CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 7 TERRIFYING Reddit Horror Stories to stalk your dreams

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Goodnight. Sweet dreams. CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "Missing Persons: The Cottage" Creepypasta►28:25 "I Was Offered €100,000 To Beta-Test a New Piece of VR Tech" Creepypasta►1:37:32 "My Ritual Keeps Bad Things From Happening" Creepypasta►2:01:22 "I never should have questioned where I learned to whistle" Creepypasta►2:19:10 "Police Stories From the World’s Strangest Town" Creepypasta►2:45:24 "Our teachers told us we were dissecting pigs for class. They lied" Creepypasta►3:26:47 "I was born with a runaway heart" 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►Stephen Lindsay: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dO...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-

Long, that I'm in three days. I'm all moose if I're not on think. Oh, that dossier that morning off must, I'm all mooh as I'm just a year on time, I'm all moose as I'm on there's not even though

I'm mad as I'm just you're not a boost with bio-cure max-shot liquid. Three op-puppending plants magnesium, iceer, an energy booster to immediately again to come out of

bio-cure max-liquid. Foodingsupplement, forcry, but by the apotheker. Miss in person's case file, number 936-3446. Audio transcript of hypnotherapy session. I can only describe what happened. I don't know if I can tell you what happened. You get it?

When the snow starts the fall, we go up north to the cottage. The usual crowd is coming. Three couples, two others. I'm in the other column. Me and Marcus Stover, Stoveman. Called him that since we were kids. He's the third generation of men who sell wood-burning stoves to the cottages up north. So, Stoveman.

Stoveman and his family do really well. The cottage could fit 20 people comfortably, but I pack the tents anyway. If the temperature holds, stoveman and I will tent outside. It better hold. I can't be inside. Don't want to be inside. Reminds me of her. Daryl and her.

and Joanna, DJ, are already waiting, the two of them hugging and leaning against their hatchback, when Stoveman and I park at the end of the long gravel driveway. DJ, because they're practically inseparable. Ten years together and still attached to each other wherever they go. Daryl is annoyingly handsome. The type of tall, beefy jock, you hate him immediately when you meet him, but then love five minutes later, fiercely loyal, and once you get him rolling with laughter, It's hard not to join in.

He's got one of those high-pitched giggles, and he laughs at almost anything. Joanna, the J of DJ, is short, muscle-toned and whip-smart. She eyes me carefully. I'm trying to hold it together, but everything around here reeks of her. Literally. I smell it when I step out of the car. Pine. The towering evergreens dominate the thick forest we're in,

and I do what I can not to look at them. Daryl comes in for the hug, as he always does, while Joanna simply nods and extends a hand. She's still the only woman I know whose handshake crushes yours, no matter how hard you go in. She throws me a casual smirk when I try, unsuccessfully, to hide the tingling pain in my hand after she lets go. After the greetings are done, we all turn to stare up at the cottage. The front door is at the end of a long, narrow, 100-meter-long pathway that can only be traversed on foot. As the dense forest creeps in on both sides,

the front door is at the end of a long, narrow, 100-meter-long pathway that can only be traversed on foot as the dense forest creeps in on both sides. The cottage itself sits embedded into a massive, man-made grass hill, so the basement is really on the ground. The main floor has a deck that faces the small lake that sits tucked between the trees. We have all been coming here every winter for almost 15 years

But something about the way the cottage sits In the middle of this encroaching, thick sea of trees Makes me realise how alone we are up here No one around for miles Even the newly erect cell tower Does little to penetrate the canopy of evergreens Usually the isolation and privacy is a comfort Usually

Paul and Alan are next to arrive Paul's a military man from a military family A military man That's the extent of what we know about Paul And what he actually does every day We just don't ask anymore Because the answer is always the same A simple shrug of the shoulder

A sly smile from the corner of his mouth He's always watchful analysing everything you do Everything you say Don't ever play poker with Paul Alan's nice enough but we barely know anything about him He's the kind of man you lose at a party within five minutes

But he's Paul's So he's ours too When Paul steps out of the car We all tackle him Yelling and cheering and hugging And showboating because We all know how much Paul hates that kind of thing I can practically feel his displeasure

At the show of emotion But I don't care We're lucky if we get see Paul once a year. It doesn't matter what kind of person he is to the military. To me, he'll always be the kid who pulled me off the ground in grade school after Joseph Minton, the resident hothead, threw a shoulder into my back. There's six of us now, standing in the driveway, front door to the cottage beckoning 100 meters away, but none of us go towards it yet. We all know what's ahead of us, which is a weight. Probably a long long

wait. Brian and Cheryl are next. But they're always late. Always. They arrive 20 to 30 minutes after whatever time you tell them to meet at. We pull some money together to guess the exact minute their headlights will dot the horizon. My guess is the closest when they arrive. And now I got a fat stack of cash debater when poker rolls around. Hopefully Paul goes to bed early enough that we can get a game in before the sun comes up. Seriously, never play poker with Paul. Stoveman and I have another bet going on the side, trying to guess the date that Brian and Cheryl will finally break up.

We love them both, but separately. Together, they create an unbearable tension that builds throughout the night, only to predictably blow up when Brian finally annoys Cheryl for the last time. Brian. Quiet, stoic Brian, is the polar opposite of the life of the party, Cheryl. I tell you, opposites attract, but I have yet to see opposites last. Eight of us now. Finally, a full party. I grab a couple bags from the car. DJ are locked in a vomit-inducing embrace.

Paul is staring out into the forest, Alan behind him, while Brian and Cheryl are not so silently having a whisper fight as they pull bags out of the back of their pickup truck. Stoveman makes a long walk up to the cottage and opens the front door, walks inside, and starts turning on lights, opening up windows. Everyone but me follows behind

with bags in their hands. I'm still at the car, struggling to maneuver the tent bag out. I'm hoping to set up before the darkness arrives. I open the back seat and reach inside when Stoveman comes back. I hear the crunch of gravel as he stops behind me.

He's got off or cologne practically knocking me out. Give me a hand. He doesn't answer, but he chuckles softly. What's so funny? I turn around and there's no one there.

I mean no one. I feel my insides plummet, turn to ice. I run around the car, hoping to see him hiding on the other side. I call out. for him. No answer. Then, I see him on the deck, at the cottage, a hundred metres away. Impossible. I don't know how he did it, but Stoverman's always been good at pranks. That had to be

it. I laughed to myself. Try to brush that cold feeling away. Nice one, I scream up at him. He simply waves. Dinner the first night. Spaghetti. a whole heap of it. I tried not to feel sick when I see how much Brian is putting away. He's always been on the heavier side. But you'd never say that to his face. He was a wrestler and boxer in college.

If our friends ever had to fight to the death, Paul and Brian would be the last two standing. There's probably 15 different ways Paul knows how to kill someone with just his hands. But Brian and his ham-sized fists could smash a face in like a round. rotting pumpkin that's been thrown off a roof. DJ are actually sharing a strand of spaghetti

Lady in the Tramp style, and we all grown in unison. When their lips meet, Darrell starts getting with a giggling, and soon we're all in on it. Even Alan is laughing, which is the first time I can say that's happened since I've met him. When he gets up to go to the bathroom, I mention it to Paul, who gives me a weird look. Alan's downstairs, he says.

In bed, he says. Doesn't feel well, he says. I jump out of my seat. Literally jump and run to the bathroom. Yank open the door. Of course, there's no one inside. The small window has been open slightly, and I can hear a howling wind tearing through the trees.

I try and suppress the shiver that crawls up my back. What the hell? Stovberman asks when I come back. He sees the look of my face. and shuts up. The two of us clear the dishes while DJ go to pick the game we'll play tonight.

Paul goes downstairs to check on Alan. In a whisper, Stoveman asks me what's wrong. What the hell do I tell him? In the end, I say nothing. DJ comes back with scattergories. Great, I think.

I'm mentally placing bets and how long it'll take Brian and Cheryl to argue about whether an answer is acceptable. Stoveman reads my mind and flashes his hands out twice, indicating 20 minutes. I mouth, here on, and flashed my hands once. Ten minutes. Cheryl's on a third glass of wine now. The decibel level of her voice rises exponentially with each alcoholic drink.

Five drinks and she'll start challenging people to slap fights. Seven drinks and she's out on the couch for the rest of the night. DJ start to tickle each other. that's my cue to leave. Paul comes back up and is on the deck, looking up at a full moon. The pale light casts the long dark shadow of Paul on the deckboards. Alan must be feeling better because he's standing beside Paul. The two of them are talking intently about something they don't want anyone else to hear, because when I slide the patio door open, they cut off mid-conversation.

I catch the tail end of it though, and I'm not really sure how to hear. to process it. I need more context. As soon as I come up to the two of them, Alan excuses himself. I won't say that we don't get along, but to me, Alan has always felt like someone standing on the other side of the glass at an aquarium, watching us swim around. I asked Paul what I heard the two of them talking about. What did Alan mean when he said, bodies piling up? Paul casts out one of his trademark smirks When you just know there's a whole ocean of things beneath his surface That you'll never see

Alan likes his metaphors Is all he's willing to offer Damn him I'd hate Paul if I didn't love him If you get my meaning I offer him what are my cigarettes But he declines and goes back inside I'm alone on the deck

Looking out to the glassy reflection of the shallow lake a few hundred yards out. I hear splashing. Try to focus, cut through the infinite shadows that the moon is casting out. I go to light the cigarette when I freeze. Hand trembling.

Someone is standing in the water. I think. I can't tell exactly. Could be a small tree. Could be anything. But it isn't. It's a damn person.

Standing in knee-high water, there must be freezing at this point, because I can see the breath spilling out of my mouth. It's coming out in small, quick gusts as my breathing picks up. From the way this person is standing, I just know they're staring at the cottage, staring at me. I'm glued there. The shadows swim across my vision,

the silhouette of whoever is in the water shifting with a breeze. A laugh from Cheryl On a sixth drink now I wager Cuts through the air And I'm pulled out of the trance I was in I look out to the lake again No one's there I laughed to myself

Who would do that Stand out there I hear the sound of the door to the basement Opening up Someone's walking on the stone patio below the deck They stop right beneath my feet Paul? No answer.

Then I hear Brian's voice Through the deckboard cracks At least I think it's Brian Cigarette He asks Is it him? It sounds like Brian And yet it doesn't sound like Brian

His voice sounds strained Sure I say And start towards the stairs That lead off the deck No! he shouts I'm startled by the intensity of it. Two fingers shoot up to the deckboards

beneath my feet, layers of dirt beneath the nails. They're like tongues as they clamp around the cigarette. I try to ignore my own hands shaking. What's wrong with me? Everything okay, Brian? I can't bring myself down

to peer through the crack between the deckboard. Why am I worried? It's only Brian. Right? No response. The hand draws away quickly, like it's being pulled. Brian? No answer.

I take a deep breath, get down on my knees, and dare a look. There's no one there. First night, can't sleep. Stoveman and I ditched the tent idea. I don't want to go outside, not after what I saw in the lake. My eyes keep darting to the doorway. It's open to the hall, a sliding pocket. door that's broken and won't come out.

The hall is pitch black, save with a faint orange glow from a nightlight that seeps out of the bottom corner of the doorframe. I think I'm dreaming when I first see the leg tiptoe out, bending like a spider foot. Then a man slides into place, like a dead body reversing to an upright stance, straight as a damn arrow, completely covered in shadow. It came from the direction of DJ's room. It had to be Darrell. No other rooms in that direction.

Then, it starts giggling. High-pitched laughs like a hysterical hyena. It's darrell, but it's not Darrell. It's not Darrell. Not Darrell, no. I scream and shoot my arm out to turn on the light when the not-daryl stops. Cut off like a powerful.

failure. His mouth is wide open like it's splitting his whole face in half. Then it twitches, a spasm, like a seizure, and quickly moves back towards DJ's room. I'm up and running and screaming, ripped straight for DJ's bedroom and crashed through the closed door. Then the lights on and everyone's yelling and hollering and Daryl's in bed. He's in the bed under the covers, not in the hall. But as soon as I tell Daryl there's someone in the cottage, he's up and puffing and all out for like. He takes the lead as we search the whole place, waking everyone up, checking every dark corner we can think of. Nothing. We all grouped together in the living room. Joanna asks me what the hell all that was about. What can I tell

them? The truth. When I explain every weird thing I've seen since we've got here, they all sit there with frightened looks and my stomach plummet again. I can feel the room getting colder. I'm not the only one with a story. Surprisingly, Paul is the first to speak up. The guy's like a lockdown, six-foot-tall presidential bunker when it comes to sharing. He looks at me and says when they were bringing their bags inside, he saw me standing outside the deck.

No, I wasn't. I was getting the tents out of the backseat of my car. Paul just nods his head I walked out and no one was there I couldn't make sense of it then I heard you yelling something and saw you standing at your car it's been a long few weeks

and I'm pretty sleep deprived I just chalked it up to that I'm dumbstruck I know I saw a stoveman on the deck everyone's quiet I pretend along with everyone else that we don't hear branches breaking somewhere out in the black

Cheryl speaks up next Brian looks like a corpse beside her She tells us that before bed She went out into the back porch to follow Brian Who'd gone out for a smoke Found him just Standing there Brian

She called out No response Cheryl started towards him And that's when he hunched over Started spewing out this long moan of a sob Racked strung up And Brian started bawling out on the spot

I went over to hug him, threw my arms around him. My Brian, I'm sure of it. Because then she turned ahead and saw Brian standing right here in the living room, helping stoveman light the fire. Then Cheryl screams. On the porch, then in the living room now. We all hear the tap water turn on in the bathroom. Joanna draws in a loud breath as if she's been dunked into a lake of ice water.

because she's next to figure out that everyone is already right here in this room. So, who the hell turned on the water? I'm up in a flash, my reflex is guiding my hand to the light switch because I want as much light as possible. But the light is already on, and I plunged us into darkness. The bathroom light is the only thing we can see. I can't move. All of us froze into the spot. The water stops running.

Then a figure creeps into view, bathed in shadow. Just this shadow in the doorframe. I take a breath, too. Then it speaks. The words creak out of its mouth, like the sound of a branch twisting in the wind. Kill you.

No one says anything. I don't even breathe. Then it throws back its. head and screams, Kill you, kill you, kill you, and it won't stop, it won't stop, it doesn't stop.

I scream and finally manage to turn on the light and of course, there's nothing there. Nothing. Cheryl's crying, like a screaming crying, but we all saw it, we all know,

and take one look at each other, and in a heart. hurry, we grouped together and turn on every light in the cottage, room by room, never letting one another out of sight until the whole place is lit up like an IKEA showroom. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of ditching right there and then. Screw the clothes and the food and sprint to the car. But after that creeping leg and the wide open mouth of that not Darrell, cackling and whatever the hell was coming out of the bathroom, I didn't want to put one foot outside in the black.

not a chance I know I'm not the only one but when I see Paul's face his impossibly wide eyes tearing up the damn I could kill you with every object in the room Paul crying and screaming because he had just seen Alan outside with his face

pressed up against the window and Alan had been laughing and stabbing himself in the eye and everything inside him was sliding out the window but Alan was sitting right beside him when Paul couldn't be consoled out of the fetal position as Alan held him and DJ were praying together and Bryce was hugging Cheryl

and Stoveman was talking with Kelly. I just knew we had to stay and wait this whole thing out. We couldn't leave. We had to stay and wait this whole thing out and we couldn't leave and... Wait, what the hell?

Stoveman had been talking with Kelly? Kelly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I scream at everyone to freeze, and they all look at me, turn their heads all at the same time. I tell them, I tell them I just saw Kelly, my Kelly, she was right there.

Like an explosion, everyone is shooting out of their seats. We have to figure out how to get to the cars. They seem so far away now. One hundred metres, might as well be one million in this darkness. Do we sprint? Darrow suggests we all just sprint as fast as we can down the driveway. 20 seconds and we could all be in the cars and driving the hell out of here and never talking about it again, ever again, tell no one. 20 seconds in the blackness.

Even if we all had flashlights, the darkness would be, we wouldn't be able to see Jack all. But I don't care, none of us do. We don't want to spend another minute in the cottage We have four headband flashlights And spread them out We link arms in a circle Kumbaya, we are the world style Like some massive circular starfish

Slythering against the bottom of the ocean None of us will let go Until we're in the cars The circle is like this Brian, Cheryl Me, Darrell Stoveman Joanna Then we're off

Every crunch of gravel under our feet Every exhale of breath Makes me puck up tighter Than when I go over the hill in my car Momentarily airborne And my stomach is doing somersaults Twenty seconds feels like an hour I'm staring out of the black

Walking backwards Face towards the cottage I don't want to look at it I'm too afraid the front door Will start to open And that damn leg will start to creep out again I turn my head and reveal the sickly shapes of trees in the narrow beam of light coming from my headlamp.

They look like people. An eternity later, we reached the first car. DJ's hatchback. We debated going in separate cars for about two seconds. I shoved myself into the trunk and I'm the last to get in. DJ her up front. Daryl turns the key. Should have seen it coming.

Should have never come outside. The car won't start. The goddamn car won't goddamn start and we're all yelling at Daryl to, what, fix it, try it again? Damn, we have to get back. I'm not going back. No way I'm going back up there to the cottage.

No way, no goddamn way. But then, Daryl can't move. He's frozen in place. We're all yelling at him and he doesn't move a muscle. I'm the first disdemean. see why. The headlights are spraying out in front of the car. If the headlights work, why won't the car turn on? I can see gravel, weed sticking out, grass, woods, people. I can see people. All of us. Not in the car. No, not in the car. We're all standing in the woods. We're all looking at each other.

Why are we outside? We're in the car. I wake up. Roll in the living room. The first shed of sunlight is creeping in through the window. Sweet, merciful light. I don't remember walking back from the car. I kind of remember. DJ are wide awake on the couch. Brian and Cheryl are sitting across from each other at the kitchen table.

Neither speaks. Stoveman is stoking the last dying embers of the wood. Two small pieces of black charcoal. The final corpse. each breathing out of final orange glow. Paul and Alan are at the table, saying nothing. Paul is. Paul. Alan. Then it hits me like a damn sledgehammer.

Crushes my face in. Two of them. Two of them. Two of them. Two of them. Brian, Cheryl, me, Daryl, Stoveman, Joanna. Paul. Alan. Where the hell? Where the hell were they? They never came out with us. Never. They weren't there. No way we fit eight in the hatchback. Now they're sitting in the kitchen table, looking across at each other. Were they always there? Did I? When did? Damn. No way we fit eight. No goddamn way. Of course, the cars worked in the morning. We opened up a call between us and remain in constant.

and contact till we've gone far enough that I can breathe again, that we can all breathe again, and the sun is over our heads, and we drive for hours. We must have been driving all day when we finally stop, and when we get out, we all realise it then and there.

Paul and Alan never came with us. I don't know how we missed it. They were just gone. You know the rest. The searches, the interview, the interrogations, military police, investigators? No, I never went back.

I'm never going back. Because when we drove out of that place, I felt a force tug at me I hadn't felt since the last time I saw my wife. The ocean. I felt that terrifying current pull at me when we drove away from the cottage. Exactly, like the day Kelly was ripped away from me

and no one ever saw her again. I'll never go back. I'll never go back to the cottage. Hitting rock bottom doesn't mean you have to stay there. A quote by Michelle Parsons. That was the reason I found myself in front of a small, mundane office building in the outskirts of Berlin.

It should have been the greatest mistake of my life, even more so than all the stuff I'd pulled before. To make a lengthy story short, I had massed a serious debt. Let's just say, I thought I was far smarter than I was, and made a few questionable investments. I tried to find a way out, I did, but there weren't many options available for a university dropout like me.

Before long, I scurried the less reputable parts of the internet for ways of making a few quick bucks. Nestled between shady offers and medical trials, I found one that piqued my interest. company searching for beta testers of new virtual reality technology. I'd skim the article, but the moment I read they'd pay me 100,000 euros. I laughed and told myself it was nothing but a hoax or a scam. After a few phone calls, half a dozen exchanged emails and a bit of research,

I learned that the company and their offer were genuine. Why they offered to pay that much, I didn't know. but damn could I use it to be honest I expected to find a high-tech building the type that consisted of nothing but glass and steel the reality as so often before

proved to be different the moment I entered the young woman behind the reception desk greeted me welcome may I help you are you here for the beta test yeah I mean yes I am

I handed her the invitation letter they had sent me, and, after giving it a short look, she nodded. Great, we still have a bit of time, so please have a seat in the waiting area over there. She pointed at the compact room to my left. There was nothing inside the room apart from a few lonely chairs. Everything here gave me the impression of being quickly put together. The walls were bleak and empty, almost sterile. Was this really the office of some high-tech company?

I took out my phone and went to a magicom's website again to see if I'd somehow messed things up when I heard a door opening. A well-groomed man in an inexpensive looking suit walked up to me. Mr. Perlow, welcome to a Magicom. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, he said, and chuck my hand. My name is Gabriel Brandt. I am responsible for the beta test.

We're stunned to have you with us. He said, a smile that was so typical to business people. He'd probably perfected it over many years. Likewise. Now, just a question. How come you're paying that much money for a test like this? His smile didn't waver for even a second, but I could see a slight squint of the eyes. Let's discuss the details in my office. We've got quite a few things to talk about anyway. I thought about pressing the issue, but I might be. might as well listen to the rest of his proposal.

Sure, lead on. He led me through a short hallway, as bleak as the rest of the building. It seemed we were the only people there, apart from the reception lady. Before I could look around, though, Brand opened the door and led me into his office. The room looked different from the rest of the building. It was almost completely white and seemed far more modern, almost futuristic in design. A sleek white table filled the centre of the room and one wall was nothing but a giant wall display.

Brandt motioned for me to sit down on a chair. Once he'd taken a seat opposite me, he pressed a button somewhere below the table and a video started to play on the display. It started with the catchline. Imagocon presents the most immersive virtual reality experience ever. The video showed a quick succession of various photorealistic environments

from a person's point of view. Then, the system itself was showcased. It differed from anything I'd ever seen. There was no bulky headset, no gloves, nothing like that. Instead, it showed a pair of connectors placed on the person's head, a sort of membrane one wore over the face,

and a small black box responsible for connecting to a Magicom's cloud. So, What do you think? Brand asked me once the video was over. Is this real? That looks like something from a science fiction movie. Brand smiled, but for the first time, his emotions seemed to be genuine.

There was an edge to his expression, however. Something sharp. Well, Mr. Perlow, reality isn't so different from science fiction anymore. So, if this is a beta test, I get to use one of those things, right? Somehow, I wasn't convinced. This seemed way too advanced. To be honest, I expected the video was nothing but a marketing ploy to get some investors. The actual system was probably way different.

Indeed, you will be the very first person to test our new system. Outside of your company, I assume? Naturally. He answered, and once more he showed me his trained smile. Now, let me ask you again. Why are you paying such an exorbitant amount of money? Brandt pressed another button and a small touch display activated on the table in front of me.

Well, to be honest, I'm only responsible for scheduling the beta. You can find all the other details in the contract forms in front of you. Please take your time to read through them and sign them. Should you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I started to read the first form. It was a simple, non-discipline. disclosure agreement. The second one handled the eventuality of damaging the system itself, while the third one was on the company's terms and conditions. The fourth was another

non-disclosure agreement, this time about the virtual environments. It was the fifth form that discussed the payment. It was a new revolutionary system. The compensation was so high because they required absolute secrecy about the system itself and the virtual environments showcased. Here and there, details about the payment popped up, but there were dozens of these forms. I read the first few carefully, but before long, I started to skim, then I only took a few looks and eventually signed them without so much as reading the title. It still took me more than an hour to work through all of them. Well, that's that. All done, I said, after signing the last one.

perfect Brand said and the display in front of me vanished again a moment later a similar one appeared in front of him let me just cross-check everything it should only take a few

minutes after a little while he pressed another button Cynthia something to drink please how about coffee he said out loud a few minutes later the reception lady entered the room

and brought us each a hot steaming cup of coffee. She barely put it down when I took the first sip. God, I was tired. They'd scheduled the test to start at 8 in the morning. Not such an unusual time, you might say. The problem was, I had to make it to Berlin first. The company offered to book me a train ticket and pay for it, but it also meant I had to get up 3 in the morning if I wanted to make it in time. I finished a whole cup in a matter of minute, but it didn't seem to help one bit. I sat there, drowsily, or Brand took his time going through the documents. Well, Mr. Perlow, he said, and brought me back from my half-a-sleep state.

It seems everything's in order. We're happy to start with the examinations right away. Examinations? It's all standard procedure, as explained in Form 32, Section D. You're required to pass a few additional evaluations. Please, follow me. Before I could so much as frown He pressed another button

And the wall behind him slid open Revealing another hallway I hadn't even noticed the sliding door until now This part of the building was much more modern The walls were pristine and stainless The complete opposite of what I'd seen so far It felt like we weren't even in the same building anymore For the first time

I saw other people apart from Brent and Cynthia The Reception Lady There was a group ahead chatting next to a futuristic vending machine and others hurried up and down the long hallway. I was about to ask Brandt about the company, but we'd already made it to the examination room. Hello there, I'm Dr Kitagawa. A man in a lab coat introduced himself.

He followed it up with a lengthy list of honours and explained he was an expert in neuroscience. Grant gave him a brief nod before he turned from the room. The evaluations lasted almost the entire day. They started with a detailed assessment of my general health and fitness. It was to make sure I didn't suffer from any serious health conditions like respiratory or cardiovascular problems.

After that came several brain scans. Kitagawa explained that certain brain conditions could influence our perception of reality. A certain percentage of the population wouldn't be able to discern between the real and the simulated reality. For those people, the possibility of actual injury existed, even in a simulation. The most common one was hurting or overstaining your muscles. The second, rarer one, was nerve damage because of the brain believing that a simulated injury was a genuine one. To avoid any of those, they had to make sure I didn't suffer from any of those brain conditions. I don't even know what sort of brain scans they did.

Kitagawa threw around so many terms. half of which I hadn't even heard before. CT, MRI, MRI, MRI, MRS, you name it. Once those were done, it was time for the last part, the psychological evaluation. The questions were all standard. Did I suffer from depression? Had I been diagnosed with any mental illnesses,

did I have any mental condition they might want to know about? The only condition I could tell them about was the ADHD I suffered from and sometimes used medication for. They didn't linger on the topic for too long and assured me it would be no problem. What they seemed to linger on though was phobias.

General fears and anxiety. After they'd asked me more than a dozen questions on the topic, I spoke up. Kitagara assured me it was all standard procedure and important for the design of the simulation and a smooth run of the beta itself. So, I explained, I suffered from slight bouts of anxiety because of my situation.

As for phobias, I told them I suffered from a rachnophobia, but I also added, embarrassingly, that I wasn't fond of the dark, confined places either. Once the psychological evaluation was over, it was already early evening. I realized I'd been here more than half a day already, and the test hadn't even started. Still, I was exhausted,

and apart from a quick lunch after the first, first half of the examination, I also hadn't eaten a damn thing. Thankfully, the company had prepared for all that. I'd expected them to have booked me a hotel or some other accommodation. Instead, they led me to what they referred to as, my private quarters for the duration of the beta test. The room was as modern as the rest of the complex. Half of it was made up of a bed that looked more comfortable than anything I'd ever slept in.

There was also another one of the giant wall displays opposite the bed. Before I could even ask, they informed me that my dinner would be served in a few minutes. It was juicy. Tender pieces of beef with a side of vegetables. After eating nothing but fast food and microwaved meals, it felt like heaven to me. Once I was done with a meal, I threw myself on the bed, activated the wall display, and switched through the available media. Most of it was long videos about nature

with low, relaxing background music. For a while, I watched colorful fish and stunning coral reefs before I felt myself dozing off. When I woke up again, I couldn't feel the soft bedding anymore. Instead, I lay in a cold, damp floor. It took me a few moments to realize

that I was somewhere different. I jerked up, confused, and when I looked around, I noticed I was in an empty, dark room. The surrounding walls were damp, dirty, and covered in moss. A quick check revealed that I was still wearing my clothes and my phone was still with me. The screen showed that it was already long past midnight and that I didn't have a signal. Once the shock was over, I used the phone's flashlight to illuminate the area I was in. Old brown stains covered the floor and a pair of rusty chains dangled from a wall behind me. A few meters ahead of me was an opening that led into a tunnel.

There was no other light source apart from my phone. Damn, what the hell was going on? How did I get here? Had I been kidnapped and put into some sort of torture dungeon? Had it all been a farce to lure me here. But why go through the effort to... No, wait. Think, Andre, that's not it.

This room, the tunnel ahead, I realised a sphere washed over me. It was a dark, confined space, wasn't it? I remembered the evaluation, the questions about fears and phobias. As I realised, I grinned. They must have waited till I fell asleep and started the test.

How I hadn't woken up through that ordeal was a mystery to me. Still, where I was right now had to be a simulation. And I was sure they wanted to see how I'd react to the simulation I found myself in. Well, you got me,

I said, to no one in particular. So, what now? You want me to explore or something? No answer. I crossed the room and put my hands against the walls. They felt cold, solid, and must.

If I hadn't known I was in a simulation, I wouldn't have believed it. As a fresh surge of anxiety washed over me, I took a deep breath before I entered the tunnel. Now, here's the thing. You might know things aren't real and that you're in a simulation, but it doesn't help a single bit. However much I tried to convince myself, things felt and looked way too damn real. With each step, the sound of my footsteps reverberated through the gloomy tunnel her head, and I couldn't help but cringe. The only other sound was the slow dripping of water from the ceiling.

It didn't stay like that for too long. After only a minute, I heard other, weirder sounds. The distinct rattling of chains and the sound of shuffling feet made me shiver. There's nothing here that can hurt you. None of it is real. I repeated those two lines over and over again, like a mantra. I considered going back to retreat to the room I'd come from. But then what?

Wait till they turn the damn thing off? And how long would that take? Slowly, another thought crawled into my mind and scratched at my sanity. It was the stupid, impossible thought of what if this was no simulation after all? Calm down, André, calm down, I told myself and pushed the thoughts back into the back of my mind. Still, this simulation was too damn real. They'd explained before that they were simulating all sorts of central inputs and transferring them into the brain.

That's why it felt so real. Once more, I reached out a shaking hand to touch the wall next to me. Cold, damp and solid. If this wasn't real, I shouldn't be able to... Suddenly, a hand jerked from a hole in the wall I hadn't seen before. Damn! I called out, including. fringed back.

My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the outstretched hand. Who's there? I called out in a quiet voice. But all I heard was the rattling of chains from behind the wall. Whoever was behind there was panting, moaning, and after a few moments, the hand retreated. I stood there, frozen, afraid, and as I illuminated the tunnel ahead, I saw the dozens of similar holes. Then, further ahead,

I could make out a sturdy, wooden door. As I stood there, more chains rattled. I heard the shuffling of feet and bodies, more hands reached out, clawing at the walls, and wordless screams

seemed to be directed at me. Oh my God, I cursed as I hurried on and pushed past all of them, repeating my mantra like before. Get away from here, I told myself, get away and reach the end, wherever that was.

Right at that point, a distant, lonely light started flickering at the end of the tunnel. My steps got faster, passing hole after hole. But then I heard something, a growling ahead of me. Then someone screamed. There was a loud bump, the creaking of wood, and then the sturdy door I'd seen before was pushed outward. For a moment, dust and wood splinters filled the air, but then I saw it. A giant, bulging figure pushed itself from the doorway and into the tunnel.

When I cursed up in surprise and shock and the figure turned towards me, I cringed back a single step, then another, before I turned and ran back down towards the room I'd awoken in. Behind me, another scream cut through the air, before I heard heavy footballs from behind me. I ran with all the strength I could muster, but I didn't make it far. A giant pore of a hand came to rest of my shoulder. I was ripped backwards, saw a terrifying, grinning face, and then all light vanished. I screamed and struggled against something on top of me.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the same bed I'd fallen asleep in. What I'd struggled against were the bedsheets. My heart was beating hard against my chest. As I lay there, my eyes darted around the room, afraid to find the giant figure lurking somewhere inside of my room. You can calm down now, Mr. Perlow. There's nothing to be afraid of. It was all part of our simulation.

A friendly female voice said. What the hell was that? I screamed. Are you crazy? What if I'd gotten a heart attack? The thing was... I can assure you that your heart is fine. As you might recall, during the examinations, we informed you that the simulation won't put you in harm's way.

The chances of you suffering a heart attack from the previous simulations were evaluated and deemed to be zero. God damn it, I cursed. I didn't sign up for the surprise stuff. You did indeed, Mr. Perlow. In Section 2D on Form 54, you gave full consent to be subjugated to simulated inputs of any sort of that proper... Yeah, yeah, I get it, I said with a sigh. Have a good night, Mr Perlow. The friendly voice said, before she disconnected with an audible click. A good night? Yeah, right.

Damn, what was this about Form 54? Then I remembered how I'd not given any of the later forms so much as a glance. Damn, how could I have been so stupid? How many of the freaking things had I'd signed? Hey, I've got a question. Can you hear me? Nothing. Damn, I guess they won't even talk to me anymore.

I cursed once more. If things got out of hand, I should be able to tell them I was out, right? There are rules to these things, aren't there? An annoyed and slightly worried, I turned back to the wall display and turned it on. The fish and the ocean depths were gone. Instead, the display showed a beautiful beach and a similarly beautiful woman walking through the sand. well better than nothing I thought and lean back to listen to the quiet

relaxing background music as the video continued the woman approached the camera getting closer with each step the moment I could make out her face I noticed that she was crying help me

she spoke up alright what the hell while I search for the display small remote she repeated it over and over. Help me, Andre, she suddenly said, emphasising the name, my name. When I looked up again and found her eyes resting on me,

I felt goosebumps all over my arm. You have to, she said once more, her face growing harder. What the hell? I pressed out, confused. You dare not to help me? She screamed at me. I finally found the remote to turn the damn thing off,

but whatever I pressed, there was no reaction. Instead, her face grew angrier and angrier, becoming a distorted version of a former, beautiful self. And then, to my horror, she got even closer. By that point, her face filled out the entire display. A moment later, she pushed her giant head through, not against the display, but out of it. right to my direction.

I screamed, jumped off the bed, and hurried for the door, but it didn't open. When I turned around, I saw in disbelief that a giant head was inside of my room. It dangled from a long, stretched out neck that vanished somewhere in the depths of the wall. You dare to ignore me? The creature screamed again, and my ears rang because of a belling scream.

I pushed my hands over my ears and threw myself against the door. Once, twice. And then, when I did it a third time, the door sprang open, and I pushed myself outside. What the hell was that? The answer popped into my head right away.

I was in the simulation. I had to be. There was no doubt about it. The moment I'd woken up, there had been no connectors, no facial mask, nothing at all. They must have ended one simulation

and plunged me straight into the next one, a simulated version of my private quarters. They tricked me, complete with the call of an assistant to tell me the simulation was over. No, wait, that wasn't correct. She'd never said a word about it being over, had she? As I stood there, in the hallway, the same woman spoke up again.

Mr. Perlow, if you'd please continue down the hallway to room number 34, please take a seat there, so we can continue with a test. I looked up, but there was no sign of where the voice was coming from. For a moment, I looked around, before I started on my way down the hall. Everything looked the same as when I'd arrived here. The walls, the doors, only the people were gone.

But I was in the simulation, I told myself. When I made it to Room 34, I saw that it was the examination room I'd been in before. I looked around for a moment. But I was alone. Eventually I popped down in one chair. Right away I felt a hand of my shoulder. I jerked around to find Dr. Kitagawa standing next to me.

Mr. Perlow, are you all right? I looked at him, confused. Wait, why are you? I broke up and shook my head. The man stared at me for a moment, before he frowned. We were finishing your MRI when you passed out. Yeah, sure I did. hilarious.

This is nothing but a simulation. This round deepened and a worried expression replaced it. You haven't entered the simulation yet, Mr. Perlow. Your tests are all scheduled for tomorrow and the day after. Today we're evaluating your mental and physical capabilities. I laughed a little bit. Well, whatever you say.

So what sort of test is this going to be? Mr. Perlow. He started again, his voice serious. Do you often suffer from episodes such as this one? What episodes? Oh, you mean this? No, I've never before entered the simulation. His face still showed a word expression.

What I'm talking about are the episodes of prolonged memory loss, distorted memories, vivid daydreams or hallucinations. I didn't react. Instead, my eyes scanned the room. Can you come here for a moment? I got up and stepped over to one of the monitors. What you see here is a small swelling in your visual cortex. It's not necessarily anything malicious or dangerous.

But, as I said, it might lead to various problems related to your memory. I'm asking since what you're talking about might be an indicator for... All right, is this a sick joke? I called towards the ceiling of the room. Did you put this into the simulation because of the... of my stupid ADHD? Mr. Perlow, please calm down. You're disturbing the rest of the personnel.

Now, please tell me what you remember about your trip here to Munich. What the hell are you talking about? You arrived here at our Munich facility this morning to test our new immersion rig. With that, Dr. Gittagawa pointed at a different contraption. One, I'd never seen before. It looked almost like a giant wheel a person could be strapped to. A variety of gadgets, a visor, a headset and gloves were connected to it. You signed up for our beta test for compensation of a thousand euros.

This test is scheduled to last between two and four days. Wait, hold on, that's bull, I laughed, but it came out more nervous than I'd hoped for. I'm still in the simulation. People who suffer from damage to the visual cortex can often suffer from a different perception of reality. This can not only lead to false interpretations of what's in front of you, but can also lead to distorted memories. It's often influenced by the person's subconscious beliefs and wishes. All right, very funny.

First of all, the equipment I used was totally different, and I was offered a compensation of... But I broke up. Distorted memories influenced by personal wishes? When I thought about it, would anyone really pay 100 grand to test some piece of technology? For now, I'll have a look at the test results and see if what I found might impede you from joining the test.

Depending on those results, it might be better to reschedule an examination at a nearby hospital. For now, though, we should start on the general physical examination. I nodded and smiled. But I couldn't shake off the weird feeling that flooded over me. This was the simulation. Wasn't it? They were just trying to mess with my brain again. There was no damn way I could have imagined any of the stuff that happened before.

All right, Jesus, Andre, don't fall for their shenanigans again. You're in the simulation, and none of this is real. Right, I said to Kitagawa. Let's go do the stupid fitness test then. The man frowned at my answer, but nodded. The test was simpler than before. Kitagawa led me to an exercise bike in the back of the room and tested my heart rate in general stamina,

nothing else. The same was true for the psychological evaluation. He just asked me a handful of questions, and that was it. Once it was all over, he called an assistant that led me from the room. When I stepped outside, I stopped for a moment.

The hallway was different. There weren't any pristine white walls. Instead, it looked like any other office building I'd seen before. Nothing about the place screamed high-tech or fancy. The same was true from my private quarters. It reminded me of a room in a simple hostel. There was a bunk bed, a small nightstand and an old cupboard.

The assistant who led me here excused himself and hurried away. Once he'd left, I'd slumped down to the bed and took out my phone. I opened up WhatsApp and had a look at my messages. The last one was sent to my best friend. friend, telling him about the beta test in Munich I would take part in. Yeah, it's not a lot of money, but at least I won't have to just eat ramen for a month. I'd written to him. I frowned at that.

It sounded like me, exactly the way I'd talk about myself. But I didn't remember writing that message. Hell, I had told no one about the amount of compensation I'd be paid. This is bull crap. With that, I dropped the phone on the bed next to me. and lean back. None of this was real anyway. A few minutes later, I got up

and hit my fist against the wall. I don't know why I did it, but the result was as expected. The resulting pain felt real enough. I picked up the phone again and had a look at my emails. It was all there. The instructions,

the compensation for my travels, everything. Only the details were all different. While I read through the emails, someone knocked against the door. I opened it, and a nervous man stood outside. His eyes were wide and darted left and right before he pushed himself past me. Hey, what are you? Quiet, close the door.

I laughed and did as he told me. All right, what now? Listen, I know this will sound weird, but everything that's going on here is not what it's supposed to be. Yeah, no, duh, I said. This is all just a simulation. The man's face turned grim, and a wordless curse escaped his mouth. Then he leaned forward,

putting his face right in front of mine. All right, you're not in assimilation. They're trying to make you believe you're in one, but that's not what's going on here. The whole damn thing has got nothing to do with any new virtual reality technology. Did you inspect the damn rig and all those gadgets? Why do you need all of that for virtual reality? It's all the front.

They'll run you through test after test after test. Reschedule them before they tell you they found some anomaly. Let me guess. Your brain or your heart, right? When I looked up, the man smiled knowingly. Where do you think you're at? Where's that simulation you're in taking place? Berlin, I said, in a quiet voice.

The guy grinned. mine was scheduled in Dortmund We've got someone here who say they're in Hamburg Another guy just two rooms further down Said he went to Munich So Where the hell are we The guy laughed

Don't you get it No one knows We all think we're in different locations You might think you're in Munich Or Dresden or Hamburg But that's not where we are Did they give you anything to drink when you arrived Coffee, water

Maybe a soda I nodded once more. They spiced it with something. Some new, messed up drug that scrambled up your memory. Once you're in here, you won't have a clue anymore what's real and what's not. It's all because of that damn drug. None of the participants here have any clue what's going on. I went back to bed and picked up my phone.

Once more, I went over the emails. That's when I noticed something else was wrong. The dates. I'd talked to them for almost two weeks. So, why were all the emails from the beginning of this month? Then, I'd check the date to my phone. I stared at it, confused. Wait, why was it on the fourth?

I got here on the 12th, didn't I? The WhatsApp message I'd sent to my friend yesterday was dated the fourth. If this was... That's how they get you, the guy cut me off. It was right at this point that the door opened again, I recognized Brandt by his trained smile right away. Mr. Perlow, it's nice to meet you. I'm Mr. Zimmer, the CEO of a Magicom.

I can see you've already met Mr. Schuster, one of our other participants. Schuster's face changed, and for a moment, an expression of pure terror was visible. He fought hard to suppress it before he turned to the supposed CEO. Mr. Zimmer, I better get going. I'm sure you have things to talk about with Mr. Perlow here. With that, he gave me and Brandt. No, Zimmer, a nod, and hurried from the room.

All right, Mr. Zimmer, I started and emphasised the name. Where's Mr. Brand? Brand. We don't have anyone working here by that name. I'm not sure who you're referring to. I'm talking about the man who showed me the introduction video and... Ah, Dr. Kitigara. His first name is Satoshi, in case you're wondering.

Brilliant man. He informed me about the anomaly he discovered during your brain scans. However, he already said it doesn't seem to be serious. If we make a few changes to the simulation, there shouldn't be any problems with the beta test. He continued to ramble on about the test and what was to come. But I didn't listen anymore. My head was throbbing.

This was all too damn real and way to. strange. Would anyone even go through all this effort and create a simulation like this? Why? As I stood there, I thought about what you're supposed to do when you find yourself in a dream and want to wake up. Would something like that even work in a simulation? Damn, I had no clue. Until then, you're at your leisure, Mr. Perlow. We'd like you to stay in your room if possible, but we understand if you're interested in the project itself. If you need any additional information, our promotional manager, Mr. Witch in room 14b, would be more than happy to have a talk with you. Well, I got to leave now. Thanks again for joining our

beta test. Please be ready at four to continue with a schedule. With that, he left the room. For a moment I stood there, trying to figure out how to prove what was real and what wasn't. As my eyes scanned the room, I noticed something. It was small and partway hidden behind the ceiling lamp. I could only see it from a certain position. Was that a... Camera? Why was it up there and why was it hidden like that?

Were they spying on me? I stared at it for a while before I turned away. Was this really a simulation? Would they put all those details in? Damn, this entire thing was driving me insane. I couldn't stay in this. room anymore. The longer I sat still, the more confused I got. A few moments later, I was outside again and started to walk down the hallway. A lot of other people in their office attire flocked

the hallway, going through their normal workday. Yet somehow, when I passed them, they all looked up, watching me, and whispered to one another. It made my skin crawl in the worst way possible. Something was definitely wrong here. As I continued, I wondered how big this place was. It felt like the hallway went on forever. I passed room after room and other identical hallways. For a moment, I felt disoriented, as if I was trapped in a maze. I was about to follow down a different hallway when I bumped into Schuster.

He looked up at me with a serious expression. We've got to get out of here, he whispered to me. What? I just saw I saw what they're going to do Good God He shivered before he got a hold of my arm And pulled me after him

Schuster walked normally Trying his best to make a bit of small talk As he dragged me along I saw how sweaty he was And how much he fought to keep the anxiety at bay What did you see I asked him again I don't know

There are people strapped at these things But they're bleeding and he broke up again. There was yet another group of office workers ahead of me that eyed us with curious intent. Schuster seemed to be as disoriented as I was, his eyes darting left and right as he chose his directions haphazardly.

Finally, though, we arrived at an enormous glass door. Schuster pushed it open, and we entered a giant lobby. The moment we got there, the woman behind the desk looked up. Mr. Perlow, Mr. Schuster, can I help you? Schuster didn't say a thing. Instead, he hurried towards the building's entrance door.

He pushed, then threw himself against it, but the door didn't budge. For a moment, as I looked at the receptionist, I could have sworn I saw a smile on her face. Mr. Schuster, we've been over this before. She started in a warm, friendly voice. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to leave the premises until the end of your clinical trial. No, screw your trial. I'm getting out of here. You're all insane. This entire thing here's insane. When Schuster beat against the door, with all the force he could muster, the receptionist pressed a button. A few moments later, two men in suits appeared in the lobby.

When Chuster saw them, he freaked out, screamed obscenities at them. The men didn't waver. walked up to him and restrained him with next to no effort. Mr. Schuster, everything's all right. One of them whispered at him while he struggled against the grip. It's just the after effects of the new medication. Everything is all right, the other chimed in. As they said this, Schuster was screaming, still struggling

while they dragged him back through the glass door. What the hell's going on here? I yelled at the receptionist. I'm very sorry about that, Mr. Perlow. Mr. Schuster is part of a different test group, a test for a new type of medication against certain mental issues. Unfortunately, some test subjects suffered from mild cases of reality distortion and paranoia. I assure you, though, it's normal and no reason for concern. No reason for... what? He was screaming! What the hell are you even...

You know what? I'm out of here. It doesn't even matter if this is a messed up simulation or this is real, but I'm out. It's all standard procedure, Mr. Perlow, she continued. Might I remind you of paragraph 5 on Form 27? Unless there's the immediate danger of brain damage or circular arrest, the beta test will continue. Now, of course, you're free to end the test here and now, Mr. Perlow, but we will pay no compensation in that case. Furthermore, as paragraph 11 on Form 41 states, should a person quit the beta test after giving their official consent, Imagicom will be forced to take legal action which might include fines of substantial height.

I stood there and listened as she rambled on about some damned legal matters. What the hell are you talking about? What's that about those damned forms? You can't just... But I broke up when the two men that had taken Schuster away appeared again. We can assure you, Mr. Perlow.

We can indeed. With that, the two men got a hold of my arms. I struggled against their grip, but soon realized that they were much strong. stronger than me. They dragged me back towards the hallway. They whispered the same calming words they had at Schuster before. They didn't even react when I caught them out in their BS. I thought they'd bring me back to my room, but they dragged me back to the examination room. Kitagawa was already there, waiting for me, smiling.

Excellent news, Mr. Perlow, he said with excitement. We've just got confirmation that you're eligible to take part in our test. Kitagawa's face transformed. formed, twisted by a sadistic smile. The hell kind of test are you... I couldn't keep talking anymore, because one of the men pushed a gag into my mouth. Well then, why didn't you take Mr. Perlow down to Hall B? I think Model 13 should be free at the moment.

With that, they dragged me outside again, down the hall. A few office workers who are still around watched the entire ordeal with excited faces. You should be honoured, Mr. Perlow, you'll be contributing to the advancement of human society, Kitagawa rambled on. I wanted to say something, scream at him, and call him insane, but the damn gag didn't allow for any of that. All that escaped with my mouth were muffled, indistinguishable sounds. It wasn't long before Kitagawa pushed open the door to another room, much bigger than I'd been in before.

The moment we entered, the iron smell of blood reached me. and I could hear the low moans and muffled screams of the other participants. They were all strapped to one of the wheel-like contraptions Kitagawa had called the new immersion rig. The moment I saw them, I fought against the grip of the two men once more. The first participant was twisting and shaking against the restraints of the contraption. A gag covered another's mouth, but I could see the blood that streamed from the visor. I could hear his muffled screams. yet another's teeth were grinding against one another

before they started biting at his lips and leaving them a tattered, bloody mess and then way further down in the last contraption I saw Schuster He was barely recognisable anymore Blood leaked from his mouth, the visor and the headphones His arms and legs looked different twisted as if the joints had popped

And his tendons were snapped He dangled there almost lifelessly only twitching once in a while Kitiko's eyes wandered to the man Well guess Model 17 is available for a new participant already He said with a smile

I stared at the man Wide-eyed Oh don't worry about you Mr Perlow It's all standard procedure There's not a thing you've got to worry about As the two men started to strap me to Model 13 I inhaled sharply Mustered up all my strength

and threw myself forward. One restraint snapped open, then another, and I was free. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I could somehow avoid both men's outstretched arms. In an instant, I was out in the hallway. I heard Kitigawa scream after me, and a second later, the two men came running after me. All I could do was run. I pushed on, down one hallway, then another. I ran left, then right, almost crashed into a group of,

of office workers before I changed directions again. Where the hell was I even going? I had no idea where the damn lobby was. Everything looked the same. The walls, the room, even the people. I hurried around another corner and threw myself into the first room I saw. With shaking hands, I took out my phone. I dialed the number for the police, but nothing happened.

Damn, I realized I didn't have a signal. I scanned the room and instantly saw the glass panelling that separated me from the outside world. If nothing else, then... I picked up a chair, standing in the room, and hurled it against the panel. The chair crashed against the glass right as my tubas who were stormed into the room. They were still smiling the same smile, still uttering the same reassuring of words. I avoided the first man's grip, threw him to the ground.

But right at that moment, the second man tackled me. His body crashed into mine, and I was thrown backward. I felt the impact as my body crashed against the glass panelling. Then, there was the sound of shattering glass as the surface exploded into a thousand pieces. For the blink of an eye, I was weightless. There was no impact, though. Instead, I lay in the soft grass. I freaked out, jumped up, but felt no pain.

There was no damage, no blood and no glass. When I turned around, though, The office building had vanished too. It had all been fake, a farce. It had been nothing but another one of their damn simulations. As I sat up in the grass, I realised that it had all been fake, the entire second reality, the insane ketagawa, and even the supposed brain damage I was suffering from.

It had all been another part of their simulation. I grew angry before rage overtook me. the hell do you think you're doing? This is messed up. I thought it was real. I thought... This is insane. Why didn't you just get me out of here right now?

And Mr. Perlow, I like to inform you. A voice parted out of nowhere. In form 48, paragraph 4.C, you specifically agreed to... Yeah, well, get lost. I screamed an answer. This time, the voice didn't say anything else. I stood up and looked around. I was in a meadow, and further ahead was.

a small lake. The moment I saw it, nostalgia washed over me. I knew this lake. It was the one that had been right next to the village my grandparents had lived at. I let my eyes wander around and I recognised the old cherry tree nearby, the dirt path that led from the lake to the village and even the distant forest. How in the hell had they created this? Had they researched my past, or had they somehow scanned my memories? Was something like that even possible? After a while, not knowing what else to do, I began walking up the path that should lead me to the village. I was stuck in her anyway, without a way to end this simulation myself, and I had to admit, I wanted to see the old village. I'd barely taken a few steps when I found an old bike lying in the grass.

I noticed the black-red metallic colour, the old dirty gears and the rusted bell. It was the mountain bike I'd owned as a kid. The memories of childhood returned to me and I saw myself racing down dirt paths and forest tracks. I couldn't help but smile. Things were so different back then. For a moment I considered picking up the bike

but I was way too tall to drive it anyway. The path from the lake led to a tiny hill and once I made it up there my eyes grew wide. I couldn't believe it. Once more I wondered how they'd created all this. For a while I stood there, marvelling at the site below. There was the huge old farmstead. Here were the holiday homes at the edge of the village. Further away was the major part of the village, with a church in its centre. In front of me though, was the part that

my eyes rested on the longest. It was the lower part of the village which consisted of only a handful of houses. One of them was my grandparents. It had been over 15 years since I had last been there. As I went to my way, I couldn't help but be impressed by how real everything was. I felt the grass against my legs, the sun of my face, and I smelled the fresh summer air. You could almost forget you were in a simulation, I thought. No, I reminded myself, don't for it again, you idiot. Not a second time.

Hell, not a third. My steps led me to my grandparents' house, almost. an autopilot. It was a small house with a barn next to it. They'd been farmers for the better part of their life. When I was born though, they'd already abandoned the old trade and had opted for a more relaxed way of living. The closer I got, the more memories returned to me.

I felt goosebumps on my arm when I saw a cat in the grass nearby. It eyed me curiously, and when I noticed the brownish, grey stripes on its back, I knew it had to be my grandma's old cat. Leo The cat watched me for a few more moments before it came over to me purring and rubbing itself against my leg Hey little fella

I greeted it and leaned down to pet it I wondered how they got everything right up to the smallest detail Then I wondered if this was really what grandma's cat had looked like What if they'd created a vague image of a cat And my brain made the necessary connections That weren't there and filled in the gaps Was that how they did all this?

Providing nothing but a vague framework for the rest of the brain to work with? While I stood there, petting the cat and thinking about this, the sky suddenly grew dark. Within moments, thick clouds had formed and blocked out the sun before it began to rain. It wasn't long before the rain had turned into a full-on downpour. Sure, it was a simulation, but I still felt myself getting wet and I felt the cold, gusty wind. Within moments I was freezing and hurried to open the front door of the house.

I watched as the downpour continued and saw Leo rush away to the barn. They'd done it all, to the minutest detail. As I stood there, I wondered why they'd throw me into a simulation like this. Why in my grandparents' house? Then something crawled back into my mind. As I stood there in the small entry hall, I shivered as a memory came back to me, the memory of the single worst day of my entire childhood.

I'd never told them about that day. Hell, I'd buried it so deep in my mind, I hadn't even remembered it until now. So how did they know about it? No, I told myself, I wouldn't go in, I wouldn't enter this house. They couldn't make me, could they? I rushed back outside.

All care about the downpour or the colds, had vanished. I'd make it to one of the other houses or just over to the barn. I don't know what I was expecting if I thought I could actually do anything. What I wasn't expecting were the spiders that suddenly swarmed the ground. At first, there were only a few, but soon it was hundreds, thousands. They cover the grass, the trees, the barn, everything. Everything but my grandparents' house. For a moment I closed my eyes

If I don't see them They can't hurt me, right? None of this was real It was a simulation Just run, you damn idiot Run and get away from here Yet, I'd barely taken a few steps When I could feel them

Crawling all over me They made their way up my legs My back and even my arms I shuddered and tried to ignore it But finally I screamed opened my eyes and swatted them off me. I was shaking, and as I looked ahead,

I saw that the entire village, no, the entire outside world was covered in thick, heavy spider webs. This whole simulation had become an arachnophobic hell. When I couldn't fight it anymore, when my phobia kicked in with full force, I rushed back into the house. I didn't want to go there again,

but my body didn't seem to listen to me anymore. Still, I knew why they forced me back here. This time, they couldn't make me. No, I wouldn't move. I'd stay here next to the front door. Once more, the dreaded memory pushed itself into my head. I lost my balance and started shaking and sweating. You goddamn sickos!

Screw you! I screamed up at the empty, quiet house. The last time I'd been here was a few days after my grandma had died. After that day, I'd never been to that house again, and I'd never wanted to return. My grandpa had died when I was ten years old, and, after his death, my grandma had lived on her own. She died one year later. I shuddered, thinking about the day I found her. I sat down on the ground and didn't do a damn thing.

All I did was breathe slowly and steadily to keep the panic at bay as I watched the spiders outside. Mr. Perlow, we have to inform you again that you are required to participate in the simulation. We are aware that you know where you're supposed to go. Should you remain here without continuing, we are forced to... Shut the hell up! I'm not doing it! I'm not going there! I screamed again without moving a single inch.

I tried. I honestly tried. But how can you fight something that you've got no control over? What can you do in a world that can become... anything and do anything to you. I sat there, unmoving. But after a short while, the spiders outside grew restless before they rushed towards the building. I could barely throw the front door shut, but I could feel it,

the pressure of thousands of spiders trying to force their way in. Then I heard it. The sounds. The sounds of spiders crawling and skittering all over the walls outside. As I desperately pushed myself against the door, I saw the windows, the glass, the cracks. A moment later, the glass gave away, and a flood of spiders made its way inside. They weren't crawling inside. They swept into the building.

It was nothing but an endless wave of eight-legged horrors. Within moments, they filled the entire first floor of the building. In my panicked state, I picked the only direction that wasn't covered in them. the stairs to the second floor the spiders were coming after me chasing me I could feel them on my legs my arms

felt them tearing at my skin and biting into my flesh in a panic I ripped them off my body by the dozens before I threw myself into the only room that wasn't infested with them I was a shivering shaking mess

bloody bites covered my arms and legs tears streamed from my eyes and I was too exhausted to even curse It was only after a few minutes after I calmed down that I'd noticed the sweet, disgusting smell that wafted through the air. I realized where I was. In a state of shock, I turned away from the door to take in the sight in front of me. It was my grandma's bedroom.

She was right there, lying in a bed and moving, the same as she'd been when I was 11 years old. This time, though, I knew. what was in front of me. Right there, between the sheets, was the decomposing body of my grandma. She'd been dead for almost four days

when I found her. Back then, my parents and I lived in a small town only a few kilometres away from her. One day on a whim, I decided to go visit her. After Grandpa's death, she'd become a lonely woman

and had isolated herself from the rest of the world. Still, I loved my grandma and I thought she'd be happy to see me. When I didn't find her outside, I searched the house and finally found her up in a bedroom. A wave of a disgustingly sweet smell hit me when I opened the door, the same smell I'd known from bad rotten apples. I remembered walking up to my grandma to waker, telling her there must be some apples that had gone bad. It was only at this point that I saw the state she was in. Her face was not that on my

grandma anymore. Because of the summer heat and the stuffy air inside the room, it had become a bloated, mushy heap of flesh, covered by maggots and flies. I remember screaming and running from the house, only to be found by a neighbour. It was he who called the doctor and the mortician. For years, the memory of a rotten face and the sweet smell of a rotten body had stayed with me before I'd been able to bury it. It was the same sweet smell that now crawled at my nostrils. I froze, unable to move or do anything. Suddenly, I was 11 years old again.

I was not Andrew Perlow, the 27-year-old man in a virtual reality simulation anymore. No, I was little Andy, a scared, 11-year-old boy in his dead grandma's bedroom. After the initial shock was over, I turned back to the door of the room, but I couldn't see it anymore. where the door had been was now nothing but a solid wall.

I looked around, confused, but there were no hints of it anymore. The door had vanished. I went forward, hitting and beating against the wall, hoping to find a way out. With each passing second, the smell of rot grew more and more intense. I gagged, pushed myself as far away from the bed as I could, back into the corner of the room. I cried, I screamed and pleaded with them to end the simulation. The money didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.

All I wanted was to get out of the simulation. As I sat there, rambling on and on, I heard a different sound. At first I thought it was the spiders again. But then I heard it again. A quiet, wet, squishing. I almost vomited when a fresh wave of the rotten stink hit me. My eyes watered. I blinked once, twice, and then I saw it.

In front of me, between the sheets, Grandma's body was... Moving. I thought it was a reaction because of the decay, but it wasn't. In sheer and total horror, I watched as a rotten corpse got up and a bloated, mushy face focused on me.

Her lips were gone, her eyes were tiny, shriveled up like dried raisins. The worst, though, was the maggots that now fell from it in droves. I screamed, scrambled back against the wall, began beating it, throwing myself against it, to get away somehow. But it was futile. Oh, my dear little Andy! I heard a distorted version of her. voice. The words were barely

distinguishable from one another, but not much more than a wet gurgle. How nice of you to come visit your old grandma? The bed sheets parted, and I could see the full, disgusting horror of a rotten body.

The bed was almost a sea of body fluids, and she was nothing but an amalgamation of wet, mushy flesh. Her body was torn open, revealing her insides, as she pushed herself to her feet, something big and wet burst from her abdomen and into the bedsheets below. For a moment she wavered, almost collapsed into herself, but then she moved, crawled towards me.

Oh, how grandma missed you, little Andy. And then, as she touched me, as I felt a wet, squishy hand on my shoulder, despair overtook me. The world stopped existing at this point. My mind broke, and I clawed at the wall. I ripped at the wallpaper, dug into the plaster and brickwork below, until my fingers were nothing more than bloody stumps. My consciousness retreated and became an audience to my perils, and I could do nothing as I mutilated my body.

At first, the only sounds I heard was the scratching of my flesh and bones against the plaster. But then, the same wet gurgling started again. Grandma was singing an old nursery rhyme, the one she'd sang me when I couldn't fall asleep. As I lay there, as I couldn't go on anymore, she closed the rotten arms around my crippled, mutilated body. I don't know how long the embrace lasted. Every second felt like an eternity

and a song seemed to go on in endless repetition. All the while, her body decomposed further and further as she held me. I can't tell you when or how the simulation ended. I only remembered struggling against the grip of other people. The details are nothing but a blur. There was security personnel, an ambulance, and finally, I awoke in a hospital in Berlin. A plump nurse was checking my vital signs

and looked up in surprise when she saw I was awake. As she rushed from the room, everything felt different. It was my head, my brain. As the memory of grandma's rotting body came back to me, I screamed again. They gave me a heavy dosage of sedatives, and once I calmed down enough, one of the doctors explained what had happened. After the test, some electronic device had gone horribly wrong. They had brought me here.

Apart from a few bruises, there were no visible external damage. Most of the injuries I'd suffered were related to the brain and the nervous system. shock washed over me and I tried to push myself up but my hands and fingers didn't react I tried again but I could barely move them couldn't even bore my hands into a fist as I stared at my almost useless appendages tears streamed from my eyes the doctor stood there an expression of misery visible on his face he spoke but I barely listened full recovery was out of the question partially functional might be possible.

Various approaches, therapy, and on and on he went. Somehow, though, I could tell that I was damaged beyond repair. I knew, and I cried. The brain damage I'd sustained was more severe than originally thought. I had trouble to recall certain memories, and anything beyond simple math problems was impossible for me. I don't know if I'd ever been smart before all this, but I knew I wasn't anymore.

The most serious issue was the complete loss of my sense of smell. The doctors don't know why, but I know the reason. I know that while the rotten corpse my grandma held me, the smell must have been too much for my psyche. My brain must have cut off my sense of smell. I stayed at the hospital for months. Once I could leave, people urged me to sue Imagicom. I went to a lawyer, explain my situation,

but it was not even a week before he got back to me. There wouldn't be a case. Imagicom was a subsidiary of a huge international conglomerate. They had all the money in the world to bury any case against them. Even worse though, they'd provided him with all the forms I'd signed, and in them I'd agreed to pretty much anything. Even the eventuality of lasting damage to my body, there was nothing that could be done.

It's been more than a year since the entire thing happened, but I've only been able to write it down now. It was a long and arduous process with only the two fingers of my left hand that remained functional after all this. But there's one last thing I have to mention, the funniest, most messed up thing about all this. The day I was released from the hospital and had gotten back home, I checked my bank account. I laughed for hours when I saw the huge six-digit number of 100,000 euros that had been transferred to my account the day the beta test ended. They'd gone and paid me. They'd paid me in full, just like they'd promised. I have enough money now, enough to get rid of my debt.

I'd gotten a second chance in life, only now, as damaged as I was. I wouldn't be able to make anything of it. Tap, tap, tap, pinch. One more time, that wasn't right. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Come on. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

There, perfect. Four tries to finally get it right. It's all part of my requisite ritual that I perform multiple times a day. Whenever I get that feeling, I have to tap the bottom of my forearm, precisely right behind my wrist joint twice with my right hand, making a sort of karate chop-like gesture. Next, I have to tightly pinch the skin around the same area on my forearm with my right thumb and index finger.

After that, I have to make one more hand tap, and I'm usually good. Keep in mind, this all happens within seconds. Whether I'm at work, a crowded bar, or even driving, it's something that must be done as soon as I sense the aforementioned feeling. It's hard to describe, but the feeling is most comparable to an intensely eerie tingling and queasiness that permeates throughout my body. It's comparable to when the hairs in the back of your neck stand from sensing people standing closely behind you and is always accompanied by a sense of anticipatory dread, like you know something bad will happen if you don't act fast.

Every tap and pinch must be precise. Have the same sound, apply the same pressure, make sure the time in between each one is exactly the same or recurrent in some way. I occasionally have to repeat the ritual until it feels right, which can take anywhere from three to four to over a dozen tries. Sometimes the taps and pinches have to be so hard, it's caused bruising and bleeding.

I occasionally have to use other objects in lieu of my hand to complete the ritual. Once I used the TV remote and slammed it on my wrist so hard I couldn't move it properly for about a week. I have done it so many times over the years feeling when it's right has become instinctive. It's the sense of relief

after each tap or pinch, like the momentum gained from performing a combo of moves in a fighting video game. The tension and dread steadily dissipate and are replaced without relieving sense of having a massive weight lifted off your shoulders. I definitely have the willpower to fight up the feeling that engenders this methodical urge,

but willingly succumbed to the overpowering allurement. If I try resisting, there are serious consequences. That's when he appears. I don't know how it started or why he condemned me to ensure this cyclical burden. I call in the quarterman for two reasons. Everything from the number of taps and pinches to his number of appearances, to his number of appearance. is tired to being done or occurring in units of four, and the first time I ever saw him was ironically in a shipyard. He stands well over six feet and towers over my five-ten stature. He's very slim, with ghostly, whitish-based skin,

containing a sickly, mottled greyish tint. Large, ovular, empty black eye sockets are where his eyes should be on the quarterman's long, narrow face. his thin black lips rounding out his distinctive blank yet menacing expression. Whenever I look into those two large gaping voids, the feeling is magnified to the point where it rattles me to the bone, like his sinister gaze burns a hole through me that deteriorates my psyche. His appearance inflicts pure, unfettered fear, the kind that puts my stomach into knots if I so much as think about his ghastly face.

His head is covered with long, scraggly, greasy black hair, and he always wears the same clothes, a tattered, dark grey long-sleeved shirt, cargo pants, and worn black shoes. Since I was the only one who seemed to notice him, there are a few times I tried convincing myself he was just a vivid figment of my imagination. Whenever I tried abstaining or prolong my ritual, the quarterman gives me three chances

which I signified by each time he appears. I'll initially spot him at a great distance where I can just barely make him out, usually partly obscured by something or peeking around a corner. He'll get closer the second and third times, across the street or my backyard, and then the other end of a hallway or inside the same space like a restaurant or a store. Whether it's coincidence or not, I also seem to get plagued by a string of unpleasantries when I try fighting the urge. from car or cell phone trouble to accidentally injuring or utterly humiliating myself. Obviously, these incidents appear

to worsen as my attempts at abstaining from performing the ritual elapsed. On occasion, I think I'd catch a glimpse of the quarterman, during, or after some of these instances, but was never fully certain. He always manifests behind me the fourth time, and by then, it's always too late. I never physically see him,

but always sense his towering, looming presence. I feel his hot, humid breath when he whispers to me. The message, always cryptically pertaining to something disastrous and tragic, that will happen to myself or someone around me, which I usually figure out after the matter. When I first tried overcoming this spell, the feeling struck me while I was at work. I was unusually confident that day,

telling myself it was all in my head and something I could beat through sheer will. power. It only worsened as the day progressed. I first spotted him in the meeting while peering through a window, watching me intently peeking out from an alleyway across the street. I still stuck my guns, even when I saw him later that day while walking back from my car across the parking lot. He appeared the third time when I stepped outside for a cigarette, standing about 20, 25 feet away from me, in between two vehicles. It was while While driving home, I felt to manifest behind me.

He slowly leaned in until his lips were an inch or so from my ear, after which he whispered a single word. Knee, thankfully I was stopped at a light because I literally sprung out of my car, only to see the back was empty. The quarterman's messages always incorporate four of something, whether it's a four-lettered word, four-word sentence or four syllables. I didn't know what it meant until the next day. Still convinced I was beating the impulses to perform the ritual,

a co-worker and I were running late from lunch, and about to rush across the street separating us from our office. A protruding tree limb had gotten tangled with part of the intersection traffic signal pole, and it was especially gusty that day, so it shook noticeably hard when the wind picked up. My co-worker, who was ahead of me, boldly. of me, bolted across the street without hesitation. Just as the traffic signal pole jolted so hard, it emitted a loud, croaky groan.

Joanne, I called out to my co-worker, thinking the entire pole was about to fall on her. But it didn't. Joanne stopped after I called a name and was pivoting to face me, just as a car sped down the road. The driver slammed on their brakes, but the vehicle's bumper straight. struck Joanne directly in the knees, literally bending them backwards. A high-pitched snap rang throughout the intersection. Joanne sprawled across the car's hood before her legs literally folded inward, causing her to collapse like a card castle. I'll never forget Joanne's agonizing shrieks and hollers.

She screamed inconsolably until the paramedics arrived, eventually passing out from the pain. I didn't physically see the quarterman when this incident happened. but felt his piercing, malicious stare, closely watching every gesture I made. It was at that moment I realised what the quarterman's message foretold. Knee. Joanne broke her knees when she got hit by that car.

It was all my fault because I distracted her or got punished for not performing my ritual. After that incident, I was torn between convincing myself what happened was an unfortunate coincidence, or the quarterman and the ritualistic urges I associated with him were now over. Of course, I was wrong, and they continued without skipping a beat. The second time I resisted happened a few months later.

I was using the restroom at a friend's house when the feeling hit. I was actually halfway through performing the ritual. Tap, tap, pinch, when my phone rang. The show my friend and I were watching was returning from its commercial break so I got distracted and scrambled back to the living room I actually didn't see the quarterman that evening and thought yet again his hold on me had lifted

when I spotted in the next morning while leaving for work standing just inside the tree line of some woods down the street from my home I shrugged it off and went on with my day despite being encompassed by the feeling Although I shook it off upon reaching work, I froze when I saw the quarterman standing directly in front of my building's front entrance, staring fixedly at me while others entered and exited.

Anyone else in the vicinity paid no mind to him, despite walking within inches of where he stood. How does anyone else not see him? I thought, while retreating into my car. I really am the only one, forced to endure this tortuous process he orchestrates and suffer the dire consequences of disobeying his game's twisted rules. I called off work and spent much of that day dwelling over

whether the quarterman was an actual malicious entity or visual manifestation that derived from my subconscious. The feeling's urge was so strong that day, it made me physically ill. Nonetheless, I refused to concede. after returning from vomiting in the bathroom I saw him a third time standing in my living room he never came into my house before

after which I shrieked and bolted out the front door blindly consumed with panic I wanted to get as far away from him as possible as soon as I stepped off my front lawn however I tripped and face-planted on the street still in a daze from the impact I felt the quarterman appear over me before he leaned in and whispered in my ear.

Curtain opens. At first, I thought whatever he said pertained to the injuries I sustained from my fall. I had a busted lip, bloody nose, along with some scrapes and bruises. Once again, foolishly convincing myself, I either conquer the quarterman or he would finally move on to another victim.

A few days passed, and I was in a meeting with a special friend of mine for lunch. Her name was Miranda, and we met on a dating app. We both were very secretive about our friendship due to our age difference. I was pushing 40, and she was in her early 20s. I wasn't really attracted to Miranda, but appreciated her personable qualities, our mutual interests, and meaningful conversations.

We were at a cafe near her college campus, finishing up our lunch. It was unusually crowded, for a Saturday afternoon, which I didn't pay any mind to, until Miranda's parents burst through the front door. In front of the entire cafe, her parents revealed they discovered the apps and websites she'd visited, along with the conversations that revealed Miranda's preference for older men. They ruthlessly berated Miranda, calling her a whore and embarrassment to her family, and saying she should be absolutely ashamed.

Miranda's father accused me of being their daughter's sugar daddy and threatened me with all sorts of bodily harm. At that point, however, I was so mortified and genuinely concerned her father would get physical with me that I scrambled to gather my belongings and scurried out of the cafe. That was the last time I saw Miranda, who I learned took her own life a few days after the incident. You can't imagine the smothering sense of painful awkwardness, embarrassment, shame and trepidation I endured in the following weeks, where I eventually connected what happened at the cafe with the quarterman's message. The curtain falls, I deduced, signify the unveiling of our discreet friendship, which came at my expense.

I'm certain that whilst storming out of the cafe, I caught a brief glimpse of the courtroom's reflection in the mirror. This was a consequence of not performing my ritual, not another tragic coincidence. I was a slave to my ritual after Miranda's death, loyally adhered. to performing those rhythmic taps and pinches. It made me really self-conscious after people started noticing and even mocking me for doing something I had no control over and was impossible to discuss with anyone.

I became extremely paranoid, sometimes finding myself doing the ritual even when the feeling wasn't conjured. I became very depressed to the point where I quit my job and started doing drugs and alcohol to suppress my pain. There were a few times where I had enough liquid, courage to thwart the feeling, until the quarterman appeared. The mere sight of him was a sobering reminder of the repercussions.

I felt so inferior, so submissive, vulnerable and defeated. The taps and pinches became more brutal as time passed. The simple karate chop-like taps in my wrists weren't sufficing. I started using handheld objects to outright strike my wrist as hard as humanly possible. My pinch is literally breaking the skin. There were instances where my entire left hand would temporarily loose feeling in some spots when it wasn't pulsating from the soreness or so stiff it wouldn't even budge. It didn't matter to me, as long as I averted that smothering feeling of tense, anticipatory dread

and kept the quarterman at bay. My third time refusing to perform the ritual occurred while I was going through a particularly crippling bout of depression when my mind was consumed with thoughts of nihilism, despair, apathy and self-hate. Ironically, I forced myself to get out of the house and booked a beachside resort condo for a few days, just to get a change of scenery since I'd been mostly cooped up in my house for months.

While sitting at one of the resort's bars, I met a woman named Sonia who was experiencing her own hardships. We spent the night drinking heavily, during which I opened up about my ritualistic mannerisms after she noticed my wrists, bruises and scars. without great talking about my demons. I could tell Sonia's sentiments were similar about her issues.

We formed an instant connection that made me experience feelings I haven't had for someone in ages. Of course, the feelings struck me while speaking to Sonia. I drank so much, I was able to shrug it off, despite spotting the quarterman watching me from a nearby building window. Despite just meeting her, I felt very comfortable around Sonia, like I could let my guard down and everything would somehow be all right. Sonia asked me if I wanted to come to her condo for a nightcap, and I witfully accepted.

Even when catching a glimpse of the quarterman, while we were in the elevator, as the doors closed, I shrugged off the creeping consternation. I wanted to ask if she saw him too, but refrained when I felt her hands slip into mine, The one attached to the wrist I incessantly battered while catering to my obsessive ritual. I remember briefly spotting the quarterman while he walked to

Sonia's condo. I could just see his outline and grim facial features while he stood in the darkened laundry room on Sonia's floor when we walked past. One nightcap turned into three or four more which led to Sonia and I making out on the couch.

I'm not exactly sure when but I dozed off in my inebriated state. Right before drifting into unconsciousness, I felt him standing closely behind the couch I was sprawled out on, long enough for him to whisper four words in that light, scratchy voice. You can't be happy. My eyes instantly shot open, and I sprang upright, my heart pounding and sweat pouring profusely from my paws.

I was greeted with a barrage of excruciating, head and body aches, one of the most brutal hangovers I ever experienced. Despite feeling like it had happened in the blink of an eye, I knew I fell asleep, because it was now daytime. The quarterman's ominous words vitalized me with stomach-churning anxiousness, panic, dismay, and pure, unfettered fear, like I had awoken from a nightmare, but still experienced the fiery escalating terror. The sense of something horrible about to immediately happen. consumes my mindset as I scanned my surroundings for the source of whatever was provoking this alarming panic. Bartami wanted the burst into the bathroom and

saved Sonia from whatever morbid calamitous fate might be awaiting. Between me, not knowing exactly what I'd be rescuing her from, along with how it would look by acting on such grave impulse, I took another course of action. There's still time, I mumbled to myself, as I began frantically performing my ritual. the feeling hitting me like a head-on collision with a tractor trailer

tap tap tap no that's not right there might still be time with all my might I made that chopping gesture on my wrist pinching my skin so hard I heard the slight cracking noise

as previous scars and cuts effortlessly split open tap tap tap tap pinch tap no tap tap tap pinch tap still not right

I grew anxious, especially when I felt the quarterman's looming presence start to envelop me. Tap, tap, pinch. Tap, tap, no, wrong again. Blood streams from the top of my wrist. I frantically and desperately tried every conceivable combination of taps and pinches, unable to abate that feeling, and sensed time was of the essence to prevent whatever was happening. Please, I pleaded it out loud and started slamming my wrist with a TV remote. Just this once, make it stop.

Not here, not with her. I promised to never disobey again. From the remote, I tried using my smartphone, slamming the top of my wrist with pinches in between that didn't even feel anymore, since I probably killed all my skin's nerves, before grabbing a hardcover book and resuming my barrage. I felt the bone break at some point, but was so determined to disobeyed the feeling.

I fought through the unspeakable agony. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, pinch, tap. Why isn't anything working? I was drawn to the kitchen area, rushing over toward the counter. I held out my limp wrist and started pulling open drawers, grabbing any appliance or utensil I could hold to fulfill my ritualistic requisites. I tried a rolling pin.

Tap, tap, pinch, tap. No, that didn't work. I tried a serving spoon. Tap, tap, pinch, tap. The feeling worsened. A pair of tongs? Tap, tap, tap, tap. No.

By now, my wristbone was completely fractured, and my hand only connected to the arm by its muscle and tendons. It was when I retrieved this next and final item that I felt a slight sense of solace and realized what I must do to vanquish this exceptionally unrelenting episode of the feeling. I know, I feel your presence here, watching me. Let this be it.

What I have to do, spare me, spare her, Sonia. Please don't let anything bad happen to her. I mummored frantically while holding the large cutting knife over my head. I looked down at my mangled, swollen, disfigured, contorted hand and took a long, slow breath. Chop, chop, pinch, chop. The damage to my hand was so extensive, it couldn't be reattached. Not that it mattered, since I spent the following week.

completely restrained. Sonia was absolutely hysterical when she found me, but I never again saw or heard from her, which I guess is understandable. I'd probably do the same if someone I took back to my room had a massive breakdown and chopped off their own hand. When I explained my reasoning for what I did to the doctors, they naturally couldn't relate or understand and had me institutionalized. The courtmen stayed away for the first few weeks. Even he, probably realized I couldn't perform my ritual under restraints. I gained a false sense of closure when first arriving at the sanitarium, convinced I was finally free of this wretched ritual

since I no longer had the hand I always used. Once the restraints came off, however, the feeling returned, like it was patiently waiting all this time. It doesn't occur as often anymore and I take great pain to concealing when I perform my ritual but the quarterman seems content if I do my taps and pinches on or around the stump when my hand was once attached I eventually stopped caring seeing how this unsurmountable ritual took away anything that gave me purpose I am presently going through the fourth time where I'm resisting the urge that feeling is absolutely consuming but the men I'm on somewhat help my doctor

is having me type out my account, with hopes of it providing some sort of closure. I didn't pay much attention when he explained the reasoning behind this exercise, since it doesn't really matter to me at this point. I've seen the quarterman three times in the last day or so, which is how long I've gone without succumbing. As I type this, I can feel his ghastly presence behind me. I tremble while writing this, but I'm staying collected by focusing on trying to type with one hand. He just whispered something in my ear. Your tears will fall. When my wife slunk out to the bathroom in her underwear, damp and rosy from the shower, I let out an exaggerated wolf whistle. The whistle cracked the serious mask of her face into a smile. But, something about

the peek and valley from the tone didn't sit right with me. My bedroom faded from view. I'm eight or nine, and staring into the face of another little boy. It's Nolan, my best friend. Our mouths are puckered into O's, and we are both blowing. Who is Nolan? Do I know Nolan? He is pushing a shrill, reedy sound from high in his throat. My breath is nothing but a rush of soundless air.

Don't worry, Sam, you'll get it, he tells me. My name's Jacob. Who's Sam? I blinked and it vanished. Poppy crawled into bed and slaughtered herself into the slice between my arm and my torso. She ran a finger down my bare chest, a prelude and a promise. Pops, I said. Have I always been able to whistle?

She frowned at me. Of course you have. You whistled at me just like that the day we met. Did I? I couldn't remember. She crept closer, her hair sweeping my skin, but I was trying to grasp that flittering vision. It's just, I don't think I ever learned to whistle. Poppy peeled herself up, her eyebrows, rigid lines.

Of course you did. You just whistled, so you must have learned sometime. Why are you worried about this? She leaned forward to press her lips against mine, as if she meant to silence me. I brought my head back and said I don't know I'm just a little freaked out I'm too young to be losing my memory I meant it lightheartedly

but she didn't take it that way her voice swelled with uncharismatic anger you're being ridiculous stop talking about this she demanded my wife was one of the most level-headed people I knew if she told me to drop it

I listened but the force of a defensiveness unsettled me. I had always ruined the mood, so we went to bed facing opposite directions, our backs rising and falling in syncopated rhythm. When I was sure she was asleep, I rounded my lips and quietly whistled. If I didn't know any better,

I would have thought Poppy was having an affair. Ever since I brought up that damn whistling, really, the only time I can remember her raising a voice at me, me during our otherwise idyllic relationship. She'd been acting oddly. Not when we were together. If anything, her sweetness was sicklier. The tips of her fingers, always brushing electricity across my arms. Her warm body, a luxurious comfort on the couch. But we were together less often. She started working late. She would take calls after hours in the guest bedroom with the door closed. She went in on weekends. One day she arrived home two hours.

later than expected with our daughter, Hannah, in the back seat, claimed community theatre rehearsal ran late. I was reluctant to involve Hannah, but I asked her a few careful questions and she confirmed the story, using almost the exact verbatage as if she were parroting it. Any of these things would have been isolated blips, but when plotted on the same graph, like seismic spikes that crested with increasing frequency, they were a pattern. The memory of the little boy who couldn't whistle twisted inside me and told me it wasn't a good idea to address a behavior directly. After nearly 15 years of marriage, 12 of them ensconced in the mania of raising a child, I had seen a sharp edge to Poppy that she had never revealed to me.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. I did the thing that all superstitious lovers do and snooped through a phone. Normally, Poppy guarded it closely, but the opportunity arose sooner than I'd expected. We were watching television when something crashed in Hannah's bedroom. Perhaps she'd knocked a laptop off the bed again. Perhaps it was something worse. Poppy leapt up and started bounding up the stairs, calling Hannah's name. I was about to follow when I noticed she had left the phone on the table.

I'm not proud, but I needed to know. I picked it up and punched in the passcode. I had surbitiously watched her enter. There were no unusual text messages, only calls. Regular calls to the same number. 959-5-44-959. I knew that number. 959.

I'm sitting in a room of slate grey. The walls are unblemished concrete. There is no dust in the corners. I'm on a very, very cold metal chair. I'm resting my hands on the table. Something that looks like a hospital bracelet is pinned around my wrist. There are tiny numbers printed on it. A phone number beginning with 959.

The room appears to have no door. Then a section of the wall slides open with a hydraulic whoosh, and I realize that faint lines carve its silhouette. A man steps out into the room. Do you have any questions? Pobby's footsteps begin to descend, snapping the vision in half. Hannah was fine. I placed the phone carefully back on the coffee table, feeling it was crucial that I leave it exactly where I found it.

I researched the phone number at work, and I didn't want to use my home Wi-Fi. The number was listed on a page, Redevelopment Corp, infuriatingly generic. The page was a mess of buzzwords and language. of buzzwords and lingo that obfuscated any clue as to the purpose of the business. It had a professional finish, all clean lines and stayed blocks of texts. There were no images, no links. The contact information consisted only of the phone number and an address in the state adjacent to mine. Google Maps told me that it was about a three-hour drive.

As I closed the browser and wiped the search history, my eyes fell on the picture frame on my desk. Poppy and I on our wedding day. I had my arm around her, and my expression was bursting with love and trust. I wished I could remember that day. I'd been so happy, I blacked out, even though I was completely sober, the joy overwhelming my grasp of the details.

That happens to everyone, doesn't it? Poppy was extremely suspicious of my claim that I was going on a business trip. I couldn't blame her She was always more perceptive than most She read my moods Told me why I was sad Or angry or anxious

Before I could even put a name to the emotion She knew obviously That I was lying And to try to convince her otherwise Would have been fruitless So I merely wished her a good few days And kissed her forehead As I pulled out of the driveway

I could see her Watching me from the living room window she was on the phone the long stretch of highway that I hit about an hour into the trip knocked loose another vision I'm in the driver's seat going 75

it's too fast the limit is 60 but my fiancé seems to enjoy it it makes her feel alive so I ease just another notch of pressure on the gas watching her thrill in the whipping wind my fiancé

is not It's Lauren. The light of my life, the girl I've been in love with since I bought a movie ticket from her when she was working at the counter in the AMC. And she said, I heard that's supposed to be so good. And I said, why don't I just buy two and you can come see it with me? And she unclipped a name tag and left a post. And she clutched her my shirt in the darkness when the shadows flick to the corner of the screen.

The images toppled into each other. I tried desperately to catch each one, any of them, but they dribbled through my consciousness like a sieve. I arrived at the facility as the sun sank below the horizon. It looked more like a prison than an innocuous corporation. The building was a solemn cube nestled amongst farmland, the only large edifice for miles. A chain-link fence surrounded its perimeter.

Was the barbed wire meant to keep people out or in? I lowered the window and heard the crunch of gravel under my tires as I approached the booth. The guard inside was dressed in a nondescript black uniform and he was heavily armed. Stay at your business. I need to find out why I can whistle. He pulled a lever to open the groaning gate and waved me inside. I was in the back room. The immaculate grey walls, the cold,

chair, the metal table. I had been led here by silent men who did not touch me, but marched beside me with their shoulders boxing me in. I sat there for half an hour, my eyes fixated on the cracks in the wall, then outlined the door, when it opened. I didn't recognize the man who entered, but he recognized me. Jacob Sanderson, he said by way of greeting, I've been expecting you. I stood so suddenly, I surprised myself, the chair clattering to the ground. Tell me what the hell is going on, I said, trying to keep my voice even. You know my name, you know my life is not my life. I'm not really married to Poppy, am I? My name isn't Jake. Is Hannah my real daughter? You have many questions. I will take some time to answer. Sit down.

He motioned at the chair. He didn't move. And for him. a while, neither did I. Finally, I hoisted the chair upright and sat at the table. He sank into the seat opposite from me, tapping his fingers on the surface. Mr. Sanderson, feel the skin behind your ear. Why? But I did as I was told. I roped to my school just behind my left ear. There was a bumpy ridge of skin, a scar like it was sewn together. How had I never noticed it before? Mr. Sanderson, you are wearing a different skin. You have been implanted with the device that alters your memories.

It's not perfect, as you have realised. We offer our deepest apologies for the malfunction. My vision swam. It couldn't be possible. I realized that I had been holding out hope that this would turn out to be a figment of my imagination, a wild conspiracy that I cooked up entirely with the same thing. within my own head. Somehow, it was worse to learn that I wasn't crazy. What the hell did you do to me?

You have a new life, Mr. Sanderson, a new identity. It has been this way since you were 23. I was gripping at the table so hard my knuckles were turning white. What about Poppy and Hannah? He studied me closely, monitoring my reactions. Poppy was a volunteer. though I do believe she has come to care for you. Hannah is your daughter and knows nothing about this. I slammed my fist down on the table and stood up again, pacing quickly around the room. Hot blood was rushing to my head. I felt like I was about to pass out.

Why did you do this to me? I shouted. Why did you take my life away? Because, he said, you asked us to. I started. What? He stood as well and got very close to me. His voice almost a whisper.

Something terrible happened. You couldn't bear to continue living. You were referred to this facility after a failed suicide attempt that left your original body deeply disfigured and you were already planning another. We gave you a choice. You would not stop you if you decide to die by your own hand, but we offered you the chance to be.

forget. What was it? I asked, Horsley. I don't remember. What happened? Well, it was your fault, he paused. Do you want to hear the rest? I scrambled through my fragmented memories. Sam's memories, my real memories, and I could find nothing that gave the barest hint. I don't know, do I? I can't make the decision for you, but I can tell you this, he said. You've been in this room before, not just the procedure, but thrice after that. The technology was a prototype, we've made advances, but your early model seems to splutter and failure after a few years.

We've had this exact conversation several times, you and I, and you have always chosen not to know. I screwed my eyes shut, as the same. though I could claw my way out of this nightmare. The thought of carrying on, knowing that I was incomplete, that I wasn't truly me, loomed large. But what I had done, back before I'd forgotten, the knowledge had been so horrific that I'd wanted to take my own life and had chosen to excise it from my memory forever.

After a moment, I shook my head. I suppose I don't. I think that's wise. Silence blanketed the room. We looked at each other. Two men who had orbited around each other for decades, one unaware, one always watching.

He said, You have another choice. We can perform the procedure again with an upgraded product. We have worked very hard to make it last longer. The preliminary results from other subjects are promising. I must emphasize that I strongly. that I strongly believe we have managed to develop something truly permanent.

So, the decision is yours, Mr. Sanderson. Do you want to walk away, or do you want to forget? I swallowed, my mouth dry. Can I... Have a few days. Of course, you have our number. He cocked his head at me. You know, it's funny.

The thing that brings you here? It's always the whistling. Poppy was waiting in the living room when I arrived. She must have heard my car. There was a feline weariness about her. The sight of her on the familiar couch in the night gown she wore almost every night felt like an anchor, tethering me back to reality.

Jake? She asked, her voice in steady. After a moment, I nodded. Her body visibly relaxed in a wave of relief. She embraced me, murmuring in my ear, telling me that my favourite pasta dish was warming in the oven. Wasn't my favourite? Did she love me? I didn't know. I leaned into her warmth, letting it envelop me and become my world. It's been a few days. In its broadest strokes, life is normal. Hannah is bouncing around in excitement because her birthday is soon.

She'll be a teenager. I'm excited to. too, although it's dampened by the intrusive thoughts that cage me when I'm alone. What have I done? What happened to Lauren? What unimaginable destruction did I cause that made me want to erase my own existence? I made the call last night. I have an appointment for next week, and I've told them that this time they'd better make it stick. Goodbye, Sam. I don't think I can face you. I suppose in a way, As you wished it to be, I am ending your life. My name is Andrew Small and I'm a police officer in what has to be the single bizarrest most otherworldly place on the face of the earth.

A small town in the middle of nowhere called Junction Falls. Here are a few of our strangest cases. Annual mystery screenings in the Westbrook Drive-In June 15th, 2006 was a fairly quiet night, right up until around 9.5. Then all hell broke loose. We got calls from no fewer than two dozen livid homeowners who all claimed that they couldn't sleep because a film had begun to play in the old Westbrook drive-in. Now, that immediately gave us pause, because the Westbrook had been closed down ever since the multiplex had forced it out of business in 1979. So any screening there was obviously unauthorised.

When we arrived, so bad it's good sci-fi-slash-horror B movie from 1956 called It Came from Mars was indeed playing at full brightness and volume. But we never did find anyone at the lot who could have been responsible. In fact, the only thing there was a single, red 1950 Crossley Station Wagon, also empty, sitting in space 21B. But we figured we'd find who put it there and started the film later on. For now, we needed to shut down the movie before all the locals started a riot in the bathrobes and slippers. Now, this is where things get wild. We looked everywhere.

In the operations booth, in the old dilapidated concession stand, in that old car, and in any nearby trees tall enough to have an unobstructed line of sight to the screen. But no sound or projection equipment could be found anywhere within a mile radius of the lot. as far as we could tell the film was playing completely on its own luckily the lot plunged back into its natural dark silent state the second the movie finished the Crosley wagon vanished too but that only left us frustrated and confused

after that at least nothing else interesting happened at the Westbrook for a good while the so-called mystery screening case started to get buried under more pressing work and as the months dragged on, we began to forget about it entirely. But then, at exactly 9.30pm on July 15, 2007, the screening began anew, and the same events more or less repeated themselves. Angry locals, an empty lot, the Crosdy station wagon in

space 21B, and an exhaustive but ultimately fruitless search for the responsible individuals and offending equipment. We were pulling our hair out, and it didn't stop there either. The next July 15th? Same thing, and it happened again the next year, and the one after that, and the one after that, and it's happening every year since. July 15th, 9.30, it came from Mars, Red Crosley, boom, clockwork. As of this posting, we still have no idea how the film is being shown in the absence of projection or sound equipment.

But we have discovered some other things about the film since the case began. It came from Mars was financed entirely by a man named Bill Booth, who also wrote, directed and starred in the film as his protagonist, Jack Burnley, and who believed the film would launch his Hollywood career. However, production was plagued with setbacks, almost from the beginning. Costs ballooned, two actors and the chief editor quit halfway through, thus forcing an inexperienced Booth to edit the film himself, something that he clearly had no business doing,

if the final results is any indication, when he paid the rest of his family savings to the Westbrook Drive in Theatre to hold the movie's premiere on July 15, 1956. Sadly though, it came from Mars, received overwhelmingly negative reviews from a few critics who attended their own screening, and Booth attended the official premiere alone, as the cast and crew were two members.

Barras to be associated with it. Then Booth's wife left him the following month due to their declining financial situation. Humiliated, painless and alone, Bill Booth drove his red 1950 Crosley Station wagon to the Westbrook,

parked once again in space 21B and shot himself in the mouth and forgotten off-Hollywood tragedy. Now obviously none of this explains the physics of how a film could play on its own. or how an old car can appear and vanish the same way that Crosley does every July 15th.

So officially, the case remains unsolved. But, when the above details were first reported by the Junction Falls Dispatch in April of this year, the story of what many assumed to be that of an old filmmaker's ghost caused the sensation. And, on July 15th, 349 people came and joined a red, 1950 Crosley station wagon in watching this stupid, tacky, low-budget, wonderful film. Status, Unsolved. The Screaming House Well before I joined the JFPD in 2005,

a large, abandoned, two-story house in the Shelby neighborhood had already carved out for itself a rather macabreep reputation. You see, at random times during the night, you can hear shrill and desperate screams and cries for help, seemingly coming from a woman trapped inside. The department dispatched the unit to investigate. Bizarly though, the officers were unable to locate a trapped woman because the screams themselves always seemed to be coming from a part of the house

that nobody was in or near. When the screaming came from the master bedroom upstairs, the officers charged up to the second story and entered that room, only to find it empty, and that the screaming could now be heard coming from the kitchen. So they went to the kitchen only to discover the sounds were now coming up from the cellar, and when they went to the cellar,

they realised they could hear it, once again, coming from the vicinity of the master bedroom. No matter where they were, the screams and cries were always coming from someplace else. Eventually they called for backup, but even with each room covered by an officer,

the team couldn't seem to find the source, isolate the screams, or even reach a consensus as to where it was coming from. They never did find that woman either, and each of the six men and three women who were there suffered at least moderate psychological damage as a result from the experience. As far as the howls and wise, the leading official theory, at least in regards to the bouncing sound phenomenon, is that there is some subtle trick of architecture that is wreaking havoc on the acoustics inside the structure. Not sure if anyone buys that, but at least they're trying.

But no one, no one can explain the source of the screams to begin with. No woman has ever been found inside, and would never have survived as long as the screams have now lasted anyway. Priests have given it the all clear, as far as potential demonic activity, and the man who built, and later sold the house, assures us he is as horrified as we are, and most certainly did not build the place with any abnormalities that would mess with the acoustics, let alone with hidden compartments that might have housed a captive woman. The official position of the JFPD? Don't go in or near that place.

It still makes those sounds and we're no closer to figuring it out than we were years ago. Status. Unsolved. Mr. Mysteries Traveling Circus and extravaganza. Sometimes we'll have two cases that end up being connected down the road by a single cause and solution. This particular time, the two cases were, 1. A string of disappearances affecting the local homeless population.

And two, reports of, and I'm not kidding here, a clown that was allegedly attempting to lure people into the woods. For obvious reasons, we took the former case more seriously. But then, a few weeks into the investigations, a local business owner came by the precinct and delivered to us the previous night's security camera footage, which showed a drugged-up homeless man being led off towards the woods by. You guessed it, a post-Voldeville jester with a ruffled collar and a skip in his step. Eventually, we traced that particular vanishing to a small shack in the woods beyond the outskirts of town and kicked in the door to find a scene of spectacular and breathtaking brutality.

All six of the homeless men who'd been reported missing, including the one from the footage, were not only dead, but mutilated, burnt and twisted, hairless and diseased and disfigured, They had all been experimented on too. One man had his limbs amputated and each one could be found sewn to the backs and sides of four other men who had, like him, died of infections. The last man was intact and then some. He had been injected with various substances ranging from silicon to cement in order to produce warts and bumps and other unsightly abnormalities of the flesh.

We found the clown too, who ended up being an unstable lunatic name. Terry Bird, who had claimed he was working on behalf of someone known as the Ringmaster. When pressed for further information, Terry claimed he didn't know the Ringmaster's identity, but was familiar with his plans. Oddly enough, the Ringmaster wanted only to create and host a classic touring carnival called Mr. Mystery's travelling circus and extravaganza. And of course, no good carnival would be complete without a genuine freak show. Terry alleged, the ringmaster had enlisted his help in finding some willing or unwilling volunteers, as he put it. Terry got a life sentence without parole, and we kept up our search for this ringmaster,

but never did find him, and about a year after our homeless incident, the nearby towns of Doolittle and Crosby Springs reported that their homeless men were being abducted too. We did what we could to help, even going as far as to offer Terry a plea deal for information on the ringmaster, but he simply laughed and I punched him in the face and got a weak sleeve and he said that he quote quite liked his cell it's cozy as of this posting any information on the ringmaster will yield a ten thousand dollar reward status partially solved perpetrator at large abigail jones from stamford springs about ten or twelve miles southeast of junction Falls, near the hiking trails, you'll find an old ghost town called Stamford Springs.

Now, I'm no expert on it. I'm sure the local rangers and tour guides could fill you in if you're interested. But from what I understand, it used to be a tiny little late 19th century community in its heyday that featured a small general store, a clinic, a church, and about 12 or 13 houses. Inside the buildings, you'll still see all the original furniture too, and some clothes and closets. toys in the children's rooms, small animal bones in the barns and coops, and various other indications that the town was both lived in and abandoned in a hurry. Verdict is out on what caused that. It's eerie and creepy and totally cool,

and for obvious reasons, it's a popular spot for Halloween hikes and other, I dare you type excursions. But here's why I'm writing this. In 2009, a hiker reported hearing cries and whimpers coming from the backyard, of one of the houses there. He called it in and the Rangers found and opened a previously undiscovered cellar behind the house, in which a little girl had been staying for an indeterminate amount of time. She was dressed in an old gown and scared to death. After confirming she was okay, the Rangers asked her all the basics, her name, how she got in there, where and who her parents

were, etc. The girl said her name was Abigail, that her parents owned the house above, and that they'd put her there and gone back inside to get the rest of the children. Under further questioning, Abigail insists it's 1884 and that her parents have only been gone for minutes, not decades. And keep in mind, this girl is maybe 9 or 10, and she's just bawling her eyes out and confused and so terrified she's shaking. So either she's a future Oscar nominee,

putting on the performance of a lifetime for no reason whatsoever, while she really is convinced she was a resident of this 19th century Stamford Springs. So they take her down to the Junction 4's medical centre, and she's keeping up the act too. Just in awe of the people and technology, mouth agape, and they get attested. No brain damage, no malnutrition, no other disorders of any kind. She's a perfectly healthy little nine-year-old kid, and she just insists that her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth. Elizabeth Jones, 19th century shopkeepers.

You can probably tell where this is going. The authorities searched exhaustively for any record of a missing girl matching Abigail's description, and found nothing. No birth certificate, no medical records, no social security number, and no relatives. And of course, other folks who caught wind of the situation through the dispatches record did some research of their own. And you guessed it. There was indeed a Thomas Jones and an Elizabeth Jones shopkeepers who lived in Stanford Springs in 1884 and who had three children, including a daughter named Abigail.

Still no information on what happened to the town. Eventually they brought Abigail with a child placement agency and I have no idea what came over after that, but it's definitely one of the weirdest Junction 4 stories I've ever heard. Status. Unsolved. Ranchet Singh, explorer of the sewers. Beyond and beneath the standard, subsurface level, routinely accessed by the maintenance crews, the junction four sewers more closely resembles the catacombs of Paris or Odessa than any functioning sewer system. It's just a labyrinth of tunnels that plunge deep into the earth and stretch on for miles and miles and miles,

twisting and turning and circling back around and getting hopelessly tangled. It is a far, far larger network than would even be remotely necessary to accommodate a town of this size. It makes no sense at all from an engineering perspective. In addition, nobody knows how big they are, how old they are. Ancient, we presume, at the deepest levels. What lies within them? Who contributed to their construction? Or when, or why, or how it's laid out?

The department has been slowly piecing together a map, but even the most optimistic estimates put our progress at or near 25%. It's almost certainly closer to 12 or 15%. So, for obvious reasons, we dread when missing person cases involved the sewers. But luckily, between 2006 and 2014, we had Ranjit Singh. Now, Ranjit was a Junction Falls legend, an experienced Splunker and outdoorsman who took it upon himself to explore the deep sewers in depth uncover their secrets, and not only lend his knowledge and help the force whenever asked,

but document his findings for his, now removed, blog, and the dispatch. Among the most insane things he encountered and recorded are Pipetown. I've never actually been to this one, but it's one of his more popular stories, so I'll add it here anyway. A makeshift tent city in the cavernous sewer chamber beneath a northside project that was built by and for the city's disproportionately large population of addicts, vagabonds and at large criminals. Pipe Town has all the cozy trappings of a third world back alley slum too. Tents and shacks, cardboard, aluminium sheets, drum barrel fires, human waste, illegal gambling and prostitution rings,

armed trafficking and so, so many drugs and related paraphernalia, hence the name. It's a lawless, unorganised, filthy, dystopian swore. and it is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. A large portion of the sewer-related disappearances either end in or in some way involve pipe town or its residence. In a deep corner of the tunnels, only ever accessed by Singh and his camera, Ranjit ran across a naked man with the head of a pointer dog. Luckily, the dogman is harmless, from what we can tell.

In the video Singh took, he was clearly aware of Ranjit's presence, but didn't seemed the least bit alarmed by it and made no effort to interact with him at all. Singh claimed he'd seen the creature frequently down there since, and that he never did anything other than sleep, sit in a corner, stare at you, or prance around on all four human limbs. The JFPD's official advice is to not try to feed or interact with the dogman in any way. Clearly, it's getting along just fine without us and has no intention of causing harm, so there's no need to upset the balance. The door

An old wooden door built by the side of the tunnel that you'll never find in the same place twice Ranjit is actually not the only person who reported the door nor is he the first although he is the only one who have successfully recorded it

since it can pop up in the more accessible near-service tunnels just as easily and just as frequently as it appears in the deepest, darkest depths of the sewers as is the case with almost everything in the sewers though. No one knows who built the door, what its nature or purpose is, the extent of its abilities or properties, the only thing we do know about it definitively,

and, other than the fact that it moves around a lot, is that those who enter it tend to vanish without a trace. In 2013, Ranjit became the first person to find someone who'd been rumoured to have disappeared through the door. Sadly, the poor girl had been dead for some time. He found a corpse months and months after her disappearance case had been shelved, and in a part of the sewers, no one could have possibly predicted she'd end up in, given where she'd entered. As far as we can tell from the photos,

she entered the door, and, an indeterminate amount of time later, found herself in a forgotten tunnel where she starved to death, lost and alone. Horrible where to go. The clock room. Literally, just a room full of clocks and other timekeeping devices.

cuckoo clocks, standard wall clocks, wrist watches, digital alarm clocks. You'll even find some make timers there, as well as hourglasses and other. And a gorgeous grandfather clock in the back corner. Singh recorded it all. The room is too far from the nearest sewer access point to be easily explained as some above-ground clock enthusiast his or her collection either. We still have no idea what to make of this one. The Stalker's Stash

This one we actually did have to respond to And luckily it was close enough to the service That it didn't take a lot of effort to reach But the reason it was that easy to access Is because the stash wasn't paranormal or alien Or otherworldly in nature at all It was just a small closet-like room Not far from Pipetown

filled and covered with pictures Of an underage local girl named Emily Fisher 12 at the time although some of the pictures there were of her when she was younger than that. All of the photos were clearly taken from bushes, trees, cars, or other places where she wouldn't spot the photographer and therefore were taken without a knowledge or consent. Some were of her in class, others were of her on the way to and from school.

Others were of her on the bus, in a bedroom from across the street, across the restaurant, at the pool, at friends' houses, and countless others. There were several there of her in various states of undress that I were not going to here or anywhere else and others still where she was happy and in the company of loved ones and what appeared to be a big party or a family reunion those were some of the most disturbing

not only because they were what appeared to be the most recent shots but because if the photographer was now bold enough to take pictures of her when she was right next to family and friends he was probably bold enough to make a physical move against her in the very near future. So, we called in our findings and got some units dispatched to the Fisher's house to explain this situation and protect

Emily. Meanwhile, my partner and I hid around the corner and waited until the photographer arrived. Turns out, it was none other than serial, violent offender named Davis T.J. James, who, we were not aware, had been released on bail while he awaited trial

on another charge, and, who had come to Junction Falls to do his business. Needless to say, we arrested him on the spot. Easily, one of the most nauseating and disturbing things I've ever witnessed. And one of the main reasons the forces loves Rajit Singh so much. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn't stumbled across the stash when he did? Anyway, he has countless more stories if anyone's interested. But the point is, Ranjit is our go-to guy for sewer-related cases

and he never complained when we asked him for help. One day recently though It became our turn to help him His girlfriend came to us in hysterics She said he'd gone into the sewers In search of something called The Presence four days ago Even though he said he'd only been gone half that amount of time

Luckily Ranjit likes to mark his paths with glowsticks and flares So we were able to track him down to a chamber About two or three miles down in the sewers Now obviously the sewer network was dark and suffocating but this particular room was even more so. It was so dark, so suffocating that it can only be described as harboring a presence, just like he'd said.

A faceless, invisible, silent entity that felt malicious in an ancient way. I felt like I was being watched by something that just wanted me to suffer. Even standing right next to my partner did nothing to combat the power this presence had over us, all to divide and isolate. And the further we went in, in search of Rangit, the stronger it got.

Before long, I could barely see my partners, and, after a while, I couldn't see them at all. The darkness was so thick in there that even a powerful source of direct light couldn't avoid being overwhelmed. And when one of us would shout for the others, it sounded distant or obstructed. The presence muffled the sound, and then muted it fully, just like the light. And when it had me, isolated and alone, it began to communicate terrible things without words or sounds or images. I entered in a place a blank slate,

and suddenly, I just knew things. Awesome and terrible, the essence of infinity and nothingness, the spirit of death. I felt like a child or an insect trying to make sense of man. In a panic, I turned. and ran back the way I came. It felt like it took hours or days.

In fact, it felt like all time had no power or meaning in that place at all. Luckily, all the officers made it out too, and every last one of us was in the same state, terrified in an existential way, unable to explain the thing, their presence in any capacity whatsoever. All we know is that it is a manifestation of some kind of evil stuck out of time. Sadly, we never did find Ranjit. The official story is that he died while trying to navigate a particularly treacherous part of the tunnels, which is true, but we didn't go into any detail beyond we weren't able to extract the body. For good measure, we also did not disclose what part of the sewer we lost them in in order to prevent anyone else from accessing it on one of the search for Ranjit parties that are popping up on local social media groups and message boards all the time now. But the one thing I can't get out of my head

when I'm lying awake at night is this Time didn't exist within the presence None Past, present, future It felt like it all got rolled Into some kind of alien And morphous bubble of the fourth dimension

Which means that even to this day All these years later Ranjet might still be alive Sitting up against the wall basking in and beholding the presence, lost forever in the deep. Status. Solved.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I still feel guilty seeing the vacuum-sealed fetal pig lying before me. Mr. Latter was walking between desks and handing out scalples, and, when he threw down a pair on my desk, I jumped,

drawing a laugh from my partner, Ned. I wasn't the only one who'd gone quiet. most of the class fell into a hushed silence, although a couple still carried on choking around, albeit in hushed whispers. Where do they come from? I asked. Mr. Latter did not stop handing out tools as he answered. The school sources them from the local farms.

But, I mean, they aren't killed for this, are they? A few other kids turned to look, keen to hear the answer. They're dead at birth, he said. He had stopped to face the class And holding our attention He walked up to the whiteboard Before elaborating Soes who are pregnant and die

Have the fetuses is extracted And they get sold on Zoos, fertilizer, dog food, schools Is everyone happy to continue? Carly, do you want me to fetch the wastebasket? All our heads Turned to Carly, who sat to the back Frizzy black hair framing a pallid face

Drained of all colour Beside her, Alec Her partner was holding up the pig and grimacing. For a moment, Carly looked as if she was about to speak. But then she suddenly leapt up and went running out to the classroom. There were gasps and Mr. Latter cried out. Now, now, no need to worry, it's common. If any of you feel like being sick, you can.

Like Carly, use the bathrooms or the sink at either side of the room or the wastebaskets by your feet. Let's try to avoid the floor, your workshops, fellow students, and definitely, definitely try to avoid me. We let out a collective laugh, and Mr. Latter chuckled to. Sounds like this happened to you before, sir, someone cried out. I'd rather not talk about it, but let's just say, I considered a poncho. The laughter was rauous, and he played it up for a second or two

before just as quickly calming us down, pointing to the whiteboard as he continued. You will start by removing the pig from the sealed. packaging and laying it out on the trays you have in front of you. You will be working in pairs, so maybe start deciding on who will begin the dissection, bearing in mind that everyone will have the opportunity to participate in equal measure. Quietly, the door opened and closed, and Carly tiptoed back to a seat. Acknowledging her with a nod, Mr. Latter added, Although this isn't an exercise in torture, if you don't feel up for it, just raise your hand and we'll work something out.

right remove the pig and beware They will smell He understated that fact The pig felt cold and pliable in my hands As I lifted it from the workshop And as I probed it through the plastic I realised that it felt exactly like the cuts of meat My father brought from the supermarket

Except this cut of meat had floppy ears Sleepy eyelids pressed tight And a pink snout Barely longer than my thumb Reaching across Ned gave it a poke and winced, and we shared an apprehensive look. By some unspoken consent, I wound up opening the packet, and as soon as the scissors pierced the plastic,

there was a whoosh of air and a horrific smell rose up. As the other pigs were opened, kids all around me started crying out or gagging or laughing. No worse than Josh in the changing rooms, Alec cried out, and even I shared a laugh. but it was hard to be distracted by the eye-watering stench. Come on, Mr. Latter cried out. I'll open some windows, but it's something you have to get used to. If you need to leave, that's fine, but if you stay, you take it seriously. I opened the packet further, and with a plastic now slack,

the pig slumped to the bottom, slipping between the rubber sheet in a thick overcoat of pale grease. It's slimy, Ned grimaced. should we ask what it is? I don't want to know, I replied, and, taking a deep breath, I reached in and slid the pig out by one of its legs. It fell under the metal tray with a wet slap and slowly unfurled in the open air

until it lay like a babe on its back. Right, Miss the latter cried out, once more commanding all of our attention. The first incision will be made vertically downwards, leading from a neighbour the neck down to the groin. Yes, very funny groin. Are we still laughing about things like this? You're 16.

Now come on, get on with it. I tried to hand the scalpel to Ned, but he held his hand up and shook his head. I was about to try and persuade him into taking over from me, but a girl cried out and dropped her scissors with a loud clatter, drawing all of our eyes. Sir, mine looks weird. adding to this, a few others said similar things.

Mine too. This one looks seriously gross. Oh my God, why does it look like that? It's perfectly normal. Mr. Latter cried out. His voice straining for the first time that day. Some may be a little underdeveloped, but you're just not used to seeing them like this.

Most of you have probably never even been on a farm. No, sir, said one of the girls up front. and she slid a tray forwards to show him. Look! The teacher's face, which was typically plastered with a facetious smirk, was an expression of thinly veiled shock. Why is the fluid all black? The same girl asked.

Mr. Latter slipped forward. Every single kid took it as a sign that we should get up and see, crowding forward until we were all staring at the strange thing on the tray. Why does it look like that? Where are its eyes? Why is it so hairy? Mr. Latter pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His mouth still hung open

and, noticing us standing there, for the first time he suddenly closed it and collected himself. Must have been sold a bad one by the farmers. They looked okay in the packets. I just thought it had black colouring. He chuckled, nervously. Still, I expected since I'd other than, same as the others.

Sir, I don't think that's a pig, I said. Don't be silly, he replied. What else could it be? Mine's even worse, one girl cried out, guiding us to a desk.

Look at the eyes. Uh, Mr. Latter groaned. Uh, that's, uh, uh, a very good example of a mutation, a surprisingly. common one, actually, in farm animals.

There's a museum in the town over, where some of the farmers have preserved goats and sheep born with one too many eyes or too few. Yeah, but this is like six extra eyes, I said. And they're not all on the head? I don't want to touch that thing, Carly said, speaking for the first time since returning.

Sir, it looks infected with something. Everyone recalled from the pigs, pulling away in a muddled pan of, or crying out a thousand different theories and ideas. Are they contagious? What about radiation? What if they suddenly come back to life? At the last proclamation, there was a brief pause.

And then hysterics. Even I have to admit, a quick look at the slender pink pig at my own tray sent a shiver down my spine. I thought of those wet, newborn eyes opening and the cold snout heaving in an unnatural breath and I wound up involuntarily frightening myself. Be quiet, Mr. Latter screamed,

immediately falling silence as if shocked by his outburst. After a few thoughtful moments, he resumed. Okay, okay, right, how many of the specimens are healthy? Ours is, Ned answered, and mine, cried another. All in all, about two-thirds of the pigs looked normal, and Mr. Latter quickly set about reorganising us, so we'd be in bigger groups sharing only healthy pigs. One by one, he collected the malformed specimens

and put them away in a small fridge at the back of the head of the class. After we were all reseated and calm, he told us, now we all have healthy specimens, the groups are a bit larger, but the plan remains the same. Share the work, get your hands dirty, and if you need to be sick, use a waste back. or a sink. Don't fight it. As soon as you feel the slightest urge, get a bin. Right, now that all the fuss is over, are we all finally ready to begin?

Right, well, okay, Jacob, why don't you start? For some reason, he picked me. Looking across at me from the classroom as if by random, looking down I realised, I'd foolishly picked up the scalpel to fidget with as I listened, and in doing so, nominated myself for the grisly task. When I looked at Ned, he merely shook his head. His expression brooked no argument. I was holding the scalpel. Teacher had asked me.

Just start at the neck and make one long incision down to the groin, Mr. Latter reiterated. No one laughed this time as I looked down at the pig. It wasn't as cute now I'd seen the other strange things that had come out of the packets. But it looked at peace and I didn't want to be the one to violate that slumber.

But everyone was looking at me with anticipation. And, except in my fate, I reached out, pressed the tip of my curved blade at the base of its neck and pushed hard enough to break the skin.

In eerie silence, thick, black blood welled up in the depression, filling it up before flowing down the ribs like a trickle of syrup That's good, Jacob, Mr. Latter said, earnestly trying to encourage me. I pulled the blade down and opened the pig like it was a zipper and a costume,

momentarily horrified by just how easily my arm had glided downwards. All of a sudden, screams filled the room, and I realized I'd been unconsciously holding my eyes shut. Opening them, reveal the pig's insides, unfurling from the chest cavity like expanding foam, Jesus Christ, Mr. Latter cried, and one by one, the remaining kids stormed out of the classroom, retching and sobbing and screaming hysterically. But I remained, paralyzed by fear and disgust. What had welled up was a frightening mass of glistening, black, tumorous organs,

thick and sticky-webbed mucus and translucent membranes. Piece by piece, this repulsive slop. fell aside until thin pale ribs were visible, standing rigid like the spires of a cathedral built in some cult-riddled swamp. Oh my God, Mr. Latter breathlessly groaned, and, if I could have spoken, I would have said much worse. But I was unable to do anything except glare at the strange, gremlin-like arm that had been revealed by the bubbling remains, its nubby fingers weakly quivering in the morning

light. Dissections were stopped at my school after that. I had teachers spoke at an assembly and told us plainly that it was an unfortunate incident where several deformed fetuses had been purchased by accident. She worked hard to dissuade the rumors of monsters, blinking eyes, twitching corpses and crying pig demons that had spread across the school like wildfire. Even Ned, who had been right beside the whole time, started telling belated versions of the story at luncheon. time, but I had no appetite to put him down for it. I was the one who had seen the arm, and it had plagued my nightmares for days. But other than one assembly, we were all meant to carry on with our lives as normal, and

sure enough, everyone else slowly lost interest in the usual and macabre story, until, after a fortnight, I was seemingly the only one left still haunted by the dissection. all of my dreams had turned to nightmares, and each night was spent tossing and turning with strange, swine-riddled horrors. Worse still, I was suffering from night terrors for the first time in nearly ten years, and there are a few occasions when my parents had found me screaming hysterically in the bathtub, ranting about a tiny claw groping at my window. I had no memory of any of this, but whether I remembered it or not, it was all up there in my head, churning away, and the dreams hung over me like a black cloud.

I wished so badly that it would soon pass, but found out, to my dismay, that we were having an upcoming field trip to a nearby farm. Mr. Latter wouldn't say if the field trip was linked to the dissection, but when we arrived, a few of us made comments about how it was a free-range farm, looking like something right out of a children's book. cows, sheep and pigs roamed on open pastures and huge swathes of crops

dominated the landscape it felt like it had been deliberately chosen to undo any lasting impressions we may have formed about where our dinner came from and spent most of the day moping around and when time for lunch came I wondered off to sit quietly on a small bucket

within a few minutes Mr Latter found me and asked if I was okay but I told him I just needed space. Taking a deep breath, he put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and added, I'll come get you when lunch is over. Don't go wandering off. Left alone, I turned my eyes back to the pen of pigs before me.

There were maybe five or six of them milling around in an endless churned mud pit, their pig snouts working in constant rumble of wet breathy snorts. They seemed quite happy. All except for one that lay helplessly on its side, panting. At first I thought it was just sunbathing. It was a hot sunny day. But as the seconds ticked on, my eyes kept returning to it. And then, suddenly, it started seizing.

Its limbs thrust frantically in the thick sop as it let rip a horrendous squeal. An unnatural and shrill scream of pain that sounded just plain wrong. coming from a helpless animal. Looking around, I spotted an old man wondering by, one I didn't recognise from the group. Excuse me, I cried out. I think something's wrong. The old man saw me and smiled

and started shuffling over at a leisurely pace. Oh, she's just pregnant, he said when he was close enough to talk. Although she has a month to go, I'd say, not quite there yet. I, sceptically, eye the pig, and once the old man decided to pay attention, he did too.

Together we watched the poor animal scream and writhe as the old man's face grew increasingly concerned. It's far too early, he muttered under his breath. Jesus Christ! I cried, standing to my feet while the two of us recoiled. The pig had been rolling around in increasing pain, and the others in the pen had taken to huddling in one corner when, all of a sudden, something had moved within the swollen belly.

A pointed shape pushed hard against the thin skin, like a knife breaking through a tent. Jenny! The old man screamed, and a young woman came trotting over. Get your brother, he shouted. And then go get Dr. Powell on the phone. Go, go now. but whatever he had planned, it was too late. With a terrible sound, the stomach burst like a water balloon,

spilling a greasy clear fluid all over the mud, and the wind quickly carried the smell over to us. I started retching, quickly realizing that I'd smelled the exact same foul odour once before. The pig had stopped screaming by now and lay breathlessly, twitching on the floor, as a grotesque black shape slid out of its sagging gut. Whatever it was, it had a few features of a pig.

There was a snout, I think. But it was riddled with black, glistening tumours that popped and hissed in the open air. Oh no, the old man whined. No, no, no, not another one. We were told nothing

about the exact circumstances of Mr. Latter's death. vague rumours spread and we learned enough to piece together the basic outline. He had died on a fishing trip, sleeping peacefully in a tent with his wife, who was apparently also missing, although it was hard to know for sure with all the wild stories going around. For the most part, teachers try their best to suppress the gory tales of slashed tents and pult heads and jealous exes and faked deaths for life insurance money. But as long as they refused to tell us what actually happened,

there was no stopping the hushed gossip. For me, it had come at the worst time. Ever since the farm, the nightmares had escalated, and now I could remember the terrifying hallucinations, or at least that's what I told myself they were. I started hearing things, seeing fleeting shapes in the corner of my eyes. It was one thing when it was a strange reflection

in the window of my ground floor bedroom in the middle of the night, or a grotesque snort coming from the shadows in my room, my room. But when it started happening on the long summer walks home from school, I had a hard time telling myself it was just a figment of my imagination. Bushes would rustle and footsteps would clomp away as they passed the overgrown alleyways between the suburban homes, often retreating into the woods just behind the town. Howling squeals would ring out from deep within the trees and disturbed flocks of perch crows, and one night I awoke paralyzed to the sight of a glowing pair of yellow eyes glaring at me from the ceiling.

At some point I fell back asleep and when morning came I was all too eager to write it off his sleep paralysis but then I noticed how my chest was slick with a foul, clear liquid. You wouldn't believe what my mom suggested it was, but I had serious doubts about that. A dark idea had warmed its way into my head, vague and shapeless and every time something strange happened, it kept popping back, even though it filled me with terrible dread. For a while, it was just a feeling, a faint notion of something about those grotesque peak fetuses. But then one day I was walking between buildings at school when I was distracted by hysterical screaming coming from the art block. These weren't the urgent howls of pain, but there were still a dozen

muzzled shouts of hysteria and upset crying. By the time I reached the door, Thousands of girls and boys were floating out of the door, and behind me came Mrs. Carroll pale as a sheet, her hand pressed to a chest and her mouth wide open. She was speechless, and even when I asked her if she was okay, she didn't even look at me. By now, kids were filtering off to go get help, but I heard a quiet whimper from behind her, and I realized someone was still inside. I gently pushed past the teacher and went in only to find Carly kneeling on the floor before an enormous canvas She was distressed

A large sheet of fabric clutched in her hand I realised that she must have pulled it away to reveal her painting And looking at the madness she had made It became clear why the class had burst into hysterics It was undeniably familiar A swelling mass of glistening oily muscle set against a haunting rendition of the woods. But, unlike the fetuses, this monster did not have the withered atrophied muscles of a fetus, nor did it possess any swine-like features.

It was something else, something I recognized from the subconscious impression left by weeks of wretched memories, a hulking mass of almost humanoid shape. Its outline was ill-defined, but within the carcophony of visual noise, I glimped something glorious and terrifying in equal measure. It won't leave me alone, Carly sobbed. It won't stop looking. Kids walking down the street cheered when the first trucks came. Big khaki-coloured things.

They rumbled along in a small convoy with their tarpauling tops rustling in the breeze. We could glimpse nothing of the contents, nor of the people who owned and operated them. There were no military decals or symbols, and they carried no plates. But, with great urgency, these trucks passed through the town before peeling off in the direction of a large farm just south of the town. Where do you think Mr Latter got those pigs from? Ned asked. I heard that a farmer down there committed suicide, I replied. You don't think.

I don't know, he replied, but come on, it's only an hour or two walk if we can cut through the woods. It was weird that neither of us protested our own plan to go to the countryside alone. Even at the time, I remember feeling apprehension, but I assumed Ned felt no fear, only delayed to find that, barely half an hour into the walk. He was twitchy, invisibly afraid. Should we turn back? I asked. Looking back, we were faced with the endless ash trees that surrounded us, their thick, twisted bows rocking in silent oscillations.

I couldn't escape the haunting sensation that something just over the crest of a nearby hill was watching us. And when a small flicker of topsoil, along with the ridge was disturbed and came rolling down in our direction, I had to fight to keep control. No, Ned replied, we all cut across into the final. fields, I'd rather be accused of trespassing than stay here. Ten minutes of walking perpendicular, followed by a hasty climb of a tall hedge, and we emerged into an open, wide field of blooming rapesid, the yellow flowers so bright in the midsummer sun they looked luminescent. The effect was undeniably calming, for we stood in an endless chest-high expanse of golden

warmth that stretched off to a far-off hill where a gloriously large tree rose alone, its canopy reaching far and wide. Without thinking, we started making a way towards the hill, which was roughly in the direction we needed to go. But the relief was short-lived. Not long into the journey, Ned stopped and turned on his heel, his head darting side to side with panicked breaths. Did you hear that?

he asked. hear what? That sound, like breathing but all wet. Come on, I said, pulling in by the elbow. Let's go. We picked up our pace, and I found my eyes furtively probing the featureless sea of yellow around us. The flowers rustled in a cool breeze. Their stems bending and swaying in oceanic waves that rolled across the acres.

But sometimes the wind would turn and bring with it a gagging. wretched smell, and when it picked up into roaring gusts, my ears would pick up the sound of stomping feet or heavy, gurgling panting. About halfway there, and I couldn't help but turned to lock, and when I did, Ned stopped too. Together, we stared into the undulating fields and tried hard to see anything we both desperately wished wasn't there. Suddenly, Ned grabbed my arm and with wide eyes he directed me to a patch of distant flowers that didn't sway as strongly in the wind.

It was hard to know what he meant, but once I saw it, I couldn't take my gaze away. What? I started to ask. But then it changed. It started to move, barely visible like a ripple of water in an ocean, but it was coming towards us,

and my heart raced at the implications. Come on, Ned said, and together we started walking out at first. But when another stolen glance revealed that the distance between us and the moving shape had halved, we both started to run. Where are we going? I panted. Don't know, Ned breathily replied.

We ran on for a few hundred metres, only for Ned to slow to a jog. I looked at him and saw him staring at the space behind us. It's gone, he cried out. There's nothing there. Look. I saw nothing. And for a brief second, I breathed a sigh of relief.

He was right. But the horizon was busy, and we were surrounded by endless rows of diminishing flowers, and I cautiously tugged at Ned's arm. It was probably nothing, he moaned, and moved. by my gesture. We're just messing with our own heads. I don't like this, I said.

We were just... I didn't hear what he said next. I glimpsed it, a shape hiding amidst the golden flowers. There was a horrifying moment where I simply didn't register what I was looking at. It was so unnatural,

so strange, an asymmetrical mess of bone and fur that my brain simply had no reference. It wasn't a tree, plant, or animal, or at least, it bore so little resemblance to anything I knew that my brain rebelled

at its failure to categorize it. Instead, a rising crescendo of fear overtook me, and by the time I pieced together the significance of those amber eyes, my feet were already carrying me in a life or death flight. Where are you?

Ned cried out, but his voice was cut short. I couldn't bring myself to look back, not even as tears filled my eyes and my heart sank with regret. By the time I reached the farm, night was starting to fall. Somewhere along the way, I'd become lost and spent hours frantically running myself ragged in those golden fields. Only after I climbed a hedge and found a lonely country lane did I stop to rest.

I found in those desperate panting moments that much of my courage had dissolved and I was close to collapse. When I resumed my journey, it was a sullen walk along the edges of the road, often having to step aside under grassy thickets when cars and tractors passed by. Initially, I found myself wishing I had a torch, or at least some way to make myself visible to the oncoming cars. But I was thankful for the stealth it afforded after those peculiar trucks came driving by in another convoy.

behind came the smell of fire and burning meat, and I knew they were leaving the very place I was trying to reach. I found fresh reserves of energy and carried on, until, at last, I stumbled through the open gates of a dingy-looking farm. The driveway was unpaved, and, without the full moon, it would have been impossible to walk safely. Thankfully, I found a small torch hanging from one of the gateposts that led to the main yard, and used that to light the rest of the way. close by I saw animals milling around nervously in their pens clearly unsettled by the smouldering pile of dead pigs in an adjacent field the mountain of charred meat rose so high it rivaled the height of the house

and as I approached it I saw that while most of the animals looked normal a few bore oily blinking tumours that popped and hissed in the blaze you're lost I cried out and dropped my torch, momentally doubting myself in darkness. Someone was close by, and they turned on their own light and pointed it towards mine that lay in the ground. I took it and used it, revealing a squirrely-looking old man in overalls. You lost, he cried out.

He looked like a corpse in my light, with puffy eyes and a haunted expression. It was evident he was a man deep in despair. Yes, yes. I stammered. Sorry. What the hell are you doing out here? He hissed. Thinking quickly, I replied.

My friends pulled a prank of me, left me out here on my own. They ain't your friends then, are they? He asked. Clearly not, I answered. Do you mind me asking? Are you okay? The old man huffed and turned,

and only after he'd walked a few steps did he call out. you're coming or what? I'll get my keys and give you a lift. Got nothing else to do now anyway. I followed him to his doorstep and then into his kitchen. It was a terrible mess and I saw that much of the food left out had spoiled. I should clean, he grumbled, but at this rate, I'm likely to lose a place anyhow. What happened?

He eyed me for a moment before answering. infection he said god knows how so started getting pregnant but the piglets are all wrong started off small but he drilled off and his eyes glazed over i saw the burnt animals i said pulling him back to the present judging by that lock in your eye you've seen more than that he said with a dark smirk You know, they let me keep the cows and sheep, but fat load of good that'll do me. He grumbled, like anyone's ever going to buy meat round these parts again.

This has happened to other farms? This happened to at least two others, he answered. I tried to keep the healthy pigs, but they wouldn't let me. Hell, they even killed the damned boars. Wouldn't even say what it was, though. I doubt they knew. No one knows anything like this. So it was getting pregnant without insurmation.

That doesn't make sense. When I started putting them in for the night, something down near tore the barn down to get at him. I figured it was a wild boar, but... It's something else, I said. You ever hear about Loki getting that horse pregnant? He asked, a strange energy in his eyes. What?

Come with me, he said, his voice low and menacing. But then, just like that, he was laughing. The shrill cackle touching my nerves. Come on, boy, I ain't gonna hurt you. Come on, I got something to show you. Quietly, he led me through the house and towards the back. Together, we walked out into the fields behind the house,

the stench of burnt meat following us like a ghost. Finally, after what fell like an hour, we reached a small toolshed that looked abandoned. I just kept killing him. He said, You see one, you want to kill it. Trust me. But that's the thing.

We were getting wrong. I don't know why I thought of Loki, but something was putting babies in them pigs. They weren't piglets. They were... Well, I don't know. But this whole damn time, it didn't dawn on one of us

to think that maybe whatever the hell this thing was, it just wanted one of its litter alive. He pushed the door open and looked inside. I kept her, he whispered, hid her away, the last one. It's been a terrible fight, but I think I've got her to come to full term. It was hard to think that the thing before me had ever been a sow. It was wretched, bulbous and distended, and clearly pained with desperate, heaving spasms. It had swollen to the size of a sofa and lay half broken across the floor,

easily three times as long as the one I'd saw in the farm. As a light caught its grossly extended belly, I saw that the skin was gossamer thin and translucent. The light of the torch revealing blue veins as thick as my thumb that tirelessly pumped with blood. The light revealed something else, something that stirred in response to the stimulation. Why would Loki impregnate a horse?

The old man said, his voice close to war. But then again, who am I to question again? God, you've seen it, or somewhere, somewhere deep down, you're aware. I reckon it's been chasing up every damn human with a trace of its baby's scent. Suddenly, the so shuddered and moved barely first towards us. Crying out, I jumped backwards, but the farmer stayed rooted to the spot. Don't shy away, he cried. Look, she's breaching.

With the sound of tearing fabric, something broke. the thin skin stomach and a torrent of effluent and blood flooded out of the shed, washing our shoes and ankles before draining away into the soil. What remained after the amniotic fluid was gone was a flapping mess of skin draped over a huddled shape that writhed and struggled to break free. Boy, the farmer said, if I were you, I'd kneel. The old man fell and planted his face into the earth in a gesture of the farmer. of supplication. For a moment I stayed standing, scanning the surrounding fields. And then,

in an instant, the shed disappeared in a braying thunder of broken metal and snapping wood. The painting didn't do it justice. My nightmares didn't come close. The sky behind its towering structure warped and broke open like the peeling of a burned film and revealing a bruised and sickening nebula of smoky, malignant stars. I felt as if the ground beneath my feet could give way at any moment, as if the very stuff of reality was crumbling and breaking apart. Its mere presence betrayed, an unspeakable power, its eyes glittering with human intelligence that felt more like a force of nature.

I cannot easily describe the eerie feeling that came over me, except to say that I became distinctly aware of the other. This thing was not human, but it was not animal. It didn't just rival a human. It dwarfed us. It watched as its spawn tore its way free of the womb. It fumbled and fell at first. A grotesque mess of screaming mouths and cracking bone.

It was a wretched miscarriage that inspired only pity and horror. Its horrible cries wracked with pain and rage. Slowly, the tumours hissed and shift. before my very eyes it started to change. At first I thought it would stand there, metamorphosing in gut-wrenching agony. But with a startling shriek, it launched itself forward with a single, mollusk-like tongue, and fell upon the farmer. He was consumed like a bacterium by a macrophage, heaving liquid flesh, contracting and breaking

him open. He opened his mouth, but the creature's flesh probed the office with writhing sillier, and, finding it pleasing, pulsing muscle soon followed. He was broken open like a piece of fruit, and his cries were cut short with an abrupt contraction. God, I tried so hard to make my legs move, but I couldn't. I stayed there and watched, even as the monstrous spawn continued, its freakish transformation, crunching and snapping into place. Only when its amber eyes fixed on me did my legs

obey my mind and I fled into the night, screaming and crying hysterically. I was found in a nearby field, but of the farmer and the shed there was no sign. It took days before my senses returned to me and weeks before anyone would tell me what was found of Ned. Most people assumed we'd been attacked by a maniac and I'd fled in terror, although I wondered if the police really believed this, and I did nothing to contradict these rumours. I didn't have the stomach to relive the full story and the images of Ned's pulverized corpse the police showed me only invoked guilt and shame.

I think of Loki often. Do you know how often those ancient gods supposedly impregnated random animals? Turns out it's a pretty common myth. It's a weird reading about those gods because so much of their lives are written out as relatable. They betray each other, love each other, fight, marry, break up. But every now and again, they do something almost insane.

They turn into monsters, eat worlds, reshaped continents, take offence at things that make no sense. I read these stories, no longer as quirky tales of humanoid supermen, but as fragmented accounts, glimpses, of something that's almost familiar, something you could almost never piece together to make sense. But beneath them lies a veneer of sheer insanity, something that a human mind can never truly understand. Certainly, not as a whole. I imagine it as a balloon, loosely tethered by arteries and veins, to the hollow cavity the doctor's discovered in my chest. It's invisible and intense,

tangible, but I can feel it beating, keeping me alive. When I was small, they did many tests on me, but the state and location of my heart eluded all medical scrutiny. The doctors couldn't see anything in an x-ray or MRI scan, much less explained to my horrified parents how their little boy was still alive and how they could feel a pulse in his wrists. They kept theorising that I didn't have a heart, to which I told them, I did. Right here, I said, pointing to the empty air to the right of where I felt my ghostly heart floating, swaying in the draft coming from the air vents and beating a steady rhythm. When I passed my hand through it, I felt a small warmth echo in my chest. It's floating right

here, like a balloon. X-ray scans of the empty air predictably revealed nothing. I grew up a sickly boy, pale and fragile and never allowed to move the way I wanted to. The further my heart strayed from my body, the colder and weaker I felt. If I ran too fast, I could feel my heart lag behind me until its strings pulled taut, making me dizzy and short for breath. If the car I was in lurched too far, I choked and felt my consciousness flicker. On my first day of kindergarten, the teacher tried to pull me away from my parents as they waved goodbye, and my heart clung to my mother so tightly

that I only made it a few painful steps before keeling over to the ground lost to the world in a death-like sleep. I remember vaguely hearing the sound of screaming and the wail of an ambulance. Despite the ever-present concern from my parents and my doctors, I learned to live with my strange balloon heart

and figured out ways to go about my days as normally as I could. Some of my teachers in elementary school were called me precocious, but I was only independent because I needed to be. When I carried myself with self-confidence and a degree of comfort in my own body, my heart followed me more readily

and I rarely had repeats of incidents like the first day of kindergarten. That's not to say I was a solitary kid. A welcome side effect of having self-confidence was that the people around me could look past my ashen face and bony limbs. I made friends who were half curious and half in awe of my invisible balloon heart.

In the innocent way little kids are when they really haven't learned to be concerned or sensible about their friends' strange illnesses. They walked to the playground with me during recess because they knew I couldn't handle running too fast. And when Rex, the fifth grade bully shoved me in the hallway and yelled vampire boy, they quickly intercepted and threatened to call the hall monitor.

In short, I found my way around and was fortunate enough to meet me. people who accepted me. I worked out often and tried to live a healthy lifestyle to make up for my ever-present tremor at the tips of my fingers. I learned to drive and then learn to ignore the angry honking behind me whenever I accelerated too slowly for their liking. Last summer I graduated from high school and though my heart wasn't too happy about it, I said goodbye to my family and friends and moved away for the first time to go to college halfway across the country. My parents worried about me at first, but I assured them I could keep myself safe.

In the following spring, I fell in love. She sat two seats away from me in our chemistry lecture. If I was cold and sickly, then she was like the sun, warm and radiant and full of life. Her fiery red hair tumbled in tautile curls and a mischievous smile was spattered with faint golden freckles. When I first saw her, my heart instantly picked up in a quickened beat. When the lecture was over and we stood up to leave, I discovered that I couldn't move away from her. My heart wouldn't let me.

It skipped impatiently, hovering as close to her as it could get, keeping me locked in place until she passed me by and started walking towards the exit of the lecture hall. Then I felt a shock of vertigo as my heart skipped ahead of me and yanked me toward her. It wanted to get to her. It needed to get to her. I lurched forward and my heart kept tugging at me impatiently,

like I was some sort of dog on a leash. I stumbled after it, desperately hoping the pulling would stop after the red-haired girl left a lecture hall after she exited the building, after she walked through the crowded plaza and into the street. It didn't.

I walked as inconspicuously as I could, but I was sure people around me could tell I was following the girl without her knowledge. When we walked down three streets and the crowds thinned to the occasional passerby and she still hadn't noticed me tailing her, I reached out to my side and grabbed the street lamp out of sheer determination not to unwittingly stalk her all the way home. The painted still bar was a shock of cold against my clammy fingers and, not a second later,

I felt my heart yank harder against my chest, A sharp pain surged through my body. My vision flickered and I choked. My head spun. The girl kept walking. My heart kept pulling, like it was determined to follow her or kill me trying. Black spots trickled to the edges my vision.

Please, I coughed with the last of my breath. Please stop. Miraculously, the red-headed girl paused. She looked to run. around and then looked at me, as if she wasn't quite sure if I had been addressing her. Her record seemed to flicker like ferro lights, and then I felt my knees buckle. When I collapsed, I couldn't feel anything but the cold, empty black. When I came to, she was sitting next to my hospital bed, looking at me with concern in her bright blue eyes.

When she saw me stir, she lit out a small sigh and sat back in a chair. "'Gees, you were starting to scare me there,' she said, with more enthusiasm than I could have expected. Then she sat forward again and peered at my face. "'The doctors say you've got no heart. What's the deal with that?' "'I have a heart,' I stammered, taken aback by a straightforwardness. "'It's—' I reached out to point at it. Then I realized she would think I was pointing at her.

At a chest, slightly to the left inside a rib cage, where her own heart would be. Where I felt my invisible balloon heart hover, nestled like a kitten next to hers. It felt warm. I lowered my hand. It's a long story. A nurse came in and I gave him my doctor's letter, the one that explained everything my doctors from home knew about my condition. The nurse left for a while, came back in, asked me some cool.

questions took my pulse and blood pressure. After a while, the red-headed girls stood up. I need to get going. You'll be okay, right? My heart sank, quite literally, and as she stood up, I almost cried out for her not to leave. But before I could get the words out, she turned to me and smiled. I'll be back in the evening after class. Those words were a miracle cure. I felt my heart relax and flowed back towards me. Finally, her name was Leela, and she became half my life. Even after I was discharged from the hospital, she stuck by my side and helped me walk. We met up with each other on the way to and from campus.

In our chemistry lecture hall at the cafe after school, in the student lounge of a dormitory, my heart was happy, pressed up against hers, and, when I was by her side, it felt more alive than ever. I could have been mistaken But I felt a bit of warmth And colour returned to my cheeks As we grew closer by the day We spent moonlit evenings on the roof And danced under the stars

We laid in the grass in lazy afternoons And kissed in the summer rain Whenever she parted with me I asked if I would see her again Her smile and nod Were all my heart needed to return to me Last Saturday Was Valentine's Day

And I was going to bring her flowers I was walking down the plaza I had roses in my hand and a handwritten card in my pocket I first heard the ruckus and the police sirens and didn't bother to look but then the people walking in front of me moved and I saw the broken glass

shattered across the street and the ambulance parked at the intersection my pulse quickened like my heart somehow already knew what had happened before I could try to get a better look before I could even see the blood on the ground or spot the streak of fiery red hair hanging from the stretcher. My heart leapt out of my chest and yanked me forward, twisting in pain,

and leaving crimson rose petals fluttering to the ground behind me. It was an accident, someone was crying. It was an accident. I didn't mean to, oh God. Sirens wailed and people shouted, but before anyone could get it to the hospital, Leila was dead. Layla's funeral was attended by few.

just a family and a half dozen friends. She must have talked about me because they seemed to know who I was. We gathered and watched as the pole-bearers lowered her small wooden casket into the ground. I cast the withered remains of my roses into a grave and watched the soil pile up on its leaves. When the service was over,

Layla's mother asked if I would join her family for the evening. Before I could answer, my heart gently took me back towards Layla's grave. I think I'll stay, I said. Just, just to say some things I never got to say to her. She nodded and soon I was left alone in the small cemetery. As soon as the last car disappeared around the bend, my heart tore me from my spot and threw me onto my knees at the foot of Layla's grave.

I grasped and clutched at my chest. I know, I whispered, tears, streaking down my cheeks. I know, I'm hurting too. I could almost hear it crying. The old trimmer returned to my hands and my body felt as cold and heavy as stone. We sat there and mourned

until night time fell around us. Then, unexpectedly, I felt my heart begin to pull me again. Instead of making me walk like usual, it sank straight into the earth. The cold, damp soil that chilled my bones and made me shiver.

I squatted down and leaned to all the ground and finally just flattened myself against the earth but my heart wouldn't stop pulling me downwards it wanted to get to her stop I whimpered it pulled harder the strain grew from a gentle pressure in my chest to pain I felt beads of cold sweat on my back

stop it I groaned stop it she's gone It didn't stop pulling. Soon I was dizzy with pain, gasping for breath in the cold, musty air coming up from the soil. Please stop, you're killing me. My heart didn't listen. It didn't seem to care. I clawed at the dirt and my fingers dug into the earth easily.

Soft, wet soil that was packed down just this evening. My heart pulled me harder. It wanted to see Leila It needed to see Leila She was half my life My warmth and my light Buried six feet under My shaking hands dug up a handfuls of dirt

And cast them aside Faster and faster and faster And to my mind blurred And time lost its meaning And my only cohesive thought Was that I had to survive Bits of silt stung the soft skin Underneath my fingernails

and jagged stones cut into my palms. But that pain was nothing compared to the growing tension in my chest, forcing me deeper into the earth, threatening to kill me if I didn't obey. I swear I only wanted to live. I swear, I know that it must be hard to believe that I'm sane, considering you found me in the graveyard, cradling the corpse of Kayla Kinley and crying into a dress.

I know that a family must be repulsed beyond measure, and that her friends would loathe me for defiling her like this. I know that. I know that when this story goes public, some people out there will point fingers and say I did it because I don't have a heart, literally and figuratively. But I do.

Please, believe me when I say I do. I can't move much in this prison cell, but my heart tries to pull me towards her, even now. One of the guards told me earlier today With a look of distaste in his eyes That Leila's family was going to cremate a body And scatter her ashes in the wind

So that people like me couldn't find her ever again Since then I can't move away from my door My heart is trying to yank me out of my cell But this isn't the loose soil in the cemetery My body is weak and my hands are shredded And I can't dig my way out to prison I wonder if I'm going to be let out Honestly I'm not sure what I'm more afraid of

Pleading my honesty when no one believes me Until my heart tears free from my body And I finally drop dead on the floor of my cell Or being released into a world Where Leila has been turned into a million specks of dust Carried by the breeze into the clouds Into streams and rivers Into the lungs of oblivious pass-a-byes

My heart intends to find all of her and bring her back into my arms.