CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - 9 SCARY reddit r/nosleep stories to shave away the remaining time until Christmas

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORIES-►0:00 "It keeps holding my hand" Creepypasta►16:59 "People stop talking when I walk in. And they were talking about me" Creepypasta►34:51"People go missing on the night shift" Creepypasta►57:17 "There is an extra student in my class" Creepypasta►1:17:28 "Something went wrong with our escape room" Creepypasta►1:42:34 "I was paid to be in an exclusive piece of livestreamed performance art" Creepypasta►2:21:29 "I was hired to notice things out of place" Creepypasta►2:48:02 "I was sent to the wrong type of jail" Creepypasta►3:14:10"I found the accursed videogame 'Polybius'" CreepypastaCreepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- 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

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on Shopify. That is Shopify. combe. that noticed that something else was living with us. It was small things at first. I'd leave something in one spot and come back later to find it moved. There would be a bag of chips that was halfway full, and after two hours they'd be down a quarter more.

My first assumption was that either I was being forgetful, or it was just my roommate, Sarah. I didn't know why she'd moved my stuff around or eat stuff that she normally hated. But I also didn't think I was getting that absent-minded. And it wasn't a big deal, really. Just little weird stuff that was mildly annoying, but not enough for me to mention.

But then Sarah's dad got sick, and she was back home for two weeks. Aside from having friends over once, no one should have been in that apartment but me, and things kept happening more and more. When Sarah got back, she told me about how her family was doing with everything they had going on.

I broached the topic of all the weird stuff I'd been noticing. I half expected her to laugh me off. But she didn't. Said that she hadn't realised it was going on as long as I had, but she started seeing stuff moved or missing in the few days she went out of town. She did laugh a little when she wondered out loud if our little house was haunted.

But it sounded hollow, and when I suggested we get a camera to set up and see what was going on, she quickly agreed. Over the next three weeks, a couple of things became clear. First off, something was messing with a camera we'd bought. It would work fine, and then when a time came that something was going to be messed with inside of its cone of vision, the feed would not record for five or ten minutes. it would be back like nothing was wrong. The second thing was,

well, it was getting worse. Initially, it had just been the stuff being moved and food being eaten. Then I started feeling like I was being watched. Not in some generalized, paranoid way like someone is watching you.

No, this felt very specific, very personal, as though someone I couldn't see was standing just a few feet away, silently staring at me. It would happen mostly in the living room at first, but over the next few days, I started feeling it in the kitchen, my bedroom, the bathroom. At first, I looked around for someone or a hidden camera

or something that explained what I was feeling. We'd already changed the locks on the alarm code, but it hadn't helped any more than the camera. When I realized I wasn't going to find anything, I tried to tell myself it was in my head. Sure, maybe something a little weird was going on, but I was blowing it way out of proportion, imagining invisible eyes that weren't there.

During this period of me trying to convince myself it wasn't real, Sarah was doing the opposite. She wanted the house to be haunted. Initially, she just joked around about it. But the more worried I became, the more she seemed to embrace the idea that maybe there was some ghost lurking around, maybe even watching over us, like a guardian angel. It got so I didn't talk to her about it much at all, as it was frustrating to share how nervous I was getting,

only to see that spark of excitement flare brighter in her eyes with every creepy moment or strange discovery I recounted. Things changed for the both of us one night in June. We were supposed to grill out on our patio. We hadn't really hung out together in nearly two months, and I think we both sensed that we needed to mend our friendship, regardless of what was going on with our house. I was outside lighting the charcoal when I heard a startled yelp from indoors. Walking inside, I saw Sarah was standing in the middle of the living room. She wasn't looking at me. At first, I didn't think she was looking in any particular direction.

It just seemed like she was staring straight ahead. Her expression terrified. Then she noticed me, her eyes going wider as she shook her head. Don't come in here. I frowned at her. Why? Her face had gone pale. I was walking, going to bring out the spatula and tongs.

She gestured to where she had dropped them on the floor. and I hit something. Her eyes went back to what looked like empty space in front of her, and then found mine again. There was nothing there, nothing I could see, and I backed off a few steps, but I was afraid of what might happen if I run or something. I don't know if it's still there. Heart pounding, I nodded. Well, okay, um, just walk sideways as far as you can. and then walk towards me.

If it didn't move, maybe he can get past it. I looked over and grabbed my car keys and phone from the nearby table. Just keep coming. That's okay. Okay, let's go. We ran out of the house and out to my car. And once we were inside and going, I didn't stop until we were out to motel across town. We checked in and then sat scared in our room,

talking about what it might have been and what we were. we should do next. Sarah said it seemed wide and heavy, but it gave, like a person would give if you bumped into them, said it seemed shorter than her too, that she only felt it as high as her stomach, though she immediately stepped back when she realized she couldn't see anything there. I wanted to make a joke of it, or explain it away, but I couldn't. Instead, I told her, I believed her and that we needed to start thinking about if we were willing to stay in that house anymore. I had already half decided that I wasn't ever going back there beyond packing up my stuff, and I thought Sarah was of the same mind.

Maybe in the moment she was, but by the next morning she was talking about how we couldn't just up and leave in the middle of our lease, especially without somewhere else to go. I argued with her, told her that was so. stupid, that we could just figure out something until we found a new place, that we couldn't stay in a place with something that we couldn't see or understand, but that could decide to hurt us at any time. This seemed to almost make Sarah angry. She reminded me that whatever it was, it hadn't done anything to hurt us other than eat a little food and move things around a bit. And it was little. Maybe it was the ghost of some lonely child or something.

I pointed out that I don't think ghost children ate chips or could be bumped into, but she just stared at me for a moment before shrugging. She said we could leave, but we needed to find a suitable replacement house first. In the meantime, we would just be careful. I could have argued harder, demanded that we not sleep there another night, much less the weeks or months it might take to find a new place together. And if she still refused to listen to reason, I could have just left of my own. Part of the reason I didn't was because I knew I'd have a hard time finding a decent place to live without her help.

As it was, she was paying most of the rent and over half the utilities, and I didn't see my money situation improving any time soon. but the bigger part of why I wouldn't leave her was because she was my friend. I didn't want to leave her alone in that house with... Well, whatever it was. So I went along with it. I figured I'd just spent all my spare time looking for a place for us and we could get out within week.

By the end of that first week, my hope of finding us a place was quickly fading. This house was perfect. for a lot of reasons, including being in a good neighbourhood, roughly the same distance from both our jobs. Finding something like that in our price range wasn't going to be easy, and it was becoming clearer by the day that Sarah wasn't that keen on moving. It frustrated me, but I tried to tell myself that maybe I was overreacting. Nothing else had happened since we moved back that past Friday, at least so far as I knew. We were sitting together watching TV one night when I decided to ask Sarah about it.

Still, watching TV, she shook her head. No, nothing bad. I stared at her. So, something has happened. She looked at me briefly before looking away again. Um, yeah, but again, it's nothing bad. It's kind of sweet, actually. Sarah sighed, but I knew you'd freak out again, so I just haven't mentioned it.

Reaching her across the sofa, I grabbed her arm. What's happened? This time she turned to meet my eyes. Her expression already growing defiant. It keeps holding my hand, like a little kid would do. When I just stared at her in shock, she shrugged and went on. It's only happened. a few times, and the first time it scared me, or at least I thought it did.

You were at work, and I almost left and called you. But then I realized I was overreacting. I was just startled, not scared. I stood up, shaking. Just startled? This thing is grabbing your hand and you think you shouldn't be scared? I shook my head. It's in your head or something.

It has to be. You're not dumb, and this is really, really stupid. Sarah was frowning up at me like a petulant child. You're making too big a deal out of it. This has been going off for days and nothing bad has come from it. Something struck me then. When's the last time you went to work? I don't know.

A few days. I decided to take a few days off. Big deal. Okay, and when's the last time you left the house? I've been assuming you were just beating me home. But I can't think of the last time I saw you outside of this place. She shrugged, her voice softer and trembling as she lowered her gaze. I don't know, okay, a few days?

I knelt down in front of her, grabbing her hand. I kept my voice at a whisper, though I didn't know if it'd matter. Sarah, something is really wrong here, okay, we need to get out of... The air was knocked out of me as I was shoved across the room and hit the TV stand. I was dazed for a moment. And when I got it together enough to think of Sarah, I locked up just as she was going into a bedroom and closing the door. Tongue thick in my mouth, I staggered to my feet and tried a bedroom doornob before beating on it and yelling for her to open up. I thought she wasn't going to answer at all.

But then I heard a voice, soft and shuddering with fear, just on the other side of the door. Just go. please it's okay i felt a stir of relief at hearing a voice but also at her telling me to go i wanted to go wanted to go more than i'd ever wanted anything maybe but i also didn't want to abandon my best friend hitting the door again i yelled for her to come out to come with me i can't they won't let me what do you mean they? Oh God, oh God, oh God, there's more than one of them. You need to go before they decide they want you to. I rested my forehead against the door for a moment, blood drumming in my ears as my heart grew cold. I think I whispered that I was sorry. Maybe I even lied and said I'd bring a help. All I know for sure is that I ran out into the night and never went back.

That was two years ago. I haven't heard from Sarah since that night, and I've made a point to not look for her, partially out of guilt, partially out of fear, but mainly because I don't want to be infected by whatever gut my friend. I want to forget all of that, even forget her, if it means I can go on and live a normal life. For a time, it seemed to be working. I moved to another state and essentially started over, which made it simpler for me to forget, easier for me to lie to myself that whatever had seen Sarah had claimed her and had forgotten about me.

Even though, in their own way, they revealed themselves to me first. I woke up last night, skin cold and sweaty in the dark. That wasn't strange. I have terrible dreams often, and I don't sleep well on the best of night. Still, this was different somehow. The darkness of the room felt heavier, and as I climbed out of sleep, I realized the hand I had draped off the bed, didn't move when I tried to shift over onto my back. Something was holding my hand. Its spongy finger woven firmly in mine.

Letting out a scream, I started yanking at my hand desperately, realizing too late. that there was shifting weight behind me on the bed. An invisible weight draped over me, a massive, unseen arm maybe, though it felt cold and soft and strange through the thin cotton sheet that lay between it and my skin. The weight curled around to my front,

cradling my chest and sliding me backwards a few inches as my back pressed against the large bulk of the thing. A cold, spicy smell filled my nostrils, and I began to gag in between my feeble attempts to scream. The things gave no response to my cries for help, keeping me, holding me, touching me in the dark for hours before finally letting me go without a sound and only one sign.

It was a sign that didn't say goodbye, but instead, see you soon. Not a warning, but a promise. I promise that they would always find me. When the sun started to rise, the larger one behind me pushed back the hair at my neck and pressed an unseen burning kiss there. I shuddered and tried to scream again. My voice nothing but a raw, squawking whisper by then.

It didn't seem to matter to them. A heavyweight shifted off the bed as unseen things uncoiled from between my fingers. For a few minutes, I was terrified, violated, paralyzed by fear, but desperate to get up and move, run away, fight if I had to, just so long as I could be away from them forever. But as the sun rose, I felt myself sinking. I was so exhausted and I'd think more clearly after some rest. And after all, they hadn't really hurt me, had they? I gave a final violent shudder as I cried into my pillow. And then, I was fast asleep.

It all started when people would stop talking when I entered the room. It sounds like a small thing, like it's nothing at all. But I noticed it. And after that, I started paying attention. It wasn't that I would enter rooms full of people and everything would be silent. people were technically speaking still talking to each other. I'd go into a store or part of my office or anywhere where there were other people gathered and you'd expect to hear some chatter and...

Well, I would hear some chatter, but it was off. I could tell from snippets I'd heard walking up that topics had changed and from the voices that were now talking more loudly and clearly that secrets of murmurs had been replaced with full-throats, conversations that were just a little too loud and a little too bright in the banality. It was also the expressions. Part of it was the tension of almost getting caught at something, I think, but more than that was the sense of satisfaction at not getting caught.

Of knowing things that I didn't, and of also knowing that I suspected things that I could not prove, feared things that I could not verify. and even if I was to try to explain it to another person, as I'm doing right now, I would sound paranoid and insane. Yes, I think they enjoyed dangling me like that, watching me slowly hang myself a word and a worry at a time. It might have worked if they had the patience for it.

For a while, I was half convinced I was crazy, but then they got greedy. Or maybe they knew they couldn't risk leaving her out in the world, infinitely smarter and more credible than me, and acting as though she took what I was saying seriously. Either way, when they took my best friend in the world, when they stole brook from me, they gave me something tangible to latch onto, a lens of rage and grief and guilt

that focused my terror and self-doubt into a searing point of belief and hatred. For months I'd listened as they talked about what they would do with me What they would show me when the time was right Dozens of Mayfly conversations Dying in mid-air as soon as I stepped into view But from those dozens of pieces and over time I developed a terrible mosaic of what was coming for me

There were mentions of giving me the dream Of show me the door Of stripping away and anewing the bees That was a common thing. They would often refer to the beast, and I'd heard enough from context over time to gain an understanding that the beast was me. These tidbits made no sense to me at first, but over time a few things became clear. First, the people that talk this way all seem to be sharing the same ideas and vocabulary. Even though they were as varied as people I'd worked with for years,

other customers at the grocery store, the strangers and the bus. In other words, no one talking about me seemed confused or taken aback but the strange conversations going on around them. Second, I was starting to think more and more that they wanted me to hear bits of it. Why talk in public places at all? If not, why talk in places where I could just walk in at any time, especially when I was clearly the subject of their strong. strange and sinister plan.

And why else did some of them stare and smirk as I walked by? My hands trembling as I tried to ignore their passing glances and knowing smiles. They were growing fat on my misery, is what I think. I tumbled these first two things

in my head like rocks being worn smooth through use and repetition. But I would have likely kept them to myself a while longer, if not for the third thing that I finally admitted to myself, last month. The conversations were becoming slightly more specific and significantly more intense. This was all heading to a point of action and I was afraid that point was coming soon.

I was more than afraid honestly. I was terrified and it was in that terror that I told Brock about everything fearful of what she would think and how she would look at me. At every rambling sentence I paused and cringed inwardly, waiting for her to stop me and ask if this was a stupid joke or if I'd somehow gone insane. Instead, she just listened. She listened to everything I've just told you, and then she pondered a moment before asking a question. Do they always talk about you, or just sometimes? I looked at her in surprise. She wasn't joking or mocking.

She was serious and asking a serious question. Voice trembling slightly, I nodded dumbly as I spoke. No, not always, just sometimes. Chewing on a lower lip, she looked at the ceiling. And is it always the same people doing it, or is it different people? No, it's different people. I told you that. It happens all over the place.

At the store, at the office, when I get on the bus sometimes. lowering her gaze to mine, she shook her head. No, you're not listening to what I'm asking. Like, the people at work, for example. It doesn't always happen when you go into a room at the office, does it? No, just sometimes. Okay, now, best you remember the times it happens at the office, is it always the same basic pool of people?

In other words, if there's like 50 people in your office, is it always the same ten that are talking about you, and 40 that aren't, or is it 40 or 50, and it's just different ones at different times. I swallowed and nodded, feeling a stir of excitement. I thought I saw what she was getting at. Um, no, it's like the same eight or nine people, I think. I mean, they're not always there, but it's consistently the same people, I think. She nodded again.

Okay, next part. You said the other places it happens are at the store and on the bus right? Anywhere else? Strugging, I felt my face red and I don't really go anywhere else other than home and here. Brooke smiled at me. Nothing wrong with that. And you always go to the same store and take the same buses to, don't you? Yeah, usually, yeah.

Well, anyone at the store are in the bus that you've overheard talking about you more than once, like someone who always rise the same bus as you or works at the store or something. I'd already been thinking about this now, so I was quicker with my answer. Not on the bus that I've noticed, but it happens less frequently there. It's usually something I hear ahead of me as a walking up the aisle to the back row. But at the grocery store, yeah, as a young guy and an old woman who worked there, and I've heard them talking about that stuff at least twice. Other people too at times, but definitely.

the two of them. A couple of weeks ago, I came around a corner and they were pretending to restart canned peaches. When I pushed past them, the old woman started laughing and the guy shushed her. I rubbed my face tidely. I think he was about to laugh too. Brock leaned forward and rubbed my knee. I know this is freaky. I'm freaked out too, but I believe you. I don't know what it means, but I don't think you're crazy. I felt tears coming to my eyes. I... Thank you, but I just...

How do you know? I sound crazy to me. She broke into a brief grin before turning serious again. First off, I think if you were crazy, there wouldn't be this kind of pattern. It would either be really random where everyone was against you, or it would be very focused on a small group of people you either didn't like or trust. This isn't either of a little of... those. It's a lot of people, a lot of whom you don't even know. But there's a level of consistency

to it too. Repeat offenders, if you will. Her eyes suddenly widened. I want you to try something. Okay. For the next week, change your routine as much as you can. Every day, take a different bus or a cab. Instead of eating at work, go to a different restaurant every day that you've never been to, and go to different stores at least twice this week instead of the grocery store near your house. Take notes of anything you notice weird. And this time next week, let's see how things stand, okay? I nodded.

Yeah, okay, yeah. I did, as she asked. By Thursday, I was texting her, telling her in all caps that no one was talking at the new spot. She texted back that that was great. that she wanted me to come over on Saturday, but before I did, go to lunch on Friday the same place had gone Monday.

I thought about asking why, but then thought better of it. She got me this far, and I should just trust her. When I walked into Jackie Subs, there was a brief hush before people started talking about various things, their food, their jobs, sports. But as I had pushed open the door, a gust of words had missed up in the door, the gust of words had moved toward me, trickling into my ear like poison. The beast will take what? Almost time?

I looked around at the half-full tables, looking at each person in turn. I didn't know any of them, but more than one of the customers and one of the women behind the counter were looking at me, not like they were alarmed by my strange expression or behavior, but as though they knew me, knew me, and had a funny sense. secret to tell. I spun on my heel and ran outside, making it to my car in a panic. I climbed inside and locked the door before cranking up and heading not back to the office but to Brooks Place instead. When I got there, I knew right away something was wrong. The door was ajar, and when I called out to her, I was only greeted with silence. So, I went to the police, just told them that my

friend was missing and that I needed their help. To my surprise, they agreed to send someone out right away. I offered to go back with them, but the officer I was speaking with asked me to stay and answer more questions while a patrol unit went by to check for any evidence of what might have happened. Twenty minutes later, a call came in, and the officer had to leave the room. When he came back, it was with two detectives. The larger of the two detectives

snatched the pad away from me with a sneer, scowling at the paper. He flipped through my account before setting the pad down hard and sliding it back to me. So, this crazy nonsense, this is your statement, this is your excuse for what you've done.

I stared at him, trembling. You won't tell me what you think I've done? You just started yelling at me, demanding I tell you what happened, that I write it all down. I jessed feebly toward the pad. So I was. The other detective waved the big one down into his chair.

Look, I haven't read what you wrote, but judging by my partner, it doesn't go down easy. So before I look at it, before I decide that I can't believe a word you say, I'm just going to ask you, how long had you had that girl? I blinked, staring like a guppy from one to the other. Girl? What girl? The big one rubbed the bridge of his nose. Brooke, salmon, asshole.

She says you had her for over a year locked up in that place. Does that sound about right to you? Tears swelling in my eyes, I let out a gasp. She says... So you found her? She's okay? The smaller cop frowned at me. We found her, and she's okay, though no thanks to you.

She told us about how you abducted her, kept her out of that place under lock and key. would go out and tell her crazy things. His expression darkened, and God knows what else he did to that young woman. But thankfully, she was smarter than you, managed to get the door open and get out. She flagged down the patrol car a mile

before they reached the address you gave us. Everything seemed hot and cold at once. The air full of static as they tried to make sense of what they were saying. That's not true. None of that is true. Rock is my best friend, and I didn't kidnap her or do anything to her.

That's a lie. The big one snorted. I'm done with you. Tell you what, your buddy Brock wanted to see you, confront you. I was against it, but you're handcuffed, and maybe it'll give her some peace. So you just sit tight. We'll let her try on your BS for size. Standing up, he slapped the other one on the shoulder.

Go get her. I thought it was another lie, another trick. But no. Less than five minutes later, Brooke was led in and seated across from me. She looked dirty and tired, but otherwise, much like she'd always looked. Beautiful and smart and my best friend. But when I met her eyes, she looked away. Brock, what happened to you? Why did you tell them all that stuff? I glanced up briefly and then looked down again.

You know why. I don't. I swear I don't. What happened to you? I went to find you, the sandwich place. It had been tainted now. They were in there talking when I opened the door. Brooke nodded, rubbing a spot between the curve of a jawline and her ear. You know what that means? I nodded, caught up again for the moment in the mystery and terror of the last few months. Yeah, I think so. It means they can't predict everything. But when I make change, They adapt.

It means they're going out of the way to show me things. Let me overhear them. I don't know why, but they are. She started nodding slightly as I went on. It means that it's all real, doesn't it? She chuckled slightly, continuing to nod as she rubbed at the same spot on her face again. I felt my hands going cold as I stared at her. Brooke?

Hmm? Why did you say those things? about me. None of that is true. Her eyes found mine now, a broad smile on a face. Well, truth is a matter of perspective. But you're my friend. You're my best friend. Why? The ice in my stomach hardened with a sickening twist. You're not brook, are you? The woman's smile widened even more. She pointed a finger at me before gesturing down to the pad. best write all this down too.

It's all very entertaining. My voice began to climb as I tried to rise from my chair, only to be stopped by the handcuffs under a steel loop on the table. What did you do to her? I hissed. Where is she? The woman pursed her lips into a smirk and stood up,

making a point of affecting a limp as she grew closer to the door. Officer, I can't listen to him anymore. It's crazy. please let me out. She glanced back at me, her eyes twinkling. As she turned, I saw something move between her jaw and her ear. It was a patch of skin, rolling away like wallpaper

that hadn't taken to the glue quite yet. She caught it in her delicate fingers and smoothed it back into place quickly, but not before I saw the patch of grey scales beneath my dear friend's smooth skin. I started to scream then, prompting the larger detective to stick his head back in, yelling for me to shut the hell up. The thing that looked like Brock patted his chest placatingly as she passed,

murmuring to him like you might calm a horse or dog. I could only hear part of it. But it was enough. Just a beast after all. And it'll all be over soon. From worldwide topmerken To undernermers that Net Beginn't

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Start today your gratis Proof Period on Shopify.B.E That is Shopify B'E How's my first night shift. Working extra at a gas station is pretty far from every boy's dream,

but it pays the bills. I was hell-bent and not having another opportunity slip out of my hands because of money. One small investment and a move to Minneapolis, and I would have had a six-figure salary, but I just couldn't find the funds. So there I was, stocking the shelves at a gas station. Money is money, and there's plenty of future to go around, I figured. I'd worked a few day shifts before, so I knew the place well enough. However, I'd never been left alone for the night shift before. This was the first time I'd be completely unsupervised. Jada, my supervisor, was about to take off for the night.

She kept repeating the same instructions over and over. Then again, this place had a huge turnover. Maybe she honestly forgot I wasn't that new. No phones, she urged. If you got a slow night, make yourself useful. Nod and smile. I decided to get the worst tasks out of the way early. Cleaning the bathroom, restocking the freezers, taking out the trash, checking the receipt rolls, watering the plants.

Took me about an hour. It wasn't even midnight yet, and I was pretty much done for the night. I considered mopping the floor, but I figured I could save that for later. I'd been useful enough. I was on my fourth game of team fight tactics when I realized I'd forgotten my name tag. No big deal, really, but figured I might as well fetch it. The manager's office was usually locked, but tonight I had the keys to it. I opened the door and started going through the drawers.

Didn't take long to find the name tag. There was an entire box of them. At first I thought they were all blank. But as I started going through them, I realized they were all previous employees. Sure, this place had a high turnover. But this? We were talking about a hundred people easy.

This was ridiculous. I admit, this is where I started asking myself some questions. During the day, I'd only been there for about a week, and I was already feeling like a veteran. The only people who seemed to be regulars were the managers, Jada, Kennedy and Alicia. They seemed decent enough. So why were so many people quitting? As I got back behind the register, I realised there was a customer outside. literally just outside the door.

I waved at them. There was something off. They were just standing there, but they were so close that the automated doors should have opened. And yet, the door remained closed. It was a man, late 30s, scraggly beard, rough red shirt,

bit of a chunky look with sunken, bloodshot eyes and a natural frown. He just stared at me. I waved at him again, but I got no response. Can I help you? I called out. Nothing, not a blink. I pulled out a chair and sat down. The man stayed outside, looking in.

I tried not to think about it, but it was bothering me. I couldn't see his car anywhere on the cameras, and he didn't seem to want anything. I couldn't tell if he was on dream. drugs are just being weird. I gave him a few minutes, but he just stood there. Finally, I got up from my chair. Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. He didn't seem to listen.

He was a bit shorter than me, but he had a good 50 pounds on me. He'd be trouble in a brawl. I don't want to call the police, I said. Can I help you, sir? I pulled out my phone and held him. it up for him to see. I dialed the number and held it up for him to see. But still, nothing. Then my phone rang. Unknown caller. It was just past midnight. Without letting the unnerving man out of my sight, I took the call. Yeah? I answered. Please don't hang up, a voice on the other

and said, you're in danger, and I can help. I was getting nervous. I wondered back and forth, watching those bloodshot eyes follow me. Who is this? I asked. I'm Angie, the voice responded. I used to work there, same shift, same managers. I wanted to warn you. I'd seen an Angie tag in the box earlier, maybe even several. She sounded young and nervous as all hell. In a few hours, something terrible is going to happen, she continued, and if you're not out by then, you might as well be dead.

What are you talking about? Look outside. I'd been looking outside this entire time, but I'd been entirely focused on this one man outside the front door. From across the road, I could see more people, about a dozen lumbering out of the woods. I need you to leave, she said. Just walk out. Nothing will happen if you just walk away. Nothing will come for you.

Who, who are these people? What's going to... I don't know what... Look, she interrupted. It's perfectly simple. Just walk out the door. Something in me screamed for me not to do it. That I shouldn't step outside and walk past these people.

They felt malicious, and I couldn't put my finger on why. Still, I stepped up to the door. Leaving seemed like the obvious choice. Strangely, it didn't open. It won't open, I said. Hold on. They want to keep you in there. They don't want you to leave.

They want you to stay and die. Die? I asked. What do you mean? I stopped my pacing. Something was wrong. Was I locked in? Tell me exactly what is about to happen, I demanded.

Something is in there with you, Andrew sighed. It could be five minutes. It could be a few hours. But that thing in there is coming for you. And what thing are we talking about? The man with a bloodshot eyes had two people joining him. A young man with a grotesque over. a bite and a young woman who could easily be mistaken for a child.

All of them stared at me with the same broken eyes and rough clothes. They stopped inches short of the front door. It doesn't have a name, Angie said, but it'll leave you empty. It'll leave you like the people out front. But if I leave, I'll be okay. Yes, that's what I'm telling you. Hold on. I'll check the back.

I hurried out back to the employee entrance, pressed down on the cold handle, and the door swung open. Outside were another group of four people. Two young men, an older woman, and a girl no more than 16 years old. They all stared at me. I couldn't tell if they were drawn to me or the store. I stopped short of stepping through the door. Why did they come here? I asked Angie.

They serve their master. They want the spoils. What spoils? What? I thought about it. She was talking about me. Right, I said, nodding to myself. I see.

Are you at the back door? Are you there yet? Yeah, yeah, I'm here. Just walk out, she whispered. It's not too late. I was about to walk out. When I thought hit me, Why would they lock the front door, but not the back?

That didn't make any sense. If the purpose was to keep me here, they could easily barricade the back as well. Something didn't add up. The door is open, I said. Great, you can still make it. Why wouldn't they lock the back door, Angie? She hesitated, and there was a brief pause. If they're locking me in here to hurt me,

Why wouldn't they lock the back door? I repeated. I don't know, she said, but you have to trust me. They gave me the keys, Angie. They go everywhere. I can lock and unlock this door a hundred times. What's going on? They... they don't usually do that. I closed the door and stepped back. Four less pair of eyes staring at me. Look, said Angie, I was the last person to leave. They screwed up. I found a spare key and got out before he was too late.

Maybe, maybe they figured I'd warn you. Maybe they're trying to trick you. Sure, yeah, I chuckled. Convenient. I'm trying to help you, she cried out. Those things out there are to discourage you from going outside. They're harmless, but they're there to scare you. Can't you see it is all just a way for them to keep you in there?

I got one person screaming at me to go outside and no one telling me to stay. No locked doors, just plenty of creeps staring at me. What am I supposed to believe? Fine, you want more proof? Call the police. Hang up and call them. I ended the call. There were eight people out front by now,

all gathering outside the front door. I couldn't tell if they were trying to get in, or if they were waiting for me to step out. I called the emergency services, only to be met with silence, not even a dial tone, just a blank nothing. I tried a few more numbers. My mom, my friends, I tried going online, but all I got was a cached copy of sites I'd been to before. My background picture had changed to a black screen.

But there was something else. Something had started to smell. The freshly stocked frozen goods had suddenly gone bad And a stench was oozing out of the freezers Our flowers by the counter had withered and died All except the sunflowers which turned as sickly blue I wasn't getting through to anyone Being inside was awful

The single serving frozen meals were making me gag I figured I'd go for the landline As I got in the first the manager's office, I got another call on my phone. Unknown caller. Looking back and forth between my phone and the landline, I weighed my options. I chose Angie. How are you getting through? I asked her. How do you know my number? I still got the email password. I just checked your application. But how come your number works? Everything else is down. I'm calling from a private network, she said. They don't know there's a way in. They? I asked. I thought it was just one thing.

No, they're working together. People don't just go missing without someone noticing. So there's like a... an intelligence behind it? A conspiracy? Yeah, people come and go in these places all the time. Are they paying you under the table? They figured, uh, it was a sort of trial and no paperwork, no people missing, no records, just a box of name tags. It made sense in a way. But I needed more. I needed proof. There had to be something.

Why didn't you call me earlier? I asked. You could have called me as soon as I got the job or as soon as my shift started. I had to make sure Jada wasn't around, she said. She would have tried to trick you. I'm not sure you're not. trying to trick me. Why would I spend my time calling you from across the country just to have you fail? She screamed. If I was part of this, I would have just let you sit there with your goddamn

team fight tactics and die. She went quiet. So did I. I counted my breaths as I looked outside. There were more of them now. How did you know what I was playing? I asked. She didn't respond. The silence hung in the air. I'm asking you, how did you know what I was playing? She was just as quiet as the man with a bloodshot eyes still waiting for me outside the door. You're watching. You knew I was alone. You knew I was getting antsy about the guy showing up outside.

Yeah, she sighed. You tried to get me out as soon as he showed up. You tried to trick me before there were too many of them to scare me off. that's not, she sighed. I could hear heavy breathing. As I paced back and forth, I was getting ready to hang up. This was a trick. She was the one tricking me clearly, trying to get me outside, to join those things.

I know this looks bad, she said. I know, I'm sorry. I'm honestly just trying to help you. This time, I was the one keeping quiet. I walked up to the door, studying the people outside, blank stairs following my every move. I felt like a snake charmer, like they could snap out of it and tear me apart in the blink of an eye.

As I said, I have the passwords for everything. I'm the only one who knows them. I just wanted to give you the best shot at getting out of there. I hoped they wouldn't come tonight, but as soon as they did, I just... I had to do something. You're not being honest with me. I'm not lying.

I'm just... Just having a hard time explaining it. There's a lot of stuff about this that all sounds completely insane. I don't want to throw you off the deep end. Give it to me straight, I demanded. Tell me what the hell is coming for me. It's not a thing. Like, not real.

It's there, but it's just... I don't know how to accept. explain it. It just steps through. Steps through what? The world, the air, a ripple in time or something. It just steps in and it's there. And then? Then it shoves some kind of mouth spike into your head and gargles up something inside. A mouth spike? What the hell are you? Yes, a spike. No, I mean, it goes into your mouth. It doesn't have a mouth of its own. It just goes into you and...

Gone. Game over. I didn't know what to think. My mind was a jumbled mess. And I felt my pulse rising and falling. There were over 18 people outside in various states of disarray. All of them just staring at me. If I stepped outside, I'd know for sure.

What does it look like, does it? The lights flickered. There was a loud hum, a buzz, and then an electric failure. One of the fluorescent lights burned out, while the others just slowly dimmed to nothing. This was real. It was make or break by this point. Something was happening. The lights went out, I whispered.

Is this? Now! Angie screamed. Get out! Now! I ran. I tripped and tumbled my way into the back room in complete darkness. I almost twisted my ankle as I bumped into the lunch table.

I could barely hear my thoughts and I had to remind myself to breathe. The roof of my mouth ached as if anticipating a piercing pain. I could feel my head filling with blood and adrenaline as my dry eyes refused to blink. As I put my hand on the back door, I did the mistake of pulling instead of pushing. It took me three tries before a thought hit me. I couldn't see the sign on the door because of the darkness. In fact, I couldn't see anything. Nothing.

Angie, I weased, putting my phone to my ear. You there? Hurry, she screamed. You can make it. How did you see it? The thing was huge. It just... No.

How did you see it? You see it in complete darkness? You said the lights went out. It was right there. I can't even see the sign on the back door. How the hell did you see a spike? Look, I... And to add to that, how the hell do you know what it does with that spike?

You've never seen the thing kill. You said you were the last one to work this shift. And the thing sure as hell didn't kill you. You're missing the point. I... It doesn't add up, Angie. None of this adds up. You couldn't have seen it,

and there's no way for you to know how it kills. I stood there in the dark. I heard Angie panting on the other side, matching my breathing. You're lying to me, Angie. You're not trying to save me. She stopped breathing. For about a minute, it was just quiet.

The call ended. A wave. washed over me. I was either dead or saved. There was no in between. I was moments from finding out. Every little sound shook me, a breeze just outside, a crackling wire, ventilation struggling to turn back on. I hadn't even noticed my hand was on the door handle. You lied to me, I said out loud. You, you did. I caught you. There was a sound coming back. from the other side of the door, a shuffling of feet. Yes, said Angie.

From the other side of the door. I must have stood there for an hour until the power came back on. The people outside were gone. Angie was gone. My phone worked just fine, so I called everyone and just cried for help. The police found me locked in the bathroom in a full panic, and I barely even remember being escorted out. Cameras had picked up a mob gathering outside,

but that was pretty much it. They couldn't be identified from the backs of their heads. Jada and the other managers were called in, and they seemed genuinely surprised. I've since looked it up. A hundred people starting and quitting their job in a place like that isn't uncommon. People come and go all the time. The managers honestly didn't know why people disappeared, it seems.

Maybe this is just how things work. Or maybe there's more than one NG out there, preying on short-term workers. And the front door. There was no conspiracy there. The thing just jam sometimes. Some kind of trouble with the wiring. If I'd missed with it just a bit more, the thing would have kicked wide open. That broken door was the only thing that saved me from joining them that night.

I would have walked right out as soon as Angie asked me to. I worked there for another four months, but just day shifts and weekends. The night shifts seemed to go off without a hitch though. Maybe Angie and her friends moved on from an easy meal. I've saved up enough money for my move to Minneapolis. But I'd never forgive myself. if I didn't put this into writing. Looking back at it, it feels surreal.

There are things out there, things that want us to join them. There should have been 21 assignments for me to grade, and yet I was looking at 22. It didn't make any sense. I double and triple-checked the pile of papers, but there was no mistake. I only had 21 students, and yet there were 22 pages to grade. I was hunched over my desk looking through the pages one by one.

I took note of all the names, trying to find the extra assignment. They were all simple essays where they described what they'd done during winter break, and what they were most looking forward to in the coming year, a simple English assignment. In the middle of the pile there was one paper that clearly stood out. It was barely legible and there was no signature. The text was written in squiggly lines with a red pen, pressed so hard into the paper that it had punched several holes. I'll be free, the paper said. I got out and she has no idea there's two of us now.

The paper was barely legible, half. finished sentences describing a sudden awakening, thoughts of breaking things, describing people as disposable objects, hearing a voice in the mirror. My friend gave me a flower, and now I'm here. There was a scribbled drawing of a blue sunflower in the corner of the paper. It was the strangest thing I'd ever read. Yeah, I'm a teacher. The kids I teach are on the edge of turning into teenagers. It's an awkward age, but it is that space in a young person's life where you can really make an impact. If you can make them feel seen and heard, they might gain confidence that'll follow them for the rest of their lives. I have 21 students in my class,

eight boys and 13 girls. The day after I graded that paper, I didn't know what to think or say. After I took attendance, it dawned on me. Whoever handed in that paper was in the room right now. It threw off my tempo. I had them do individual assignments while I found my bearings. It was the usual ruckus, bickering and joking, awkward teenage flirting, loud discussions about whatever was new online. But something felt different, malevolent. It had to be one of the girls.

The paper had hinted at it, but which one? I handed out an extra assignment. Nothing fancy. I just took the crazy paper out of the bunch and distributed the rest among the students. For tomorrow, they were to write a short essay, telling me about what they'd read in the other students' essay. Reading comprehension and writing at once? No one would have a problem with that, except the students. As I got back home with some take-out sushi, I looked over the strange paper again.

There were some smudges going left or right. No matter if you're right-handed or left-handed, that'll happen. But further down, there were more smudges. It looked like the writer had held the pen like a hook with the pen facing the writer. It indicated a left-handed writer. I double-checked with a few articles online which said the same. thing. But there were no hook-handed writers in my class, I would have noticed. But I was sure there were a few left-handed people. I finished my sushi and went to bed with a chilling

feeling that I was missing something obvious. The next day I got the assignments, all 21 of them, no extras. I breathed a sigh of relief, figuring that maybe someone had just played a cruel prank on me. We got through the classes of the day without a hitch. We even managed the fairly successful math quiz. All in all, I wasn't complaining. The extra assignment wasn't that important, but I took them home to grade them anyway. Some had put some effort into their work, and I wanted to reward them.

No matter the age, everyone loves gold star stickers, and I had plenty on my craft's table. I started going through the papers, only to notice something. There were, once again, 22 of them. At some point during the day, someone had snuck an extra paper in there. Going through the pages, I couldn't help but to feel their bubbling sense of dread. One of these papers was going to be terrifying. It felt like getting slowly pricked by a needle. At first, there's just a pressure.

But you know the hurt. is coming. It was at the bottom of the pile. Red ink, barely legible, spots from a hook-handed writer. I know you've caught on, the paper said. I want you to know,

I want you to chase. There were little sketches of drops of blood falling into an open mouth, crude but clear. Chase me. I chase you. I didn't sleep well that night.

I pulled the curtains. I double-checked all the locks. I pulled the covers up tight, and I left the light on in the hallway. And yet, I still had that awful, sinking feeling that I was missing something. Was it Claire? She had always been a bit of an oddball.

Or maybe someone I'd never expect, like Shanda, maybe Petra, Fiona. I had this mental image of someone, following me to my car, a young girl hiding in the backseat, a maniacal smile popping up in the rearview mirror, sharp little nails and unblinking eyes diving towards me, cutting my throat open as I'm going 70 miles per hour down the freeway. I didn't sleep well, I started imagining shadows passing by in the hall, in the corner of my eye. A few days passed. I started taking notes on the girls in class. I checked what pens they had.

had, and which was their main hand. If it was just a matter of someone pranking me, it might be enough just to find a left-handed girl. However, no girl in my class was left-handed, and no one owned a red ink pen. I also had a chat with a school counsellor. They couldn't betray patient confidentiality, but they could tell me whether they were aware of any problems that might explain this. They weren't. If anything, they seemed more worried about me. Since this started, I seemed to be on edge. They didn't blame me, but they wanted to make sure I was taken care of myself.

I tried several tricks. I tried monitoring the hand-ins. I tried water-marking the papers. I tried all kinds of tricks, but I got nothing. At the end of the day, I kept getting outsmarted. It was as if the paper. just appeared out of nowhere, some time during the day. I couldn't pin it on anyone.

I tried to just forget about it, but every time I graded a paper, I feared that another threat would show up. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't, but the times it did, it just ruined me. That peaceful moment of grading papers and listening to audiobooks had turned into a horrific slideshow, I'll show you, one of the notes said.

I'll break a light in your house. That same day, the kitchen light stopped working. It didn't look broken, but how could I possibly tell? One of those days, as I was chopping leaks in the kitchen, I got this awful sinking feeling in my stomach. Looking out the window, I noticed something. A silhouette just a face. few feet away.

She was short, with long black hair. There was something wrong with the shape of her face. Her skin looked grey. For a moment, we just stared at one another. It took me a few seconds to realise that it wasn't just a face. It was a skull. Still clutching my kitchen knife, I stumbled away from the window. It had to be a mask.

That wasn't a real face. It couldn't be. Suddenly, the lights broke. All of them. The kitchen, the hallway, the bathroom. Hell, even my desktop lamp at my home office. All of them shattered, spreading hot shards across the floor with a violent bang. My ears rang, and I dove for cover.

It felt like a gunshot. Looking up, there was no one left outside. No mask, no kid, no nothing. I called the police, but there was little they could do. There had been a power surge. That much the electric company could confirm, but there were no witnesses of an intruder. I showed them the notes and filed a threat report. We had a long talk and they tried the best to calm me down.

But at the end of the day, I was still alone, and someone was out there. I went through that image in my head a thousand times. I had several girls in my class, but no one that fit what I'd seen. Her hair was too long. She was too short, too skinny. I couldn't think of anyone that fit that description. But she'd been there, no doubt in my mind. And I had this gnawing feeling that I'd seen her before.

Over the next couple of days, I couldn't stop seeing her. She'd be across the road as I went to work in the morning. I'd see her pass by the window in the cafeteria. And one day, as I was driving home, I saw her in the rearview mirror of my car. That grey death's head grinning at me. I was getting more notes, not just slipped into the hand-in assignments, but also just scattered around my apartment.

At one point, I snapped. I just stepped out of the shower. I put on a bathrobe and started to dry my hair when I noticed the message on the bathroom mirror. There, written backwards, it simply said, chase me. I screamed as my heart sunk. I broke the bathroom mirror with my hair dryer. What the hell do you want from me? I called out.

What the hell is wrong with you? I barely noticed the glass shards cutting into my feet as I stumped out. I'd had enough. I had to do something. I couldn't live like this forever. Kid or not, this had to end. Where are you? I called out as I passed through my bedroom.

Where the hell are you? I glimped something outside the window. Of course she was around. Always there. Always near. Come out, I screamed as I entered the kitchen. Show yourself. The moment I stepped into the kitchen, it shook.

Every drawer, every door, every appliance, everything flung open, as if pulled open by a steady hand. I was so frustrated I could cry. I just wanted it to end, but I was too scared to move. It felt like anything could happen at any moment, like the entire world was listening to me and reacting accordingly. I just stood there, trying to remember to breathe. Please, I whispered, show yourself. Stop this.

And, as if to answer my call, she did. The front door creaked. The hinges rusted and fell apart. A gentle breeze was all it took for the door to break. She was so small. There was no doubt in my mind. she wasn't wearing a mask. She was nothing but bone.

I backed away like an animal pushed into a corner. I tried to force myself to attack, to do something. But as a response, the kitchen shook again. This time, it was pandemonium. Cutlery crashed onto the floor. Plates rolled out of the dishwasher and broke apart. Glasses shot across the room like bullet. Even the little draw of miscellania collapsed in on itself, spreading knick-knacks and rubber bands all over the room.

I've chased you, I screamed. Are we done? Is this it? She raised a thin, grey finger. She pointed at something in the corner. A dry, blue sunflower. Something clicked in my head. That sense of missing something.

It was still there. But this was the answer. Somehow, this was it. What do you mean? What? Just talk. Don't just... There it was.

The first note. There'd been a drawing of a blue sunflower, and it said she'd gotten it as a present. This was that flower. I was sure of it. I got out, and she has no idea there's two of us now. That's what it had said. That was part of the very first note.

She was talking about me. I had written those notes myself. I'd handed in the assignments. That's how I never noticed it. I never looked over at my craft's table. My red ink pen was half empty by now. I had red smudges under my left hand. And then there was her.

Of course I'd seen her before, time and time again. I had long black hair as a kid. I'd been skinny and short. You found me, a little voice said. Funny, the images came flooding back. A shadow in the bathroom mirror, a simple hello, and a flower offered. I remember taking the hand of an impossible being, reaching across a nightmare space to darken my inner child.

This awful, malevolent being, living at the core of my soul. Something dead and resurrected tried to make room for madness. But it wasn't just madness. She was real. Doors don't just rust by themselves. Glasses don't throw themselves.

And I can't, for the life of me, cause an electrical surge with my mind. This was a real being with real power. And she'd settled in the back of my mind. And now I chased her. I found her. Do you want me to leave? She said.

I can. I didn't know what to say. Of course I wanted her gone. I wanted it all to be over. But there was this gnawing feeling that there was more to it. She didn't just scare me and torture me for the fun of it. Tell me to leave, she insisted. Set me free.

This was it, wasn't it? She wasn't free. She came from me. And so, maybe she was stuck with me. Maybe she couldn't leave. Maybe she couldn't hurt anyone else. Not as long as I'm around. It had said, I'll be free in that first note.

That meant she wasn't free as of now. To me, it suddenly made sense. Standing there, I just shook my head. "'You can't leave, can you?' I cackled. "'You're just as stuck with me as I am with you.' "'I could kill you,' she laughed. "'No, you can't, can you? "'If so, why haven't you?'

"'There was no response. "'You need me to cut you loose, to get you out there, don't you? "'That I find you and just let go.' I took a step forward and saw blood seeping out from the soul of my feet. My hands were rattling like leaves in the wind. I'm not letting go, I screamed. No way. I'll hurt you.

Do your worst. But there was nothing more. In the blink of an eye, she was gone. But in my mind's eye, I could still see her. Every memory of seeing myself. as a kid was tainted. I'd memories of seeing myself in the mirror with a skeleton face grin. I remember seeing my reflection in water puddles. I knew that wasn't what I'd look like, but in my head that was me. We were interchangeable. She was me and I was her. Two beings,

and I was gonna keep her here. I'll be a damn walking jail. I know it sounds like. absurd, but she is real, and nothing I can do changes that. I couldn't live with that thing coming out, reaching other people, spreading. I can't work at the school anymore. She scares the children. I'm afraid of seeing other people. She hurts them whenever she gets the chance. I've seen birds fall out of the sky, a family of moles lying dead at my doorstep, circles of roadkill lined up around my car. I've been thrown, cut, burned and beaten. But I haven't succumbed. She is just as scared of me as I am of her. I had to get this down. If you're listening to this, something has happened. Maybe an accident. Maybe I've grown sick. I've set this up to be posted

as my post-mortem, as an explanation for my eccentric behaviour. It's on a seven-day timer, so if I haven't confirmed my status by that time, it's safe to say, I'm not around anymore. And if I died, I pray to God, I took her with me. I don't want to think about what that thing could do if set free. Unbound. We wanted to do something special. for Lindsay's birthday. She turned 30 just as the COVID lockdown came into effect,

so we missed the big one. So when the stars finally aligned and our calendars synced up, we decided we were going to get her something special. A girl's night out for the first time in years. Lindsay always had a bit of a dark streak. Her birthday is just one week before Halloween. So by then, everything is pumpkin-flavored. and covered in plastic spider webs. Spooky things were just part of her aesthetic.

And even as a mother of two, we'd still see her sporting a skull necklace or pentagram earrings every now and then. But we were running out of time. We couldn't decide what to do. Some of us could set aside the whole weekend. Others had to work or be home by midnight. It was getting difficult to settle

on a single thing that would fit everyone. That is, until Agie found something that was just perfect. An escape room. We all met up on a Saturday. It was me, Dawn, Aggie and Lindsay. After a fancy dinner and a long walk, we arrived at the Apostle Collective Building. It opened about a year ago, and they'd been booked solid all spring long, that we managed to book a room this close to Halloween,

was nothing short of a miracle. Some of you have probably heard about them. They're sort of a chain. They got like five locations, most of them in Minnesota. The place was spot on. It didn't just have the classic Halloween stuff

but smoke machines, hidden speakers, projectors, the whole kit. The staff were dressed up in prosthetics, looking like old-time zombie carnival workers. We stepped in, they checked our booking and gave us a little box of free popcorn.

Lindsay was ecstatic. We told the staff it was all for a birthday, so they paid a little extra attention to her. She deserved it. As we stepped up to the door, they gave us an instruction. You're stepping into the box of the godless, grinning witch,

we were told. This is our longest, scariest room yet, pretty much brand new, apart from playtesters. You were lucky to get her booking. The other group cancelled last minute. Either way, all you need to solve it can be found there. Just try not to break any furniture or move something that's been bolted down. None of the clues will require a lot of force,

so you wouldn't have to break anything or exert yourself. Are there actors? Dawn asked. You can tell us, right? I can, but I won't. Whatever happens, you won't be harmed. Something might reach for you, chase you, touch you, but no harm. So please try to keep that in mind. Can, uh, are you leaving the door open?

Aggie asked. Can we leave at any time? Just knock or send us a text. The door locks automatically, but we can open it remotely with a click of the button. Just knock. So, what's the story? What's our deal? Interrupted Lindsay.

Goals, ghosts, vampires. I was so happy to see Lindsay like that, she could barely stand still. The box of the godless grinning witch is about a cruel witch who has trapped four souls in a little box. As they scramble to get out, they start realizing they're not alone. The souls have to find a way out while avoiding the monstrous beings trapped in there with them. There were no more hints and part of the experience was going into it knowing just two things. we had been captured and we weren't alone. Aggie kept a phone so she could text for hints and reach the staff if necessary.

The rest of us put ours away. This was going to be an intense game with a solved time average of about four hours. That said, we were allowed to stay until midnight and if we sold it without a hint, we got a very special prize. We could also send them a text to pause the game for a bathroom break. We put away our coats, dawned at a little stretch, and Lindsay was visibly shaking with excitement. This was going to be good. I was the last one to step inside.

Just as the door closed behind us, I noticed the staff member suddenly look off to the side. Their brow furrowed as they stepped back. In the blink of an eye, They were gone. Then the door slammed shut. There was something off, but I didn't want to alarm anyone. They were so excited, and the game was just getting started.

It was a black, wenderless room. Lindsay was being chatty, but Dawn and Aggie were kind of wondering what the hell they'd agreed to. After a few seconds, there was a chilling laugh, followed by a light. They'd installed a video projector in the ceiling. The entire room lit up as we looked up to see a video of an impossibly large woman looking down on us like we were the size of a rubic scoop in her hand. She had these sunken, joyless eyes and a wide grin that stretched ear to ear. Clearly, CGI.

Far above her, we could see the moon. As in effect, it was pretty impressive. I think she's based on a local legend, said Aggie, some kind of pilgrim myth I've heard about this. As the grinning witch put her hand over us, the room went dark once again, and electric torches flared up along the walls. The game was on.

There were all kinds of items all around, paintings, carpets, chests, tables, with strange ruins, classic escape room stuff. We all split up and started looking through whatever we could first get our hands on. Aggie found some sort of pamphlet and started calling out names. Dawn found a set of numbers under a chair. Lindsay was just soaking up the atmosphere, trying to find clues in the paintings. About 30 minutes in, there was this awful sound.

A rattling cage, followed by snapping metal. There was a loud moan and approaching footsteps. There were a few spots in the room there were obvious hiding places, so we hurried inside. Lindsay couldn't stop giggling, and even I felt my pulse racing a bit. But nothing happened. The pre-recorded noises came and went. There was this disconnect, like a pair of real footsteps, was supposed to sort of take over the sound. but nothing happened.

We just hit for a couple of minutes, then stepped out. Did we miss something? Dawn asked. There was a pregnant pause as we looked around the room. Nothing. Strange.

We made decent progress. We found a set of keys that opened a chest which revealed a black light disguised as a candle. Using it, we found a set of codes to decipher using it. a set of runes. We found out there was a touchpad behind a painting, which we could use to write a code, that in turn opened a small side room full of clues. So yeah, decent progress. Then again, we heard strange noises, rattling chains, loud moans, and thundering footsteps.

We figured this was it, that the previous one had just been a warning, so again we rushed to our hiding spaces. And again, nothing happened. This time, something was clearly broken. There was a recorded voice coming from the ceiling. I think he likes you, it whispered. Like hell it does, Aggie frowned. He's not coming out.

Relatable, Grinned Dawn. I'm using the bathroom. Text him. Aggie texted the staff as Dawn pulled on the door. It was still locked. Wait, Aggie said, they haven't responded yet. Dawn knocked on the door. There was no response, no sound.

Still nothing, added Aggie, no one. Something turned in my stomach, that sudden pinch of worry that something had gone terribly wrong. As Dawn kept pulling on the door, Lindsay stopped smiling. The pep in a step face. is this part of it, Lindsay asked. Isn't a meta thing? Are you in on it?

No, I protested. It's just one of those auto-locking doors, and they forgot to set it open, right? It's probably nothing, right? No response, sighed Aggie, holding a phone up. I'm calling Hank. As the others gathered around Agi, I stepped away for a second.

Aggie's husband, Hank, wasn't picking up. I put my ear up against the wall and listened, figuring I might be able to hear the staff chit-chatting in the next room over. There was supposed to be actors here or staff just outside. Something about this wasn't adding up. As I leaned against the wall listening. I heard footsteps again, but this time they didn't sound pre-recorded. I hurried to the others, holding a finger to my lips. Listen, I mouthed.

There was a slit in the wall where a door could open from the other side. Someone was coming this way. Is that them? Dawn asked, is that? Those were big steps. Really big, heavy steps. Without knowing who was coming, we all just silently agreed that this whole thing felt completely off. No one knew what to do.

Hide! There were plenty of things that hide behind, but the room was small. They'd find us in no time. Despite that, Lindsay and I hid in the small side room. We shut the door, held our breaths and waited. Dawn was small enough to fit in a chest, while Aggie hid behind a curtain in the back of the room. In the low light, it might just work. As the door slid open, I could hear heavy breathing, big,

dragging feet, and a weird, wet, snorting noise. A clear scratching sound as something sharp was pulled across the floor. Please, pick the small one first, Byron. A hoarse voice weased. Go on, pick it. A pig-like screech echoed through the room in response. This wasn't a recording. This was coming from whatever was in the room.

There really was something there, something big. I heard the sudden sound of tearing fabric and a scream, this awful, drawn-out death scream, a shrieking, pleading terror as someone was physically dragged out of the room. I'd never heard anything like it, and it was impossible to tell who it was. Then, with a thud, it all went silent. The door was closed.

Lindsay and I peaked out. The curtain that Aggie had hid behind had been torn down. She was gone. There was blood. We found Dawn curled up in a chest, shivering. She couldn't make eye contact. When we tried to snap her out of it, she just screamed and clawed at us. Her eyes were wild and she was barely breathing.

Did you see anything? Lindsay whispered. What was it? Dawn just shook her head. I could see there was a crack in the wooden chest. She might have been able to see something. We just weren't getting through to her. I'm not waiting for that thing to come back.

Lindsay said. Help me get the lights. What? I shivered. The lights. It can't find us in the dark. We went torch by torch and shut it all down. The room went completely.

be dark, and we gathered by Dawn's hiding spot. We crouched next to her, trying to calm down. It's part of it, right? whispered Dawn. Is agian on it? Are you just messing with me? No, something's wrong, I whispered back. I'm sorry, Dawn, there's...

Nonsense, weased Lindsay. This is nonsense, and I'm not... Who's got the phone? We all went quite. quiet. Aggie was the one with the phone. There has to be something, said Lindsay. Feel around. For what? I weised. Where? I don't know. How the hell should I know? Just try. Do something. I stepped up to the door. Still locked and no one outside. I started feeling around only to find two cables.

They might just be a light or something. But there was another. possibility. Look, maybe the door is locked until we text them or time is up. What if the door unlocks? Like, what if it unlocks when we solve it? It won't work, sighed Lindsay. There are some things in here that require staff member to manually click something open with a button. Some clues just won't work without it. But I don't think there's anyone out there anymore. What about fire escapes? You can't just, just lock people. in a room. I could hear Lindsay sink down to a floor. This is a mistake, she cried, all of it. The side door slammed open again. Big, heavy footsteps came in. Even in the complete dark,

we could tell there was someone huge in here with us, someone who smelled like dirt. Again, something sharp scraped across the floor. Byron, get another one. her voice laughed. Whichever you like. I just pushed myself up against the wall and turned my head on the side. I tried making myself as flat as possible. I knew Lindsay was doing the same.

Dawn, on the other hand, was panicking. No, she coughed. No, no, no, no. A loud, pig-like snort. The scraping thing was lifted off the ground. I heard two feet firmly put. planting in the ground as something heavy was lifted, and Dawn fell to the ground with a thud. She tried to talk, but she'd had all the wind knocked out of her. Instead, she just tried to get

away. I heard a loud exhale, the kind of sound where someone gets something heavy dropped on them, and in the seconds that followed, I heard this large being, Byron, violently dragging Dawn out of the room, To the untrained ear, her scream was almost the same as Aggies. As the door slam shut again, I heard Lindsay sobbing just a few feet away. I couldn't move. My body was stopping me from comforting her, and I'd been so tense my neck was stiff from pushing my face against the wall. For what felt like hours, we just waited.

It was probably just minutes. Finally, Lindsay got up. She fumbled her way over to one of the tables, flipped it on its side, and broke a leg off. Then she did it again and handed the second leg to me. Don't just... Just let them, you know, she said. Okay. Yeah, I nodded.

Yeah, no, I won't. I started to hyperventilate as my fingers wrapped around. the slippery wood. There was no way I could use this. My hands were so sweaty, the thing was falling out of my grip. I couldn't fight. Not with that. Not against whatever was taking us out one by one.

Maybe barricade the door, she said. Yeah, let's... Wait. It was a good idea, but it was too dark. That, and I could hear the footsteps coming again. faster this time, determined. The thing entered on its own. No guiding voice.

Lindsay and I held hands and pushed ourselves up against the wall. I couldn't hear it dragging anything this time, but I could hear lips smacking, followed by these high-pitched microgrunts. Whatever it was, it was loud, and it was munching on something. It wandered around for a while. feeling around the table, the chest, and even the little side room.

After a few minutes, it seems satisfied not to have found us and headed back to the door. Just as it was about to exit, we hit the 90-minute mark. The game, partly automated, was still running. The projector came on again, displaying this large woman in the ceiling. The entire room was lit up. It immediately saw us. The thing was easily six foot eight. It was dressed in this sort of torn wastly jacket with filthy mud-covered jeans.

There were long strands of black fur poking out of every cut and tear in his clothes, making it look like a badly stuffed scarecrow. It wasn't fully human. His head looked like a bore. It looked right at us. It snout twitched. with excitement. He had these small, dark eyes. I'll never forget how, when it looked at me, they lit up with nothing but joy. No matter the species, you can just tell. It was looking forward

to this. There was no fear, no malice, just unbridled, violent, joy, like a kid tearing into a happy meal. meeting my eyes the thing just screamed like a wounded pig and charged I stepped on my own feet and stumbled backwards hadn't it been for Lindsay still holding my hand

I would have gone down like a sack of flower instead I barely stayed at my feet as we rushed to the other side of the room still down there playthings the recording and the ceiling spoke Will you not give up? As the video played above us, the light in the room shifted. Whenever she was more in frame, the light grew more distant.

When she moved back, the full moon came into view. He'll get you play things, the narration continued. It is so, so futile. There was blood on his jacket. Fresh blood. As the video finished, we ran a full lap of the room. room. We were back at the door, and this time he was charging straight ahead. At the last second, Lindsay let go of my hand and we fell to the side. The boreman ran straight into the door.

It seemed to upset him as he focused all his rage on it, pounding, tearing, biting, all the while roaring like a wounded animal. His joy was gone. This was frustration. Hungry. It didn't take him long to break the door open, and as light floated in, he turned to look down the hall. The brightness from the street outside seemed to scare him as he took off out the back. Lindsay and I stayed on the floor a couple of seconds just to ensure ourselves that the thing was gone. We eventually crawled out the door, ready to run. There were blooded handprints on the walls, something resembling a fingernail. blood splatter on the ceiling.

We ignored it all, got up and went straight for the exit. Come on, come on, come on! I'd sprained my ankle and Lindsay was bleeding from her hand. We were about 40 feet from the door when we heard that voice again, the voice that had guided the boorman. Neither of us turned to see him. We just had to keep going. Tell them, he screamed.

Tell them. There'll be no kindful games in the name of her ladyship. Tell them to fear. Tell them all. Tell them to fear the grinning witch. He laughed so hard he couldn't breathe. Lindsay pulled me along when all I wanted was to collapse and cry. We burst through the doors and into the night.

And far behind us, the laughter faded. Getting this all out feels a bit weird, like I'm telling someone else's story. But Lindsay is as real as the last time I met her, and I don't think will ever overcome the trauma. I still feel myself stopping at random times, listening for footsteps. Lindsay has developed a sort of claustrophobia. No more locked doors ever. The police chugged it all up as an armed robbery.

The security cameras picked up four intruders getting in through the back door, three hooded figures and a large, masked man in a vastly jacket. The case was handed off to a special unit and promptly dropped. We didn't get any updates after that. It wasn't filed as a kidnapping or murder or similar. All they could prove was the breaking. But as far as what happened to Dawn, Aggie and the staff members, no one knows.

There was no car speeding off into the night. there were no witnesses. They seemingly vanished into thin air. It is true that the grinning witch was a sort of local legend, a witch that collected cursed animals and people and put them all in a box. The escape room barely had anything to do with it though. It was just loosely based on that idea. But somehow that was enough to draw out some kind of hate sect.

But I'll never forget. the man with the borehead. No matter how I think about it, no matter how I try to wrap my head around it, I can't stop thinking about him. That was no man in a mask, that snout was wet and those teeth were real. Not jobs are everywhere. But that thing? No, it couldn't be. It literally couldn't be. I don't think this will ever be resolved. Why would it be? Things like this don't just happen. They don't. But somehow it did. From world-wide topmerker to entrepreneurs who net begin

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where Where shall be sitting? A gesture to the glass wall that made up one side of the room. On the other side was an empty chair lit by a single spotlight, like something out of an interrogation scene. Yes, the aide answered, you'll spend three months in here and right over there will be the corpse. Will it smell? I asked,

unsure if the question was inappropriate. No, he replied. The room is airtight. Nothing could get in or out. That includes flies? There will be no flies, he said. Just the body, which will, as you know, and have been told, decompose over time. How did you find her? I asked. Mr. Brinshaw has his methods. I assume you've seen her then, I said. Did she look really identical to me? I am not allowed to answer that question, he replied. You'll have to judge for yourself once the exhibit begins in earnest.

How did you guys find her? She's not related to me, is she? This poor dead girl? She's not some long-lost twin. Mr. Brinshaw is an astonishing man. The aide replied, Many of his exhibits are organized decades in advance, and the considerable wealth at his disposal means there are very few obstacles he cannot overcome. His wealth is second only to his remarkable insight.

I wouldn't worry about the how of it all. That's for the critics to scratch their heads over. All you need to concern yourself with is staying busy for the duration of the exhibit, and when it's all over, collecting your payment. I could read between the lines. He was telling me to shut up and take the money. On to the computer, he said, moving swiftly over to the nearby laptop. It cannot connect to the internet, and the only application installed is a custom messenger service

that allows you to communicate with a staff member elsewhere in the facility. I was told it would be like having a personal shopper. Exactly, he replied with a reptilian smile. You are encouraged to use the service to acquire whatever comforts creature or otherwise you desire. For that reason, the room will be bare except for the laptop and a bed on the first day. I have been instructed to remind you that nothing is off limits. Our staff are creative and enthusiastic. It doesn't matter if you ask for oil paints, a pound of cocaine, or even a human heart.

We'll be able to find it for you. I can't imagine I'll need much more than a Kindle and Netflix, I joked. We'll see, he smiled, and then pointed to the camera on each wall. Quite literally, the live stream begins tomorrow. The premise of the exhibit was painfully simple, but also frustratingly clever. The kind of thing you hear and immediately wish you'd come up with it yourself. I was going to spend a month in a room sat across from a decaying corpse of my own doppelganger.

When it was all done, the footage would be edited into some weird art house film. I could spend the four weeks doing coke, or I could spend it learning to play the piano or just binging TV. It didn't matter. It's all too easy to imagine how anything I did could be twisted into some commentary of my own fear of death. At least I figured it'd be easy. But no one could have prepared me for what it felt like to look at my own dying face.

This wasn't a mere resemblance. She was my ghost. God, I thought, did they have to leave her eyes open? She looked sad. More than anything, that's what surprised me. She was posed upright in the chair and clothed in the same place. plain outfit as me. Her features were an almost perfect mirror of my own. She was not a mirror image, but neither are identical twins. There are always subtle differences and the effect was

eerily uncanny. Out of some morbid curiosity, I pulled up my own chair and placed it opposite her. I sat down and studied every feature of her face in the same way I would with a mirror. Why if she's sad, I wondered, only to feel a little stupid. She's dead, I thought, before getting up and trying to shake off the goosebumps that were crawling up my back. There was no need to look so closely. She and I were going to spend enough time together. A slot on the door opened and a small package came through. It contained the e-reader I'd asked for just a few minutes ago.

Better than Amazon, I grumbled. before looking up and catching her eyes. I tried not to look away, but it was hard not to. The room was so bare, so plain, and the human form is naturally attention-grabbing, especially when its cold-dead eyes are claring right at you. To my surprise, I realized she had a kindle in her hands. That's elaborate, I said,

then looked at each one of the cameras. I didn't want to look shocked, even though deep down I was pretty damn impressed they'd manage to slip it in there and give her a prop without me noticing. I was also a little unsettled, though I swore it didn't really mean anything. They were playing games, I thought. You knew it wouldn't all be spelled out to you. You knew there'd be little surprises along the way. Were you a reader? I asked the pale figure, before I even realized.

I was talking aloud. Of course, she didn't answer, but she looked like a reader. What did you read? I asked. Romance, horror, historical fiction? She didn't answer. Nor did she move, but I felt that she was listening to me anyway. The idea was ridiculous, so I shrugged it off and went off to read a bit of Agatha Christie. My room was looking a bit fuller.

I had a bookshelf, a desk, a switch, and a pretty down nice desk chair. Duplicates of everything had somehow made their way into the other room when I wasn't looking, which was starting to annoy me. It always happened in the few seconds when my back was turned, but it wasn't like I spent every minute of the day staring at her. If I wasn't sleeping, my head was buried in a book or watching TV. Would it really be so hard to run in there and shove a book on the tape? table next to her. I told myself it wasn't a big deal that this was just part of the game

being played by the artist. Before the exhibit began, I was convinced that the hardest part of this job would be the solitude. But between the cameras and her classy dead eyes, I actually felt claustrophobic, almost suffocated under the weight of so many potential gazes. I looked up to see if anything about her had changed, and nothing. had. It had been 20 minutes and I'd read the same six lines because my eyes kept darting upwards to catch sight of her sitting there, always in the background and out of focus. If I put on headphones and turned away, I knew I'd get a chance of ignoring her. But as the days ticked on, it was getting harder and harder to turn my back to her. I had no way to

explain the feeling except to say that she didn't feel dead. I'd seen bodies before and I'd never felt anything around them. They were just meat. They weren't pleasant to be around. Sometimes they made me feel sad. But I never felt like I was looking at anything other than an inanimate object. A person is what goes on inside the head and without that they're just inert matter. But with her, it was like she was looking right at me and my brain didn't know what to do without information.

I told myself, and I admit this is a pretty morbid thing to think that the creepiness would probably get better as time went on. The more she rotted, the less she'd look like me, and the sooner the illusion would fall apart. Sure, it'd be gross, but at least I wouldn't see my own features reflected back at me like I'd floated on down to attend my own funeral. without knowing why I got up from bed and walked up to the glass. Feeling hopeful, I looked at the first signs of decay, but some subtle change in the fit of her clothes that told me she was starting to bloat. There was nothing,

but as I watched a little fly emerge from behind her ear, it flew a short figure of eight in the air before landing on the glass and sluggishly crawling around. I didn't like it there, didn't like knowing where it had come from. It must have started life as a maggot and I already had a good guess as to what it had feasted on, just out of sight. I stuck out my hand and hit the glass. I only wanted to scare it off.

Imagine my surprise when it died beneath my palm in a fuzzy splat. I woke up later that night to find the stain on the glass gone. I flicked a switch and the lights came on with a rising wine. Slowly they brought the rest of a room into focus. The Kindle lay in the table, much like mine. The bed covers were ruffled, much like mine. Some bugs were on the mattress, much like mine. But she hadn't moved an inch.

There were no scrape marks by a chair. If anything, you could see the first few signs of dust gathering by her feet. I knew all of that background stuff was just theatre. It had to be. She was hardly climbing into bed and sleeping just like me. But I had this strange pit in my stomach that stopped me from letting it all go. Quietly, almost stealthily, I got up and approached the glass to study it. I told myself that I was only interested in understanding how that rich asshole had pulled off the fly trick.

But that didn't ring true to me. The fly had come from her, quite literally emerging from behind her neck and making its way towards me. It couldn't have magically passed through the glass. It just couldn't have. I touched the window and in an instant my thoughts were filled with images and were gossamer wings and writhing maggots. I gasped and pulled away, nearly stumbling over the chair that it did. slid behind me without me noticing. How it got there without me moving it, I couldn't say, but I hardly noticed it.

The images in my mind had felt so vivid, it was almost like an attack. I put my hand to my neck, just a check nothing was crawling there. But I could feel it. I could feel something, some ghostly sensation that persisted, and that was when I got the strange idea that the thoughts I'd just seen never actually belonged to me. They'd been hers. Ridiculous, I muttered out loud, if only to hear my own voice. I shook it all off and went back to bed, desperate to forget.

But from then on, the nights got really hard. Whether I was painting or reading or watching TV, I could feel the eyes glaring at me through the glass. I felt watched, the same feeling you get from creeps on the bus or train. And worse, it never went away. Every night these thoughts and sensations intensified, and that got me wondering if it was just the isolation playing on me. I consider myself a pretty robust person, and I took the job knowing I could do it and make it out fine. But you hear all those stories, about what happens to inmates in solitary, about cabin fever. So I started keeping a diary, only it didn't go very well.

They delivered it within the hour, and the first thing I wrote was have I overestimated myself. I immediately hated such an admission of self-doubt. Anything I made would be part of the exhibit, and the same went for those weak, sad, little words. I refused to let that happen, so I tore the page out, and what lay beneath was much like a punch to the face. There were words handwritten in a fountain pen, the same one I was holding. The ink was still wet, but the writing wasn't mine. And the words, reading them felt like reading my own death sentence. I am so cold, they said. I shouldn't be here. I'm meant to be somewhere else. I'm meant to be nothing. I want to be nothing.

Why do I still have shape? There are thoughts in this place that are not mine. They crackle like fireworks in the distance. I can see things silhouetted in their light. Tall things. I am not alone in this place. Her name was Natalie. I typed into the computer. computer. A few seconds passed before I got my reply. Somehow the digital word seemed nervous. You were not permitted to research the subject, they said. It had been a guess, or at least I thought it was. I'd woken up one night to find the name echoing in my mind like the passing scream of a motorbike. It had pinged around in my head all day and I was desperate to know if the impossible was true. So I came up with this little gambit to check.

We will investigate your behaviour prior to entering the room and check for signs of misconduct. If we find any evidence you had prior knowledge of the other woman's identity, we will discontinue the exhibit and payment will be revoked, the computer told me. I guessed it, I typed. She looked like a Natalie. We will tell you the results of our investigation when it is over, they replied. After a full week, she finally began to rot. I found myself constantly touching my own face to see if the skin felt puffy or cold. I checked my hair to make sure it wasn't falling out.

I pinched my legs, my arms, to see if they're as skinny as the reflection in the glass. Rinkled skin, lips that pulled back, black gums, and unnatural teeth. She was changing in a way that I didn't expect. Her eyes were like glassy marbles embedded in her skull. Grotesque, glistening, off-white orbs whose surface was a road atlas of blue and crimson veins. She looked wrong. I'm not an expert, but I always thought that bodies lost their shape over time. But she looked as if she was coming together.

Her muscles looked hard. Her face was more expressive. Her fingernails had become sharp and chipped. The look in her eyes It was a look of a torturer Trying to decide where to put the first needle I continued to check the diary every day There was always something new

Something harrowing Most of it was just her talking about the empty aching sadness she felt The sense of invasion of her thoughts being shared But over time The entries were starting to change The pain is unbearable. The tall things that live here won't leave me alone.

Sometimes I think I dream another life, but I don't like to think about it. This is reality. The only one that matters. There is only pain and hunger and deprecation, all at their hands. I shouldn't be here. I was meant to dissolve into this place, but something is giving my thought shape. Something is keeping me whole. The tall things tell me there is another world, another me.

They gloat, they tell me about the comfort she enjoys. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her, legs crossed on a bed while reading a book. The sight of it hurts more than anything I thought possible. Sometimes I feel as if my chest is going to cave in from the heartache, and the tall things laugh and tell me I don't have a chest. Not here. Not in this place. My connection to the other world intrigues them, excites them.

They want me to hurt her. I woke up, retching and gagging, barely able to breathe. For a second, I thought the staff were pumping gas into my room, choking me with some toxic vapours. I was sick all over myself before I even got halfway to the computer. My eyes burned so fiercely I could hardly see. My nose was bleeding, my mouth ran over with spit and vomit. It was a smell.

I was deep in something, inhaling it, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what. I looked over to her, and she was smiling. Of course she would be. This was her stench, her rotting, rancid, grotesque miasma that she had somehow sent after me.

I felt like I had my head inside a bloated, slick stomach. This was the odor of a sack city, of a mass grave. I reached the computer and banged out a message on the keyboard while I gagged and heaved my way through each individual breath. I can smell her, I typed. Three dots. Someone was replying, That's impossible. I threw up once more and passed.

out before I could let them know exactly what I thought of their impossible. The dust was no longer gathered by her feet. It was disturbed, and footprints showed that something had gotten out of a chair and stalked his way into the darkness behind her. Right now, she was still in the chair, still looking at me, still grinning. At least the smell was gone, although I had to spend all morning cleaning my own vomit. Even worse, the computer was unresponsive to my demands for cleaning supplies. I had to use some dirty bedding to mop it all up.

I thought you said this place was airtight, I wrote in anger. I could clearly smell her. I waited and waited. But no one wrote back. I sat in my chair and reviewed my supplies. It had been two days and no one was doing anything for me. I told myself it would be fine, but I didn't feel it. The night before, I'd woken up to the frightening sound of wet feet

slapping against the tile floor. As I rolled over to look, there was a hurried pitter-batter and the sound of a screeching chair. She was back in place by the time I got the lights on. It could have fooled someone else, but not me. I saw the path she had carved through the dust. And even worse, the viscous brown fluid, her rotting feet left behind. I was alone with this thing. They'd stopped bringing me food, and I had no way of opening the door.

Unless I wanted to try eating my books, I was going to have to get inventive. I looked around. I remembered the smell and looked upwards. There was a vent, and it was clearly as wide as my shoulders. I had no idea where it led. But it would be better than staying here, I decided. But I figured I'd have one last go at reaching the people outside. Please, help me, I typed.

And then I waited. And waited. I didn't want to go for that vent. I wanted this to be part of it, to be part of the exhibit. I wanted them to reveal this was all a big hoax, and I knew a lot of what I'd seen and experience could be a hoax. I knew that. With enough money, just about anything could be faked. Please, help me! I typed into the computer for the thousandth time.

I was crying again. Sometimes I wasn't sure I ever stopped. Three dots. My heart let. I was so happy. I led her a slobbery laugh. The kind where you don't even check if you let spit run all the way down your chin. But it quickly all came crashing down. I'm so cold, the screen replied. I hate it here. Why won't you let me die when I turned to face the window?

I saw that she was gone. The vent came off easily. I'd had to dismantle the computer to find a strip of metal that was thin and sturdy enough to match the flat-headed screws. And then I had to turn the desk over and stack. it on the bed so that I could reach the ceiling. It took me a good ten minutes of balancing in the air before I got the screws out. But when it was all done, the flimsy bit of cover was sent tumbling to the floor with a loud clatter. Above lay an empty square cut into the metal ceiling. It was freedom. Hard earned, but all the better for it. I reached up and momentarily hung off

the edges, just to see if they'd hold my weight. They buckled slightly, and the metal was sharp and rough enough that he was already starting to cut into my flesh, but the ceiling still held. I hauled myself up and took a look. The vents reached the long way to my left and right. There were no obstructions, and they clearly went past the boundaries of my room. Hoping they'd be able to hold me, I dragged myself into the vent and made towards the right so that I was moving away from her side of the room. The only thing I had for light was a smart watch that monitored my vitals. It wasn't under my control, but if I tapped the screen, it lit up with the time. So, that's what I did. I tapped the screen and used whatever meager light there was to shuffle forward a few feet

at a time. I could have done it in the dark, but it was tight and uncomfortable, and my heart was already in my throat. Every voice in my head was telling me to go back, but I knew that wasn't an option. I'd already eaten what food I'd had, and if I'd found a way out of the room,

then surely, with enough time, she just might find a way in. I couldn't just stay there like some sitting duck. Thankfully, the vent held up and I was making slow progress. But it was still progress. I couldn't exactly just turn around and look, but I did manage to sort of angle my head so I'd get a sense of how far I'd come.

The only source of light was from the open panel and it glowed behind me by a good distance. That meant I must be past my room and that if I could just find a way, way back down, I'd be out and about in the main facility. That was something I was desperate to do. My paranoia was already firing on all cylinders. Whenever I stopped to get the light back up, I'd swear there was a moment where the rhythm

of my feet carried on without me. It made me think that something was behind me, stopping and starting to match my own movements. and even worse I knew deep down that if this was true, it must be catching up with me. Slowly but surely it was taking its time, having its fun. I was all alone, trapped in the dark, metal walls compressing me so tight I couldn't even get my hands above my head. I had to inch along with my feet and elbows. Anything coming after me could take its time. I just needed to reach another vent that I could knock out,

but for some reason this duct just kept going and going. It never turned, it never sloped up or down, it just kept marching on. And the longer I went, the more convinced I became that any second I'd feel something brush against my ankle or my heel before I climbed down and dragged me away. And each time I checked my watch, I saw that the seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness.

By the time I stopped and let out a desperate, panicked sob. I'd barely been crawling for ten minutes. Please, I whined to no one in particular. Just let me the hell out of this place. A smell came wafting out of the darkness. It was the same overpowering odour I'd woken up to on that night. For a few seconds I remained frozen in place, acutely aware of how vulnerable and exposed I was while holding my breath, desperate to catch some sign of what might be coming my way.

But deep down, I already knew what it meant. Sign or no sign. She was in there with me. She'd realised what I was doing and she'd slithered up here to find and take me. as if to confirm my worst fears, I heard the sound of her breathing. Long, laboured and wet. It was like someone sucking oxygen through a stoma in their neck. I immediately began to wiggle forward, desperate to make any kind of progress.

But the metal walls rang with more than just the sound of my struggles. Somewhere behind me, her nails thrashed against the metal panelling with an excited and manic screech. There was no doubt in my mind now. She was chasing me, and the sound she made grew so loud, so quickly, they filled me with despair. But I didn't let it overwhelm me.

Sobbing and shaking, I kept on inching forward for as long as I could before something in me snapped and I tapped my watch to get a tiny slither of light. I wanted to use it to try and, turn and get a look at her coming behind me. Instead, it lit up a face just inches from my own. Wild, angry eyes, half-orbs bulging from a skull, glared at me while the smile twisted her face into a rubbery exaggeration. I went to scream, but it stuck in my throat. I was paralyzed, so frightened,

I felt my heart swell, and I wondered if it was possible to die of fright, more than wondered actually, I hoped. And then, the light of my watch died. A greasy palm smeared against my cheek. She tittered with excitement. I practically dislocated my shoulder so I could wrench one arm over and use it to defend myself. I'm still not sure exactly what happened next, but I think she bit me.

There was a feeling of pressure on my forearm, intense, sharp, painful beyond imagining. But I used the leverage to push her away from me. Any distance between us, I figured, would be good. It must have angered her because she stopped giggling and started grunting. And with one hand, she orcly grabbed my face and began to dig her nails into the skin. It hurt like hell, and I kicked, screamed and thrashed. with everything in my power. She responded by digging a talon-like thumb

into the fleshy muscle of my cheek. Using a nail like a shovel, she began to dig and grind away past the skin. And then, with growing force, she just kept on digging and digging until there was a little pop and a sudden release of pressure. And then her thumb was in my mouth.

Salty and sour and foul in a way that will haunt me for ever. She laughed and used the leverage to pull me forward. I felt her teeth released from my arm, and I knew, even in the dark, she was opening her mouth wider than was possible, or yank in my face, and closer and closer to a dislocated jaw full of too many teeth. Meanwhile, my mind reeled from the alien sensation of a wrinkled leathery skin pressed up against my tongue.

I'm not sure I ever really thought about my next action. not the reason for it or even the potential consequences. Something in my mind snapped and did it for me. I bit down. I bit down so hard that one of my teeth cracked. But I didn't let up. I didn't stop until I heard a loud snap and felt a hand slip away while something else came loose in my mouth.

I spat the thumb out and screamed and with my free hand I began to rip. and claw at anything that might be in front of me. I was so out of it, so enraged and disgusted, that I didn't even feel the air duct started to swing and move. In fact, I wasn't really aware of anything other than hate and malice until something gave with an audible twang and the tunnel was flooded with light.

I briefly felt myself falling. And then there came a blow so hard and knocked everything out of me all at once. Once. When I awoke, I was still in the vent, only it had been relocated to the dusty concrete floor of a storage space filled with old boxes. I immediately pulled myself out and looked around for any sign of her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The only thing left of her was a thumb, whose foul stink still permeated my mouth in sinuses. As my body crashed, I finally took the time to bend over and heave up what little bile and fluid there was in my stomach. Meanwhile, my skull pounded and my chest felt like I'd fallen asleep with a boulder on top of it. But in a way, I enjoyed the pain and discomfort. It reminded me I was alive, despite everything I'd been through. As soon as I was done going through the motions, I straightened.

myself out and made for the nearest door. I was shocked to find a hallway lit by the thin suggestions of sunlight. Windows up high, glowed blue, and the sight of it made me laugh out loud. But there was something else behind the appearance of escape, something unpleasant. When I'd arrived, the facility was thriving with people. The electric lights carried a warm amber glow into every knocking cramination. of the winding hallways. But from where I stood, there was not a single light turned on,

nor was there the hum of nearby electronics or the passing of feet. It was dead, abandoned. Looking around only confirmed my suspicions, but perhaps not in the way I'd hoped. I found an empty office with a smear of blood across the walls, papers thrown around the place, A canteen with a fridge turned over And the table smashed the pieces

An archive with signs of a fire Having raged the filing cabinets One room looked like an altar With all kinds of funny symbols drawn on the walls Whatever its purpose No one was around to tell me Something had torn through this place And left no survivors

Didn't take a genius to guess what After a while I found my observation room. Rows and rows of cameras showed every little inch of my room, including the toilet. Given the paycheck, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that they'd had no respect for my privacy. But it still ticked me off anyway. Well, they weren't observing me anymore. A greasy trail of bloody footprints that led out of the room and towards a wrenched open bulkhead, let me know that Natalie had gotten out and dealt.

with the staff. And from the smell, I'd have to say it happened a good few days ago, around the time they stopped replying to me. That made sense. I did find myself worrying a little about where the bodies actually were. Maybe they'd fled. Maybe they never got the chance. What Natalie might want with them, I couldn't imagine. But if she had taken them away, I only hoped they were dead. I'd looked into those eyes, and they were filled with a special kind of hatred. Natalie had at least returned to a room. What motivated her to stop attacking me, I couldn't say. But as I approached the screen that showed her,

she turned her head slowly to gaze through the camera and write at me, and I knew she was aware of my watching her. I got the sense that it agitated her. That my mere proximity wound her up like a toy, and the longer I looked, the more I risked her sparking into full-blown life and coming for me. So I turned away and moved on, and I eventually managed to make it out of there, using a set of keys I found dangling, laying in a pull of blood. After a process of elimination, I found the parked car they corresponded to, and used it to get

the hell out of that place. I was all too happy to leave it behind, of course, to leave it all behind. Escaping with my life was more than enough for me. But a few weeks later, a check did arrive. That didn't bother me so much. It felt earned, if I'm honest, and I'm glad I got the money. I noticed that Mr. Brinshaw had signed it, and even worse, he'd written a little note for me on the back.

My condolences on the loss of your long-lost twin sister. Along with those faintly mocking words was the diary Natalie and I had somehow come to share. A congealed brown handprint covered one side, and her name was scrawled onto the back. The sight of it made me feel sick. But that didn't stop me from reading the final entry. It was nice to meet you. Even though you weren't very nice to me You're lucky you fell asleep

When your thought stopped So did mine But that's not a permanent solution Is it I'm still out here Maybe I was a little impatient But I won't Make the same mistake

Again As a kid I was scared of pretty much everything At night I'd see faces moving in the wallpaper. I'd see branches slither like snakes. Piles of clothes turned to slump bodies. Lamps look like heads. And the front of cars grinned at me with sinister intent.

I could also hear them. A creaking door would sound like a groan. The wind would scream. The floorboards would breathe heavy sighs. To me, there were ghouls, ghosts and monsters around every corner. Warner. Needless to say, I was a nervous kid. Turns out it wasn't just an active imagination. I have a condition. It basically boils down to chronic, overactive paradolia. You know, the thing where you can see faces in cars or shapes of people in trees. That's parodolia.

It is a sort of defence mechanism that humans have evolved to notice camouflage creatures like jaguars and snakes and to discern the sounds of encroaching predators. But to me, it is about 16 times more noticeable than what is normal for the average person. I see things everywhere all the time. Of course, there were treatments. By age 12, I had tried six different regiments. over a total of four years, and the side effects were brutal. Some would make me irritable, while others would make me hyper-focused.

One type of medication just straight up put me to sleep. By age 18, I thought I'd never get a job. I was barely dragging myself through school, and there was no way I'd make it through college. I was on a course of drugs that barely kept me together, but they gave me these awful ticks. I'd drop things I'd wake up in the middle of the night

my leg would shoot out and trip me I was a mess my mom had to cover the stairs and handrails and grip tape a few years ago I had a standing meeting with the county employment services every Thursday I hated it

on a particularly bad day my mom had to drive me there the meds were kicking my ass She dropped me off at the end of the street And just in that short walk to the office I almost tripped into a brick wall I was so flustered I knocked over a trash can But for the first time in a couple of years

I had an interview with a potential employer I didn't think much of her She was just some old woman in a warm coat She introduced herself as Teresa And told me that she'd heard a lot about me. She offered me a trial and a hefty one-time payment. I didn't get a clear idea about what I was supposed to do, but she told me that secrecy was a part of it. The only demand she had was that I stopped taking my meds. Still feeling the trash smell on my pants,

I took Teresa up on her offer. On my first day of work, I had no idea what to expect. I'd been off my meds for a week, and I'd barely slept. It was hard to wrap my head around the world as I'd seen it as a kid. I'd see faces in the walls, in the shadows, in the leaves, in patterns, pretty much everywhere. I'd hear voices and screams in every breaking car, in crinkling paper, in creaking floors. It was hard staying focused, and I was so jumpy, I could barely. barely move without flinching.

Teresa picked me up in a grey sedan. She was wearing a headset and kept looking over at the GPS. I noticed her leg was twitching and that she kept biting her lip. She barely looked at me the whole ride. We finally arrived at a small yard, about a 40-minute drive off the highway. There were two large trailers and a single-story rundown prefab house from the six One of those things were cheap wood panels and matching broken windows. There were eight other vehicles in the yard, four sedans, two vans, a jeep and a bus.

They'd set up warning tape, a command tent with laptops and an antenna, spotlights, and half a dozen crates covered with blue tarps. There were armed men with assault rifles, security personnel with handcuffs and a couple of men of medics standing by with first aid kits and a stretcher. I was swarmed as soon as I stepped out of the car. They fitted me with a headset, protective gloves, a heart monitor, and tagged me with a plastic ribbon around my left wrist. All the while, Teresa was just looking around, a bead of sweat stinging her eye. What are we looking at?

she asked. Three, four. Just one, I heard in the headset. We got it early. You got the spot? On sight, she responded. Any blues? No blues.

We're clear. Teresa finally turned to me. She faced me, put her hands on my shoulders, and talked slowly. This seems like a lot, she said. All I want you to do is go inside, carefully, and tell me what you see. see. Why? I asked. What's in there? I don't know, she sighed. None of us know. But we think you can see it. Is it dangerous? She shook her head. We don't know. We're trying to get to know them. There was a flurry of instructions. I had to sign a waiver. They took pictures of me from six

different angles. They took several blood samples. They took a swab from my tongue, checked my eyes, and fitted me with a pair of safety goggles. Teresa took them from me just seconds later. Nothing around the eyes, she said. You need to see clearly. They asked me to approach the door while they were running some kind of diagnostic. Weapons check, systems check, ready checks. It felt like we were launching a rocket. I could feel my legs shaking. I'm with you all the way, Teresa said over the headset. You can leave at any time.

Just tell me what you see. And I really mean what you see. A countdown began. At zero, the spotlights turned on, and the entire yard turned into a soundless ghost town. Everyone held their breaths. It was my turn. I stepped inside, a simple one-story house, three rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen.

Someone had clearly lived there until recently. There were still clothes flung over a chair in the living room. The power was off, but the pale spotlights coming in through the windows made it feel like I was walking through a hospital waiting room. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn't know what to expect. But this payday could be the boost I needed to get my own place, a paycheck with four zeros, for a single day of work. But standing there, looking into the sterile living room, I was having doubts.

What do you see? asked Theresa, notice anything? No, just furniture. A couch, an old TV, a fancy carpet. Nothing out to the ordinary. I just walked around, saying out loud what I was seeing. As the minutes passed, Teresa was getting impatient. These are just things, she said. I need you to tell me what you really see.

I entered the bathroom. And immediately felt this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. A noise tickled my air. I looked in the bathroom. a mirror. I could see something moving behind me. In a heartbeat, I caught a glimpse of a pair of blue eyes. I turned around screaming. Something, something moved. I flung myself backwards, closing the bathroom door with the tip of my fingers. I stumbled, tearing down the shower curtains and crushing a cockroach. Laying there with my feet in the air, I tried to remember to breathe

Rarely have I ever been so scared that I had to remind myself to breathe. My fingers tingled with adrenaline. Tell me what you saw, Theresa yelled. What's in there? Blue eyes. It had blue eyes. Did you see where it went? I didn't.

To the best of my knowledge, it was still outside the door. Look again, she continued. Look again, then get out. She had to coax me out of the bathtub. She encouraged me, spurred me on, and reminded me that I had to leave that room one way or the other. It probably took them 15 minutes to get me out of the tub, and when they did, I could barely feel my feet. When I finally opened the bathroom door, I couldn't see anyone. The hallway was empty.

I carefully stepped out. looking around, nothing, standing in the middle of the living room. I felt like an idiot. This was exactly what I was taking my medication for, paranoia and sudden bouts of fear. It dawned on me that maybe I was influenced by all the people outside and their preparations. I was walking in here expecting to see something. They'd worked me up. so of course I was seeing things. But then again, there was an odd painting on the wall that I hadn't paid attention to earlier.

It was the strangest thing. It was a sort of thrift store painting, showing two women walking across a bridge on a hot summer's day. It was sort of generic, but I'd been hyper-villigent when I first stepped in. You know that feeling when you say a word, over and over so many times that it starts sounding like a noise. That's the feeling that fell over my eyes. The picture started to blur and disappear, turning into swirling colors. And there, in that blur, I saw those blue eyes.

There were small blue dots in the water on the sides of the bridge in the painting. That's what I'd seen And there I'd seen a face Something blending into my sight Disappearing And for a second I knew for certain

That I hadn't seen this painting When I first stepped inside And now It knew that I could see it I felt it I slowly started to back out There's something in the painting, I whispered, in the living room. You sure, Theresa asked?

Absolutely sure, absolutely. Get out. I rounded the corner and heard the floorboards creak. I could no longer see the painting and I could sense something move. Backing out to the front door and into the cool autumn air, I could feel hands on my shoulder. Armed men pulled me back, and paramedics started to check my eyes with flashlights. They asked me all sorts of personal questions, like my name, my mother's maiden name, and the name of the president. I was told to lay down as I heard a team breach the house with stun guns, cattle prods, nets and a crate.

Laying there and feeling the pressure subside, I just cried and laughed. I didn't even notice Theresa sitting down next to me. I was given a cold drink and a pill, and I took it without question. You did good, she said. You're done, you're done. What was that? What's in there? Something only a special mind can see.

That was my first time working with Theresa. Over the coming years, I will be called in about once or twice a month, and the pay I got from those few days were enough to get me out to my parents' house. Teresa would check in with me weekly, and I had to submit to regular checkups, but more often than not, I was completely off the leash. I started to learn a bit more about the company I was working for and what they were doing. I started getting payments from Hatchet biotechnica, the subsidiary of Hatchet Pharmaceuticals. My official title was contractor, a title that was repeated like a name. Teresa started going into greater details on what to look for and how to act. But that first mission was a sort of test to prove myself.

I had no idea what I was actually providing, but it felt like my tendency. to discern patterns and seeing dangers helped me along. I learned a bit more about their procedures. For example, they were adamant about, quote, checking for blues. This meant surveying the nearby area to look for some kind of infection, usually taking the form of miscolored flowers, most often blue, but not always,

sometimes tulips, most often sunflowers. Once, they just found a bunch of teeth sticking out of the wall. Whenever they checked for blues, this is what they would look for. Something overtly strange and unnatural. When something like this was found, the whole mission would be called off, and they would use controlled explosives to just take out the entire area. In more populated areas, they set up tents and use flamethrowers. I remember once the week before Christmas when six men with flame throwers were called in to burn down a greenhouse.

I'll never forget the way the flames reflected off their visors. To them, it all just looked like flames. But I saw something else. I saw bodies breathing in the flames. I heard screams in the shattered glass and in the charred remains of melted plastic. I'd see painted faces glaring at me. with hateful black eyes. Up until a few months ago,

I had worked a total of 33 cases over two and a half years. Every case, I'd step into a location and look for one to three things hiding in plain sight. Up until that point, I still had no idea what they actually were. Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of something running past me or see a pair of blue eyes looking at me from across the room.

Every time I just reported it and left. A chair, a fridge, a suspicious window. Hell, once it was a music box. This time, we were just coming up to a house. It was a rainy autumn evening, and the area was already set up when we got there. I saw a for sale sign, knocked over by one of the jeeps who'd taken a wide turn.

I got suited up. blood samples, plaster grap, all that jazz. It was set up to be just another job. Although I was still nervous. I was getting better. No blues? asked Teresa. None, said one of the armed men. We're looking at a single tango.

You sure, Teresa squinted. First report said six. Secondary reading says one. We might have runners. Notified Galapagos, she sighed. Put him on the. the hunt. She turned to me with a smile, tapping me on the shoulder. In and out. You got this. I got this, I repeated. Yeah, standard routine. Countdown, spotlights, game on. It felt like

stepping onto a stage. As I walked through the door and saw my shadow stretch out across the floor. I felt like a hunter, that I was the one to fear, and that whatever stayed in this house tried to hide for good reason. The floor is crooked, I noted, strange place. You sure? Yeah, I nodded, definitely. I stayed in myself and started checking the rooms one by one. I waited for that strange feeling to emerge. My eyes. seeing through the obvious and seeing the picture beneath a picture, the blue eyes emerging from nothing, and the patterns of shadowy figures growing clearer. Just relaxing and expecting that feeling to wash over me was enough to put me at ease.

But I could still feel a primal part of me tickling my nerves, expecting me to panic. But nothing happened. I checked the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. There was nothing. Just a strange, crooked floor, empty rooms and the echo of my own footsteps. An empty guest bedroom with a single window. Through it, I imagined scowling faces in the trees outside. Twenty minutes passed and I got nothing.

I reported to Teresa and she assured. me, we were still getting readings from inside the house. Something was still in there with me, but I hadn't seen anything. I went through cycles of denial, fear and anger over and over. What was I missing? Finally, I just sat down in the middle of the living room floor. I scratched my eyes, sighed, and tried to relax. Teresa, I'm not feeling it.

Are you sure? There was no response. Teresa? Yeah, she responded absentmindedly. Yeah, no, I... We're good. Hold on for a minute. We're good, I asked.

What do you mean we're good? Again, no response. I stomped around for another ten minutes before I went up to a window facing the front yard. It was hard to see the glare of the spotlight. Teresa, I'm coming out. The place is empty. As soon as I opened the front door, I saw two dozen faces fixed on me.

Maybe they were surprised to see me, but I got the sense that there was something else. I could tell something was off. They all looked at me with strange expressions, some neutral, some smiling ear to ear. One of the paramedics just stared at me with slack, with slack, terror. It was as if they didn't know what to feel or how to express it. A hole sunk through my stomach. I got that hollow feeling as my eyes glazed over like I was staring at something false, something hiding a pattern. This was the sense I'd been looking for inside, and now I was feeling it. In the far back, I saw Teresa. She stepped out from her. She stepped out from her.

behind a jeep, smiling ear to ear. Behind the shape of her, her eyes emerged, glowing with a cold blue. One by one, their eyes flared up in a blue glow. And there, in a moment, my paranoid sight registered human-like shapes in the grass around them. Headless, mauled bodies, impostors, lookalikes, mimics, nightmare beings, having tricked us into a trap. One by one, smiles started creeping across their faces,

rows of impossible sharp teeth hiding long tongues. Their fingers grown longer, the necks elongating. They were losing their disguise and facing me, head on, unafraid. Nothing was said out loud, not a word. But to me, it was as if the... The wind itself was screaming for me. To run. I slammed the door behind me and ran.

Faces were coming out of the walls. Door handles turning into hands, grasping at my clothes. My distorted face, reflecting in the windows and mirrors with jawless grins. I couldn't blink. Every heartbeat, a new horror forced my eyes open. There were more doors than I could remember. there were more windows than there should be. The kitchen suddenly had a skylight, and there were four fridges.

Countless paintings had appeared in the master bedroom, depicting cruel and blood-drenched horrors. They were already here, trying to surround me, and my mind was racing to remember what was real and what wasn't. Rushing to the back of the guest bedroom, I remembered there being only one window. now there were two I had to roll the dice take a guess do something as I grabbed the window frame I imagined teeth slamming into my hands

tongues licking across my palms white smiles sating their hunger but this time it was just my imagination I burst through the window and took off running into the woods Through the night I just kept going My chest hurt from holding the screams in Without my medication

Everything in the dark looked like something reaching for me Trying to eat me Trying to grab me Creaking branches sounded like laughter And howling winds were screams I must have run for hours When my foot got caught between two rocks As I tumble to the ground

Twisting my ankle I saw them descend on me. I felt their fingers scratching me. I writhed on the ground, screaming for them to just let me go, to just please, please let me go. But after a few seconds, I realized I'd just scratch myself on the underbrush. There was no one there. I was safe. I broke down crying, trying to ignore the twisted face reflecting off the full moon of

Eventually, I made my way home. There were no messages waiting for me. All my work numbers had been taken offline. Always to contact them were just gone. And there was no information on the firm that hired me. Hattrip biotechnica exists only on paper. There's no location, no contact info, and no names attached. It's all a front.

I haven't heard from Teresa since. I think that whoever I've been working for has just assumed that I'm dead. That's why I decided to share this anonymously. Those who know who I am can reach out to me, and for those who don't. I just have a word of warning. Be observant. Trust your intuition. It might.

Just save your life. the topmerker to entrepreneurs that net begin. Milliooning and retrow on Shopify. Vercoop online, in your winkel, on Instagram, TikTok and more. All of one platform.

Beheer your products, and bestellings and betaling and failings, and easy-foward. Shopify grew with you me, every step of the way. Start today not your gratis-proof-periodo

on Shopify.b. That is Shopify. . . Be. in October of 2016, following my conviction for armed robbery. I'm not here to garner sympathy, but I want to be clear on a couple of things. This was an unfair sentence. Not in the usual, innocent man put in jail type of shock,

but in the way that they were clearly pushing me towards being put in a particular jail. I had my blood tested, and my hair was sent to a lab. They took pictures of my finger. I'd never seen anything like it, but I was basically catatonic. I was in a bad place, wanted it all to just be over. At the time, I didn't think much about the processing. I didn't think about the records that were passed between the guards and doctors, and I didn't care much about the blue rubber stamps that were put at the base of every sign legal document.

I didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. I just wanted to get into the haze and no brain the next six or so years away. I was put in a cell with Leanne Sun, a Chinese-American man. To this day, I don't have the slightest idea what he was in for. Guy looked like your average college kid, but there was just something off about him. He just had this look of complete dissociation, like he was miles away. He never really looked at you.

It was as if he looked straight through you. Then again, a lot of inmates get that. I barely managed to talk to him in the first few days. We agreed that I took the top bunk, but that was pretty much all we managed to talk about. We had a straightforward schedule. Breakfast and work up till 11. Lunch, more work, some yard time, dinner.

After that, we either got to our specialized programming time, religious services, NA, anger management, etc., or an extra hour in the yard. Then, back in the cell, lights out by 11. In my first few days, I had to go through a lot of orientation. There were the kind of who's-who introductions you might expect, but also just someone pointing to which shelf they stuck the detergent. basic stuff I got a job cleaning the beddings they were so cheap

that a firm enough poke would go straight through them like a piece of paper washing them was basically putting them in a shredder we had to go on such a low setting that they rarely ever got clean

I swear I saw a cockroach in one of the pillowcases once and the damn thing was still alive after the wash and dry the pillows were also crap they ripped easily and feathers would get stuck to everything there probably wasn't a room in this whole facility without feathers littering the floor

hell they were even in the yard most of them were in fact we'd have rotating schedules so I rarely got to work with the same people two days in a row I started to recognise a few faces but people mostly kept to themselves there was no locker room talk no broken Raggarts, no bravado, just people hungering down and shutting up. But even early on, I noticed something was up.

I think it all came down to the yard. People stayed away from the prison yard. No one used the exercise equipment. People just stuck to the walls or silently walked by the fences. There were no loud conversations, no sports, nothing. and as soon as that three hours up people were pushing to get back in. From day one I got the impression that the yard was a bad place to be, but no one was telling me why. What kind of prison has dust on the free weights?

By the end of the first week, I'd started to get into the routine. I was out cold by ten most nights. Hell, I had the bedding with the least holes in them. might as well use that luxury. But there was that one night when I just couldn't sleep. I'd lay down and then all of a sudden

I'd be wide awake. There was this whistling wind that came down the hall and it just kept echoing in the back of my head. At first it was a wind, then a whistle. And with no other sound around

it kept growing in my head until it sounded. like a goddamn fire truck siren. I'd push my hands against my ears, cover my head in a pillow, but it didn't do a thing. Finally, I just started to mutter to myself, just to fill the air with some other noise. Please stop, I whisper, please stop.

And the funny thing? It did. It stopped. The next day, I was exhausted. I kept nodding off. breakfast, lunch, dinner, pretty much any time I could sit down. The guards would push me awake and the other inmates just sort of stared at me. Some of them actively avoided me like there was something wrong with me.

When it was time for the yard, the guards took me aside and asked me to help clean the common area. No yard time for me. Got to sweep some feathers. That night, I went to bed as soon as I could. could. But the moment my head hid that pillow, I was wide awake again. And down through the hall, there was that howling wind. There was no way for me to sleep. The sound just kept growing, and all my tiredness was just gone. Whispering didn't work anymore. I had to speak out loud. Around midnight, I was still awake. I was just lying there, talking to my.

myself, putting words to the random thoughts in the back of my head to keep my mind occupied. Anything to drown out that awful droning noise outside. I couldn't let it grow further. It was like trying to stop a ship from sinking, one bucket of water at a time. I don't have the slightest idea how Leanne tolerated it, but he didn't say a word. Things just got worse. I couldn't sleep that entire night So when it was time to get up

I could barely stand I fell asleep brushing my teeth Dropping my toothbrush in the sink I was so used to talking to myself by then That I'd blurt out whatever came to mind I was sleep deprived Exhausted and just Confused

And people took notice There was this one guy Marlin Who was about as new as I was. Short, athletic guy who was just itching for a fight. I accidentally bumped into him in the lunch queue and he went off on me, pushing me out of the line, bashed me over the face with a tray and just started wailing on me. The guards were taking their sweet time, so I just had to take it, but I couldn't. There was just something in me that wanted to hurt this guy.

I grabbed his shirt and looked him in the eyes. You want to get whipped, I said. You want us to whip you? I don't know where the words came from. It was just the first thing that came to mind, and the sleep deprivation just forced it out of my mouth like a hiccup. What did you say? He stammered.

I asked if the little greenie wanted a whipping. He backed off. His jaw went slack as he just stared at me, unblinking. Just as I found words out of nowhere, he'd lost them. His eyes teared up as he backed himself up against the wall. The prison guards came up to restrain us, and I could see all the fight had run out of him.

See you at the orchard greeny, I added, whip, whip. Marlin broke down. He screamed, tears running out of his eyes. He dropped to the floor and the guards had to carry him out. I thought I'd feel good at him. after that, but the way everyone was staring at me made me feel like a museum exhibit. I had this sickenly wide smile painted on my face. But it wasn't mine. None of this was me. I was losing control and it scared the hell out of me.

I was a puppet. That night, I didn't even bother trying to sleep. I knew that as soon as I'd lay down to try, I'd just be wide awake again. Instead, I tried sleeping in my feet, or sitting on the floor. This time, Lien couldn't ignore me. He sat up on his bed, looking at me, instead of through me. You want something? He asked. You itching? Ah, I said, shaking my head. Just broken. Something's not right. Euphobic. Trouble with the walls. Maybe, I... I... I don't know.

I can't sleep. Looks like you sleep all the time. Just not in here. Yeah, I sighed. Yeah, that's about right. They stamp you when you got here. You got any stamps. Some, yeah, blue ones.

Everyone gets blue ones. What shape? Don't know, I shrugged. The end took a long look at me. In those few dragging seconds, I could hear the wind outside growing louder, and I winced. I groaned to drown out the noise, but it was barely working. I might have to scream to keep it together for another night. They got two stamps, they said.

A hand and a sunflower. You sure you don't know which one you got? Which did you get? I asked, what do they mean? I got the hand, he said. Most of us did. No idea what it means, but the sunflowers are always a bit. He pointed at me, as if to make a point, maladaptive.

Private prisons, I chuckled. Nonsense, all of it. Ian leaned back in his bed and closed his eyes. Yeah, he sighed, sorting us into flowers and hands like a goddamn daycare. probably got a woodchuck and a dolphin stamp too. The end was out like a light, but as expected, I couldn't sleep. I paced back and forth, screamed into a pillow,

and tried massaging my ears. The scratching noise sort of helped, but I still found myself restless. Finally, I got out of bed and pressed my hand against the door. Maybe if I let the wind howl, it'll take pity on me. Maybe it would get to a point where it had either kill me or stop. I didn't care which, as long as something happened.

But the strangest thing came to me. As I pressed my head against the door, the sound became clearer. The wind softened to a whistle, and then a gentle hum. The more I tried to lean into it, to listen, the more beautiful it became. Right there, leaning against the... door. I had the best sleep of my entire life. The next morning, Lienn pulled me up as the guards did their rounds. I'd slept all through the night and I felt amazing. But even then and there, at my best, I could hear a little piercing sound. That wind, that whisper, was still in the back of my

mind. Even now during daytime. But, All I had to do was lean into it, to listen, and a wave of calm would wash over me. It worried me how easy it was. You got through it? Leon asked. I'm getting there. I wasn't paying much attention during breakfast. I was zoned out, listening to what had turned into a melody. Something was speaking to me, but not through words, through emotions and sensation.

So it wasn't a word that warned me about Marlin creeping up on me with a sharpened toothbrush. It wasn't the guards or the inmates. No, it was something in the back of my mind screaming at me to hurt him. So I did. All I heard was laughter. There was this alien joy springing up in my chest, forcing me to my feet. I remember turning around. and the world looking different.

I felt four feet taller. I was looking into Marlin's eyes, but I didn't see him. I saw a teenage kid running through an orchid, hunted by his older brothers who wanted to beat him with a tire iron. Whip! Whip! When I came to, I was still laughing. It wasn't my own laugh, and neither was the joy.

The howling wind was finally quiet, but I felt like a stranger in my life. own body. I couldn't feel my limbs and it took me seconds just to orient myself. To remember my fingers, my feet, my eyes. Marlin was bleeding on the floor from a dozen wounds, deep bruising, broken bones, possibly brain damage from repeated hits to the side of the head, involuntary twitching like a fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing. Like me, he just couldn't find the words. It looked like I'd beaten him with a goddamn tire iron. I was taken back to my cell without a word, paraded through the halls like a prize.

I could feel the other inmates staring at me, trying to figure me out. As soon as I looked their way, I saw them recoil. I don't know what the hell they'd seen, but they were looking at me like a goddamn monster. I was locked to myself for hours. was loud in and all the while I just kept hearing something in the back of my head singing to me asking me to listen just a little closer and as soon as I resisted that noise turned to pain within minutes I was pacing the cell spewing whatever nonsense came flooding through my mind nonsense about everything and everyone just

noise when the guards finally opened open the door, I turned to them without skipping a beat. They had their tasers ready. Deb doesn't know if Eddie really is your son, I rambled. You think he was premature, but she had that time with Irvin in a job the month before. She thinks about telling you, she thinks there might just be the push you need to finally divorce. A taser to the neck, and I didn't even feel it. As I dropped to the floor in a spasm, my body was screaming.

with the laughter. He had her on the copier. She didn't even think about you. She hoped to seem there again the next week. And there, somewhere deep inside, I found my own thoughts and words, standing by as someone else held the reins. I wanted to tear my eyes out to make it all go away, but I couldn't even move my hands. I'd listened too long, too closely, and now the guards were dragging me by their neck. They took me out to the yard. I heard them talking. They were standing next to me, carrying me.

But it still sounded like they were in another room. I could barely make out their voices. Hatchman mixed up the bloodworks, they said. Got the wrong class. Damn, we got a bloomer. We had a bloomer this whole time. It's a goddamn Christmas miracle. He didn't pop his celly.

So why are he taking him out? just making sure protocol screw protocol screw you they left me in the middle of the yard lining up in a circle around me the guard I'd been yelling at stayed inside

weeping over a picture after a few minutes I felt a tingle in my hands it felt like being poured back into my body like my mind was a liquid it all came back to me one thing at a time

language, memories, senses, choice. Suddenly, I was standing up. The wind was clearer out in the open. It was colder than expected, and I wasn't even wearing my shoes. There was a stillness in the air, but there was something menacing to it, like the eye of a storm. Nothing's happening, I heard. We take him in? Hold on, look up.

From afar, it looked like snow. I didn't even question it. Snow in mid-July? Sure, why not? But it wasn't snow. A white feather touched my nose. I looked up into the clouds and there, far above. I saw something looking back.

I can't explain what I felt at that moment. It felt like I was looking at that moment. into an eye in a sky, an impossible physical being. But there was nothing there. And yet it spoke through me, like playing a mind game of charades with myself. Pictures flashing in the back of my head, trying to reach an understanding. Hundreds of memories pouring at the front of my brain every second, like a glass picture being filled up and spilling over the edge.

I got a nosebleed trying to keep up. My eyes rolled back, but I still felt like I was looking up. It was easier to see with my eyes closed. My mouth seized up from trying to find a thousand words at once, instead settling on noises and grunts. There were parts that were crystal clear. It showed me memories I didn't know I had. It showed me my eyes opening for the first time,

little hands grabbing my mother's cardigan, her big 80 sunglasses making her eyes look like a cartoon. It showed me waking up in my crib, reaching for the little toys dancing overhead. And I understood what it meant, that we were born with this instinctual drive to reach beyond our means, to stretch towards the sky, to grab and pull down the unknown to us,

making it part of ourselves. That the most basic instinct of my being, was meant to be here, to do this, to reach up. No, I weised. All was silent. I logged down as I floated six feet off the ground. No, I groaned. Memories of long-lost dreams came rushing back.

Pleasant thoughts you don't want to wake from. Promise of love, lust, joy and comfort. But it was all there, just waiting for me to take it. All I had to do was reach for it, to reach into the sky and take it. There was something more, that eye in the sky looking down at me, not malevolent, not angry, not evil, just vast beyond comprehension. I was nothing more than a strand of wheat being plucked into the air by a curious farmer. No, no, no, no, no, no, I screamed.

They came running up to me, guards grabbing my legs, pulling me down. It felt like I was being torn in half, part of me desperately reaching upwards, and my conscious self holding me to the ground. All the while, the pleasant silence was turning from a whisper to a scream. We got it, a guard yelled as the weather picked up. Get him out of here, get him. Something let go of me. The guard on my left lost his breath as he suddenly went limp.

With nothing but a whistle, I saw him whisked into the sky, not a word of protest, not a sound, just a human life growing smaller and disappearing overhead. I dropped to the ground as they scrambled to get inside. Another guard fell flat on his stomach as something invisible grabbed his ankles. Again, a soft whistle. and he was gone, a spot in the dark. Run, come on!

The other guards were standing by the entrance, holding the doors open. They were waving at me, desperate for me to just run. But every part of me wanted to stay. To reach up, to touch the sky and go back to that place I was meant to be. To feel my mother's cardigan between my soft baby fingertips and to look. into the night sky with wonder of what could be. It was all there, and yet. My body knew to run.

The moment I got inside, I heard thumping. Chunks of meat sprayed across the yard, fragments of bone getting stuck in the barbed wire, fabric torn to shreds. Whatever was up there was happy now, and the howling wind was silent. We all just thunders. I could barely breathe.

I'd been so close to surrendering to give in to it. Whatever was up there had no intention of caring for me. There was no love, no joy, no comfort. All it could promise me was a swift death at best, or the life of a sleeveless puppet. But for a moment, we all just stood there. We weren't inmate in prison guards. In that moment, we were just people trying to understand ourselves. I got processed the next day.

They double-checked my blood. Turns out they'd contaminated my result. Sloppy work from the esteemed people at Hatchet biotechnica. This time I saw them clearly stamped my papers. Blue ink in the shape of a little sunflower. I was taken out of state. They said it was a matter of security On account of getting in fights with Marlin

Apparently he'd broken both legs and his shoulder Still, I knew better This wasn't a matter of security This was about fixing a grave mistake This prison had a purpose But I wasn't part of it Instead I did my time in a place with no wind and now I'm out on parole.

To this day, I get a shiver at my spine when I hear the whistling wind. I'm scared of my dreams, of my memories. I'm afraid there's still something in me that wants me to go back, to look up. My psychiatrist, Dr. Bogan, tells me I've got an agoraphobic trauma to deal with. She says she has some kind of experimental treatment for it. but I don't know overexposure therapy sounds dangerous but even now

I find myself suddenly waking in the middle of the night my body talking to itself telling truths I couldn't possibly know to an empty room sometimes not even in my own language sometimes in no language at all every now and then

a white feather still lands at my shoulder, and I just know that looking up will be the end of me or the start. The wind rustles the paper in my hand, and I clench it a little tighter to prevent it from blowing away. I glanced down to it, then back up to the building before me. Faded pink and neon teal glimmer and flicker through the rising force of the rain. Cagamey Gaming reads a sign above the door. The G of the Cagamy buzzes as it flashes in and out of focus. The colours of the neon reflect the pooling puddles below

and in the dark, watery glass of the building's windows ahead. This is the place all right. I stuff the paper back into my pocket and I stride towards the doors grabbing the handle of the closest and hauling it open, easing my way inside. Met with a sudden rush of warmth, I stop in the entrance lobby and open the front of my jacket, dripping steadily under the 90-style carpet beneath my feet. I look around apologetically as the door banged shut behind, but there is no one here to scold me. Despite the flashing lights and the whir of the machines,

I appear to be entirely alone. Arcade machines are stacked clumsily together in here, corridors between them created through careless chance, not by any apparent design. Some of the machines tower high up above me, way towards the ceiling and into the humming silver pipes and the shadows above. I think to call out, then decide against it,

heading instead to the counter of my right. There is a computer monitor upon it, but little else. I decide to wait to see if anyone will appear to talk to me. Behind the counter and against the wall is a large glass cabinet filled with prizes. I drum my fingers against the desk as I look the cabinet over. Gumballs and toxic waste candies line the bottom shelf, five tickets apiece. Beside them, a stretch Armstrong toy, 30 tickets.

And there's some weirder stuff too. A pair of oversized novelty glasses with focus written across them. Ten tickets. The lenses seem to shimmering green and a bright, glittery blue when you moved your head from side to side.

There's a magic eight ball in there on the shelf above. 500 reward tickets is the cost for this. A lava lamp too. 950 reward tickets required. A Nintendo GameCube 4,440 tickets. When did they last update this thing, I wonder?

Or perhaps the GameCube was a deliberate choice. This place must get its fair share of retrofans and old school geeks. A lot of them would be keen to get their hands on something like a GameCube, I should think. My eyes zigzag up the cabinet towards the very top, where the highest cost prizes are kept on display. There's a power glove. Looks like it could be an accessory to some old-fashioned console, but I don't recognize the brand. There's an exit sign in there too, a novelty one, I guess.

Looks like one you'd find above an actual emergency exit, except the little stick figure has a triangle for a head in place of a circle. Weird. This item costs 10,000 tickets. I glanced back into the arcade. Still, no one. just me. I lean over the counter to look at the computer screen,

but the thing is dead dark. There are no lights upon the monitor, and I'm not even sure if it switched on. Okay, then, I murmured to myself, giving up and leaving the desk for the arcade proper, making my way up the lobby steps and into the glimmer of the lights. I weave my way through the machines as they beep and flash. I recognize the DDR machine.

machine, Dance Dance for Evolution. There's a game with a plastic drum attached and another with a similarly oversized keyboard. Many of the games are in Japanese, and as such both the title and the game's rules are a mystery, but they were alongside their brothers, lights of flash as they try to entice me. But I'm not here for them. There's only one game I'm looking to find this evening. And that's Polybius. This is the place. It has to be.

All roots have led me here. I passed by a claw machine and pause, taking a curious look through the glass. The claw hangs in place, and the interior is stuffed to the brim with little plush characters. I don't recognise from which franchise, as all the characters all look rather generic. Just regular people, albeit a little more. more animaified. Their expressions are all the same, though. Unhappy.

Their mouths have been sewn into little frowns. The black little eyes stare out at me, and I shiver as I continue on along my way. I spend the better part of an hour searching the building. It's deceptively larger than it appears on the outside, and has two accessible floors. My search yields no first. the clue as to the location of Plybius, the lost and legendary game.

I try again, taking greater care to track my route, but another hour passes, and still nothing. And still, I'm yet to see a single other person. Occasionally, a machine makes an unusual noise, or a pipe sends out in a regular creek, and every time I shoot a quick and anxious look back over my shoulder, into the neon-sparkled gloom, expecting to see the source of a footstep or some strange figure stalking me through the shadows. But each and every time there is simply no one there. I try as best a hold of my fears and my frustrations as I can, and I try for a third time. I stick close to the windowless walls at the building's far side, winding my way through machines.

I pass for the second time, a photo booth. promising fun and memories within. As before, I pulled back the curtain and look inside. Nothing, just as you'd expect. A seat in the centre, a blank dead screen, and a buzzing overhead light. The other side of the booth is blocked by a second curtain. And this time, I'm compelled to reach out for it, to step into the booth, to take the curtain, to take the curtain and

my hand and pull it to the side. And beyond is a revealed passage. A passage marked by the dank and dusty wall on one side and the rear side of a basketball hoop throw game on the other. Both of these

walls tower high up above me and the passage leads away into the gloom. With an anxious swallow I tap the flashlight to my phone and venture forward into the unknown pushing past the curtain and easing my way down this hidden corridor.

To my right, the backing rails and barriers created by the basketball machine give way to their neighbour. Another hoop-throw machine. This in turn gives way to a dank and dusty wall in a mirror to the wall on my left. There are old torn machine posters plastered up against these walls, and I cast my flashlight across them as I walk between them, heart beating hard. There's a poster for the classic Pac-Man, though it is devoid of colour, black and white and grey scale. There are numerous ghosts too. More than the familiar for, I mean. The image depicts Pac-Man himself traversing a maze riddled with ghosts,

and every single one is looking right at him. The poster beside it is for an early version of Dance Dance Revolution. The faces of the teenagers in the machine have been scratched. out, and there is what appears to be blood leaking from their shoes. A third poster along my way has been badly torn. The remaining edges and what I can see upon them imply that the text was Japanese, and the corner of what looks like an artist's rendition of a barrel suggests that this may have been a poster for the original Donkey Kong.

A hole has been drawn in the barrel, and if I squint, I think I can make out what appears to be a cartoon eye looking back at me. It's hard to tell. The colors have faded with time. I turn away, reorienting my gaze to the route ahead. The corridor eventually opens up into a room far smaller than the hall of the arcade proper, but still just big enough to get lost in. There are no doors that I can see, no windows, just more arcade machines shoved to

and positioned at awkward angles. The cables cover the length of the floor like jungle vines, and the lights overhead are dim and blue. This whole room is a massive fire hazard. I think idly as I step over and between these cables, tapping off the flashlight on my phone. The machines in here are stranger than the ones in the main hall. They are more unusual shapes,

their colours less predictable. I do not recognise. a single familiar title. Some look similar, sure, but they aren't quite right. There's a street fighter knockoff, though this one is called Bronx Battle. I head over to it out of curiosity and slide a quarter into the game slot. Player Start, the machine proclaims in a voice so deep, yet so sharp that I am taken aback with fright for a moment. I shake my head and collect myself, reaching for the joystick,

but the screen shows me only a glitched New York landscape. The character select icon appears and several boxes along with it. But the boxes are empty. I can move the character select window around the screen, but there are no characters. As I furrow my brow and confusion, the game selects for me. The screen fades the black, and when it fades back in, the 2D side profile of a New York street is presented to me. but again there are no characters

several fighting sound effects begin to play through the speakers the screen flashes red and every time it does so the joystick thrums and shivers the hell I mutter randomly tapping buttons in an attempt to fight back I guess but it is futile in seconds I met with a loser sound effect and game over appears on the screen white text I step away from the machine, unsure of what exactly it was that I just played.

But whatever. As I said before, I'm not here for these games. It's just Polybius I've come to find. My quest leads me around a corner and into a little alley created between two rows of machines. The end is shrouded in darkness and a single arcade machine stands there, half hidden, in shadow. My heart leaps. I take a step towards it. Can it be? I can scarcely believe it, but there's no denying it now, Polybius. In all its glory, a heavy black machine with a single semi-translucent green joystick and four similarly starred buttons beside, a green diamond in the

center of the screen flashes in and out, in and out, expanding and decreasing over and over. I head right to it, as if in a dream, step after step, closing in on the end result of my long, long search. Polybius draws closer. A picture of darkness admits such chaotic flashing and whirring. But the flashing and whirring dims as they approach the machine. It becomes little more than backing murmur, if even that. It's out of mind, out of focus, dulled white noise, grey noise. The flashes don't even appear in the corners of my eyes as they take a long, deep breath. Standing before Plybius, the game of legend, and here I am, successful, a winner, about to play what thousands have only dreamed of playing.

I'm fearful to even blink, afraid. that if I take my eyes off Polybius for even a fraction of a second, that it might simply disappear from sight forever. I place my hands upon the surface as if to confirm that it is real. There are stories about this machine, twisted stories. Some said the game breaks minds. Some say it triggered memories that players didn't even know they had. Some even said it caused seizures. But I don't know how much I believe that. We'll see. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't care. I've found it.

I've proved that it is possible to be found and that I'm capable of great discoveries such as this one. I grab the joystick and press one of the buttons. The green diamond on screen shimmers through a shining, glittering blue, then freezes and finally disappears altogether. I'm plunged into a silent darkness and I'm conscious of nothing but my own breathing, in and out, in and out.

And then, the game begins. A low hum emanates from the screen, and Polybius appears across it, pixelated. Below the title, insert coin appears. I do so with a shaking hand, and after I hear the chime of the coin being accepted into the depths of the machine, The screen changes once again. Here we go, I murmur with a grin, and the game begins. At once my body goes cold. The excitement I felt is replaced almost immediately with a river of dread rushing through me,

but my determination and curiosity holds grim and hard as iron. I control a polyhedral green man, comprised of lines that glow in the darkness. I am alone in a vast. black plane, the horizon flows dimly from green to blue, and my character is running. I press the joystick forwards, and he runs a little faster. This is it. I'm playing Polybius. I'm actually playing the Lost Game. I lean closer to the screen, and it only encompasses my entire field of vision. Where are we going, little men, I mutter, as we race across the black plane.

I pass by curious shapes and objects, all comprise of thin, glowing green bars. I try to interact with these structures, but there is no feature that allows this. So, I just keep running. My eyes glance up to the corner of the black sky. Score, zero, it reads, there is a little grey dot also, a single pixel, perhaps, just hanging there below it. Hmm, all right. I start tapping buttons at random. I push the joystick as far forward as it will go.

My green polyhedral man sprints to the void, and ahead the sky begins to split. I squint and stare right at it as the black gives way to a shimmering blue-green. I pass by more ruined, glitchy structures, and at last I pass through into the tear in the sky. All around me now is the glimmer. The graphics have walked and changed significantly, and I find myself running through an ancient cavern, all styled in black and blue and green. Weird.

A noise begins to rise all around me, a haunting sound, a chorus of voices, though I cannot make out what they are saying. The sound frightens me. I struggle to disconnect myself from the game. I try to release the joystick and to take a step back, but I cannot do so. I'm not even aware of there being any joystick in my hand. I cannot distinguish myself from the character.

I panic, but I cannot keep myself from running ever forward. I run between enormous statues, rendering in broken parts and pixels from the black darkness ahead as I approach. I look up at them as I pass. Some have the rough appearance of people, though with ugly, blocky features. They all appear unhappy. A few have faces etched with deep sad lines. Others are tensed in bitter rage, in anger. Rex reads the pedestal on the statue to my left.

John reads the one beside it, and I turn my head. Sin reads another, carved into the graphic of the stone. Pry reads another. I don't understand. I want to make the game stop, but I don't know how. I look up ahead. Eyes watch from the darkness. Eyes of blue and green, disembodied.

Or are they? Are they connected to something? Something begins to render from the black, fading into a deep grey. A sense of terrible doom threatens to overcome me. It's a game, it's just a game, just stop, for God's sake, just stop playing. And then, with a sudden outburst, I regain control and release the joystick. I tear my hand from the buttons as if shocked with electricity, and I stumble backwards from Polybius and crash to the floor, panting and sweating.

Staring at the screen shows only green and blue pixels, jumbled, glitching from left to right across the display. The hell? But it was so real. Or at least, if not real, as such, it was still all-encompassing. Whatever, I'm done for now. I've proved the game's existence.

I had a go. I'll be back. I'll be back with everything I need. For now, I just want to get out. The lack of windows is starting to get to me. Clostophobia has begun to create. creep its way into my system. So I turn and scramble to my feet, hastily passing between the beeps and lights of the strange arcade games, stumbling my way across the heavy wires

that trail the floor. I scanned my eyes from left to right, looking for the way back, for that narrow, shadowy passage that'll take me to the main hall, and in doing so, my foot gets caught beneath the cable. I cry out, losing my balance. The floor rushed to. towards me as my stomach drops. I fall forwards, and in doing so, I lurched myself awake. I blink. All I see is the green, polyhedral man running his way across the black field. My character.

I blink again and look up to the sky. Score. Zero. The same grey pixel. The hell is going on. I tried to move, my character jolt, I can feel the joystick between my fingers, but why can't I see it? When I tried to raise my hand, all I see is the green, polyhedral man doing the same thing. I begin to panic.

Hey, I call that into the void. Hello, what's going on? I am answered by nothing but the hum of Polybius. I tried to escape. My character twists from side to side. I crash into the edge of one of those half-formed, glitchy, green structures. Troculent, skeletal, impossible to tell what it might once have been, or what, if anything, it's supposed to be.

I feel the buzz reverberate through my bones, and I'm compelled once again to head towards that split in the sky on the horizon. The blue-green shimmer between the black Is this a dream? Did I fall and hit my head? I'm once again running through the ancient cavern. 3D, low-quality graphics in black and blue and green. I'm stuck for the second time with that haunting chorus of voices.

I pass between the same enormous statues, watching over me with their cold, stony eyes. To my left is the statue engraved with wrecks. Stooped, hunched, silence. beside him is John, hands clenched 30 sides. I swivel my head from left to right. There is sin, a woman, I think, with stone hair draped over the side of her face. There is pry, a humanoid figure with an enormous eye carved where a face should have been.

The statue is frighten me now, as they did before. And above, more eyes, looking down at me, shifting in the dark. I make it further this time. The music increases in speed just a little, and gaps begin appearing in the floor. The floor itself starts to shift and roll, and I'm forced to jump up and over in between to avoid falling down into the growing void that spills from the cracks. Jeez, I cried an alarm. Help, someone get me out!

I passed by a statue with an arm missing and a chunk lost from his chest. CRK is inscribed I pass another with his hands clasped before it as if in prayer HPE is inscribed The eyes above creep closer The thing that connects them begins to warp itself back into view Rendering slowly as if through mist

It's a game, it's just a game Or an unconscious dream Snap out of it, wake up I focus hard on the feel of the joystick, the buttons, forcing my brain to accept that none of this is real. I blink and find myself staring at Pleiobius' screen at the green triangle that glows beneath the game's title. I throw myself in the machine and turn from it at once, sprinting away,

crashing into others in my haste to escape. I check myself and look down at the floor, watching my feet so as to be sure not a trip as I did before. I find what I'm looking for. a shadowy gap leading away, and I run down it, passing by the disturbing posters as I approached the photo booth from the opposite side. I grabbed the booth's curtain and draw it back, passing into the darkness of the void. And I'm still running, and I'm unable to stop.

I look down at my hand, green, blocky. I'm running across the plains of Plibeus. No, I scream, turning around at once, trying to get back. But in all directions is just that same horizon, endless blackfield, glitchy green ruins, and the blue-green shimmer beyond at the horizon's edge, the crack in the sky, and above. Score... Zero. Damn it, damn it, damn it, someone help.

But there is no one to help, no one to respond. A terrible sensation of vertigo sends my head swimming. I veer from the left to the right and the blue-green shimmer shines brighter. I try to escape, but it's like the horizon orient itself depending on which way I'm looking. And after a while

I am helpless to do a thing but to pass through it and back into the hall of statues with its crumbling, shifting floors. I grip my teeth as I stumble from block to block hopping over cracks, throwing out my arms for balance

as the ground raises me up I shoot a glance over to my right. Now I level with a statue of CRK, with his missing arm and the chunk lost from his chest. Its stone eyes stare coldly back into mine, and the darkness shimmers and glitches overhead. I leap my way down the rise and crumble of the various platforms, looking for any sign of a hint of a clue or a way out. And as I pass by statue after statue, I eventually come to what might well be the hall's end. as there is a statue directly ahead where there hasn't been one before. He emerges from the mist.

A forlorn and colossal figure in shades of grey and faded mossy green sits before me upon an enormous throne. His eyes are sunken and his head lulled to one side. He wears a crown that has been carved from his head and inscribed upon his great pedestal. His K&G. King, I look up into King's face and I run towards him And in his face I see a reflection of my own

My own face reflected in the darkness of Plabius' screen I look down to my hands I'm clutching the joystick and hovering over the buttons The muscles in my legs ache They tremble and buckle at the knees But I am myself as I was before. I carefully release control of the machine, backing slowly and steadily away.

I tear my eyes away from my own in the plebious screen and take cautious step after step towards the exit. I know the way back. Please, I mutter, looking down at my hands with every step, clenching and unclenching them, tracing the metal of the machines beside me to confirm that they are, indeed real. They are cold against my fingertips. My ears ring as I creep back through the dark, deserted corridor, back past the posters and the rear side of the basketball games. I open the curtain to the photo booth with a wince. And inside, I see the room, as I expected to. A little seat, a screen and a camera. I allow myself a brief sigh of relief.

then ease back the curtain that will return me to the main lobby. The view is the one I'd hoped to see. A hall filled with arcade games all beeping and flashing. That 90-style carpet, the musty, fusty smell that greeted me upon my entrance. With heart still hammering, I quickly crossed the threshold, shooting a look back over my shoulder at the vast black plains of Plybius and the blue-green shimmer on the horizon. I swivel back around at once,

but my view remains the same. I am running. There are no arcade machines here. There are only polygonal green ruins. Score zero hangs above me in the cold black sky. My head throbs, and with a painful jolt on my stomach and into my throat, I feel myself sick.

How the hell do I get out? What have I done? I whisper to myself as I tear across that horribly familiar landscape, this twisted, ruined game world. But I don't know. I'm stuck. Over and over I play this game. I try everything I can to escape.

I search as best I can the glitchy green ruins and find nothing. I'm able to climb to the top of one such ruin. and another glitches into appearance. But when I head over to this freshly generated wreck, it simply disappears before I can reach it. Who even cares? It looks just the same as all the others. I pass through the hall again and again.

I make it to king again and put a hand on his pedestal. I pass right through him and find myself back in front of the arcade machine. Reality blurs with the game as I struggle to tell which aspects are real. I feel the gaze of that terrible, monstrous shadow up above me, in the hall of statues and in the arcade. I throw open the front doors to a green and eight-bit rain. I can feel its wetness against my skin. But when I tried to flee, I find myself running through the void of Plybius' black plains. I lose feeling in my legs.

They burn and throb with pain. But I do not know if I am even stretching them when I run, or if it's all still a part of Plybius's simulation. The score changes. It goes up to one, and then two, and to three. Sometimes I'm able to pull myself from the game at will. Sometimes I need to reach the hall or even king himself. Sometimes when I try to escape, I can make it outside.

Sometimes I get lost in the arcade. as my surroundings bleed into the black desert's green ruins. Sometimes I can barely turn around, my head swimming as the lights of the background blur with a blue-green shimmer on the horizon. I reached the end of the hall for an unknown time, mind hazy as I tried to pass king right by. I swear his cold, dead eyes follow me as I made my attempt.

Is he too aware of the terror that lurks above us, creeping around in the shadows. No matter where I go, I remain in the hall, circling the final statue until I slip and stumble from the game and into the arcade. Make it stop, I whisper. Please just make it stop. I lose track of time entirely.

Alternating burns and shivers are sent shooting at my legs. Cramps in my waist, in my back, my hands come in waves of painful throbs. I have to grit my teeth and focus as hard as I can to even move in a straight line. Polybius plays on. It plays on and on and on. I don't know what it is that triggers my new idea. A last desperate grasp for freedom, perhaps,

the unlocking of an old and forgotten memory, or just some theory of a trapped madman circling the drain. Whilst crossing as ever the vast black plane, of Plybius, I'm compelled to look back up to the sky at the lone grey pixel that hovers there above me. It's different to everything else. There has to be a reason for its existence. But how do I reach it? How do I get myself up there? I tried to climb up the green ruins as I did before to get myself higher up off the ground. It's a difficult thing to do as I'm constantly in motion and unable to stop through.

even a single moment. But with every drop of my focus, I'm able to find the ruin I found before, to ascend to its peak, and, as I do so, another slightly taller ruin glitches into focus beside me. I do not return to the ground this time. Instead, I choose to leap from where I stand, and right over to a narrow little platform on the next. I land, and as I do so, a third structure appears, this one slightly higher still. Okay, I've got it. My heart flares with a newfound hope, the discovery of a new potential path. I climb and I climb, ever conscious of the distance that grows between myself and the

floor. I am brought around in a steady circle as I rise, and the grey pixel draws nearer and nearer. There is no wind here, and yet I swear I can feel a growing force of something against my skin, glitching against my hair as I leap my way to the sky from ruin to ruin. I land with a thud on the tallest of these ruins. A narrow little platform leads me forward, and I tear along it, unable to slow down. No further ruins appear. There is only the pixel at the end of this platform, suspended in dead space. I'm going to have to make a jump for it, I realize.

It's now or never. Come on, I shout as I jump from the platform's end, hands stretched out as far and as high as it will go. And, to my bitter relief, my hand strikes the pixel. My surroundings change at once, and instead of falling the great and deadly distance to the black plane below me.

I fall no more than perhaps two feet, landing with a stumble on a hard grey 3D rendered floor. I look around, bewildered, and relieved to have at last come to a stop. My legs shake and my stomach turns, but I ignore these sensations as best as I can as I look around.

I stand in a simple grey room. No windows, no doors. Just a room. My footsteps echo as I walk from one side of the room to the other, and upon one wall is inscribed the message, Thank you for playing Plybius. See you again. Signed, developers. I walk towards it, heart beating, and I place my hand upon the wall.

It passes right through, and so, before I can psych myself out, I pass the rest of myself through too. and find that I am standing before Polybius. I blink and stare into the game's screen. Polybius, it says at the top, and below it reads, Game Over, the text overlaid across a large green triangle. After a beat, the screen changes,

and the words are replaced by, please enter initials. With a stiff neck, I look down at my body. My joints crack as I do so, and I stare at my hands, at the pot and throbbing veins in my forearms, my white knuckles in the arcade joystick, the stench of dried vomit splattered down my shirt waffes up to my nose, and I become aware of the dark stains that soaks my jeans.

Jeez, I mutter. My lips cracked and throat death dry. Every blink feels heavy, as if it might fall suddenly asleep at any sense. second. Is this it? Am I really out? Or is it just another trick? With aching fingers, I press the buttons with my left hand and enter my initials, V-D-R. And the screen changes, flashing to a scoreboard with a long list of initials. I am at the bottom, the lowest score with 10. The scoreboard starts as slow.

slowly scroll upwards of its own accord. There are dozens and dozens of initials, and some of them I recognize the statues. Rex, 490 points, John, 620, Sin, 791, Pry, 1,101. And further up, CRK, 305, HPE, 4,400. at the very top of the leaderboard. Is King, 9,99999 points. These people, were they like me? Did they all play Plybius too?

And where are they now? Why have I never heard of them or of their accounts? I do not understand what I'm seeing, but I back away from the game, as I have done what feels like hundreds of times already. I turn and make clumsy step after step through the arcade, down through the little passage, back through the photo booth, out through the main hall, and through those front doors, and into the world outside with a breath of cold night air.

It's still dark, but it's not raining now, nor are there any puddles on the ground, or any evidence at all of recent rain. I shoot a fearful glance up to the sky, but I do not see a score. I haven't since as it happens. Though every day I wake up and expect to see it. Every day I awake, terrified that I'll still be there, still trapped, standing like a soldier, in the grip of Plybius.