spare you the details.

But as I sat playing video games in my living room, the bus went through the rail on a cliffside. It was a steep drop and hard. the passengers were killed. Amongst them were Jasmine, Jake, Woolley, and Lauren.

I should have been there, I choked out, looking between them. I wasn't even really sick. I was just pretending. I made it all up because... Because I was a coward. Woollie laughs and shakes his head.

You think we've never faked being sick before, bro? Jasmine squeezes my arm. Tommy, I did it all the time. I should have been with you. with you, we should have been together, I splutter. Jake crosses his arms as the fireworks explode overhead. And done what, Tommy? Stop the bus, driven us to safety, you grins. You were right where you're supposed to be, and we're glad for it.

I turn to Lauren. Lauren, I begin. But that's just the thing. Where to start? I draw the note from my pocket, the crumpled 20-year-old contract. It's still there. and impossibly undamaged. I look from the note to Lauren.

I have so much to say. How do I even begin to? It's okay, Tommy, she replies gently, taking the contract from me. I know, and it's okay. She looks at the others. There is nothing for us to forgive, you know,

but just for your sake, we forgive you, Tommy. I'll come back here, I tell them, and I'm. mean it. I'll come back here all the time to the tree house. Lauren has pulled a marker from her pocket. She sticks a tongue out to one side as she starts writing something onto the note.

The others look between themselves. No, Tommy, Jasmine replies with a sad smile. You won't. You can't come back here again. Not like this. This is it, bro. Wally says quietly. It's been a ride.

He reaches. out his hand, and I grasp it. Thanks for helping to defend this treehouse, Tommy, says Jake, for one last time. Lauren folds up the note and stuffs it back into my hand. She leans over and kisses me on the cheek. It's time to say goodbye now, Tommy. She murmurs as the lights of the fireworks flicker above the tree top. Goodbye, I repeat, shaking my head.

That's right. Tommy, she says, goodbye. And so, as the leaves shimmer with the stars and the breeze, beneath the glow and dance are the reds and greens and golds above, I say it one last time. Goodbye and happy birthday, Lauren. She smiles. Happy birthday, Tommy. It's been six months since then. I walk hand in hand with my partner down the track through the fields. The flowers are out in bloom, and the sky is a gorgeous crystal blue. That's it, there, I tell her, pointing over to the tree. It's a little busier now than it was before.

It still stands tall, rising up from the fresh green grasses all around, but it looks today far less alone. There are a gang of kids playing in it. A couple of cars are parked nearby. one of the cars is open and planks of wood stick out from the back. A general murmur of voices forms her backing track to the

kids, shouts and wops of glee. Parents are chatting amongst themselves. A couple of dads are working on fixing up the treehouse ladder. One of them passes a plank up to a girl and the branches above. It's tough to tell from this distance,

but it looks like there might be a couple new hearts carved into the treehouse's trunk. I think about the contract I made with Lauren 20 long years ago I think about the addition she made Once I tearfully descended the ladder At final time returned into my roughed up

work clothes at the base of the great trunk I'd remembered the note and opened it up to read This document is null and voided She had added to the bottom I, Lauren Bright, hereby, release Thomas Evans from this here contract. May he be free, and may he be happy, with a little heart. Hey, hello?

I tuned back into my surroundings. I remember where I am. My partner squeezes my hand. Tom, what's up? She asks. You look like you were miles away. Are you okay? I consider.

Yeah, I reply. Yeah, I'm okay. And we carry on along our way. The cracked screen fizzles in the darkness. It's the only thing still working in my immediate vicinity. It's littered with dead pixels and a faded magenta bar strikes down a segment of the screen's left half. But the visuals and the sound are still quite clear. Welcome to Mr Sunny's Fun House Retreat

Warbles her cartoonish voice and a soundbite of cheering children rumbles out of the speakers along after it. Sparks burst from a distended cable to my left. It hangs from the ceiling with exposed and dangerous wires. The screen shows me a POV of a camera, one held at the height of a child. The viewer is taken on a compressed,

fade-cut tour of the Fun House Retreat. It's an amusement park. The sun is shining, and all around are smiling children and happy families, eating ice cream and running from ride to ride. Colourful arches stand tall overhead, and friendly faces sell popcorn and stuffed animals from pathside carts and stands. A roller coaster whooshes by overhead to the sound of thrilled screams and cheers, and the camera bands across the food gallery, inviting looking restaurants and milkshake bars.

Mr. Sunny himself appears on screen. It glitches for a moment as he does so. Mr. Sunny is a costume character. He has an orange humanoid body and a large, soft yellow head. It looks like a grinning sun. The expression is fixed, of course. His mouth does not move as he speaks. The grin is stretched a little.

too wide, the eyes are staring and dead. It's impossible to tell who's wearing the costume. There is no exposed skin. The voice is masculine. Where the sun always shines, he boasts, putting one hand on his hip and throwing out the other in a comical wave, high-fiving a young boy whose scampers past him. Collect an autograph from me for a free Mr. Sunny stuffed buddy. Have you seen me yet today?

Be sure to keep an eye out and come say hi if you do. He jocles. The camera spins round in a circle, showcasing the best that the park has to offer as another roller coaster flies round in a spiral in the near distance. The camera completes its spin and Mr. Sunny is closer. Unless, of course, I see you first. He laughs. The screen glitches again.

It shows us more of the park. More well-tended trees and clean pavements. Posters adorned with grinning characters and immersive, interactive games and stands. The camera shows us the retreat's water park. Large sprinklers send out blasts of raining water and children splash gleefully around in the puddles and pools. Mr. Sonny watches the antics from afar. Not for me, thanks. He laughs, putting out his hands.

Mr. Sonny doesn't do too well with water. A kid squirts in with a water gun, and he jumps to his feet. Hey, who are you little? The kid laughs and runs away as Mr. Sonny chases good-naturedly after him, shaking his fists in a playful display of mock outrage. The little movie fades to black. Then, after a beat, begins again from the beginning. Lute.

The cable to my left sparks up again, and I make a note of this location on my little map. This ruined section of Fun House. The map is my work in progress. I've scoped out most of the park already tonight, moved pieces into place, prepared. I stuffed the map back into my jacket, then stepped through the smashed and moss-covered double doors to the outside world. Clouds have passed over the moon, and it is darker now than it was before. All around me Is ruin

Forest eaten Eton and fungus-conquered steel carcasses Enormous skeletons of rusted metal and cracked plastics Shells and hollow shadows have monuments One so proud and so bright There is no brightness here now All remaining traces of colour are faded

And lost the shades of murky Unfriendly green and rotted brown I shift my backpack a little higher on my shoulders. It's heavy but necessary. I can manage. My flashlight remains strapped to my belt. I do not wish to turn it on as my eyes have adjusted well to the darkness. I continue my walk along the path and past the ruins of always once a gift shop to my right.

The glass in the windows is all but gone and a section of the roof has collapsed in on itself, taking some of the wall along with it. The gift shop stands opposite a scuff statue of Mr. Sunny, standing tall and waving from the centre of a green and sludge-filled fountain. Mr. Sunny's eyes have been scratched completely from his face. Black ooze leaks from his joints and from the corners of his mouth. The moon reappears from behind the cloud, and Mr. Sunny's shadow is sent long and dark out before him.

I stepped through it and avert my gaze, carrying on along my way. Creeping vines slither beneath the concrete and the stone of the paths, and have cracked the walkway up at various and difficult to traverse angles. I don't want you to think that I'm not afraid of this place, because I am. I'm terrified, and more than most would be. I paused to adjust my backpack again. It's nothing special, just the one I use. for school. I tighten my belt. That's my dad's. I borrowed it from his tool shed. He won't notice.

I pass by a billboard. The wording is hard to make out, but it boasts proudly the percentage of power that the park draws from hydroelectricity. There's a waterfall near the amusement park center, one that cascades into a pool, ringed with both real and fake fiberglass rocks, and this waterfall feature is pictured on the billboard. The exact percentage of renewable power, however, cannot be read. The statistic is lost beneath layers of grime and weather damage. As I'm looking at over, something creaks and groans in the darkness. The noise is a long, low screech, and it sends rivers of ice across my skin.

I shoot a look back behind me and then stand stock still, waiting, keeping my breathing level and listening intently for anything further. Something small skitters across the path beneath the rotted or bench. It's too fast for my eyes to catch it, but I silently pray that it's nothing more than a rat, or a squirrel. I wait a little longer, but nothing happens, so I carefully continue on along my way. I check my map.

Not many more places to go now, just a few more. Taped to my map is a picture of a young boy and a younger girl. They have their arms around each other and both are smiling. The boy is me, the girl, my sister. The picture gives me courage. It gives me strength. I grimace and slide the folded map back into my jacket.

Down crack stone steps and round the park's hillside I go. It's difficult now to tell where the pavement ends and where the wild grass begins. There are no beautiful, carefully cultivated flowers here anymore. Just vines and dark ferns and hungry undergrowth. The branches of trees stretch out far across the walkways. They wind through smashed windows of stalls and have absorbed nearby, long defunct machines into their wood.

Pushing aside a cluster of leaves, I find myself in a segment of the park I have always hated. even before its collapse. The spider's web. An enormous figure of eight, comprised of steel beams, and tracks is laid out across the ground and away from me into the shadows of the trees and wreckage.

Smallish, cup-shaped carts are affixed to the rails at various intervals, each big enough for three or perhaps four people to sit in, and overhead, above it all, is a colossal steel wire web, Shoots and forest grind dripped down from the web's intersections, and a monstrous, massive fiberglass spider perches across it, suspended forever in time, frozen mid-creep. Its eyes once glowed, but now they are dead and devoid of life. It looks almost as bad now as it did in my nightmares. Dare you ride? asks a provocative sign affixed the section of the operating booth to the left. I dent, not today, nor any other for that matter.

Instead, I take a deep, slow breath and step down from the concrete and onto the rails. I glance up at the great spider, childishly, as if it were going to suddenly burst into life. It does not, of course, and I set out through the enormous loops of steel, past the still and silent cup carts and kicking through the ferns and vines into the rows. rides very centre towards the standing stone in the middle back in the day the stone was layered in cables and netting but that has all fallen away and rotted now the stone is glaring in its difference to its surroundings this is no fake rock it has not been constructed or painted you can tell quite clearly in its appearance in the

sense of weight it conveys without even touching it. This rock is ancient. It's been here forever, for far, far longer than the park, far older than the construction of Mr. Sunny's Funhouse Retreat. I stop at his base and crane my neck, looking up. There are a series of inscriptions in this stone, carved deep into the rock. On the left side are a series of simple holes. Near the top is a single hole. Below this single hole and a little further down are two. Two dots. Beneath the two are three dots, and so on and so on, all the way down. On the right hand side, directly across from and accompanying each set of dots is a rough, animalistic shape, a different carving for each set of dots.

They appear as follows, and I shall tell you what I see. Beside the lone carved dot, Near the top of the standing stone is a small spiral creature, crudely carved, but it looks something like an ammonite, one of those prehistoric fossils. Below these carvings and beside the two circles is a smallish snake, like the ammonite above it, this carving, and indeed all the rest, is crude, but the head and body of the snake are clearer. The snake appears to be frilled. Beside the three dots is a lizard.

It stands awkwardly on his back legs Its frill has extended down its shoulders and back Its limbs are clumsy and long Below this are four dots Beside the four dots is a rough-carved man Or man-like creature Thin and boneless appendages have burst forth From the frills and the shoulders

And creep out alongside its arms Below the four are the five And beside the five is a thing more like an octopus than a man Still stood hunched, eyes too void like pinpricks in the stone. Beneath are the six. Beside these six, the octopus is gone, and in its place is carved a wide circle. The circle has writhing and intertwined appendages going around and around, and the circle itself is ringed with eyes. Finally, at the very bottom and just below my eye level are seven closeted dots in the rock.

Beside the seven is the edge of a tentacle. This tentacle was clearly part of a larger carving, one much larger than the carving above it. However, most of the stone here has been cracked and eroded away. Rubble sits among the ferns by my legs. I am washed in a dark and sinister wave of dread as my eyes scan the stone from top to bottom, as if there is something cold and shadowy squirming beneath my skin. I take a picture of the stone and make a note of my findings on my map, eager to leave this part of the park behind. And as my pen scrolls its way across the paper, my ears prick up at the sound of creaking metal.

Not like before. This is closer and more constant. I swivel around at once. Nothing is immediately obvious to me at first. Just that noise in the gloom. An insect flits by my face and I swat it away. and in the manner of some monstrous metal giant awakening from a slumber the ride starts to my utter dismay

to blink and grind into bleary life sparks start jumping out from the rails overhead lights fizzle and judder from dead cracked glass into glowing trails of rails and eyes the stone and myself and the overgrowth are all washed with a deep indigo light and I am compelled to look up and over to the fiberglass spy and the steel wire web.

Its eyes, one by one, begin burning with their own angry light. It's my nightmare. It's just like my nightmare, but it's all coming true. It's too soon, I muttered to myself, glancing down to my watch. I'm not ready.

But I've seemingly run out of time. The map is hastily stored into my jacket, and my backpack bounces painfully against my upper back as I take off across the ride, jumping and dodging over the rails and trying to return to the safety of the concrete beyond. But I do not make it in time. The cup-shaped carts have begun to shake, and they start to drift their way around the rails,

slowly at first shore, but in no time at all they have begun to whizz and whir, speaking deliriously as they do so, all around me in the forgotten lights of the spider's web. The jumping shadows played tricks in my mind. I had to keep glancing up to the spider to be sure that it isn't creeping its way across the web towards me. I take a step back in panic as a rush of air blast past me, watching as the spinning cups shoots around on its perpetual path. The noise of the ride grows louder and louder, the lights flash.

Over to my right sounds a terrible grinding and a fountain of sparks in white and gold. Another copse has caught in the branches of the tree, and it spins angrily, stuck more or less in place as it tears off twigs and leaves in a flurry. Another cop over to my left disconnects entirely from the rails, broken as they are, and smashes violently into another going the opposite way. Metal and plastic fly in all directions as the ride goes faster and faster. The rush of air blows my hair back from my forehead and I clench my fist in determination. gotta wait for the right moment. One, two, three.

I hopped the rail before me and jumped to the next safe section of grass as a cup goes huddling around the tracks just behind me. The concrete of the path isn't far away. I can make it. The ride speakers, unseen, crackle and fizzle. The spider is hungry. A gravely voice torn.

and villainous laughter reverberates around the rails. A nearby billboard, half-buried in foliage, depicts a cartoon Sunny racing around in one of the cups. In the billboard, it's clear that the cup is supposed to be the hollowed-out shell of a spider's egg. It's not so obvious on the cups themselves now, following their seasons and seasons of damage and wear. In the picture, Mr. Sunny is grinning. He winks at the audience,

despite the presence of the spider overhead. Saliva or venom drips from its fangs. I hopped the next set of rails, stumbling a little, but catch myself and preventing a painful potential crash onto one of the carts, careening around and away. The spider is hungry, laughs the voice. Flee your face the terror of the spider. It begins to glitch out.

The spider is hung. the spider is. The speakers crackle, and to my horror, the cadence of the voice changes somewhat. Children, it says, so brave, so courageous,

ever the heroes, the trek so boldly into so dangerous a place, unarmed and reeking of innocence, so hopeful, so sweetly ignorant. It's his voice, Mr. Sunnis.

I turned to look behind me, at the lights and the spider and the shadows and the screeching rails. Where are you? I whisper. The spider is hungry, laughs the voice. Sparks fly. And with a concerted exertion of effort, I jump suddenly forward and scramble up one of the concrete steps, scrambling away from the danger, as the cup cart spin furiously round and around on their tracks

beneath the watchful gaze of the spider. I don't have much to do. time now. I take off at once, checking that nothing has fallen from my belt or my pockets as I consult the map. I take a sharp left and sprint through the ruins, pass the old water park to the control centre nearby. The water is dark and grim, a large plastic feature in the shallow end, a once friendly-looking giant froghead, one that beamed with pride as children played in its mouth. It has now the appearance of some twisted leviathan, a lurking terror from the depths, leering it passes by who dare to venture too close. My feet splashing the water

as I cross the flooded ground. I ignore what might have been a series of bubbles from the darkness to my right. The control centre, its prime had the power to redistribute water and adjust pressures from various parts of the park. It can adjust the intensity of the the waterfall. It can do all kinds of things. The glass is all smashed up here and the doors are either gone or cracked completely from their hinges, so getting in isn't difficult. I consult my notes. I'm going to have to implement my plan much sooner than I'd expected. Darting to the appropriate section of controls, I spin a great and rusted wheel. I have to put a bit of effort in at first, as it clearly hasn't been touched in a long, long time.

Gradually, though, round and round it goes. I check the control panel. Blinking lights that represent different areas of the park change colour from yellow to red. Some blink dead entirely. I check to make sure that the appropriate levels are all in the right places. Pipes hiss and leak all around me. I ensure that the levers connected to the waterfall stems are directly engaged. certain ones near the top and particularly the ones in the pool at its base.

I watch ticks. Time is not on my side. So I take one last look and I hope for the best. It's now or never. I flee the control room as shadows dance in the corners of my vision. When able to shake the sensation that something is following me through the ruins, I take a shortcut through a nearby building. Mr. Sonny's 4D experience. Raising through a shattered emergency exit and down corridor after corridor, I pass through one of the main rooms. The rows of seats are all empty now, of course. But as I tried to manoeuvre my way through the room, the screen blare suddenly and loudly into life.

The indigo light from the spider's web did not do much to help my night vision, but the light from the screen here obliterates it entirely. I show my eyes in distress as white intensity blasts out from across the room. The screen cuts through colours, yellow, cyan, magenta, and then to black. And Mr. Sunny appears on screen. His permanent grins stretched across the yellow of his face. He peers down at the ghost audience and myself caught in his glare. An artificial breeze begins to blow through the room and I feel it rustling my clothes.

Hello, friends, Mr. Sunny beams down at us. Computer technology has been used to make his mouth move. Not so permanent grin after all then. The effect is disturbing and unsettling. Or should I say, friend, he says, peering a little closer. The breeze blows up into a wind. I stand my ground, staring at the monster through the screen. Blackoos leaks from the place

that Mr. Sunnis head meets his neck He twitches And something writhes behind the mask Something presses up against the headpiece Making one of his eyes temporarily bulge You are trapped in the web now child I can help you if you like But I cannot do it from here

I stare at the monster Afraid yes But angry also I can't help you escape, I can help free you from this place. Mr. Sonny always helps those in need. I bore my hatred into the soulless eyes of Mr. Sunny, and the room darkens. He leers closer still. His little speech falters, and he changes his track. You are different, he says. You are not reacting as one would expect. What's your secret,

child. I close my eyes. I gather myself, and I carry on along my way. I reach the end of a row and start heading down the steps toward the emergency exit. This seems to frustrate Mr. Sonny. I hear the jump in his emotions. Where are you going? Don't you know it's rude to walk away when someone is talking?

And then his tone changes further. The supposed to care for my well-being drops and touch. I hear terrible, terrible recognition in his voice. Oh, oh, that's right. How could I forget? Mr. Sonny laughs. I think we've met before, haven't we? Numberless Nolan.

You were supposed to be my fore. A striking shot of fear roots me suddenly to the spot, and I can't help but look back over my shoulder to the screen and the theatre room. Mr. Son, his CGI mouth laughs wide. Never matter. Your sister was an excellent four. She served deliciously. I'm sure you'd be glad to know.

A visual of my sister is projected across the screen. I'm in the picture too. It shows us on the log flume ride, shouting gleefully. It's been a long time, numberless. I hope you've been well across these years. I've certainly missed you here. We've all missed you here The lights change to red

And the wind rises You Will be my six Numberless Nolan You will be my six And then I'll only need one more And how long will that take do you think A week or a month

How long before others are sent in after you How long before more children Come searching for exploration and adventure And they will find me They will find me I crack my feet from their positions glued as they are to the floor and take off I run through the emergency exit

and down another Mossfield corridor as Mr. Sunny laughs loud and large from behind me There is no escape now, number six I run and I run and I run I run I smash through the broken doors to the rear of the building and take off towards the centre of the park, towards the waterfall and the rapids ride. The ride, where I lost my sister forever.

Laughter rumbles to the speakers, all crackling and sparking back into life as I run to the wreckage. Lost little boy, all alone in the darkness. I follow my map. I double-checked the location of the waiting area for the rapids ride. I used to come here a lot with my family, as a young. young kid, and I always hated that waiting area. It's underground, you see, and intensely claustrophobic. The sounds of the rushing Rapids River were always churning overhead and all around,

and I was constantly afraid that the walls would suddenly give out, that all those people waiting in line would be trapped and flooded, as the water rushed in, transformed into desperate, clamoring bodies, all scratching and clawing each other, as they try to scramble and swim the way to the surface. I arrive and check that the waiting area doors are still sealed shut. When they're open, they lead into a tunnel in the ground, but fallen metal has locked the entrance doors in place.

There's only one way in and out now. And that's the waiting area's exit. The exit that leads directly up to the rapids ride itself. I carry on uphill to the ride's beginning. The waiting area yawns from the ground to my left. It's little more than a hole, really, with some steps down into the gloom, and a flaked old handrail built into the wall. Most of the tiling walling beyond has broken off and fallen away,

crumbled to wet dust on the waterlogged flooring. The waterfall is right beside us, the park's centrepiece. The sound of its constant rush, the ongoing pour of the water into the pool is loud, and I can feel the splashes drizzle against the side of my face. Puddles already forming on the ground beside me, but the pool is leaking and beginning to overflow through the cracks in the fiberglass rocks that it lines. Leaning up against these rocks is the panelling from one of the rapid rides rafts. It's large and roughly circular.

It's the part who sit on, designed to look like wood, but it's actually made from hard plastic and fiberglass. It isn't connected to the raft, so there's no seats or sides, or any rubbery buoyancy ring or anything, just a cracked, damaged-door piece of a long broken raft, left here for someone to collect at some point, for someone to fix, but that someone never came. I look out over the records of the park, the waterfall rushes to my right, the rapids ride quietly churns just behind me, and ahead is ruin.

Show yourself, Mr. Sunny, I managed to croak out, Coward, monster! Shadows creep through the darkness. I take a step back, though I'm careful not to step too close to the rabbit's ride and the churning river. It has just restarted of its own accord. I can hear the machinery crackle into life.

The water starts pulsing, and the ride groans and churning. churns as the rafts begin drifting down the river, though they aren't really drifting, of course. They're not floating, at least not here in the boarding area. They're being dragged by mechanical gears and churning metal tracks, bubbling and frothing. They're being hauled along by an underwater conveyor belt, a belt of ever grinding and ever chewing steel teeth. Warped theme park music begins to play from the speakers, slower and deeper than than anyone would expect.

My chest rises and falls. It's going to appear any second now, Mr. Sunny. A pair of old beam lights were interaction not far away on the paths opposite side. There are enormous old things, great spotlights that send patterns up into the sky. As with the spider's web, their light is a deep purple and the way that the beam shimmers and warp give the nightmarish, dreamlike impression that the sky itself is shifting in slow, eerie waves. The ride rumbles and froths behind me, and Mr. Sunny appears from behind a corner ahead. I am further uphill than he, but he slithers disturbingly into view at the far end of a

broken path from the darkness of the shadows. My blood freezes in my veins. His share, shape is just how I remembered him. How he looks in his media, how he looks in his statues, that horrible sun man's suit, the mascot-style costume, his eyes and expression are fixed, he shambles silently over the concrete, step by step towards me, his suit ever shifting. There is a constant and inhuman motion in the arms, the hands, the fingers, the head, the legs. her subtle writhing and squirming, all beneath the stained and faded yellow, beneath the dirt and grime-covered orange.

The costume writhes as it filled with terrible, angry eels. Hello, six. He whispers to me as he draws closer. You meet me here by my rapids. His head twitches, ooze leaks from his neck. You won't be taken like your sister, you know. like my beautiful four. No, your taking will be quite different.

You must be so excited. You were wrong earlier, I whisper, the loudest voice I can manage in the presence of this demon. What you said at the spider's web? You were wrong. Was I? How curious. I shouldn't think that that were the case.

I am not wrong on many matters. I take a step back He's closer now Reaching out a hand towards me You called me a child You said I was unarmed And reeking of innocence I swing around my backpack

And tear open the zip I'm not a little kid anymore monster You think I'd come to this place unarmed Mr Sonny increases his pace Cackling And I draw from my backpack My father's pride and joy

I didn't just take it his tool belt. I took this, his chainsaw, hard plastic green handle and shining metal teeth, and with a flick of the switch, it roars into life. I roar along with it and jump deliberately forwards, swinging the chainsaw round in a merciless arc, shuddering with the reverberations as it tears through Mr. Sonny's hand. He screams in surprise and staggers backwards, eyes still staring, grinned still wide. With a burst of black fluid, his hand flies through the air, and it slaps against the rock of the waterfall pool barrier beside us.

Outspells shivering and desperate squirming black masses. Long and wet and writhing, like tentacles they quiver and slap against the ground. I hold back a rise of vomit in my throat and press forwards with my attack. I wonder if Mr. Sunny can see the hatred in my eyes as I swing it white. wildly from left to right. I shave off another corner of his costume, and Black Puss pours out in response. Mr. Sunny screams turn quickly into laughter. I watch as the exposed squirming flesh in the arms of his suit hardens and calcifies.

He stumbles backwards, still laughing until he has retreated into the shadows of the nearest available opening, down the steps to the waiting room for the rapid's ride. I hesitate at the entrance He finds this hilarious and laughs all the harder Disappearing into the shadows Oh number six Six six six So feisty

A wet and disgusting noise Something between a cough and a burst of laughter echoes from the darkness How very quaint But I need you afraid little child I want you to embrace your fear. Come, come now into the darkness with me. Carry your weapon with you if you like.

But come talk with me. Come talk, and if I am impressed, then perhaps I shall tell you what happened to four. Hmm? Would you like to know where your sister can be found? Where you can find her? My sister. I let out a quiet, sad sigh.

Then take a step back from the waiting area's exit. Dropping the chainsaw, I instead grab a hold of the fibreglass panelling of the broken raft, the one resting against the waterfall pool's fake rocks, and, with all my strength, I haul it down the steps and into place. It jodders down the concrete and slams against the wall, where it becomes more or less lodged where it lands, blocking the doorway and the waiting areas only exit. An effective barrier.

Before Mr. Sunny can react, I start grabbing up wreckage and flinging it clumsily into place. Old concrete blocks, broken bits of metal. I grab the twisted remains of an entire popcorn cart, and with a grunt of exertion I dump it down the stairs, where it clatters into place up against the makeshift barrier. Mr. Sunny has caught on. I can see his shadowy shape and his dark writhing tentacles

where the fiberglass raft doesn't quite meet the edges of the passage's entrance. What are you doing, six? He asks me, in his low, wet voice. You can't hope to trap me in here, surely. He slams up against it from the opposite side, and it rumbles and rattles. He does so again, and while he does this, I pile it higher and higher with debris. With each successive chunk of heavy plastic or metal or concrete that are dumped down there, the harder it'll be to break free.

Mr. Sonny starts hammering harder. Six, six, it's time to let me out, friend. If you ever want to know where to find your sister, then you must let me out. I grunt with exertion and run my shoulders as he batters fruitlessly against the barrier. My sister is dead, Mr. Sunny, I mutter in response, as the waterfalls pool beside me starts gushing and leaking out over the rocky walls. The dams are working quite nice. nicely, it seems. Mr. Sonny slams against the barrier. He yells at me to let him free. But I don't. I just watch as the water spills over the edge, it begins pouring its way down

the steps and towards the debris, pouring right into the waiting area in which Mr. Sonny finds himself trapped. I use the chancer again, where I am able to cut away sections of the fiberglass rock wall. The border to the waterfalls pool, Now brimming and frothing and dangerously overflowing, and more and more water begins pouring out and directly down the steps. It splashes against my clothes, my shoes, drenching me as I work, but the water keeps flowing faster and faster and faster. Mr. Sonny stops hammering against the barrier I've created.

I presume he has slithered away to test the doors at the tunnel's opposite end. The shiver of vengeful electricity passes through me. He will find them sealed. There is no way out. The waterfall surges. It pours relentlessly down into the tunnel. More and more and more. Mr. Sonny begins to scream.

I watch as he tries to slither a tentacle through a gap in the barrier. Before he can calcify it, I slice it messily off with a chainsaw. Ouse and bile splashes up across the fire. glass, and he screeches in distress. A few minutes more, and the rocky barrier guarding the pool has been entirely cut away in just the right places, and the waterfall begins to thunder more or less directly down into the tunnel, filling the waiting area, as it did in my childish nightmares, drowning all those who wait within.

Mr. Sunny screams at me. He makes me promises, and he hints at greater. truths and secrets. And I let him. I let him say whatever it is that he wants. Soon his voice is lost beneath the rush of the water.

I sit on a piece of fallen billboard. And I watch. I watch and I wait until the entrance to the tunnel is entirely underwater. And then I wait a little longer. I wait until the rush of the water from the waterfall

has filled the tunnel entirely. until it starts to pour and leak downhill as it rushes into the river of the rapids ride. And that's when I take my leave. I gather up all my belongings. I hoist my backpack up onto my shoulders and I make my way back through the park. I think about my sister as I leave this terrible place behind. Burn in hell, Mr. Sonny. I mutter as one by one,

The lights of the park. Blink dead. It's so damn cold, my girlfriend murmurs, shivering. And I unwrap my scarf from my neck and chuck it onto her shoulders. Hey, no, she replies, though she's smiling. Now you'll just get cold. I don't get cold, I lie as we walk together towards the factory. The factory is long abandoned, a massive half-collaps monolith out here in the scrublands.

The area around us is covered in snow And our shadows are long and dark Beneath the orange-white glow of the lone Still operational streetlight It isn't night time Not quite yet But the day is dark and gloomy There's no one else around

And the snow ahead is unbroken With any footprints Do you think the rumours are true I ask her grabbing her shoulders And making a jump She makes a noise at me and pushes me away. Well, duh, of course they're true.

They have to be. We wouldn't be exploring a non-haunted building now, would we? That would be boring. The entrance to the factory approaches. The glass is smashed in one of its outer doors and the other is covered with wooden boards, now well-grafeated. There's a crude marionette spray painted in white

and an ominous cryptic. Don't get strong, warning, squawk beneath it in black. Don't get strong. I whisper creepily into Laura's ear, and she laughs and pushes me away for a second time. Her laughter fades as we step up to the factory's door, the gates to the unknown. Well, I say, are you ready to go in? Yeah, she replies, glancing behind her.

Yeah, let's do this. So, in we go. I grab the handle and grunt with a strain, but I'm able to force it open about a foot, and we squeeze away through the gap and into the shadows. The wintery breeze becomes a steady, ongoing backing rumble as we push steadily into the hallway and through further broken doorways. There are portraits hung up here in the lobby, completely dusted over and faded, and only the faintest silhouettes are still visible.

It takes some time to admire them, or what's left of them, to try and decipher what they might once have depicted. One of these faded silhouettes looks kind of like a man, or a person at least, with their arms outstretched. Another looks like a spool of string. I tried to rip away some of the layers of crime and dust, but not much else is revealed. This is so creepy, Laura murmurs. What do you think they used to make here? No idea, I reply as we stepped through the lobby and into the main room of the factory's ground floor. Weird of this place still hasn't been properly emptied though, given how long

it's been here for. All around us are curious, slumbering machines. Unusual and unrecognizable, dark and rusted cogs and gears, pistons, and roared those layers upon layers of dust. A shiver of shock runs through me

and I start an alarm as I notice a group of pale creatures in the corner, watching us silently. But they're only mannequins, faceless and harmless. And harvest laugh escapes my throat. Laura follows my line of sight and pushes me gently. Those things over there didn't scare you, did they, huh?

I shake my head at her, and she laughs too. This place is crazy, though, I murmur as we walk around. Our feet kicking up small but thick clouds of dust with every sea. Up and across the walls is more of that disturbing graffiti. It might have looked somewhat amusing from the outside, scrolled onto the boarded up door, but in here, in amongst the shadows and illuminated in the glow of our phone lights, it looks downright nightmarish. Large, sinister marionettes painted crudely and faded black,

eyes wide in staring and twisted grins painted in bleachbone white, stare out from the darkness. Some of these puppets have puppets of their own hung from strings from the creature's fingertips. We don't laugh about it now. Laura reaches out from her hand and clenches it tightly. Come on, she says. Let's keep exploring.

And so we do. Past rows of broken, intertoy machinery and another gaggle of mannequins. This group fallen clumsily to the ground. we slide a rusted and crumbling chain from a set of peeling double doors. Creaking it open and walking through reveals a section of the factory in a state of greater disrepair than the previous. A section of the roof was caved in and through the holes in the ceiling are revealed dark, narrow ventilation corridors and thin streams of grey, silvery light. A light snowfall drifts in through some of these cracks and the floor and the machinery ahead are all dusted with a thin,

layer of white. This is so damn cool, I say to her. What do you think? The whole atmosphere is so creepy. My words are cut short as something shifts up ahead. With a little cloud of dust, a wooden plank slides from a pile of debris and down to the snow-lined floor with a soft clatter. We stare at the debris, Laura and I in dead silence.

Silence that is shortly broken by a quiet voice in the gloom. Nothing to worry about. Hey guys. My blood chills as a shadowy figure emerges from behind the wreckage, though I try to rationalise as I realize that it's just some guy. He's holding the camera and his hand lifts in a wave. I feel my girlfriend's powerful relief as a grip of my hand loosens considerably. Hey, I call out to him.

He's a weedy-looking guy, pale and slight, and curiously he has two dark strips painted just above and below each of his eyes, right up across the eyelids. How's it going? He asks as he clumsily steps closer. He stumbles over an outstretched plank and crashes right towards us. Oh, Laura catches him, and I manage to grab hold of his camera before he drops to the ground. Damn, sorry, he mumbles as he retracts from Laura's grip, and he takes back his camera.

He nods to us as he slips the strap back over his neck. Thanks, so didn't mean to frighten you I come here sometimes, take pictures He raises the camera again Before letting it hang down against his chest What are you guys up to then? Exploring? Yeah, I reply Nice to meet you man

My name's Gary, this is Laura Hey, she says Hi, says the guy My name is Cordes Cordes He nods It's French Listen, you guys really should be careful in here, you know.

This isn't like other urban exploration places. Believe me. A gesture to his eyes. What's the deal with the face paint? He nods solemnly. I reduce his glare for the camera flashes. Let's you see better in the dark. Crucial really in the factory.

You guys want some. It helps. I watch with curiosity as he reaches into his pocket for a small dish of black skin paint. He cracks it open and rubs some on his fingers. And then, before even waiting for permission, he reaches towards Laura's face. He takes a step back. Um, uh, uh, no thanks.

She looks over to me, awkwardly. I'm not sure what to make of this guy, but I'm not taking any chances. Maybe he's right. It probably is better if we just leave. Yeah, uh, It was nice to meet you, Kodes, but you're probably right. Maybe we should just go. Kodare's eyes suddenly light right up, the pale blue,

and appear even more striking when contrasted with the dark paint all around them. He isn't looking at us, though. He's looking between us. He jumps suddenly and sprints in front of us. He stares out into the darkness. Something's wrong. Get back, he mutters, then a little. louder, both of you get back.

He half turns and pushes Laura's shoulder, and she's forced into a step back. He shoots me a glare as I do likewise. What the hell? I hiss, but he waves me silent. We watch, our breathing suddenly loud as our ears tune in to the secretive sounds of the factory, and a shadow creeps to the darkness ahead, right through the open doorway that Laura and I left behind us. Jesus, I mutter, and Laura starts to quietly swear under her breath. The shadowed thing becomes clearer as it steps further into the light,

and the only way I can think to describe it is as a giant rat, or as something wearing a rat's skin, stretched grotesquely across an animal far too big for its body. It's horrific. Damn! Oh God, Laura screams as panic starts the setting. As I stagger backwards and start fumbling around for an item to use as a weapon, Cordes steps calmly forward and raises his camera.

With a well-in focus, the camera flashes a bright white glare, one that reflects in the monster's eyes. It lets out a screech and stumbles into a pile of bricks. Quick as the flash on his camera, Cordes leaps forward and grabs the nearest brick, swinging it down hard under the creature's head. the spurt of black fluid and a distasteful crunch, the thing releases one last screech and lays still. There is a moment of silent confusion and horror. Laura and I are crouched together, wide-eyed, and Cordes drops the brick to the ground with a thunk.

He grabs the creature's tail and starts to drag it across the floor, towards one of the narrow streams of silver light coming through from the ceiling. "'Cordaise,' I call over to him. "'Cordes, what the hell are you doing?' But he doesn't answer me until the bulk of the monster is within the light. Then he drops the tail and catches his breath. "'Look,' he says, pointing to the rat. "'Think on what you've seen, of the graffiti,

and really look at this thing here. Look at it. Blood pumping, I do so. I squint at the dead thing caught in the light, and it is as if something suddenly triggers in my brain. A switch is flipped, and I see the creature for what it truly is. In the space of a second, it goes from looking like a massive, deceased and disgusting rat to a puppet.

I see the joint in its necks, in its jaws. I see the mechanisms that have its legs affixed to its now strikingly artificial-looking body. And its eyes. its eyes don't look real anymore. They are fakes, shiny stones implanted into a man-made skull. A marionette. What the hell is this? I ask Cordes in a raspy voice, and he grins humorously.

I'm here all the time, he whispers in the darkness as the snow falls through the ceiling. I catch glimpses of it sometimes. The puppet master, like a cloud hanging thick in the air. woven into the factory's shadows. He taps the camera, and I'm going to find him. I start slowly but steadily backing away, keeping a tight hold of Laura as I do so. Right, I reply.

That's great, man, really, but I think we're going to be going now. Are you sure? He asks, cocking his head. The puppeteer loves guests. His voice is soft, but he carries far. I might be able to find him tonight. You'd be more than welcome to accompany me. Laura looks between us.

I think we're good, Cordes. Her voice shakes. Thank you, though. And with that, we turn, and we run. Not past Cordes and back through the rat door, but across the length of the hall behind us, past the debris and the machinery. Hey, Cordes calls after us.

Hey, wait! But we do not. We race round a corner and down a pipelined, cobwebbed corridor in the darkness. A bleak, lightless, old emergency exit sign, now more grey than green, promises a way out, and we follow it through a room in the factory's side. The place is full of mannequins, mannequins and marionettes. Most are featureless and formless, but terrible pinprings of fear stab into me every time I catch a glimpse of a face amongst wreckage.

A carved smile or leer Wide and soulless eyes Glittering in the dark But only on the surface There is no light behind them The way out is blocked by rubble But an adjacent hall is where we push through next Kicking our way through piles of twisted puppets

It's as I'm running through a collection of wooden and silicon animals Reptiles mostly But the floor beneath me simply gives completely away The rotted wood beneath my feet collapses with my footfall And down I go and a cloud of dust and chippings and shavings of glass and concrete Gary Laura calls from above me in panic as I fly through the darkness Only to land with a crunch and a thud and a pile of further marionettes

I groaned rolling to the side and shielding my face from falling splinters Gary? Laura calls down again Are you okay I cough and a little storm of dust billows out from around my face. I cough some more, then raise my head to the pale light, filtering in through the hole in my new ceiling. Yeah, I call up. I'm all right, Laura.

Just make it out, okay? Just get out and wait for me at the car. Gary, it's all right, okay? Just go. I'll come meet you outside. Don't wait up. And after a moment of hesitation, she does so. and she vanishes from sight.

I clear my throat and take in my surroundings, clambering to my feet. The hectic panic of a few moments ago gives way to a cool sense of general unease. I tried to steady my heartbeat as my eyes adjust to the dark. Okay, no need to freak out, think rationally, and just find a way out.

Don't rush, just be efficient and cautious. I mutter to myself, as I stumble through the shore. shadows as shapes start to form before my eyes. Pipes, posters, and puppets. I kick up against a pile of heads and one of them drops and rolls around in an arc right in front of me. I don't know what it's supposed to be. It doesn't look human, at least not in this light, nor is it any animal I recognize. I shiver and step past it, round a corner and into a wider room. There's some light in here, faint but present, a dim flickering orange from an old and

poorly-wide LED by a wooden workbench. Dusty blueprints are plastered across the walls. And I jump in terror at the sight of a figure in the corner of the room. Christ, I splutter, only to force myself back to a state of calm, as I realize it's, quite obviously, just another marionette strung up from the ceiling. Its strings are incredibly thin, almost invisible, but for the orange light caught reflecting the wire. This one doesn't look human either. It's a lanky, lumbering thing, skinny, just about seven feet tall.

Its feet hang maybe a couple of inches above the floor, and his head lulls at an angle. The Marionette's head is eyeless, and its neck is longer than I feel it should be. Its mouth takes up a good half of its face, if it can even be called a face at all. Its jaw hangs open to reveal a void within, a void lined with red-black shards for teeth. I hate it. The flickering light plays tricks with my mind. It gives the impression that the creature in the corner is twitching. I think on the monstrous rat that we saw upstairs.

Don't you dare, I mutter quite. Quietly, edging around the side of the room towards the doorway in the opposite corner. Don't you dare move. Quietly, I creep, steadily making my way down the length of the room. I rest a hand on the desk behind me to steady myself, using it as a support as it not trip or stumble. And the creature waits in the corner. The monstrous marionette. A nightmare in the flickering shadows.

Please, I think desperately. Please, just don't move. And, as I finally reach the doorway, I lift my hand from the desk, only for it to tip back to its original position with a thunk and a thud. I cringe and stop with petrified terror as the sound of a pencil rolling across the wood reverberates through the room. There's a pause, and then a gentle clattering and tinkling as it lands on the concrete below. And in response, the head of the marionette creaks around in the darkness. I am stuck where I stand, petrified and useless as the strings of the nightmare start to twitch and stretch. The thing swings gently from left to right, left to right, and with another sickening creek,

it drops from its hanging position to the ground, its artificial feet flat on the ground below. I watch as it slowly raises its eyeless head to face in my exact direction. And his jaw cracks. I do not run. The creature is clearly aware of my presence, but I do not know if it can see me. With my eyes wide and breath held, I stepped silently out of the room. I do not know how I do this, as I do not recall issuing the command to my legs, but with caution I didn't even know as possible.

I stepped through the shadows of the doorway and down the adjacent corridor, not daring to speed up, but also determined to keep moving. A noise, the sound of something like a low growl or a cough mixed with the grinding of metal cogs echoes from the room behind, and it sends a river of ice shooting through my blood. I try to move a little faster and one of my feet comes down too hard onto a lone wooden spool. He rattles out and away And taps up against the wall And the sound of creaking behind me grows louder

My constitution breaks I abandon my attempts at silence And power through the corridors Looking for a door A staircase Just something Anything I swear to myself repeatedly

As I pass through shadow And concrete and rotted wood I pass beneath an ancient red light A disturbing beacon or perhaps a warning in the dark. The corridor ahead is long and narrow and I race down it as fast as I can. A vision of mechanical arms enters into my mind,

of hands breaking through the walls and reaching out for me, grabbing at my clothes. But, mercifully, this remains just a vision. As for the creature, however, at the end of the corridor, before a sharp turn down another, I look back behind me into the shadow. Stumbling after me, an illuminated red beneath the lone hanging light is the twisted marionette. It takes up the entire corridor and shambles as fast as it can, scraping against the corridor and grinding its inner cogs.

It rumbles out a low, hungry shriek and reaches out for me. I catch further glimpses of the strings, but I cannot tell for the life of me what they could possibly connect to. I don't waste time looking. Help, I cry out into the unknown as I do my best to escape. Goodness sake, someone, Codes, help me, please. This corridor ends in a final room. The room is shadowed, and at the far end is a lone, locked wooden door. Broken puppets lay all around and up against the wall.

Some are animals, some are creatures I do not recognize. Some have the rough appearance of children. children. My heart pounds and the following thing draws closer. That sound of scraping on concrete, of heavy, shambling steps grow steadily louder and louder. I sprint the length of the room and try the door. What? Damn it, damn it, damn it! I tried again. I half-heartedly look around for a key, but I can barely focus. I can hardly think. There are no key hooks, nothing on the desk. I grab hold of the desk drawers and yank them open.

They are filled with papers, with glue guns and cartridges. Pens, spools of string and dust. Always dust, but no keys. The scraping grows louder. I cast a terrified look to the doorway to the corridor. Any second now, a monstrous shadow is going to clamber through. Any second. I rushed to the door and plant a fire.

foot in the rubble, and with my other I kick out as hard as I can, right at the spot beneath the handle. The door groans and shivers, but hardly budges. I try it again, kicking as hard as I can. Again, it groans and dust rains down from the hinges, but the door stands firm. The sound of the scraping grows louder. I can hear its footsteps clearly now, heavy against the floor. I can hear the strangled, desperate breaths from its monstrous jaws. I should look behind me

and can see the edges of its shadow creep into view. Come on! I scream and kick as hard as I can. Once, twice, a third time. But the door does not break and the lock holds firm. I turn and press my back up against the door,

struck with terror as the shuffling marionette edges into the view through the doorway. It is a tall and twisted thing, and it jerks unnaturally as it moves. His jaw falls open, and dark fluid leaks from beneath its narrow teeth. Something lulls around in that horrific mouth, and it suddenly speeds up. I don't know how it knows where I am, but it clearly does. It strides towards me from the darkness.

The sound of its hunger grows louder and louder in my ears, and the door behind me falls open. I stumble backwards into the unknown through the door and watch in cold shock as the monster tries to run. It is met with a heavy door slamming shot in its face. And Laura appears behind me, rushing forwards to slide the door's bolt back into place. She turns to me and grabs my face in her hands as the monster shrieks and thuds behind the door. Are you okay? she asks, and I nod, bewildered. Okay, then come on, let's get out of here.

She grabs my hand and leads me to a set of nearby stairs. Up we go and back into the dim, grey factory light. Cordes is there and he nods at me. You are stupid to run, he says, looking over my shoulder. His camera held tightly in his hands. But for real, I think you guys were right after all. It's time for you to go. Come on, let's head back through the way you came.

I struggle to speak. I can't get the image of the monster on the level below out of my head. The image of its tortured, shambling body, its hanging jaw, and those strings that caught in the light. We reach the hall with the holes in the ceiling, the hall with a thin layer of snow and streams of silvery light, and as if in slow motion, Cordes draws to a gradual halt. He turns to face us, and my eyes drift down,

as he reaches into his pocket. He pauses, looking us both over, and his eyes meet mine. The tension grows until it breaks with a quick, sad sigh. Cordes steps aside, I do not quite understand the significance of what is happening here, but I am flooded with a curious relief. You both know the way out, he says quietly,

but you do well not to come here again. Thank you, mate, I managed to mutter. And out we go. Rora and I run through the hall. I shoot one last look behind me before we push the doors and return through the room full of machinery, back through the dusty lobby, and back into the world outside.

We don't screw around and are back in the car and heading home within minutes, leaving the factory behind us. I caught sight of something else, you know, as we were leaving. when I turned to look back that one last time caught in the silvery light from above and attached to Cordes' joints

were a series of strings taut and wiry and pulled up high into the shadows above and all around I watched as the strings on his head were pulled and he turned to look at a sleeve I heard the soft, sad clanking of cugs from his body saw the stretching of strings on his arms as he adjusted his camera.

And I saw the shadow pass across his face as he vanished from view. When the ancient door clans shut, I still dream of their factory sometimes. Oras are worse. I can hear her in her sleep, mumbling, terrified. I have to wake her up to keep her from becoming trapped in her nightmares. and sometimes some nights she swear she can feel something tugging out of joints something unseen in the darkness trying to draw her out of bed and away