Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S6 Ep359: Episode 359: The Strangest Ever Horror Stories

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

The first four of tonight’s tales are original stories by the wonderful Michael Paige, kindly shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all.https://www.reddit.com/user/Atrophied_Silence/posts/https://michaelpaigeblog.wordpress.com/1) Hitchhiker's Haven2) The Lighthouse Project3) The Man Who Ate Ghosts4) Where the Caterpillars DieNext up we have ''Latrodectus'' by Sinister Silver, narrated here with express permission from the author under the conditions of the CC.BY-SA 2.0 license: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/LatrodectusSpecial thanks to my wonderful collaborator, Penny Dreadful Moment: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUSaJp8UPiWgTsqD2r58yhgAfter that, we have ''The Last One of the Family'' by Boe Whiskey: /r/DrCreepensVault/comments/7002zv/the_last_one_of_the_familyOur penultimate tale of terror is ''Knock Knock'' by Bree NicGarran: This story was sent to me via email.We round off with ''Don’t Shut the window'' also by Boe Whiskey: /r/DrCreepensVault/comments/74irs0/dont_shut_the_window

Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Growing up in the north of England, we had to say, as now as strange as folk. Now, for those of you I'm familiar with the peculiarities of the Northern England dialect, that basically means there's nothing as strange in this world as other people, as we will see in tonight's Four Tales of Terror. Now, I am delighted to introduce to you one of my all-time fair. at storytellers, any dreadful moment in this first story.

Now, before we begin, as always, a word of caution. Tonight's stories may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Hitchhiker's Haven. My name's Noah Riley, and I like to burn things. It all started when I was nine, after my parents separated. custody was granted to my mother since my father had taken the opportunity to jump ship probably to start a new family with the tart he'd been having a fair with it took my mother less

than a year to catch another man's fancy one that went from boyfriend to fiance in record time my new stepfather had no interest in children the longer they were together the more my mother's focus straight away from her son to keep her new love plump and happy having no friends at school and no desire to be home, I often wandered aimlessly. I enjoyed finding anthills and reflecting the sunlight with my chip magnifying glass, burning them until their little bodies went pop. Sometimes the head survived. It was on a day like that on my way back home, and I found a tiny discarded box at the park. Five little matches were in sight. I struck one just like they do in the movies. The small tongue of a flame amused me. It was a nice, tingly feel. It was a little bit of a

I used two matches on two separate days that week, burning chunks of printer paper in the backyard. It helped me feel better when the days got hard, as though I were burning that day away. Good riddance. God knows I couldn't turn to my mother. Her thoughts were always somewhere else, a place where I didn't matter. Of course, when I'd used the last match on her new carpet, it caught her attention. She forced me to attend a treatment program for young fire starting. but it didn't come home with me. It was two, maybe three a.m. on a Tuesday when I cut across the vacant parking lot, every step as furtive as possible.

I was 18 then. My eyes were locked on the targets. A large industrial bin situated outside a construction site. Impregnating its big red body was an overflow of trash that had accumulated over the week. Perfect, I thought, when I'd spotted it the night before. simply perfect not far away from home but not too close either I ducked behind the bin a deep exhale seeped out of my lungs what a thrill like a buried seed deep inside myself finally cracking open for years I cultivated that seed even as a young

boy I'd burn broken toys or I'd toss firecrackers in mailboxes never once caught mind you the only good that came out of middle school for me was learning how to make a flamethrower. All you needed was a can of aerosol spray and a lighter. Discovery that had led to a permanent scar over my left eye and a lack of eyebrows. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Pulling a white container out of my jacket, I squeezed an arc of colorless liquid over the bin's contents. I circled the red rectangular body four times, soaking as much of the compacted waste as possible. Then, the coup de grass. Bored out of a bar. Bored out of a bit of a box of matches from my jacket, igniting one of them on the striker. I couldn't help but take

a moment to appreciate it, how the small flame swayed and danced in the air. With a sharp flick of my finger, I tossed the flame into the marinated pile. There was a whoosh, followed by a burst of light. The fire erupted out of its throat in a borealis of orange and yellow. I was in awe, mentally fixated by the growing kingdom the deep crackling sounds the new sense scarring the air at that moment i knew what true pleasure felt like unfortunately for me the pleasure would be short-lived while mesmerized by my creation i'd felt to notice a different set of lights pull up behind me on the ground hands where i can see them two offices approached their weapons dropped I followed their orders, but it was too late to run. My head was pressed firmly against the asphalt. My wrists choked with handcuffs.

Still, I didn't allow the dancing embers to leave my eyes. I was given six years. Four in prison and two on a supervised license. My first cellmate was tall, bald, somewhere in his thirties, and missing an eye. The glass I he once had was confiscated after he was caught trying to smuggle in illegal substances. within the socket. He called it his secret pocket. It was evident that I'd never done time before and he took it on himself to show me some tricks of the trade. Well, salmates I'd have down the road were never as eccentric, but thankfully not problematic. The doors unlocked every morning at a

quarter to eight. I was kept from kitchen duty and only given tasks that didn't include fire, most of the time laundry service or warehouse duty. The day-to-day jobs were menial and mundane. The day-to-day jobs were menial and mundane. but better than sitting in a cell with a dullness gnawing at your skull. Nights were the most difficult. Sleep felt like it was an entirely different span of existence. I could only sit there listening to the echoing footsteps, the awful snoring from the top bunk and the hysterical whales from the psyche. Those weren't what kept my thoughts so active.

Ah, it was the withdrawal. I'd have killed to see that blaze again, how it swelled like a fiery cloud, how it whipped tendrils of smoke into the air. Instead, I was trapped, shivering and dribbling with sweats, begging for that same release. On the day I was discharged, they sent me on my way with $75 in my pocket. Oh, the sky had never looked so blue as that day.

Finding a job can be difficult for anyone, but for an ex-con, it was close to impossible, unless you had connections. Now, give that ex-con a scar about it. as I had no left eyebrow, and they may as well be hiring Freddy Frickin' Kruger. Oh, I answered countless ads, collected heaps of applications, and rewrote my resume dozens of times to make it look decent enough. But no amount of polish could soften the blow of the question, have you ever been convicted of a crime? Check no to be considered. Check yes to be tossed into the furnace. There was the deal-breaker. Don't call us, we'll call you.

Freedom is good, but it wasn't long before I realised that the sentence didn't end when the gates opened. Despite the stigmatised cross, I was forced to bear. There were always silver linings. When your brain has to adapt to years inside of a barred-up box, finds any hopeful prospect to cling on to. My mother had left me her apartment and whining lemon of the car. Every room smelled like musty perfume fused with old candle wax, the bed was painfully hard and springing.

The ever-building worry rolled around inside me, like a pocket of gas trapped inside a piece of coal. Just one light, only one small piece of charred paper in the parking lot would be enough to get through the week. But still, I resisted the urges. I'd successfully eluded it for years now, thanks to time and a lot of behavioural therapy. Whenever the seed started to burn, I knew how to extinguish the flare. Well, miraculously, I was. finally able to land an interview. The hiring position was for a graveyard shift at Hitchhiker's Haven, a family-owned gas station run by a man named Bennett Crawford. I rehearsed the interview

dozens of times, drawing up every possible question I'd be asked and a golden answer to counterman. Hitchhiker's Haven sat along a rural stretch of row between Redmond and sisters, the two closest towns for miles. The rolling green hills and farmland pastures surrounded it. The faded blue peaks of the cascades were outlined in the distance like paintings. I met with Crawford, who insisted on being called Ben. The man was no grease monkey, which is what I'd envisioned the gas station owner to be. His deep-set eyes were green and placid. The white Cheshire grin he wore throughout the meeting didn't waver.

I'm sorry for this, Ben started, which made my heart begin to sink. But I have to ask you, what landed you? What landed you? in the iron pen. The question was inevitable, but still startling. A bit the inside of my cheek. Third-degree arson, sir. Ben's genuine beatific expression didn't fade. Try to burn your last boss's house to the ground, eh?

I rolled my shoulders back. No, sir. I'd never do anything like that, but after what he said to me, I knew I could never work for him again. What did he say? You're fired. Ben suddenly looked surprised and then chuckled at my joke. I'll give you a pass on that one.

That's one thing I respect in the man. It's a sense of humour. The interview shortly ended after that, and we both shook hands. I like, you know what? You have a nice lie to you. Be it the demeaning you carry all that cheeky tongue of yours. I fear you'd be a good fit for us. So, what do you say?

Want the job? I blinked, almost blurting out, absolutely. in Lutely, but instead settled on, yes, sir. Then came the question I'd spent sleepless nights waiting for. When can you start? Sooner the better, boss. My first night shift started at 10 that evening. Outside the metal canopy looming over the pumps bathed a lot in a fluorescent green glow. It was eerie, like a ghostly light guiding you from the dark stretch of road to an isolated gas station. Why Ben had chosen that colour was beyond me. Not a very inviting glow for hitchhikers. I was given the uniform, a grey short-sleeved shirt with HH printed in bold, lining perfectly

over the left pocket. Each hour was four feet wide, arranged in a grid formation across the interior, not as big as the competitors, but just as convenient. Each of the multi-sided racks was stacked with assorted products from chips and candy to on-the-road vehicle supplies and accessory. LED cooler doors lined the wall across from the register, filled with an assortment of drinks. A plastic mat rested on the counter, designed like a map of Deshute County. Dominating the counter space was a box of jawbreakers, a small stand of keychains and a rack of colorful lighters I knew I'd have to ignore. Ben's grand tour lasted 30 minutes. We went over the nightly responsibilities, operating the register, the stocking shelves and coolers,

replacing the bags in the outdoor ice machine and managing a clean workspace. So, Ben said with a slanted look in his eye, think you can manage something like this? I gesture to my notes. I'll be all right. Good, he smiled, which quickly melted into a ruminating expression. Given you a history, I should hope you had one of the crazies. I raised a non-existent eyebrow.

What do you mean? The workers I hire for the night shift A good most of the time But once in a while You'll get one of the crazies Honestly, you wouldn't believe Some of the tales people try to sell to me here Either way, here's to hope and son

His face held the vague nuance That there was more to say But instead he nodded goodbye And left for a good night's sleep Hours into my shift At roughly three in the morning A set of headlights slid off the road Into the lots

four young silhouettes sorted in size none of them could have been more than 17 or 18 one of the teens a gauntly looking one who wore his hair like a young Kirk Cobain led the quarter to the snack-up periodically a few of them erupted into a distinct high-pitched squeal of laughter like a pack of hyenas each of them grabbed a stash of junk food and formed a mountain on the counter

Cobain covered the bill his pupils as big as hockey pucks Something about his glazed, absent-minded expression filled me with bitter-sweet nostalgia. I thought about the old days, when life felt so much larger than a box. Then I thought about the industrial bin and the beautiful fire spewing out of its melting gullet, and then I stopped myself. The other nights that week went as precisely as I'd pictured it, slow and dead. A few faces would occasionally pop in and out, but for the rest of the time, Hitchhiker's Haven

was a ghost lot dipped in green. I didn't mind the boredom. The pay-year was good, the confinement coldly familiar. I felt like a member of society again, like the word convict was no longer seared into my forehead. But night owl or not,

the weight of deprivation fell heavily on me, which is what happens when one fucks with their circadian clock. To counteract the drowsiness, I often retraced all the items on my to-do list just to keep my thoughts occupied. clean check inventory stocks clean again i scowled online for survival tips ate healthier meals sometimes and dub caffeine my new goals and then during one of those nights it started to rain despite the forecast never mentioning a late-night shower

nor there being a speck of humidity in the air the rain thrummed harshly against the windows and spilled over the canopy in small waterfalls. The automatic door slid open and a person inched their way inside. They were wearing a faded blue jacket with the hood pulled down and their hands shoved in their pockets. They walked with a stiff gate, squeaking their wet shoes along the tiles to the register. Beneath their hood, a white face stared at me or rather the suggestion of a face, a vague nose, no mouth whatsoever, and faint depressions where I should be, a creepy, non-distinctive mask.

Yes, any minute now, I'm going to have a gun shoved in my face, any minute now, I thought, unable to hide the apprehension in my face. The person raised one of their equally pale hands from their pockets, dropped change on the plastic mat, and reached for the box of jawbreakers. their white rigid fingers curved and almost seemed to lock as they lifted it out by the plastic wrapper. The bundle of wet waters and pennies he'd left from me glinted from the overhead lights. The exact change for a jawbreaker.

His candy in hand, he turned around and walked stiffly back to the door, retacing every waterprint. When the doors slid closed behind him, his vague outline passed between the green-tinged pumps and sank into the night's dark pellicle. I let out an eased breath. Thankfully he hadn't whipped out a gun from his pocket and demanded everything from the register. But that didn't explain the mask. Why wear something like that if you weren't going to rob the place? As I sat there and pondered on it, I'd realised that the rain had ceased.

It wasn't difficult to get my bearings back for the rest of the ship. In prison you saw all kinds of weird shit and crazies to go along with it. Was this what Ben had won't. warned me about. I shrugged at the thought. Every nocturnal job had its share of freaks waiting for the sun to go down. Why would a lonesome gas station be any difference? Whatever the case, I was confident I could stomach what Hitchhackershaven would throw at me. I hope so anyway. During another particularly dead hour with no customers, I busied myself with a second round of cleaning everything in sight. It was either that or watch the coffee dribble into the pot.

I moved the plastic mat off the counter, realizing I'd never cleared the dust from beneath it. Something was written into the countertop, carved by way of a knife into its surface. Don't talk to it. I ran a finger along the deep grooves of the message, or rather the warning. A week of normality then passed before the next downpaw. I was ringing up a few items. Advil and five-hour energy shots for a red-eyed truck. together we heard the muffled applause of rain on the roof

ah shit the man whined scrunching up his lip hair you still umbrellas too i shook my head sorry he huffed and i had the watery skim that dribbled down the windows ah bullshit weather you just can't predict them can you he took his things and beeline toward the semi veering back to the dark stretch of road once he'd left the doors glided open once again A faded blue jacket stepped inside, the same man from before. He approached the front desk, one firm step at a time.

A pungent whiff of damp clothes wafted off him, soaking wet again from the rain. Echoing the first time, his pale hand left his pocket and rested the wet change on the mat. Beneath his hood, the featureless man poked out, a sheen of light on his moist, non-existent expression. the same mask as before. Water dribbled off his fingers as he dropped the change, plucked out another jawbreaker and returned to the exits, transparent footmarks trailing behind it. After that, the grey haze of boredom that had once fogged the night shift was gone.

Whether it was one week or every other week, the man always appeared. He'd saunter inside, completely waterlogged, leave the exact change and take a jawbreaker. always a jaw-breaking. The way he walked was especially strange to me, almost lifeless. Not in the undead sense, but more akin to a sleep-walker.

As bizarre as it all was, the man wasn't especially difficult to deal with. Strange, yes, but not a taller hassle. In a minute, he'd walk in and then back to the heavy rain, returning to God knows where. Congratulations, Ben. found yourself a regular customer in addition to the already weird repetition of it all there was something else i couldn't explain moments before the man arrived on the dot it would always rain

no matter how bone dry it was prior the storm would come sudden and hard only stopping after he'd left sometimes in minutes other times in 20 too often for coincidence but too crazily timed to be Every so often I'd lift the mat and stare at the words chiseled into the counter. Don't talk to it. Probably left by one of the last graveyard workers here. One of the crazies, as Ben put it. They were, no doubt, talking about Mr. Noface, though calling him it seemed too dramatic. He must have really got to them.

But a job was a job, and in my position I was not out for many preferences. I do what it took to keep it. It wasn't long for the rain to come back harder than ever. The gas station's exterior moaned as the wind howled in an almost whisper through the sly doors. Without fail the man walked in with his rigid gate, drenched. But when he reached the register, there was no change out of his pocket or jawbreaker picked out of the box. This time was different, astray from the usual routine. He bowled his rigid white fingers into a tight fist and slammed it against the plastic mat.

The foreshook the counter's flat surface and vibrated the register. The countertop merchandise shivered in their displays. One of the keychains fell from the stand, a grey cat, winking at me. Before I could react to the ashen-toned fist rose again and fiercely dropped. The stand of light as toppled onto my side of the counter. their transparent bodies scattering near my feet then from the still plaster war face the hollow voice spoke out that left a sharp ringing in the air as though it were made of glass would you like to see my face what the word blurted out of me too late to reel back in well i was caught off guard not expecting a question let alone a sudden tantrum to come from him At that moment I'd broken the golden rule of Hitchhiker's haven, carved gravely into its bedroom. The man stood there only a moment longer before the parts of his blank face began to move.

His pale cheeks, the vague nose, both eye depressions, extended outward, moving like an insect's plated skin. Beneath them, a gaping mask sank inward like a tunnel, its walls layered and glistening with twitching, blackish mold. A never-ending throat Where white fragments of light pulsated like trapped stars My eyes went vacant I couldn't stop staring at A sense of distress Raced down my spine

I could feel the cords of my neck Straining to make me turn my head But it wouldn't budge The lights within its mildury void Gleamed in rich, beckoning gestures A universe of deep colours that wanted me Every thought every particle of myself, and for that moment I felt myself starting to sink into its depths.

But something kept me tethered, something starved and soaked in kerosene. I managed to tear my eyes away, grabbed a lighter and poured a can of aerosol from one of the cabinets. Without thinking I flicked on the small flame and pressed a finger on the can. A bright jet of orange reached out and fluttered over the cavernous pitch of its face. whatever hellish material it was made out of court immediately and fire smothered its head and latched onto the faded jacket it flouted backward batting fruitlessly at the spreading flames no screams came from it but an awful high-pitched ringing was stabbing my ears

thunder bellowed outside in an ullulating rumble it toppled over one of the aisles lighting up all the bags and products around it Accord burning odours filled the air, and admittedly the hint of a smile crept up my lips. The rising smoke reached the fire sprinklers and set them off. Water ejected out of their flower-shaped heads and soaked the whole area. As the flames dampened, the blackened figure got back to his feet and hobbled through the exits. I moved to chase after it, but by the time I stepped outside, it was gone, evaporated with the pouring rain, tried as I have there's no coming to terms of what transpired that night or whatever

demented thing it was that I'd seen made my brain feel loose slowly teetering between total numbness and a manic episode Benet Crawford did not believe it nor did I expect him to and did not hesitate to press charges for the damages in the span of a single night I joined the ranks in his book of crazies Given my track record, I was labelled as a repeat offender, a new title for the Pyromania. The hearing will be sometime next week, and until then, I can only wait until the gavel comes down. I still dream about those colours sometimes, but they're still imprinted somewhere in my consciousness, beckoning for me to go back there.

Whatever it is they wanted from me, they were still calling. Will the next person Ben Hires see the man with no face? Or will it bite its time, waiting for the right stuff to pop the question to? Would you like to see my face? Yes. Show me your face. Show me those colours so that I can burn them all over again. Hitchhiker's Haven will go up in smoke when I'm through with it.

Then where will you go? Wherever it is, I'm sure it'll be raining. early April of 2016, a study was conducted on the psychological effects of solitary confinement under the influence of lights. It was a Sunday morning when tragedy transpired for Guy dacted. Quest we have omitted the names of those involved who did not wish them included. He had just sat down with a frothy cup of flat white when the unknown number dialed his phone. calling from a New York State Penitentiary was a prison chaplain who opened a conversation with Good evening, Mr.

Then, discreetly, the chaplain did not hesitate to add, I regret to inform you about this. The voice, as Guy describes it, was hollow and absent, but trying its best to sound compassionate, like an apathetic machine wired to read an empathetic script. The chaplain continued. It concerns your brother. Last night he unexpectedly passed away in our custody. The remains have been released to a mortuary

and must be claimed within 48 hours or disposition must be made, as provided by law. The call was then affectionately ended with. We extend our sympathy for your loss. One day after that, a letter of condolence was sent. At 3.15 a.m., March 13, Guy's twin had hung himself in his cell, ending a 70-day stretch in solitary confinement. An officer had found his somewhat elevated body motionless and unresponsive. A bed sheet had been used, tied off to a plumbing fixture, death by slow strangulation,

very few ligature marks visible on the neck, heavy discharges of vomit from both nose and mouth. as summarized in the investigative report. It had been his fourth year of a 25-year sentence for second-degree murder. He had been convicted of killing a woman he was attempting to carjack. My little brother had issues. I've always known that. Guy fought back the quivering tones in his speech and paused to wipe his eyes. We'd just graduated high school when our parents passed from a car accident.

They were both killed almost instantly. We had no aunts or uncles, no trustworthy relatives. We just had each other. He got mixed up with bad people. They got in his head and let him down a bad, very crooked path. I gave him all the help he needed. I did. It wasn't enough to steer him from that path,

but I never gave up on him. After every phone call, every monitored visit, I told him I'd always be here, waiting for his sentence to clear. Guy also had this to add. I know I'm not alone in my belief that solitary confinement is a monstrous punishment to inmates. My brother had a lot of mental issues. He should have been in a hospital, not a prison, let alone in an isolated lock-up.

I believe we've forgotten what it means to correct bad behavior. Torture can't force a broken mind to repair itself. It only forces the mind to... That's not a solution or a correction. It's cruelty. Officials from the penitentiary maintained that there was little to know concern that the inmate had been planning to take his own life. Had it been the case,

he would have immediately been transferred to a mental health unit. Faced with a cruel separating agent of grief, Guy turned to his research for comfort. He knew that extinguishing solitary confinement was unlikely, considering its worldwide practice, so he instead focused on an alternative approach. His proposal to capitalize on the benefits that seclusion does have for inmates, while also applying a more humanitarian method for their improvement. His work brought him to an isolation chamber,

constructed within a former nuclear bunker somewhere off the outskirts of Hempstead, New York, a keepsake of the Cold War. After weeks of lengthy meetings, countless emails and frustrating phone calls, Guy's preparations were complete. For the next two weeks, he would lock himself inside the six-by-eight-foot space, trapped between the cement walls and all-encompassing darkness. I needed an environment as authentic as possible. Guy explains at the outset. I found myself drawing a lot of inspiration from the hole on Alcatraz Island.

a pitch black, tight space without any human contact. Granted, not all isolation cells have these severe conditions, but if we can still produce positive results from the worst treatment possible, imagine the success from less harsh conditions. Start from the bottom, work your way to the top. The room was equipped with a refurbished toilet, up-to-date ventilation, a metal bed frame, and a small table. bolted atop the table was a lantern fitted with a bulb that could be changed to different colors via remote control.

I have a very loud mind, and vivid thoughts are always trying to squeeze their way out. So there's no doubt that sensory deprivation will take a huge toll on me. That's where the light will come into play. As it changes colors, my reactions to those different colors in my mind will be noted. Colors stimulate the brain. It is real psychology. there. I hope that the changing colors will act as a tether that will allow my senses to cling onto something and will perhaps help me manage and endure my time in there with minimal negative

effects. Thus, Guy dubbed this experiment, the Lighthouse Project. The ones overseeing the experiments, hand-piged by Guy himself, were Ronald Westbrook, a retired clinical and forensic psychologist, Victoria Wick, a therapist specialising in PTSD patients, and Brian Rexford, an independent radio psychologist to protect the privacy of certain individuals. Their names and identifying details have been changed. Each came from a different background, but each was equally fueled by discovery and guise compelling determination. Together, they agreed on their joint schedules and varying night shifts to observe Guy's behavior and safety throughout the test. They be stationed in a separate room rigged with different screens and connected to night vision

cameras within the chamber. Internal audio would also be fed to them by the recorder Guy would have on his person the entire time. Other than documenting and supervising the experiment, they were also to follow another important instruction. Do not under any circumstances, stop the test. No matter what is said, screamed or begged, the door will remain locked until the experiment is complete. The only exception is if a hospital is needed. Before being taken to his cell,

Guy partook of several psychological tests and interviews to examine his mental capability of taking part in the project. He'd take with him a month's worth of military food, packets, drinking water, toilet paper, and batteries for his recorder. When asked if he'd prefer a set of different sheets, Guy declined. With everything now in motion, the door was locked. The lights were cut, and the cameras were activated. Day one, incarceration. Guy spends his first ten minutes in absolute darkness lying on his bed. Every so often, he makes a popping sound from his mouth. Minute by minutes, the popping becomes a hum and then graduates into a whistle as Guy taps his foot impatiently.

After the 30-minute mark, he records his first log. Day 1. April 1, 2016. Audio log 30 minutes inside. What a bizarre feeling. My hand is an inch from my face, and I can't see it at all. It's pitch black and dead quiet in here. I'm not even sure what to say at this point. I want to hear something other than my breathing bouncing off the walls.

Four hours pass. Guy takes to wandering around the room, appearing to count the number of steps it takes to reach each wall. The result? Not very many. Day one. April 1, 2016. Audio log.

Four hours inside. Getting cold in here. I should have brought a heat. or something in here. I've already lost track of how long I've been inside. Maybe that's a good thing. I have to say, this is the worst hotel I've seen. The service is God awful. Room service anyone? Guy, to his credit, forces a smile for the cameras and masks the ever-growing anxiousness with humor. But as the passages of lightless time stack up, his mild uneasiness begins to shift into paranoia. Day 1. April 1, 2016. Audio log, 7 hours inside.

What's with the crackling sound on this thing? Is it even working? I've said I'm cold 300 times now, and it hasn't changed a single degree. The blanket isn't helping that much. God, at least give me a sign this piece of junk is working, all right? A knock, tap, anything. Gosh, throw me a bone here. He sits up with his legs folded on the bed. bed and tears open the first meal packet. He eats it slowly, as though to savour the taste and the new sensations it brings.

Perhaps he's waiting seven hours to experience something new in the room's unchanging pitch before it becomes repetitive. It isn't long until Guy takes to pacing the room to each of the walls. The audio captures possibly an old conversation he recounts with someone under his breath. Plausibly his brother. It's not unusual. Rexford explains. Animals do the same thing when you place them in confined quarters. He's anxious, trapped and bored. The pacing provides input in his life, builds a mechanism to cope with. Eventually,

Guy crawls into bed and tries to rest. He manages to fall asleep for ten hours straight, tossing and turning restlessly in his sheets. When he wakes, the realization takes a moment to dawn on him. as he rubs his eyes and tries vainly to get his vision back. He falls back into his pillow and sighs loudly. That's right. Oh, shh! The audio captures. As an entire day passes in the chamber,

the adverse effects of his sensory deprivation begin to intensify and become especially more evident in his eighth lock. Day 2. April 2, 2016. audio log 30 hours inside they're everywhere aren't they all over the cranny darkness

so many of them spindly shapes are floating around me I'm hallucinating aimlessly drifting bouncing off of nothing aimlessly I think they're organic

spores swarms at them all over the place what day is it can anyone hear me up there I said, I'm hallucinating. In view of this, he waves around both hands, sifting his fingers through the invisible objects his mind was manifesting. Before long, he claims to start hearing music in the corner,

even snapping his fingers to the non-existent rhythm. For the remainder of the second day, the researchers take note of every hallucination guy experiences. Visual. A kite on the wall. Blooms of jellyfish, spores. Auditory. Static from a radio. A piano's G major. Incoherent whispers. In the early morning hours of his third day, submerged in darkness, Guy reaches the threshold of his sanity. At 6.53 a.m., he is sitting against the wall, his face buried in the crevice between his knees. Suddenly, without the slightest portent of warning, he chokes out a gasp and flings himself desperately to the toilet.

He cramps two fingers in his mouth, prodding desperately at his throat as he vomits profusely into the bowl. Day 3, April 3, 2016. Audio log, 72 hours inside. Down. Oh, shit, oh God. something poisonous inside of me slit right down my throat will I die

will I fill up with mushrooms no no no I don't want to do this I want to shut it all down okay I don't want to be here anymore judging by his panicked utterance he seems to believe he swallowed one of the spools The silver lining behind Guy's severe episode was that it acted as the perfect gauge for the experiment's next step.

Now that the deprivation and quarantine blackness has successfully pried away at his resilience, it is time to administer the treatment. In the next instant, the lamp, which was bolted atop the table, lights up. Due to Guy's eyes most likely being weakened from his time in the same bleak enclosure, The white glow only shines as a dim, pale hue at the back of the room. At first, he backs away from it, his expression trapped behind pure shock. It seems he's completely forgotten about the lamp's existence until now. A glint of joy shimmers across his face.

Slowly, he approaches the table and gently rests his head over it. Nothing is said, but a distinct muffled sob can be heard. for the remaining duration of the test, the bulb will shift its soft glow into a different color every eight hours or so. By reintroducing Guy back into the light, the overseers hope to negate his long days without stimulation, and, in a sense, guide back his rationality. To fit their increasingly differing schedules, each overseer agrees to assign themselves a particular color to monitor. light exposure effects rating one green westbrook subjects anxiety and overall mental tension of lessened considerably his appetite is returned good two yellow westbrook guy seemed uneasy about the room changing color at first but he seems to be over it yellow yellow yellow seems to be over it yellow being a bold energetic color tends to support happy thoughts and optimistic thinking. We especially see this in his recent recordings. Three, Blue, Rexford. The compulsion to anxiously pace disappeared with the addition of Blue.

It looks to be making him tired. He spent most of the time sleeping during the exposure. At least his circadian rhythm seems to be getting back on track. Four, Purple, Westbrook. Subject has a subcadian rhythm. a strong aversion to the color purple. He started complaining, growing progressively more restless, possibly an emotional situation from the subjects past, claims the walls are moving. The color was not active for very long. Five, red, after looking over Geist's reaction to the purple light, I was especially nervous about what would happen with the color I chose. It didn't dawn on me at the time. But I soon realized that the only red-tinted rooms I could think of were from horror films.

But his response has been a positive one. He's more active now, even performing different exercises and physical activities in the small space. Although he's been lying in bed for some time now. Oh, oh God, he's... Day by day, guy who has previously been screaming about swallowing hallucinations, starts to act like himself again. As the positive effects become more tangible, the lights reveal their restorative power over his mind.

In the early morning of the seventh day, as Guy stares in his sheets, something else appears in camera. Small, white, furry, with a pointed twitching nose. A mouse scurries along the wall, apparently granted access to the room by way of an unchecked crack under Guy's bed, possibly even led there by the leftover crumbs

from his food packets. It lets out a chattering sound, which immediately catches Guy's attention. He takes a moment to register the sound before hearing it again. In a split second, he jumps to his feet and twists his neck all over the place to find the tiny creature. By the time he spies its sharp movement, it has already crept past him and into the hidden crack. After the discovering, he deliberately starts to leave pieces of food under his bed. A newfound habit develops, where he lies along the cold floor, constantly checking to see if the mouse has returned. While Guy's intentions are unclear, Rexford shares his thoughts in his report. I highly doubt Guy was going to hurt the thing. He's locked in stasis right now, in a room

that never changes, save for the alternating lighting. It's been a week now, and we've seen a lot of improvement, but it's far from a full recovery. The mouse triggered something for him, a reminder that there was something else other than four walls in a toilet. It's a little piece of life for him to hold on to. As many attempts as Guy makes, there's still no sign of his mouse lure working. Throughout the next few days, Guy's overall temperament begins to shift, in spite of the light and the recuperating stepping zones he's taken. Paranoia starts to raise its way back, like a contaminating spill of oil. Day 9. April 9, 2016.

Audio log. Two hundred and sixteen hours inside. They've forgotten about me, haven't they? Forgotten about the test. I shouldn't have trusted them as I did. At some point my food and water will run out. What then? I'll disappear.

What else? Past, it's torturous. Lock me up and throw away the key. Are you still taking notes? Shut that down. Day 9. April 9, 2016. Audio log,

218 hours inside. I don't want to see these four walls anymore. Every crack, every ancient smudge is leaving a permanent stain on my memory. Is this what you had to see? Is this the hell you lived in? Most likely referring to his twin. I don't want to sleep in these greasy sheets. I don't want to eat this dry tasteless food, drying like sawdust on my tongue.

Here is where I'll die. Not even God will hear me out there. It's back. That pressure I felt. before drilling into my red temple. It's been coming back more frequently lately. Sometimes I think the walls are moving. When I close my eyes, it feels like I'm underwater, traversing invisible depths nobody cares about. The room is sinking further now and then. Sooner or later, it's going to crush me. Day 9, April 9, 2016. Audio log. 224 hours.

inside. I need to move. Walk around a while. The valves in my legs are starting to swell from not moving. It hurts like hell. I need to stretch them, but I can't. I can't leave the bed. They can because I don't want to. When I start to stand, a bad feeling gnaws at me, like an overwhelming premonition, whatever it is. Don't move for the love. God, don't move. Something is at risk of being stimulated. The pressure is worse than ever. It isn't leaving this time.

Even the air feels different. Every breath leaves an accurate taste in the back of my throat, as though I'm sharing the air with a different mouth. Even with his growing protest to leave the confines of his bed, Guy finally succumbs to the stabbing pangs of hunger. He crawls cautiously, out of bed and swiftly moves to his supplies. As he reaches for one of the packets, he immediately jolts and stops. Winding around in a flurry, he retreats to his bed and grabs the recorder.

Day 9. April 9, 2016. Audio lock, 230 hours inside. Gone. Torn to bits. My food, I can't, I don't. What happened? Guy has discovered that five of his once sealed food rations are torn to shreds, gnawed open, the flexible pouch packaging gutted by some unthinkable means. With the lack of any footage, the researchers deduced that mice were the most likely culprits.

If one had found its way inside, what was to stop more from sneaking in and raiding the guarded stash. Although it's unexpected, there is still plenty of food left untouched to make do until the experiment's final day. A day Guy's rattle mind has transfigured into fiction by now. His already withered nerves are shot, so Guy's refusal to leave the safe boundary of his bed is only magnified. The soft light draped over the table is not providing even a sliver of comfort.

unsurprisingly, he can no longer fall asleep. Sometime later, between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m., a scream resounds in the chamber. The cameras reveal Guy scrambling backward, pressing the small of his back firmly against the wall, with his eyes bulging and his fingers hooked into his chest. Day 10. April 10, 2016. Audio log, 24. 40 hours inside. Right at the edge of my bed.

Oh God, I heard something. It sounded like movement. Something rustling about. Then a growl. A horrible growl. I'm not hallucinating. I know I'm not. There was a growl.

The air's thick. There's a potent rotting taste in my mouth. Something was there. Something was watching me. The captured audio does not interpret Guy's growl, but the feed does suffer a few stuttering distortions in particular places. As the next sluggish roll of hours passes, Guy complains frequently about a growing sickness he feels. The increasing hidden pressures, the thickening rot in the air. The tension builds until his body ultimately demands to purge itself.

He gags, covers his mouth, and then recklessly. bowls to the toilet. When the vomiting sound stop and the shaking in his leg ceases, he finds the strength to stand up and return to the safety net of his bed. Suddenly, he stops. The already fleeting colour drains from his face. His hands quiver nervously, pinned to his sides. A lingering thread of bile runs down his chin. The team begins to worry he's having some sort of stroke. Luckily, his motor skills return to him as he falls backward in a series of chaotic steps and collapses in the opposite unlit corner of the room. He sits there for some time. Eventually, he searches for his device and presses a trembling finger on.

Recall. Day 10. April 10, 2016. Audio log, 245 hours inside. There's something here. I felt it just now, standing a few inches from me. Why? I see nothing, but it was there, looming over me, waiting for me.

Adopting the shaded corner as his newfound security. Guy does not return to his bed, or the light blanketing it. Even as the bulb alternates the different colours, none of them spur a different reaction. He merely sits there, staring. into unoccupied spaces and craning his neck as though seeing something. Day 10. April 10, 2016. Audio log, 248 hours inside. There's movement. I'm sure of it now. I'm no longer alone.

But what are they? Ghosts? No, too active. At first, I thought the walls were moving, but I was wrong. It's the light that's moving, rippling and being sent as they pass through it. The darkness is properly marinating my brain to see them. Sometimes vague silhouettes, sometimes textualist shapes, sometimes shifting and then reshifting, moments of motion. Sometimes clicking their teeth, molar against molar, clack, clack, clack. sometimes scraping nails on the floor they're drawn to the light

moving only where it touches hiding in it like a blanket I don't think they can see me not yet one notable piece of footage reveals Guy making a poor attempt to reach his food and water rations his head scans the room in a back and forth motion as if checking that the vacant coast of space is clear

Slowly, he drifts back into the reaching glow, inching closer to the supplies. When he's nearly there, he freezes. He turns his head towards something that the cameras can't see, something under the bed. After a moment of staring, he aborts the mission in a mad sprawl and retreats to the shadows of the corner. Day 11, April 11, 2016. audio log 265 hours inside

I saw a mouse onto the bed picking at one of the scraps I left then it started screaming and squirming all over the place blotches of blood were left wherever it rolled and it stopped started to float

as though it were caught in something's invisible chores digging into it opening it up entrails dangling like Wet ribbons. I'm not safe. Day 11. April 11, 2016.

Audio log. 273 hours inside. I know how they're getting in. Small space is in the room. I want to call them pockets. They squeeze their way in. The horrible stench returns. They squeeze their way out.

I think I know where the pockets are, too. One on the ceiling. One under the bed, one on the left wall. They're everywhere, getting more and more numerous, getting louder. Clack, clack, clack, clack. I've lost count of how many now. I have to stay away from the light. It will only make me easier prey.

Please, if you can hear me, turn off the light. The visual hallucinations haunting him only grow worse from there. Every audio log received grows primarily more fearful about the unseen things coming in and out of the room. While there are no remains of a mutilated rodent found under the bed, signs of discoloring on the floor are present. Despite the three hellish days he has spent in the dense, unlit veil, Guy refuses to leave the shelter of that corner. The light, which had previously hosted his sanity back, was now what you. he avoided. What should have nullified the other appears to only intensify it now, as though summoned by misfortune. The researchers face an anomaly they did not prepare for. Both the cameras

and Guy's recorder begin to malfunction. The stuttering audio distortions from earlier worsen. What sound does manage to leak out of Guy's device is corrupted with hisses of static and delays. Unable to fix the issue, they are forced to make a decision. End the experiment early and collect the accumulated data, or follow Guy's original instructions and proceed to the final day. With two in favour, Westbrook and Rexford of continuing, and one opposed, Wick. The decision is made to endure until the 14th day.

Even if the audio is no longer functional, there's still plenty of visual input to extract. Guy's mannerisms only continue to deteriorate. He no longer sleeps or forms an effort to reach the food and water, let alone to even use the bathroom. Instead, he takes to urinating and defecating in the opposing ill-lick corner. Piles and pools of his excrement gather like the accumulating waste of a caged animal. Things were bad.

Rexford shares from the following interview. We honestly should have stopped and packed everything up then and there. But we had precise instructions to see it out to the end. There was one night, Victoria and I were working together. I remember stepping out to get some fresh air and coming back to her gasping, her hand cupped over her mouth in shock. I quickly checked the cameras and saw exactly what had her horrified. Guy was digging into his excrement and smearing it over the wall.

At first, I thought it was nothing but a smothered mess of unintelligible garble. But then I saw exactly what he was writing. They, everywhere, turn off light. After that, Victoria wanted nothing further to do with the experiments. She told us she was done being party to torture. Westbrook was also losing the amount of time he could give, so things mostly fell on my shoulders. I didn't mind it much.

I wanted to be involved. I wanted more than anything to see the success of the experiment, with two days left of Guy's confinement. Rexford takes it on himself to make the final push. I was trying to think of a way to ease him back into the light, So, I thought of a plan. Little by little, I was going to amp the lantern's voltage until the room was nothing but light.

No more dark corners for him to hide in. To set this plan in motion, Rexford starts by amplifying the soft blue hue within the room. The light begins to lick up the walls and climb over the bed. Guy quickly takes notice and noticeably shrinks further back. He tries to protest vainly, according to a recording of garbled feedback. Day 13. April 13, 2016.

Audio log, 315 hours inside. Stop. Drown. I will find me. And off light will find me. Ignoring Guy's clear objection, Rexford shines the light more strongly as it inches closer, burning away the shadowy blanket of Guy's position. In a desperate, animalistic effort, Guy resorts to slamming his fists against the locked door,

clawing at it fruitlessly with his nails. Simultaneously, as the last shade of his protective layer evaporates away, Guy makes a mad dash toward the lantern. With a desperate flail of his fist, he punches it, shattering the bulb in an eruption of glass like an aerial firework shell. As the darkness once again overlaps the room, and with the adrenaline still racing through his system, he grabs handfuls of broken shards and shoves them in his mouth. The corrupted bits of audio still capture the sound of sharp bits breaking between his teeth.

Rexford immediately abandons his post and rushes for the chamber. He opens the door to find a room with protein-stained bed sheets, hieroglyphic feces on the walls, and their test subject collapsed over the table. The smell took me out, Rexford comments, an amalgam of different odors, composites of sweat, urine, feces, blood, rotting and other questionable smells I don't care to describe. I tried to block it out. The last thing I wanted to do was vomit as I pulled him out of there.

He was sputtering something to me, or spitting out globs of blood and broken glass. Something about his back burning. When I checked it for him, I had no idea what I was even looking at. Wednesday, April 13th, at approximately 9.05 p.m. Guy is taken to Nassau University Medical Center, where he receives several stitches for his hand

and also the loose flaps of tissue in his mouth. He is constipated, running a fever, severely dehydrated and malnourished. When examining the peculiar bruises lining his spine, Dr. Marion Cobb asks if Guy has been assaulted. When told no, he shares his thoughts. In Vietnam, we refer to him. to unexplained bruises as ghost bites, marks that appear without injury and have no business

being there. It could run the risk of an underlying medical problem, or even a risky blood disorder, well-perform a complete blood count for any irregularities. He added, sceptically, however, if that is the case, I've never seen any of this prominently shaped before. The blood tests come back normal. As Guy recovers from his time in the bunker, he repeats the same series of tests and interviews he took before his incarceration. The tests to do with his memory show that it had been impaired. He struggles with even the simplest questions and takes 65% longer to complete each task. While admitted to the hospital, he is adamant that the nurse keep his room light off.

As for the aftermath of the project, New York College journalist David Saxon, after months of evasion, he is able to conduct a short interview with Guy on the first sunset of August. He goes on to describe the house where the exchange took place. Dark, not so much as a flicker in any of the rooms. All the bulbs were screwed out of everything. Even the windows were spraying painted black. When I asked if the light from our camera would be acceptable, he hesitantly agreed.

The reporter added, from what I could see of Mr. He looked very tired. His eyes were sunken, and his skin was pale, like the pigment was being sucked right out of him. Question. Here's the description of the experiment,

as written on your website, and effort to diminish the harrowing effects of solentry confinement through the use of light manipulation. Guy nods in his chair. Question. You've, um, since retracted that statement. Why is that?

Isn't it obvious? The result was not the one I wanted. Question. Right. In hindsight, do you think that you underestimated what two weeks in the bunker would be like? In the beginning, I thought I'd taken every precaution imaginable. I believe my mental fortitude could... overcome any obstacle.

I was wrong. Question. If you're comfortable enough to answer, I'd like to ask you more about your time in the bunker and about the hallucinations you experienced. Oh, yeah. There were countless hallucinations in that place. Animals, toy cars, music, you name it.

But that isn't what you're asking about, is it? Question. Well, no. I was referring to the things that, um, killed the mouse. I can't tell you how many nights I spent praying that what I witnessed in that place was a simple fabrication of the mind. But it isn't that complex. A light was on in a dark place,

and something took a liking to it. For a time, I believe what I saw in there wasn't real. That was, until I started. it's seeing them at home. Things rustling around. Door's inching open. Nails raking in the kitchen tiles. Looking...

For me. Question. Is that why your house is so dark? I'd like to ask you something now. Do you have any kids at home? Question. Um... Yeah.

I have one with a... Another on the way. Why do you ask? Do they still sleep with a night light? Question. What's the relevance of that? You may want to tell your friend to turn the camera light down. They followed me home. Hopefully, they won't follow you.

Question. What do you mean by that? No further questions are answered. The days all started with a briefing room. a wall-to-wall palette of aged pastors and stark hospital grainers. In the centre of our little room, an oval-shaped table dominated the space with every seat filled with a tired nurse. From one of the windows, the bar of morning light often slipped stubbornly past the shutters.

It was this drab room where we discussed things such as the population of our current patients and whether to up or down their medications. in a work environment prone to shifting each and every day such meetings were vital to maintain the facility's pulse as I sit my morning coffee and slid the bitter warmth down my throat couldn't help but I the newest face of ourselves a young man with a sharp short haircut and a stony unsmiling face Alec Barnes

A pest Throughout the entirety of our meetings he could Never just keep quiet. Sit and listen as we resolved any daily conflicts. No. He had to chime in at every moment he could, bringing everything to a grinding hole to interject with. Oh, I have to disagree.

Well, where I came from, we did this. If I could just stop you there. A pest indeed. Every clinic had at least one of his sort. Fresh out of college, hungry to get out there and feel out the unit they'd soon be running. we affectionately referred to them as Weisenheimers Those who can do no wrong

Instant virtuosos of the field These people were easy enough to spot Postures tense with self-conviction Notting impatiently as you speak to them As though already knowing what you are about to say And you're simply moving too slow for their patience And you, only you are the one doing things wrong. I can still recall one in particular, a young know-it-all who'd been, well,

who'd become quite a nuisance during our labs and clinicals, chattering in on how we'd been doing everything incorrectly and not by the book. That is until one day I'd spied the bag of dopamine she'd secured for a patient draining itself into the sheets. The sheets. Never faster had I seen anyone's face flush so red. And what happened? to all that self-importance after moments like this. They are jettisoned out, left to the scorn of those they'd obnoxiously reprimanded. And you can bet your bottom dollar, Alec Barnes will get his eventually. Reality has a way of compressing our egos. After the meeting was finished and the charged nurse had assigned our patient lows for the days, I set out to complete

my daily tasks. Within the confines of our 25-bed units, our patient's mostly consisted of those recovering from injury, whether accidental or purposely inflicted. Attempted suicide was a frequent conviction here, and most patients were more of a danger to themselves and others. That being said, there were always those we had to be wary of. In my years as a psychiatric nurse, I've been kicked, scratched, bitten, punched, and for the better half of a day verbally threatened. Still, I never let it sodden my spirit. no matter how much saliva or curses will halt at me. Contrary to how social media or cinematic horrors may portray them,

psychiatric wars are not twisted places littered with crazies. They're places of healing of alleviation. The haven for those physically alive, but internally tormented. Yes, some kicked and shrieked in the halls until their throat split, but a good deal held a much quieter, unseen pain. That's why I was here to help ease the cold terrors of their

futures. And, for the case of our newest arrival, Roland Boule, oh, I've become my next big project. It was raining on the night they brought him in. I spied him rolling on a stretcher, his cold face wet and dripping,

his eyes flickered with transient consciousness, perhaps barely grasping the shapes and sounds around him. For a moment we actually held each other's gaze as he was whisked away to the intensive care unit. Ten paper clips, eight marbles and five drywall nails. These were the objects removed from Mr. Bull's stomach. He was diagnosed with pika, an uncommon disorder in which one has an urge to ingest in edible objects, though one this severe was especially rare. encompassing that fact he'd also been diagnosed with depressive disorder severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress despite my history in the psychiatric field i couldn't help but feel woefully unprepared for him

if only i had had even the slightest clue i stopped at mr boole's door surveyed my notes once more and carefully let myself inside the room was reminiscent of a college dorm with a single window providing a glossy view of the parking lot. Mr. Bull was awake and currently hunched over his table, a wilderness of hanging, stringing hair, covering his face. His legs were crossed at the ankles, both shoelaces removed. He appeared to be writing vigorously into a crossword puzzle with one of our rubber ballpoint pens, and not lightly against the door, which prompted him to turn toward me.

Good morning, Mr. Bull. I smiled as I introduced myself. How are you doing today? From out of the mesh of hair, a thin face stared back at me, giving a look I'd describe only as a tight-lipped vacancy. Eyes wide as possible, but not quite focused. He appeared somewhere north of his forties. From across his chin and up his cheeks,

a scattering of scars was etched into his features. Possible self-harm, my thoughts mused. I continue the greeting. My name is Jason. I'm one of the registered nurses here to ensure everything's all right, and your time with us is a good one. Is there anything I can help you with? His eyes held tired water between them,

inspecting me up and down trying to get a read on me as I was him. His mouth then pulled into a small grin, which rumbled the scratch marks. You have piano fingers. "'I'm sorry,' I asked. "'Cought off guard by his statement. "'He lifted his hands and flexed his fingers. "'Piato fingers.

"'Father had him, too. "'He used to play all the time in his office. "'Most of the gymnopoeed is, and a tad of Chopin. "'You play at all?' "'Despite his craggy appearance, "'his voice carried a genuine playfulness behind it. "'Not at all,' I chuckled. "'My mother had one of her friends,

give me lessons when I was younger, but unfortunately none of them stopped. Yes, Mrs. Brown was an avid teacher of the arts, but now I could only remember the reek of bone broth carrying her breath. Anyhow, it was nice officially meeting you. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything. We'll do everything we can to help. Well, of course, he answered, rubbing a finger along his scar-fringed chin. It wasn't long before we realised the true extent that Mr. Bull needed to be monitored. From the television room he plucked out the power button as well as both volume buttons from the remote and swallowed their small plastic bodies. From his bathroom he'd twisted a cap off one of the soap dispensers and negotiated it down his throat and before we could catch it, he'd already

swallowed the flexi-pen we'd given for his crosswords. As arrangements were made to have them removed, he mulled over different treatment options for his condition. In most cases, Pico was caused by an iron deficiency in the body, leaving it craving something to replenish the lacking minerals. Therefore, we prescribed him an iron supplement. After a few weeks of the dosage, two tablets a day and an iron-rich diet, his pining for non-food items had considerably relessened. I was ecstatic about the progress, thoroughly convinced that before long his symptoms could be entirely gone. Unfortunately, I would come to find out we were only scratching at the surface of roll and boot. As far as the supplements had taken him, he'd soon discover that his hospital bracelet had gone

missing, not so mysteriously. I'd come to find that he stopped taking the tablets completely, hiding them under his tongue only to spit them out later, and on top of that he'd intentionally, entirely stopped eating anything we provided him with. The next evening I stopped by his room to once again check on him. Roland was yet again seated at his writing desk, his spine stiffly straight and his neck bent towards the window. A tray of food sat on the bed next to him, cold and uneaten. I scooped it up for him.

You really should eat something, Mr. Bull. Otherwise, they'll have us given you a feeding tube. The food is much better, trust me. He didn't acknowledge me, merely holding that gaze toward the grayish smear of asphalt outside. Protests like this weren't out of the ordinary, especially for patients coping with anxiety and severe depression. As I turned to report back on his state, a thin, withered voice crept out of him. It's coming. His lips were shaking.

What do you mean? I asked. tried to dissect what he just said. What's coming? But it was no use. He'd returned to silence, maintaining the glazed stare out of the window. Evidently our conversation had ended. That same evening, a scream resonated down the walls.

It was coming from Mr. Bull's room. I was the first to arrive, quickly bursting through the door and witnessing him flailing in his sheets. His hands clawed and grasped at nothing while his thick heels kicked helplessly about. Assessing the situation, I tried talking him down first, to calm his nerves behind the frenzy cries.

He was unresponsive, lips curled back from his gums and his eyes squirming wildly in their sockets. Then, in a quick motion, his thrashing hands converged and closed around his throat, locking into a death grip. A move to pry his hands off of him, trying to carefully break the chokehold he had on himself, Even with his throat being wrung in his own grip, a press scream still squeezed its way out. As his grip started to slacken, the howling was suddenly stopped and replaced by an gr-r-r-r-h-r-h-h-hound, the tell-tale sign of someone about to wretch. Not wanting him to vomit flat on his back, I moved to push his body to the side, all the while

looking eagerly towards the doorway to see if more help had arrived. But as I turned back toward him, everything stopped my heart increased were dreadful acceleration I tried to take a breath but couldn't oh there's something so dark and different when an unspeakable shock hits you like every nerve in your body every sensory input to the outside world has suddenly being cut your voice is too brittle to speak your eyes are too afraid to close things perhaps semblances of thoughts beat desperately toward your brain only to drown before reaching its surface. Well, it had happened so quickly I could only barely process the ghostly

outline of Roland's face, or the sudden misshapen lump in his throat. Fingers, long, wet fingers, were gleaming between his teeth, reaching outward from the dark pink depths. They were bruised with blackish purple colours, strings of shiny spittle stretched and snapped between their wriggling joints. A pungent bacterial odour reeked from those gangrenous tips. Roland's eyes rolled upward as his body heaved and let out a wretched gargle. The fingers bent forward, curling over his face like a spider on its backside and began to tug at his jaws, trying to pull them wider. Their jagged split nails scraped across his chin, his cheeks, his nose, digging grooves into his flesh. The sound of footsteps entering the room brought me back. The sound of footsteps entering the room

brought me back. Another nurse had arrived. I appeared once again at Rowland's face, coated now in a webwork of fresh bleeding wheels. No fingers. None at all. Together the nurse and I restrained Roland and safely injected him with a dose of B-52, 2-migram Ativan, and 5-migram Hald in one needle, 50 milligram Benadryl in the other. With a collective effort of three different drugs coursing through his system, the struggles finally ceased. A lot of damage, the other nurse commented, surveying the marks on his face. We should have put him under long before this. Well, I realised then the help was none other than Alec Barnes, the Weissenheimer.

Whatever he said next never reached me. I'd already left to get some ointment for Roland's cuts. I didn't sleep well that night, dozing in and a little. out without any hope of catching a dream. Before long I was awake and standing over the sink of the bathroom, both hands against the porcelain. Amidst the rubble of my thoughts, my brain was scavenging for answers, something that could explain what had transpired. But the answers came up short. There wasn't enough substance to it, not enough material to grasp onto. I could only imagine those fingers, their rotting paws, their twitching knuckles.

jutting out of a man's mouth, trying to hoist an even larger something out of the tube of his throat. The image made my insides feel wretched, and rolled a brief nausea around my belly. Absurd. I snapped back at the disgusting thoughts. Ludicrous and disgusting. Get a hold of yourself. To give such a thing credence was unacceptable. It was a stressful moment, a fabrication of a rattle mind in a stressful situation. that's the end of the matter no further discussion required I gargled some mouthwash clap both hands against my cheeks

and returned to bed repeating the same determined temper but when I finally did sleep there was no protecting my dreams I was back there again standing in Roland's room while his blurry shape screamed and writhed in the sheets

I tried to restrain him before he could harm himself only to have my arms drill back on their own and grasp my throat instead. The last whiffs of breath poured out of me. In the pit of my gullet, something begins to move, clawing its way upward. I lurch forward, squeezing my eyes open and close rapidly, trying to wait myself up, but it's no use. I can only wretch desperately as my head flops back and the thing inside my throat forces its arrival.

My eye finds the wall, just as my mind. shadow spouts a new bouquet of spidery horrors. The next time I saw Roland in person, it was during his supervised access to the outdoor patio. It was to give patients an airy reprieve outside the ward. Flower pots hung from the fence that enclosed the space, along with a wall painted into a mural and a few basketball hoops. Oh, Mr. Ball was adamant that I was the one to supervise him that day. The new scratches etched into his face had healed. breaking off into faded fractal patterns. He took a seat at one of the diamond blue benches and sucked in a deep breath of air.

Rain's on the way. Can you smell it? Well, hopefully not before my drive home, I sighed, catching a whiff of it myself, the freshness just before a storm. Hmm, he hummed passively, and after a short pause between us, pop the sudden question. You saw it, didn't you? this question sent a jolt up my spine and, if only for a moment, flashed on my face. He took notice of this, the liveliness in his voice kicking up an octave.

It did, didn't you? What are you referring to? I asked, rolling my shoulders back. He leaned against the thermoplastic backrest at the bench. You're scared to admit it. I get it. I do, but. Well, neither. of us can be so lucky to deny it my eyes wandered the patio looking rather self-consciously for anyone else around we were alone he can have to be more specific for me i'm not quite following you his tired watery eyes focused on me then that's a way for you to see them before i could say anything otherwise you'd never believe me i know you wouldn't then his split lips curled and

into a smile. But if you don't listen now, you won't know what you saw and you'll always be left to wander. I didn't answer, but perhaps it was the absorbed look on my face that it cued for him to continue. It started with ice, he said, pausing as if to mull over that fact. I love the texture of it, the feeling of crushing it between my teeth in tiny crackling bits. One of the few things that could quell my anxiety. When that wasn't enough, I turned to chewing on paint chips and sucking on coins for a good while.

I was a very anxious boy, you see. The gust of wind, whistle through the fence and bobbed the hanging flowers. His tongue lapped between his lips. I grew up in a wealthy home with wealthy parents. One of them was as sweet as can be

while the other was emotionally aloof. Can you guess which one father was? he asked with a grin The stereotypical provider who considered the financial support to our family enough of a bond between us Naturally we weren't very close And as my tendencies

Intensified He and mother were thoroughly convinced It was merely a phase Don't ask me why it wasn't I couldn't tell you All I knew was that my cravings for the indigestible And grew worse as I got older I stayed silent and listened, not daring to say anything else to throw him off points.

I felt a responsibility to understand him. He'd finally opened up, no longer disappearing behind that flat stare out the window. Answers were best found during the low tide, after all. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't the only one with compulsions in our household. Roland chuckled. Oh, it was a collector. Not for coins or old dusty vinyl. He dabbled in other things.

A canteen once slung over the shoulder of a dead soldier. A worn noose used to break necks in the 19th century. Even an ancient skull with half its dome cleaved by some horrible means of torture. Yeah, these were the things that interested him. Much to my mother's dismay. Little pieces of the dark, he enjoyed finding. I'm not even sure where he got these antique piano, but I know that every so often I'd hear the same two teeth.

keys get struck in the middle of the night. So, one day, while he and mother were away on a business trip, I snuck into his studio to look at the private collection myself. One of them caught my eye, a piece of jewelry that once belonged to a dead woman, said to have cursed her with an early death. I felt drawn to it like an impulse that compelled me to believe that somehow it was mine, then it belonged to me. So, I swallowed it. of distress then crossed him. I was scared that night, absolutely petrified that he'd come back

to find the ring missing out of his collection. Then the following night, it had passed through me. I fished it out of my waist, cleaned it intensely, and returned it back to the collection on harm. My father was none the wiser. Soon enough, I did it again,

this time with the bone of a black cat used in a witch's hex. It started to feel like a game, but soon it became more of a ritual between us. He'd bring something home, I'd swallow it, even if just a piece of it. Wash off the blood and stool as I passed it, placed it back there.

Sure, there may have been some pain and slight discolouring here and there, but never enough of him to notice. I felt good, celestial even. Father and I finally found something in common. We both had a liking for objects. His face, then fell, becoming ghostly stoic as his voice had lost its shape. When it came time for me to move out and move on with my life,

I had to put an end to our little game. He never did find out what I've been doing to his collection, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I'd managed, or so I thought, to wean myself off at them. But as time passed, I began to have strange thoughts about all those cursed, hearted things, like how they felt suddenly different in my hands after I'd passed them. almost like the energy they once held was no longer there, like it had been left behind somewhere inside me.

What if all that energy, or whatever it was they had, was then left to brew and ferment over the years, until they just ate it into something else. He rubbed a pale hand over his chest, something that finally once out. As his voice finally trailed off into silence, I spoke up. what do you mean once out exactly the glaze over his eyes had returned oh let's go back inside now please that was the last and the longest conversation we'd ever have together and he was done sharing that day i tried to stray my thoughts away from that conversation and it was too much to digest for the rest of that day i no longer felt like myself inside the ward

almost like the weight there had become too crushing, like something were about to crest over the rise, and all I could do was brace for an impact. I couldn't see. What happened next? It occurred on a late Sunday evening. Three days after Roland Bull's unshakable silence. I was making my usual rounds in the ward and stopped by to check on him.

I knocked three times, opened his door, and stepped routinely inside. Roland was not in his bed or stationed at his chair. usual spot at the writing desk. The door to his bathroom was inched slightly open, the sound of a sink running coming from inside. Hey, Mr. Boor, just here to check on you. Is everything all right? I called. There was no answer. Mr. Boar, are you all right? Still nothing, only the steady draw of running water. Without warning, the bathroom door swung open, rebounding off the rubber stop

and then rebounding again off Roland Bull's body. He'd blundered out backwards on his heels, both hands locked around his neck. His face was flushed into a darkish plum color, heaps of a phone dribbled out of his mouth, rolling over his lips which had gone blue, tears streamed out of his eyes which bulge from their sockets. A single sound emerged from him,

the gargle note of air trapped in his throat. Choking, my thought screamed. "'He's choking.' "'I grabbed at him, spinning his body around "'as both my arms locked round his waist. "'Never in my life had I performed the hymnic, "'but in that moment it was due or die. "'I pressed hard into his abdomen

"'with a quick upward thrust, "'pratically lifting him off his feet. "'His body jerked back, "'but there was no luck dislodging "'whatever was inside his throat. "'The door opened, "'someone else had heard the commotion. "'I looked feverishly towards,

them while administering another ineffective thrust. The other person was none other than Alec Barnes. Even amid a panic, I despised his presence there greatly. What's wrong? What's happening? he asked, which only infuriated me. Choking, I snapped, yanking Mr. Boole back yet again. Hot blood coursed through my arms. I forced down a swallow, trying to wet my dry mouth. But in that same instant, with both my arms fastened around,

him I'd felt something peculiar a sudden shift of his insides an almost tumbling motion far too pronounced to ignore the Weissenheimer stepped back into my peripheral Let me do it I can I've got it I hissed at him hoisting mr. Bulls body upward again harder than I ever thought I could His chest heaved as more strained gasps came out of it Bits of his spittle slopped over my arms he then lurched forward in my grasp it felt as though his inside as it all decompressed at once like an airtight container being popped off his throat opened he let out a watery scream of pain and retching somewhere near us alec made a noise something that sounded like oh god dear god something heavy hit the floor

Roland Bull went limp in my arms Alec Barnes let out a scream frantic movement skittered across the room like the sound of a fish flopping about a dock followed by something being torn out of the wall my eyes raced around like the slew of everything at once had sucked all the blood from my brain flushing its data

I checked on Roland who had slumped over like a puppet in my arms he was unresponsive with his eyes staring blankly forward and his lips hanging loosely open. I checked for his pulse and found no rhythm. Lying him on the ground, I lined both hands on top of the other and pumped until the strings of my wrist burned. Then I pinched his nose and forced air down his windpipe. It wasn't working.

As I did this, my eyes traced the floor, following the thin film of blood and bile that trailed away from us. First to the bathroom and then to the vanity, where the air vent below it now hung open. The right side of its grill pulled entirely out of place. Alec Barnes was frozen in its spots. The shock that it distorted his face was almost too vivid to be real, and even as more staff arrived, he still remained there, stricken with fear.

Roland Bull was pronounced dead by a medical examiner, the manner of death and esophageal rupture. Several tears had perforated the walls of his throat along, with a dislocated jaw entirely unhinged from his skull. We weren't yet sure what had caused the ruptures. Nothing could be traced other than the aftermath of ruined tissue. But rumours had floated around between staff of possible causes, but did not hold much water to them.

Truth be told, not many of us knew how to handle the loss of a patient, not otherwise terminal. As for what came of Alec Barnes, he'd quit spontaneously and left without further notice. Try as I did to pry information out of him. He dismissed me, shaking his head and repeating that he'd see nothing. End of story. I could see the panic in his eyes, held back by two thin sacks threatening to tear at any moment.

Not a single particle of self-importance left. Or perhaps I've even felt the same way that perhaps I did catch a glimpse of something that day, a grey sleek of a shape pulling itself through the same. pulling itself through the opened air duct, membranous, slug-like. But I must avert those thoughts. Sort them out properly, dissect them one by one. That's the only way I can keep myself together.

Yet despite all these, the strangeness around our ward has continued to circulate. Patients have been claiming to hear something in the walls. Even some of our staff had reported it as well, a quick, insipid scratching coming from the ducts. to the point where they believe an animal is trapped up there. As many times as if we've had those vents checked, there's still no proof for such a claim.

I've heard it myself from time to time, sometimes even awfully close by, just on the other side of the duck's cover. But I do not peer inside. I don't even risk what I might see. The source of the noises. The ward's newest arrival. the caterpillars die. Fear is only as deep as the mind allows. That was my mother's favourite idiom.

Growing up, she never hesitated to use it against my childish fits, whether I was upset about sleeping alone in my bed or trying to convince her there was an ony in the closet. It's what she lived by, even as the cancer finished eating her lungs. When the light in her eyes disappeared, I grew to loathe every syllable of that idiom, burning with a blistering hatred. I knew that I would never hear it spoken in her voice again, and it became a cruel reminder of change. And yet, without it, I wouldn't have survived the horror I'm about to share. It's funny, though, how something you've rejected for half your life can turn out to be the only thing holding you together. So when I was 13, three months after Mom's passing, my father told me

I'll be going to Akita to stay with my uncle during Dad's Marine. exhibition in Hokkaido. I wanted to die, but not literally of course, only about as much as I wanted to die in the dentist's chair before the needle slid into my gums. But this pain wasn't going to be a quick pinch, and it was going to last for the next week. I wasn't seeing Uncle Horrie I was dreading, though. It was my cousin, Sota. Dad's cell phone rang. Moshi. Moshi, yes, pulling in now, Okay. A fair-sized two-story home with a thatched roof came into view. It fit perfectly with the other picturesque houses in the secluded community straddled by deciduous forests.

The slate path of stepping stone stretched to the front door when my uncle waited. A woman stood next to him, probably the new girlfriend Dad had mentioned. She was wearing a Nordic grey sweater. About time, Horrie called to us as we poured ourselves out of the car. Did you get lost or something? My father closed the door. Or maybe if someone knew the specifics of their address better. Learn to listen better.

Horri jeered at my father, exaggerating his smile. Now, where is my Yuki? Hi, Uncle Horry. I grabbed my bag from the trunk and walked over. His arms wove around me in a tight heart. He then gestured to the woman next to him. Yuki, this is Hina. Hina Otori.

She nodded her head at me and extended her hand. I smiled and shook it. Her black hair was very short and complimented her young features. Oh, it's nice to finally meet you, she said with an ivory white smile. You'll be staying on the upper floor, second door on the left, or he said. Sauter's room will be right next to it, so go say hi to him. I wandered upstairs and found the guest room while my father caught up with his brother-in-law. Although my uncle and his ex-wife had separated months ago,

the room still had Aunt Marquis' decor scheme, a tiny space full of bright, vivid colours and furniture that screamed dollhouse, a special touch. I imagined an unblinking eye peering in around the flurry curtains and shut it. The entire house had probably looked like this at some point before the divorce was finalised. I plop my bag on the tatami floor mat inside. What week! My thoughts groaned.

It's just a week, right? The door beside mine was the restroom, which had a sign on the door. Broken, use other downstairs, it read, next to what was most likely Sauter's room. I stepped up to the door and stood there for a bit. I knew that it would be rude to not at least say hi to him, but I couldn't help hesitating. My cousin wasn't a rude or overbearing person, but his obsessions worried me. We're both going to be 14 this March. Our birthday is precisely a week apart.

The majority of my memories of growing up with him involved his eerie fascination with insects. At family gatherings, he'd often be outside interacting with creepy, crawly little things that he could catch. But Sota wasn't the kind of kid who enjoyed pulling off bugs' limbs or pitting them against each other in a plastic container deathmatch. He preferred to treat them as friends. He gave them names, voices, different personalities.

All he was missing were tiny clothes. And, well, he collected insects. I ran from them. That was the gaping chasm that separated us. I didn't doubt that his latest collection of new friends waited for me behind his door. I'll pop in, say hello, and pop out, my thoughts. As I was about to knock, I had a muffled conversation on the other side.

Soto was already talking to someone. just as I decided to say hello later he said come in I did so and shut the door behind me the inside was dark very dark save for the bright laptop screen outlining a seated body a few streaks of sunlight peeking around the floral curtains you can turn on the light he said with distracted awareness sure your majesty I sighed flicking the light switch after the darkness melted away I saw the hanging scroll paintings and mounted pieces of calligraphy that covered his walls. Where I was expected, several diagrams of different insects' synonyms joined them. A frame picture of Aunt Markey sat on his desk. Situated on a table below his window was a miniature cherry blossom tree with missing branches. Sharing the space next to it was a foreboding glass terrarium.

Upon hearing my voice, he turned to look at me. Oh, hey, he said quietly, rolling into the room. toward me on the chair's castor wheels. We gave each other a light, two-second hug, and then he returned to his laptop to shut it off. I saw you pull in, I wasn't sure when you'd gone back. I shrewd. Are you sounding like you were already talking to someone?

Oh, that was just my mom, he replied in the same monotone. She scopes me from her trip whenever she has time. Hmm, where is she? I asked. Europe. She's touring France right now. Oh, he suddenly cried with spontaneous eagerness, catching me off guard. Do you want to meet someone? He rolled his chair toward the window and ushered me to follow. He was no doubt referring to the glass container.

It must pop in, pop out, my thoughts reminded me. Pop in and pop out. At that moment I wanted to tell him I wasn't interested, but the words never reached my mouth. It didn't take much to hurt, sort of. His feelings were like pieces of pepper mashay living in a world of knives. He stared at measily, sure, wafted out of him. I'd feel awful destroying that ray of excitement on his face within the first five minutes.

As long as I didn't have to touch anything, there was no immediate problem. As I joined him at the window, repulsive images were already firing off in my head. A spider outweigh my hand with its hairy limbs, a mantis with those alien claws, in prayer to thank the evil gods for giving it wings, horrible things like that. I looked down, peaked inside and saw a horrible, enormous, nothing. The missing branches of the cherry blossom were planted in a patch of black soil. Can you see her? he asked eagerly. I finally did.

Attached to one of the brittle stems was a worm-like thing, but no worm I'd ever seen before. I'd ever seen before. This looked much worse. His bloated, squishy skin was black and orange with a dark, pointy tail. Four spindles protruded from its backside like black curling tendrils. Goosepumps puffed up my arms. Fear is only as deep as the mind allows, my thoughts repeated reluctantly. Her name is Kodami. She's a Brahmin caterpillar. So to load his finger in inch from its chewing mandibles. When she turns into a moth, she could have a wingspan of up to seven inches.

How do you know she's a she? I mumbled. I just do, he shrugged. Do you want to hold her? They don't bite. No, no, I'm good, I said, promptly backing away. Just the thought of that thing's rippling, squishy mass, touching my skin made me want to die again. I tried to think of anything I could say to change the subject. "'So, um, what do you think of Hina?' I asked.

His smile melted. Dark cloudiness replaced the enthusiastic look. He bit deeply into the skin of his bottom lip. It was clear I had accidentally struck a nerve. Before I had the chance to apologise, he answered me. I don't know. Mom isn't going to like her when she comes back, though. Well, I wasn't sure what he meant by that.

You mean after her trip? He looked right through me and tightened the left side of his face into a smart. Yet, after her trip. I finished unpacking and waved my father goodbye as he left for his new venture, leaving me to sulk over mine. I spent the rest of the day killing as much time as possible with the books and handheld games that I brought. And that wasn't enough to sedate me.

I'd wander around the tea garden in the backyard. I slept well that night and thankfully did not wake up to an eye watching me sleep through the windows. When morning came, I went to the kitchen. Hina was there, standing over a purple kettle. Good morning, Yuki, she said, flashing that same ivory smile. Breakfast isn't ready, I'm afraid. Care for some U-Long while you wait.

Oh, thank you. I took a seat at the table. The aroma of dry-roasted leaves graced my nose. She poured some tea into a mug and placed it in front of me. Your uncle always likes a hot. batch waiting for him when he wakes up. It's the only tea he ever asks for. I blew on it, slurps him up, then gasped. Oh, burn yourself, she asked. I looked at my dark reflection in the brew. The complex woody flavour mixed nicely with a subtle, creamy nuttiness. It wasn't perfect,

but it was close. And for a moment, I felt happy. Then the next moment I felt sad. Oh, I'm sorry, just, my mum used to make her tea similarly. It was her special tongue. And who do you think showed her how? My uncle said, strolling in while Heena preemptively handed him a cup. He smacked a quick kiss on her cheeks. I blinked at him,

but Mum said she had a secret method. Well, he grinned at me. She may have perfected it, but I'm the one who gave her the idea, mind you. I don't think ours will ever be as good as hers, though. His grin faded. Sota then walked in and poked his head into the fridge. Hey, kiddo, his father greeted him.

How did you sleep? He asked. He didn't answer, just muttered under his breath. Would you like a cup of a... No, he interrupted audaciously. Sota, or he said, uncharacteristically stern. His son gave him a passing glance and returned to the stairs, leaving an invisible heaviness behind. Sorry about that, he told me, pressing and massaging his left temple. I took another

sip of tea. Later that same day, Sauter wanted to show me one of the nature trails near their house. If anything, I figured it would help the day pass a little faster. Or his only condition was for us to be back before sunset, or we go to sleep hungry. Luckily, the day still have plenty of its golden hours left. Just in case he made us take the tactical flash. light that he kept in the garage. We followed the neighbourhood's gently sloping hill, which quickly led us to the park. Behind its empty playground was the trail entrance, a boardwalk that cut through the old growth forest. The cold breeze sighed between the beech tree canopies. Sauter whistled every time he heard it. The wooden path brought us to a bridge

hovering over a small creek. The moss floating over the surface smelled like wet fertilizer, the kind our janitor used on the school lawn, only much more pungent. Before I had a chance to cross, Sauter's hand clamped over my wrist. I want to show you something cool. His eyes suddenly had that electric eagerness again. What is it? I asked cautiously. In one swift movement, he leaped over the wooden railing and walked headfirst into the foliage. Come on!

His voice whipped back at me. Really? angrily and sluggishly followed. What else was I supposed to do? The sheer lack of a distinct path to follow made me nervous. But it appeared he was following the creep. Some gangly saplings crouched under my shoes.

No matter how many times I tried to coax him back to the trail, all I get was one of his whistles harmonising with the wind. He came across an abandoned railroad track. It was, for the most part, buried beneath a bed of weeds. Whatever root its ancient metal and wooden ties had once followed now belonged to the underbrush. A rusted rail spike was jutting from its iron harness like a snap bone. I thought that this was maybe the cool thing my cousin wanted to show me,

until he stepped over it and continued. The treetop thickets above us darkened the area. Less and less sunlight slipped through. Piles of dead leaves were everywhere, the occasional bell-shaped mushroom poking out of them. The trees here were different too Their bark was covered in sunken dead cankers Slimy brown ooze leaked out of them Like pus from a popped zit

The visual made me cringe I didn't like it here It was cold It was different The air felt stale and damp Here Sort of said merrily Finally breaking the awful silence

The Torrey Gate stood over us the sort of gate you'd find leading into a Shinto shrine. Its large structure was held flimsily together with decaying wood. The horizontal crossbar connecting both pillars had a tablet caked in slime mold in its centre, impossible to read. It was honestly a miracle the gate was still standing. Beyond it was a set of rocky steps covered in fuzzy orange clusters that led up the hill in a disorganized mess.

I found this place two months ago. Don't bother asking how I did. just happened. It's where I met Kadami. Your caterpillar, I asked, to which he nodded. I clamped my nose shut to keep out the musty smell of wet socks and rotting cedar. Okay, you showed me. Can we head back now? Not yet, he answered, and began hiking up the rocky steps towards the top of the hill. I followed, losing my footing a few times on loose patches of dirt.

situated atop the incline was a large dead tree a clamber to the top and joined him the foul odour infecting the air was stronger up here he pointed at something in front of us a sculpture stood at the foot of the lonesome tree it was clearly of a naked woman roughly the same height as one too her copper skin was dark and coated with a film of green residue

spiny black catkins with red and black spin covered the majority of her body. A disturbingly thin neck was bent to the side as though broken. Not just that, but her mouth was opening a tooth-bearing grimace that displayed a set of uncomfortably realistic teeth and guns. Her tight skeleton-like arms were digging their fingers into her chest, portraying great agony. Watch this, Sota whispered.

He clutched a small rock and then tossed it at the woman's leg. The rock clacked loudly against it. The sculpture's skin started to move, wriggling and squirming with life. The slim, spiny objects I'd mistaken for catkins were caterpillars, swarms of them, all writhing over each other in tight, jerking clumps. It warmed out of her eyes, her open mouth, her ears everywhere nightmares could reach. I staggered back and fell over, nearly sending myself spine first down the hill, I leaped into my throat. My muscles tensed and refused to move. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. All I could do was let the deafening static wash out my thoughts. The static always came when the fear started to blossom. I couldn't turn to any fight or flight instinct buried within. I could only freeze. Eat your hard out natural selection. Prarming caterpillars, every last one.

Sota muttered. They all come to the sculpture. Lots and lots of them. But none become moths. They just die sooner or later. He wasn't wrong. The ground at the woman's feet was riddled with their dry, deflated bodies. Kudami didn't want to be here. She wanted to come home with me. His eyes then scanned the small corpses. What kind of caterpillar never wants to fly someday? He sighed and then lifted his sleeve to itch his arm. Something was written on his skin. But before I could read it, he tugged his sleeve back down. He turned to me and smiled wildly.

It's getting dark. We can head back now. We made it home just before the peak of sunset. Hina was cooking tapaniaki. The cornerstone of our love, said Uncle Horry. Unfortunately, she didn't join us to eat any of it afterward, which sort of seemed cheerful about it. For the last few weeks, Hina had been experiencing sponsoring,

spontaneous episodes of feeling unwell. Sometimes she felt better in minutes, and other times it took hours. Ah, the food looked great, but my appetite had frivoled up and crawled away. I couldn't stop thinking about the woman, a horrible woman, drowning in a living, wriggling coat.

I tried to push the thought back. Useless. That god-orval image wasn't going anywhere. Later that night, I dreamed that I was back there, standing in the abandoned tree. The woman's grimy face and broken neck faced me. The mouth started to move.

Yuki, a hushed voice said. Where are you, Yuki? The voice was cruelly familiar. I gasped. Mom? Yes, Yuki, she whispered and crumed. Oh, I miss you. Mom!

I screamed and ran to her. The ground squelched and clung to my souls like thick, muddy pools. The face staring at me was no longer the pain-infused face of the woman. It was mum. Her neck wasn't broken, and she was smiling. I want to move, you, keeper. My legs won't bend. She said softly to me.

Will you help me move again? I wrap my arms around her cold metal skin. Yes, please come. "'Come home. Please come back to me,' I screamed, unable to wipe the cascading tears. Her mouth elongated, and a flurry of Brahmin caterpillars slithered out. I engulfed her, swallowing her body up into a twitching silhouette. "'Will you help me, Yuki?' "'I'll do anything,' I wept.

"'Just come back.' "'Mummy will come home, but first you must let me in. "'Let me breathe again. and let me move again, let me inside. Yes, I blubbered, thoughtlessly digging in my hands into the mesh of lava and pulling out two meaty handfuls. They struggled and jerked in my grip. All at once I forced them into my mouth.

Their flexible, squishy bodies pop between my teeth. Their spindles cut into my gums and the roof of my mouth like a dentist's needles. Bitter, slimy flavors covered my tongue as I choked and dead. I startled myself awake, looking wildly around for a few blurry seconds. No shrine, no caterpillars, just cold sweat in a miserably tight bladder. Climbed out of bed and wore next door. The pleasure was downstairs, I was mocking me. Still not fully awake, I grogily stepped downstairs and crossed through the dining room to reach the west bathroom.

After relieving myself, I washed my hands and headed back. But this time, I fro. The lights were on. Hina was sitting on her knees at the dinner table. It had to have been two or three in the morning by then. Why is she up so early, I thought. I passed by her, intending to apologize if I'd woken her up. Something wasn't right.

She was doubled over the short table, blowing out deep, concentrated breaths, and the blue sleeves of her jimbe hung loosely from her wrists. Her neck was bent, and her shoulders were hunched and locked stiff. A black pool of Sumi ink had been spilled on the table with a pungent, sickly sweet odour. She was dipping her fingers into it, a sloppily writing on her left arm,

repeating the same characters again and again. Offering! I leaned towards her. Is everything all right? She abruptly twisted toward me. Her sleepless eyes were blood, and rapidly rolling around in their sockets, utterly independent of each other. She croaked through a grimacing, toothy smile.

The wall touched my spine, before I realized I was backing up. Hina stood up, and her neck slumped to the side and hung there. She turned to me, eyes swiveling like a camellions, streaks of saliva slipping down her chin, and slowly approach. Her legs seemed rigid as she clumsily folded. forced them to bend, like a puppet learning how they work. I pressed further against the wall, wishing I could fade away into it.

My mind was saying, run, but my muscles rejected the order. The static was taking control. Just scream, my thoughts echoed. Wake someone up, just scream. Her wet fingers grasped my wrist. She leaned forward, her musty breath, smelling like old, used up.

mothballs and pressed a finger against her legs. She let go of me and trudged awkwardly to the front door, where she disappeared into the night. My trembling legs dropped me to the floor. Not sure how long I sat there, trying to take back control of my sporadic gasping and disabled motor functions. Once I was able to feel my legs again, I rushed into Horri's room, nearly giving them a heart attack in the process. What is going on? He jumped. He jumped up in a drowsy panic. I told him what had happened, showing my wrist, smeared with black fingerprints. He pulled himself up and wandered into the dining room.

The black pool of spilled ink was coagulating on the table. Ori reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number into it. From the front door came the vibrating z-z-z-d of a cell phone on the floor. Hea's cell phone. He picked it up and glanced at me, concerned. Did she take the car? Before I could answer, he was already checking the garage. The car was unmoved.

I heard him curse under his breath. I'm going to take a look around. Stay here in case she comes back, all right? I nodded to him and sat on the chairs while he got dressed and headed out with a flashlight. He'd come back shortly after, flustered and empty-handed. She isn't anywhere close by. Let me make a quick call. The call was to the police.

An officer came by shortly after the call. His barrel-shaped chest protruded out of his dark blue uniform. He had dry scabby lips that screamed for chapstick. My uncle talked with him while I waited in the kitchen, washing the ink off with a wet cloth. I idly wondered if I should wake soda, but decided not. The officer came in and asked me questions, one after the other. How do you feel about your uncle's girlfriend? Has she ever acted differently around you?

Has she ever told you about any secret? Well, I answered him as best I could. He smacked his chap lips together and finalized his notes about Heena's physical description and the jimbe she was wearing. Given the circumstances, we aren't able to conduct a search for an adult who just doesn't wish to be home. I can hold on to the information you've given me for the time being. If you've not heard anything for at least 24 hours, or have any reason to fear for her safety, we can provide more assistance. Please keep us informed.

He bowed and returned to the park cruiser. We watched him drive off. Uncle Horrie looked at me. Get some sleep, Yuki. I'm sure she'll turn up in the morning. I nodded to him, I went to bed, where I laid for hours staring at the ceiling. As exhausted as I was, my mind had no intention of resting.

I called my father, who answered groggily. I told him what had happened and how scared I was. He promised to cut his Hokkaido exhibition short and said, do you get me the day after tomorrow? 24 hours never felt farther away. I was scared, not quite sure what to do with myself. Why had Hina ridden on her arm? What was wrong with her eyes?

What was happening in this house? The next morning the cold breeze from the day before I had brought an overcast grey sky. or he was making U-long tea alone in the kitchen. He didn't say too much, his look of exhausted defeat said enough in itself. Sleep must have been scares for him also. Soto was in the backyard, seated in the garden. His elbow was lifted and pointed outward as though striking an invisible person.

He was giggling and talking out loud, a jaunty ear-to-ear grin radiating from his face. I thought he was talking to himself at first, before spying the glass terrarium in his lap and the caterpillar's four spindles crawling across his arm. I can't believe it, he sniggered quietly. I just can't believe it, Goddard. He didn't hear from Hina that day. Nothing but silence through the morning, noon and evening.

All we could do was wait while the pale clouds wafed over us. Despite this, Sauta's upbeat attitude never left him. He was joking, smiling, and perkier than usual. I'd never seen his spirits higher. It wasn't right, and it also didn't seem real. He was hiding something, and for both Horrie and Heena's sakes, I had to find out what it was before tomorrow. Around sundown,

Horry left for another drive around the neighbourhood, another attempt to find her. It was now or never. Just as I was about to tap on Sauter's door, I heard him talking on the other side. I pressed my ear to the frame and listened intently. Don't understand, he said softly. It's okay now.

Your trip can be over. Distressed weight lowered his voice. Another voice replied, too quiet and distorted to make out clearly, but I was almost certain I heard the words complicated. There was a bang on the table. I don't care, he cried. I did this for you, so why can't you do this for me? You need to be here.

Dad needs you here. More distorted words. more complicated his voice rose to a volley of incoherent screams there was another loud thump and muffled sombing no more talking the discussion must have been over i creaked open the door slid inside and gently closed it the room was dark and the laptop's white void screen once again blinded me curled up on the bed where the light couldn't reach was a vaguely outlined body A desk chair lay on the floor, probably thrown there. Was that your mother? I asked quietly. No, answer. I scooped up the desk chair and planted myself next to him.

Whenever I was upset, my mum would tell me to cheer up before my face got stuck that way. The dark lump that was my cousin didn't move. His stifled sniffling sounded in the sheets. Come on, just talk to me, okay? "'It did everything right,' he spoke faintly. "'Everything right. "'Everything the woman said to do, and it still isn't working. "'And she said it would, so why isn't it?'

"'I rolled the castor wheels closer, "'reminding myself of one of those psychiatrists you see on TV. "'What woman? "'The woman in my dreams,' he said, "'rolling over to face me. "'His eyes were wide and drenched with tears, "'blotches of light reflected. of his wet pupils.

She came because I brought Kodami here. That's how you let her in, through the capture pillars. She said Hina would leave and mum would come back. She's real, Huky. I've seen her. I didn't like the serious Nilsini's voice. The look in his eyes was both real and terrifying. I mean, sure, there was living in your own world where bugs had voices and their own personalities, but this was different.

This was the real world, where people went missing. It was just a dream you had, probably from that creepy place. I had one too. Listen, if you know what happened to Hina or where she is, you have to tell me. Abruptly, in a whirlwind of speed, he leaped out of bed and paced around. Words in flaky, dried ink, were written down his right arm. Hina, Otori. Curse!

The woman is a liar. Why didn't it work? she came because of Kodami So if I take Kadami back home Then maybe she will leave too He dashed to the glass case And scooped it up in his arms I can fix this

And then he bolted for the door I grabbed his shoulder And tried to yank him back Wait, wait you need to calm Something struck me in the head It took me a moment to realize It was his elbow Pain throbbed in my temple

and blood rushed to the forming goose head. My knees buckled and dropped me to the floor. I could hear the sound of feet pattering and swinging open the front door. Hot tears left dark blotches on my shed. I thought about Hina. I thought about Ulong tea. And I thought about Mom. I'm sorry.

I blubbered pitifully to myself. Felt like I was losing her all over again. That stupid idiom bounced around my egg. shaking skull. I wanted to tell it to shut up. Why was I even crying? Sort of said he'd come right back, but what if he doesn't? I blinked my eyes, both marinating in tears. But what if he doesn't? Here I was crying my eyes out while he was going to that awful place all alone. No, I couldn't let something happen to him. I couldn't let Horrie lose him too. I reached into my pocket and called Horri's self.

It rang emptyly and delivered me to the voicemail. A few more attempts, same result. Of course, why not? My thought sorely. I texted him a message filled with misspellings and panic. Well, he'd read it eventually and it'd probably give him a heart attack, but it was all I could think to do. Before any more regretful thoughts could sprout up,

I grabbed his tactical flashlight from the garage and rushed through the front door. I raced down the sloping street to beat the sundown clock. I'd find sorter and bring him back. Then there'd be no more need for hysterics. Well, I hope so anyway. I crossed the empty playground and reached the trail entrance. As much as I tried to fight them back, poisonous thoughts were still breaking through the monsoon.

Riggling caterpillars all over her skin. I pressed on, tried to ignore them. A slender, a broken neck. The damp, motty smell hit me when I reached the bridge. That grimacing open mouth, those real-looking teeth. Both my hands gripped the wooden railing. Let me in, Yuki, let me in. Shab already, I mumbled to the ugly thoughts and hopped over.

If not for the creek, I have completely lost my sense of direction. Everything looked the same, especially with so little sunlight breaking through. the canopies. It was only going to get darker from here. Something metallic crunched under my shoe. I reached the abandoned railroad track. Still no sign of him, though. He must have already crossed. Something also felt different about the tracks, like something was missing. Regardless, I pushed forward. The forest was losing what little light it had left from the day. My eyes were playing tricks on me, meshing the branches and shrubs into monstrous shapes. Then I saw Sotter, hunched over against a tree. He was breathing heavily, clearly exhausted from the run here. He pressed the glass

terrarium carrying his precious cargo into his side. I quickly caught up with him. Are you done running away now? He didn't raise his head. No, I still need to. I still need to take Kadami back there. I rest of my hand on his shoulder. It's getting dark. Your dad's going to be worried about us. Do you think he needs that on his plate too? Please, Yuki. He lifted his red, weary face. A thread of spittle dangled, dangle from his mouth. Just let me do this first. I have to do this. Then we can go back, okay? Why don't squish the thing and be done with it? He shook his head. She'll come back. I don't know how, but I know she will.

I took her out of that place. Now I have to take her back. I sighed deeply. I thought of wrestling him all the way back to the trail and then dragging him back home sounded miserable. It'll be quick, right? Yes, he said with exasperated relief and started walking again.

I'm sorry I hit you. I didn't mean to. It's all right. I'll just have to get you back for it later. The shrine gate, in all its decrepit glory, was waiting for us. That pungent, rotting smell was back, floating through the air. It had gotten worse somehow. The earthy wet sock smell had intensified to an outhouse full of mouldy meat.

I'm going to wait here. You go do it and come back. I don't want to see that thing again, I said, clamping my nose shut. Before he took another step, we heard a sound. A crackling of dead leaves being repeatedly crunched. Footsteps, coming closer. A set of fingers curled themselves over one of the gates supporting pillars and pulled a trudging body forward.

It was Heena, slugging towards us with unbalanced steps. Her bare feet caked with grime. The seams on her dirt-stained jimbe split to the point that it was virtually falling off of her. Her head swayed limply on her shoulders. Stretched across her face was that ugly, twisted smile. And those eyes, they were still twisting freely in their sockets. Things were moving all over. Clusters of spindly caterpillars scrambling endlessly across her body.

Before I even realized it, the crippling fear had already squeezed between my joints. My heart rattled around in my ribcage. trying to burst its way to freedom. Sort of step forward and dropped to his knees in front of her. He was saying something, but it was difficult to hear anything over the deafening static. Sorry, take back. Didn't want this.

Heena clenched a handful of his hair, and he screamed and struggled in her grip, dropping Kadami's terrarium into the dirt. She breathed stiffly and croaking moments that sounded like, from behind her back, her other arm lifted. Brandished between her dirt cake fingers was a rusted train spine. I stood there, succumbing to paralysis. My thoughts couldn't free themselves. I was losing

myself to the static. This isn't real. It's just a bad dream. No, it isn't. I'm somewhere else, somewhere safe. No, you aren't. A scream broke through. Is that sort of? Someone's hurting him. Yes. I have to help. And you're going to have to move. Before even realising it, I'd fired into a sprint.

The day's muscles in my legs were pumping like steam-powered machinery. I was scared, absolutely terrified, that it didn't matter. I was moving. My mother's idiom rang off the walls of my skull, guided by her voice. fear is only as deep as the mind allows. I swung the tactical flashlights. Its toothed head met Hina's face and splattered a caterpillar on her cheek into a blue, green paste. Her necks farmed back with a loud grunt.

Although she stumbled a bit, her finger still clenched Sauta's hair. Three bloody wheels opened on her still smiling face. Put her back! Sauta yelled. batting at Hina with his small fists. Put Kudong me back. All rationality was gone. Maybe he was right.

Perhaps everything would turn back to normal. The terrarium was lying on its side. I ran toward it and shone the flashlight inside. The caterpillar was crawling along the tipped black soil. I took the flashlight into my pocket and cupped the small thing in my hands. I couldn't believe what I was doing. The feeling of its small, grubby legs tickling my palms and it shivers up my spine. As I ran for the gate, Heena swayed in my direction.

Her fingers unhooked from Soda's hair, and she hurled herself at me with a shocking burst of speed. I started out the slope, doing everything in my power to ignore the harsh, throaty sounds behind me and the tickling sensation between my palms. The hand locked around my ankle, I tumbled forward into the dirt. When I look back, Heena's eyes were no longer rolling. They were dead set on me. Her arm rose, displaying the rust-coated spike.

I screamed, trying to kick my free leg at her, but my awkward position on the slope made it difficult. She struck with the spike. I forced my body to roll to the side. My ankle, her hand still clamped around it, popped. Sparks flew as the train spike struck. one of the stone steps. Tight, searing pain resonated from my ankle up to my leg. She made a guttical, cackling sound and hoisted the spike again. But this time Soto was behind her, the glass terrarium

held over his head. He smashed it over her, sending a fine spray of glass and grime everywhere. Her grip slackened, just enough for me to escape. I pushed off my elbows and got back to my feet. I trekked the rest of the way up the hill, fighting through the sharp pain in my ankle. The sculpture was waiting for me below the lonesome, rotting tree. Its frozen grimace matched Heena's perfectly, only this time there wasn't a single caterpillar on its filmy green skin. Ena tromped up the hill as I staggered towards a sculpture. I wasn't sure what to expect. Would this even do anything? A horrible, guttural scream came out of her as I forced the catapot. between the sculpture's realistic teeth and into its coppery gullets and the train spike

slipped from Heena's hands she took a few weak steps and fell limply to the ground like a filthy rag doll the numerous caterpillar she was wearing all toppled off of her and curled into unmoving oval collapsed my swelling ankle couldn't handle anymore so to help me back up supporting me with my arm over his shoulder I'm sorry He was weeping uncontrollably I'm still not sure if he was apologising to Heena or me We left her behind with the sculpture and the caterpillars

Who worshipped it no more Just as we staggered out of the trail's entryway We saw Horry in the parking area Speaking to the same barrel-chested officer as before Most likely because of my message He quickly spied us and dashed from the officer to meet us halfway. He built us into a tight embrace. What happened? Is everything all right? I'm so sorry I didn't answer your calls. The officer followed shortly after. My cousin and I looked at each other

with the same adult uncertainty. The aftermath of everything had left our minds haggard and broken. Even I wasn't sure what exactly the truth of what happened was. We found her in the forest, sort of said quietly, to the man with the chair. cap lips, a tear trailing down his cheek. I know where she is. I can take you there. An ambulance and a few other officers arrived at the scene. Both Sauta and his father accompanied them back into the woods

while I stayed with one of the EMTs to have my ankle treated. They gave me some ice and wrapped it in an elastic brace. After some time, everyone returned. Horry was wearing a face I'd never seen before, a dazed, foggy stare, like a ghost trying to remember how to feel. They asked him to remove us from the scene and to return home for the night, made be in touch. The drive home was long and quiet.

We poured into the driveway, walked into the house, and quietly went to our beds. No one said a word. I wanted to say something or anything, but absolutely nothing could clear that troubled end. None of us were going to find sleep that night. I kept the closet light on. It provided some comfort from the shadows that were continually morphing into an upraised arm, waiting to pierce my heart with its rusted spike. When the sun rose again, I started packing my things.

Now and then I died the window, expecting to see my father's car pull up at any moment. I heard someone crying downstairs. The kitchen was empty, but the crying came from the kitchen. connecting hallway. Horrie was standing there facing the wall. His face buried in his forearm. I could tell he was doing his best to stifle the sounds, but failing miserably. There had to be something I could do.

But what? An idea struck. I hobbled to the purple kettle. When he came into the kitchen, a cup of oolong tea was waiting for him on the table. He looked at me, puzzled at first. But then he gave me a subtle smile. I watched as he picked up the drink, blew on the steaming liquid and sipped. He suddenly winced.

It was probably the poor taste. Sorry, I'm a lousy tea-maker. I shook my head. No, no, he said, waving his fingers at me. It just caught me off guard how familiar the taste is. It's perfect. My dad eventually pulled into the driveway. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to give sense.

Sota a proper goodbye through his locked bedroom door. It was later released that Hina Autori was found dead at the scene. But according to pathology reports, her time of death was the night she disappeared, the same night she'd walked out the front door. The next time I saw Sota was at the memorial service held for Hina. For the most part, he disregarded me, every so often granting me a passive glance. It wasn't until the end that he pulled me aside and started talking. Everything has gone, he said in a rattled, trembling voice.

There was no gate. There was no sculpture. Only Hina and the weapon. Where did everything go, Yuki? Was it because of the adults I brought? Is it the woman somewhere else now, looking for someone else to let her out of that sculpture? I didn't have any answers for him. How could I have? We both felt crazy. We probably were both crazy, but there was no denying the horrors we'd witnessed that night. They were real, sickeningly real. Something tried to stop us from returning to that sculpture. The nightmares that followed were constant, almost every night.

That place haunted me. The Tori Gate choked with slime mould, the rotten, pus-b bleeding trees, the woman bearing her open-mouth grimace. the place where the caterpillars went to die. Without my mother's idiom, the fear of falling back asleep would have caused me to collapse mentally, but progressively the nightmares became less and less frequent. I guess even bad dreams can grow bored of their hosts.

Even now, when one manages to claw its way back and wakes me in a cold sweat, I always pour myself back. But it became increasingly difficult for me to keep in constant, contact with Sauter. He seldom returned my messages. Horri mentioned to me that his son had been seeing a therapist on a regular basis, most likely to help him cope with the dark guilt on his shoulders, reshaping it, making it easier to chew up. Regardless, he'd have to live with it, the ungodly force that he'd conjured and used to rip Horri's new love away, or for the sake of keeping his father

from moving on. Well, I've changed a lot since I last saw Sauta, but how much didn't strike me until recently. I was typing a last-minute essay trying to beat my midnight deadline. Something fluttered in my peripheral. A large moth had flown in through the window. Two intricately patterned eye spots on its wings

resembled skulls. Its black and brown body was robust. I didn't know until later that it was. a Brahmin mob. Taking an interest in the light from my computer monitor, it whiffed over and landed on the screen. It was so close that I reached a finger out and touched its feathery antenna. It was kind of cute. Chapter 1. My lovelies. The world doesn't understand me. They think I'm a monster and that my work is grotesque and horrific. What they fail to realize is, that I preserve beauty.

If I let my lovelies grow old, they will decay and become wrinkled abominations. What I do to them is often necessary due to their resistance. It is rather unfortunate how they struggle, scream and cry. They don't understand my work either. If they did, they would embrace the process,

however unpleasant it may be. It certainly is no easy task to preserve something as natural as warm human flesh after the life has left it. But you can learn quite a lot from having a job at a morgue. I know what you may be thinking, but I have never taken a body from work. I may sneak a few embalming supplies out from time to time, but I wouldn't lower myself to using one of the badly damaged or just generally hideous specimen. that go through that place. I usually find one of my darling lovelies

over dating services on the internet. Many sad and lonely women out there have their beauty go unappreciated. I aim to change that with my work. Once I have them in my workshop, I put them on my table. After they've been properly strapped in, I use a variety of chemical,

products with long and boring clinical names to touch up any superficial cuts from the acquisition process and fix any blemishes on the skin. Then it comes time to preserve their beauty with an injection of embalming fluid. This usually causes my lovelies to quickly lose their painful lives. What I have to give them is greater, though. How many women's grooming products are dedicated to the idea of eternal youth and beauty. I can give that to them. Isn't the end of this suffering existence in a world of constant turmoil, a small price to pay for every woman's dream? Anyway, there are a lot of uninteresting details about the process. Fluid needs to be drained, a mechanical pump is used, and several more injections are necessary. When the process is

complete and the injection sites are concealed. They always look so beautiful. With their appearance preserved so perfectly, I often can't help myself. I simply must take them for my own. It's so magical to bond with someone once their beauty has been made permanent. I would love nothing more than to keep them all, but my home workshop is not allowed. enough to house my collection. So, regrettably, I must often let go of one of my lovelies and dispose of them in the only way I know how to keep my work intact. I clean and dress them up to the best of my ability, and lay them in a field or a garden. I have a few words with my lovelies and take a picture to remember them by, before I reluctantly leave them. I often pray to

Pray that animals and insects leave them be, and do not disturb their preserved radiance. Recently, it seems my work has garnered the attention of the police and local news. They're calling me the embalmer. What a crude name for a beauty preservation artist. Chapter 2. The Test Men don't understand me. They see me as an object. a prize to be won in some misguided competition of masculinity.

It's really rather pathetic, but I could at least ignore those Neanderthals, and they usually go away after a while. The real animals are the ones who seek out weaker prey and think they can do whatever they please, and they'll get away with it. Those are the kind of men that inspired me to start, fighting back. Of course, in order to do that, I have to go where they hunt and make myself appear weak.

Most of the local dive bars are host a whole myriad of unsavory characters. So I never have to go far. It helps my case if I can go in looking reluctant, like a lost college girl whose sorority dared her to be. buy them a beer. The most difficult part is finding a balance between timid and sexy in what I wear. My blonde hair usually gets me noticed pretty quickly, so I try to mess it up a bit to go along with the ruse. I use very minimal makeup and a pair of thick eyeglasses that makes me look more like a bookworm.

I always make sure to pick out an outfit, and that shows off just a little bit of skin, but then I accessorize it with a kind of cheap costume jewelry that a poor college student could afford. It's a delicate process, and sometimes I have to adjust the minor details to make myself more or less appealing. After all, that's what the ladies' room is for. Not that any of the bars I frequent have particularly clean washrooms, but I don't go there for quality service. Some nights I hang out in the corner or by the end of the bar, waiting for one of them to spot me.

Then there are nights when I know exactly which would-be predator has his eyes on me. Usually, I'll have a glass of not very fine wine, and a man will approach offering to buy me another. I may accept, but I always make sure to pace myself. He'll usually be drinking a beer, though the older ones tend to go for whiskey or scotch. I'll pretend to let my guard down and start to casually flirt, giving me an opportunity to have my hands near his drink. Nowadays women tend to be more careful about letting their drinks out of their sight. Men, however, don't give even the first thought to the possibility of being drugged.

Even if you warned them, they'd probably laugh and joke about how getting slipped to roofie probably means that they got laid as well. What they don't realize is that sometimes they will be drugged, and they'll be drugged. and there are far worse things that can be done to them while they're unconscious. By now, I know exactly when I need to ask. Do you want to get out of here? In order for him to pass out in a dimly lit parking lot, I quickly drag him to his car or truck and take out his wallet.

I take whatever cash is in there, and I look at his driver's license, to find an address. I drive him there and scope out the place. Usually the guy lives alone and there's no problem. If he doesn't, I just quietly drop him off and leave. If the coast is clear, I bring him inside. Sometimes this is particularly difficult because men can be quite heavy compared to women. Once inside, I go to his bedroom.

and strip him naked. I do the same and lie next to him. After a few hours, I give him an injection, providing just enough time for him to wake up and play my little game. It usually happens that morning after sunrise. He'll be foggy and have memory loss, but it is this very moment that I test him. I tell him that we had drunken sex the night before, and that I was a virgin before that. I also bring up the lack of birth control and allude to the possibility of pregnancy. Very rarely do the targets I pick handle this news with respect and kindness. If they did, I would give them an injection from the other vial. Let them rest in bed, and quietly leave.

However, this is a test that most of these selfish, shallow, man-children consistently fail. It can get rough, and sometimes his anger is a bit physical, but it doesn't take long for all that activity to wear on him. Within a few moments, he begins to feel dizzy and light-headed. Not long after that, he falls to the floor. and loses consciousness. In less than an hour, he'll die from a nearly untraceable poison. Once he's motionless, I tuck him back into bed and walk away as if nothing happened. Afterwards, I go back to the bar to retrieve my car. The public eye has noticed what I've been doing. In a way, there are reports of dead bodies

turning up as the result of unknown causes, but most are written off as natural. While I prefer anonymity, part of me wishes I could tell the world how I fight for women. I rid the world of the lettuous, misogynistic mouth-breather's that would steal a young girl's innocence and refuse to take responsibility for the consequences. I am nothing in. I am nothing in a young girl's innocence. I am Nothing, if not fair, though. After all, I always give them a choice. Chapter 3. The Meeting. It seems the conveniences of the modern world can be fragile. The search for my latest lovely was interrupted by a sudden and unexpected loss of internet connection. A loss made all the more devastating as my need and desire to add to my collection grew soon.

stronger. Tonight, I will attempt to fulfil that need, the old-fashioned way, as it were, by going to a local watering-hole. She first catches my eye as I walk into the bar, feigning confidence. It's been a while since I've interacted socially without the aid of a backspace key to filter out some of my less appealing thoughts. But she doesn't strike me as superficial, at least not enough to turn away a suitor at a minor slip of the tongue. No, I feel very differently about her. Golden locks of hair shimmer from atop her head. Yet it appears she either has difficulty styling it, or perhaps it has been disheveled from some rigorous activity. As I gaze upon her, I notice a large pair of corrective eyewear and some less than fashionable jewelry.

She looks young, far too young to be in a filthy place like this. I decide I must approach her and ensure that none of these vermin get to her. I approach modestly, but not with trepidation. I tell her she's far too beautiful to be in a den of debauchery where such beauty will undoubtedly go unappreciated. I also warn her, though not with intent to frighten. that she should proceed cautiously with so many womanizing scoundrels around. She receives my words well, and introduces herself.

Her name is Tanya. Her voice is incredible, timid yet stir. Something about it seems out of place, as though beneath her reluctant exterior there was inner strength. Her spirit or her soul, perhaps. But of course it can be difficult to say about someone you've just met. I feel something different about her, though. Something special, I suppose you would call it.

We talk for what seems like ours on various subjects, likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc. Yet somehow I can't tear my eyes away from her magnificent beauty. If only she didn't hide it so. All she would need is a bit of hairspray. Contact lenses are nice dress, perhaps some better jaw. A very few minor touch-ups with a makeup brush. Of course, that sounds like a lot, but it would be a very simple makeover, and she would look ravishing.

Then again, if that happened, these bar room troglodytes would be all over her. After conversing for a few more minutes, I cordially invite Tanya to stay the evening at my humble abode. She's had a few glasses of wine after all, and is in no state to drive. I treat her with respect every step of the way, as a good gentleman should. I hold the door for her and carefully guide her head into the car, so she doesn't bump it into the roof. We arrive at my place and I show her to the guest room, warning her not to go into the basement because it has a rat problem and has recently been fumigated. Though the truth is that my lovelies are down there. I don't expect her to understand what my collection is and why I keep it.

For now, it is better to lie to her about such things. I bring her some sweatpants and a shirt to sleep in, both of which are probably three sizes too big to fit her small frame. She asked me why I haven't tried to make a move on her. I tell her I admire her beauty far too much to take advantage of her drunken state. She laughs and confesses that she was merely pretending to be drunk so that I take her home. She claims she can hold her liquor much better than that, and even offers to take a field sobriety test in the hallway.

She walks a straight line over to me, and we start kissing. We go into my bedroom and fall onto the bed. She asks if we have protection, which I affirm, and she says, good. While you take care of that, I'll slip into something more comfortable. She leaves the room for what seems like in eternity. I prepare the contraceptive and anxiously await her return. Finally, she comes back wearing the sweatpants and t-shirt I'd given her, and we both share a good laugh about it.

Stripping them away, she reveals a very enticing set of lingerie. She climbs on top of me, and we are entwined at last. Her soft, warm flesh feels like pure bliss as I stare endlessly into her deep, enchanting eyes. It is all so perfect until she pours my head next to hers and bites me on the neck. I push her away for a moment and see that the look of desire in her eyes has changed to one of hatred and anger. She lunges back at me, trying to scratch and claw with an insatiable blood lost. I grab her by the throat and begin squeezing until the light in her eyes is extinguished.

I thought she was different from the others. It's a shame she'll just be another part of my collection tomorrow. Right now, I feel a bit weary. I'll just sleep beside her for tonight. For, the basement. It's been a slow night at the bar, and hardly anyone is making a move. I begin to wonder if I need to adjust my wardrobe. When suddenly he walks in, immediately, I know that this little grin is a facade and that he's hiding something.

He sees me, and already starts making his way over. I can tell this one's going to be tricky. He can barely hide. his eagerness to talk to me. I get the, what's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this routine from him, though he phrases it a touch more eloquently. He claims that I'm far too beautiful to be surrounded by such a crass and ill-mannered bunch of ruffians. I admit, it has a tad classier than the usual array of terrible pickup lines may news on me, but it is a means to the same end. I smile and introduce myself. He says his name is Jacob. He seems charming enough. Had I not been

so intent on finding his dark side, I may have even been fooled into thinking he was a nice guy, but I can see it in his eyes, and that he's hiding something, and I'm going to find him. find out what it is. He boars me for what feels like in eternity with meaningless small talk, and I pretend to be interested. What's worse is how he keeps staring at me. I get the feeling that he's admiring me, but also judging my intentionally modest wardrobe choices. Then again, if I were wearing a sexy dress, this creep probably wouldn't have the balls to approach me. unfortunately the bastard invites me back to his place before i get a chance to drug his whiskey i can't say no if i want to keep him on the hook long enough to find out what he's hiding so i'll just have to be extra careful and rely on the element of surprise i pretend to be tipsy so he walks me out to his car he holds the door and touches my hair as i sat down in the passenger seat

I suppose he thinks he's being a gentleman. We arrive at his place, which I expect to be a filthy bachelor pad littered with porn. Instead, there's a well-kept house, with enough room for a small family. He warns me not to go into the basement, claiming it has a rat problem. But I immediately know I have to find a way to get down there. You see, it's always the one. place they tell you not to go that will house their darkest secrets. He shows me to his guest room and quickly retrieves some sweatpants and a t-shirt for me to sleep in. I turn on the charm and

ask, why a guest room and pajamas instead of your bed and my underwear? He says, because I respect your beauty too much to take advantage of you in such a man. I laugh and tell him I was only pretending to be drunk, so he'd take me home. Jokingly, I offered to prove it by walking a straight line. I walk right up to him and we start making out. We go to his bedroom and I ask him if he has protection. He says he does, so I tell him to put it on while I change. I know this is my chance to see the basement.

while he anxiously awaits my return. In order to make my excuse valid, I quickly change into the sweatpants and shirt before I go. I make my way down the dark steps, filling around for a light switch or a flashlight. There's an awful stench coming from deep within the basement. Smells like chemicals and death. And for a moment, I consider that maybe Jacob was telling the truth.

truth. Then, a thin string brushes past my face, and I reach for it. It has a little plastic piece on the end, and I realize it must be a pull string for a light bulb. I pull down on it, and the room is illuminated. The cold stone walls are lined with dead bodies of women. All of them are dressed in various outfits, most of which are sexualized. I can also see makeup and jewelry. carefully placed on each one. It takes everything I have not to scream in horror at the sight of them. Jacob is worse than any of the pigs I've ever tested before. He doesn't just objectify women. He kills them. I quietly turn out the light and make my way back up the stairs. I go back into his bedroom and joke about how I changed into the sweatpants because they were more

comfortable. I take them off, get on top of him, and we start to have sex. God, even now, he can't stop staring at me. I can't stop thinking about what he did to those women, how he killed them, dressed up their bodies and did, God knows what else to them. It's all so sick. I pull him close, pretend to bite him on the neck, and inject him. with the poison. The day of the funeral was one of the longest days of my life. I could hardly hear any of the words

of the eulogy or anecdotes shared by family and friends. All I could do was stare at the photos that passed in steady rotation on the screen. Whenever someone approached the front for their turn to share something, the projector will be blocked momentarily and I would be able to break my gaze and look at the floor. This never lasted though,

and within a couple of minutes I'd be back to staring at the pictures, lost in thoughts of how I would never see my sister's beaming face again. I felt my eyes begin to well up with tears when an image of Leah, myself and our parents, was displayed. It was from our trip. to the carnival. We were all smiling and happy. I could never have foreseen the tragedy that would follow only a few short weeks later. No one could have. It happened almost a year ago.

Leah and I were at home when an officer came knocking on the door. Being the older one at age 17, Leah answered the door. I can recall hearing a thud and rushing over to find that she had fallen to her knees. Our parents had been in a horrible car accident. The officer, a greying man that was probably in his mid to late 40s, crouched down in front of Leah, asking if she was okay. She didn't respond. Once I was standing beside her, Leah grabbed my arm and pulled me down into a hug so tight

I thought my rib cage was going to be crushed. At some point the officer asked if there was anyone he could call to come be with us. Shortly after, our aunt and uncle arrived, Leah was in shock and didn't speak for hours. When she finally was able to mumble something, She ended up rushing to the bathroom and vomiting. She was hysterical for days after that. We moved in with our aunts and uncle in the days following the memorial for our parents. Life never actually normalized in the next year,

despite trying to continue like the typical 17 and 14-year-olds that we were. We were met with hesitant smiles that oozed pity for months. Everyone felt sorry for us. I was relieved when people finally stopped looking at me like a lost puppy. But here I was again, the lost puppy, sitting amidst a bunch of people I didn't care about and waiting for my sister to be lowered into the ground next to our parents. No one seemed to really know what to say around me anymore. I don't blame them.

What are you supposed to say when someone who, within a year of losing both parents, had then lost her sister? The three people I grew up with were now gone. Even being worried about what words to use in my presence, I knew what most of them were thinking. Poor Amy, losing her sister like that. How could Leah throw away her entire life? How could she leave her little sister?

They blamed Lear for taking her own life, but I didn't. I understood. Lear had never been the same after our parents. The funeral continued, and everyone moved to the cemetery for the burial, myself included. A few final words were shared. A poem was read, and the casket was lowered into the ground. my body felt numb as I watched Slowly

Everyone began to leave Until the only ones left When my aunt and uncle Myself and the burial custodian Who was completing preparations To return the soil back to the hole My sister was now laid in Amy

Do you want to stay here for a bit longer My aunt asked me Touching my shoulder, lightly, I nodded. Okay, we'll wait for you at the car. Take all the time you need. My uncle chimed in. I only nodded again in response.

I listened to their soft, grassy steps received and took a deep breath. The exhale, ragged and broken. I didn't want to cry anymore, but it would seem I didn't have a choice. The tears that had been welling up off and on throughout the day finally made their way to the corners of my eyes and began slipping down my cheeks.

I knelt down and sat on my heels, facing the two headstones and open, occupied grave. Absent-mindedly, I plucked blades of grass from the ground and began dropping them into a pile. I'm not sure how long I sat there, there with my family. The attendant left at some point without me realizing it. I was alone now in every sense. I had my aunt and uncle, but they weren't my parents. They weren't Leah. How was I supposed to return to school, where everyone would be walking on eggshells around me?

How was I supposed to learn to drive? Who was I supposed to learn to drive? Who was supposed to? I going to share my crushes with. When their silent tears stopped flowing, I stood and turned away. As I solemnly walked to the car, a single thought repeated in my mind. How dare you, Leah? I didn't eat dinner.

I didn't feel like I could stomach a single bite of anything. As soon as the sun started to fade, I shut myself in what was now only my room. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to escape everything. I just wanted to sleep. The black dress, stockings and heels that I had so carefully picked out that morning, now lay in a heap on the floor where I had thrown them. They felt dirty, tainted somehow. I donned a brown tank top and shorts, before climbing under my covers.

Before lying down with my head on the pillow, I sat there, looking around my room. It was a mess of clothes, books, various lotions, knick-knacks, pictures and papers. Despite this, it still felt empty, without leer in the bed opposite mine. When I lay down, I couldn't help but feel a few salty drops

sleep onto my pillow as I stared at the empty bed. My eyes fluttered open and blink sluggishly as I looked to the alarm clock on top of my dresser. It read 2.47 a.m. Why had I woken up? Instead of facing Lear's bed, I was now facing the wall on my other side. I watched for a few minutes as shadows grew and shrank on it

from cars passing by. I was ready to give up on trying to determine why I was awake when I thought I heard a soft laugh from behind me. I flipped over and sat up quickly when I realized it couldn't be Leah giggling from something she read like she used to. Leah was gone now. When I saw that the bed was empty, I sighed.

She would never be sitting in bed reading comics ever again. I scanned the room and found it to be the same, devoid of any other life than my own. I eased myself back down to my pillow, concluding that I must be missing Leah more than I realized. I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to remember. Why did you have to do it, Leah? I loved you, you were my sister. so why did you have to do it? I thought back to our final conversation.

It had been less of a conversation and more of a fight. She'd been going through a box of old notebooks and schoolwork, trying to find something when she discovered the old composition notebook I used to use as a journal. She skimmed through it to figure out what it was, and when she came across an entry I had written shortly before our parents died she confronted me it quickly turned into yelling at one another

she demanded to know why I would write such things about our father I tried to explain to her that it was all true the nightly visits the hidden bruises the pain in specific areas the loss of my virginia When she refused to believe me, I screamed at her that she was just like our mother,

who did nothing and ignored my pleas for help to make it stop. Leah just couldn't and wouldn't believe that our loving parents, the ones who did everything they could to give us whatever we wanted, could be so crass and malicious. She threw the notebook at me and told me that I was full of shit, that I just wanted attention, and I'd do or say anything to get it, that I'd always lie to put the spotlight on myself. I cursed at her and stormed out of the bedroom, then through the front door, slamming it with a loud bang behind. Once I knew my aunt and uncle would be home from work, I returned for a quiet dinner. because it wasn't unusual for us to barely speak. They didn't have any idea about the argument Lear and I had just had a few short hours ago.

The following morning, I'd been jolted awake by a scream when my aunt discovered Lear in the backyard. It was ruled as suicide immediately and determined that the cause of death was strangulation. They speculated that she wanted to be absolutely sure. sure she would die as they found cuts on her arms and a large dose of hypnotic medication in her system no one could say why she wanted to meet death so desperately it was heartbreaking but people weren't entirely surprised given how melancholy and miserable she had seemed now as i lay there in the

dark eyes clenched tight remembering that final death with my sister, I felt guilty. The last things we spoke to each other were hurtful. I rolled onto my side and buried my face in the pillow. I sobbed until I couldn't breathe out of my nose anymore. Reluctantly, I pushed the blankets aside and shuffled into the bathroom to retrieve some toilet paper. I blew my nose and discarded the snotty tissue.

I tore off another piece. and was wiping my nose when I turned and saw the mirror. My blood ran cold. My heart stopped. My lungs captured a gasp and held it. I wanted to scream, but my vocal cords forgot how to function. Next to my own reflection was Leah. Her skin looked pale

Her brunette hair stringy and lackluster Her eyes drab but angry She glared into my reflection I spun around more out of reflex than anything else I expected to see nothing But there she was Standing just behind me Her material countenance was more terrifying than her reflection

Her skin looked thinner than when she was alive. Purple and blue veins stood out against the pale grey flesh that she now possessed. I saw the bruising around her neck from where the rope had tethered her to the tree. She grinned with blue-grey lips, as she held her hands out, palms up to me to show me the cuts along her wrists. darkened blood dripped steadily from the wounds and onto the bathroom floor I backed up to the counter and gripped the edge with both hands Leah took a step forward bloodied arms still reaching out to me

her grin widening aside from anger I could see determination in her cold eyes Leah was always the type to fiercely pursue what she wanted She took another step forward And I leaned back as far as I could The edge of the countertop pressing hard against my body Frid hands cut my face As my dead sister leaned forward

Staring directly into my eyes Oh dear Mom and Dad know what you did, cutting the brake lines on their car. They and I also know how you made sure I wouldn't tell anyone what I figured out. Tell me, did you really think you'd get away with this? On the night of October 27, 2004, several residents on E Road in B called the local police station to report a disturbance at the home of one of their neighbours. The reports indicated that a possible home invasion was in progress,

as a number of people in dark clothing had been seen moving furtively around the property acts, later determined to be the residence of one Alice L, a single female in her mid-20s who lived alone. Some callers reported Ray's voices, which were taken to be indicative of a conference between the homeowner and a possible assailant. Officers arrived on the scene at 23-23 hours, approximately two minutes after a 911 call, indicated that a young woman was seen confronting one or more

possible intruders at her front door. However, the caller could not give further information due to a sudden search in the local electrical grid which shut down the power for the entire neighbour. When the responding officers searched the residence, the front door was ajar and there was no sign of Alice L. Investigators noted that there was no sign of forced entry or struggle inside the house. The subject's possessions were all intact, including valuable electronic equipment and a set of car keys left in plain view. The vehicle they matched was still in the driveway.

The only evidence at the scene was a partial set of footprints in the gravel walk which led around to the rear of the house, and these were discarded on the grounds that they were too small to belong to an adult. It is believed that they were made by one or more of the neighbourhood children, although investigators have not been able to determine which child in particular, nor when the footprints were made. The following missive was found by police during the subsequent investigation. The pages were scattered on the floor of the living room.

It is believed that they were originally stacked on a table in the foyer and were blown off by a breeze from the front door, or disturbed by the entry of officers H and N. It is believed that the subject wrote an account of certain odd goings on in the days and possibly minutes leading up to her disappearance. Investigation into the matter is ongoing, though the case officially when, It went cold in the spring of 2010, and no new leads have been generated in quite some time.

As of this writing, no trace of Alice L has ever been found. The written document found at the scene remains the best and only insight into the subject's life immediately before she went missing. I'm not sure who is going to be reading this. I'm not even sure who would believe me if they did. I have to get it down on paper. I have to. Somehow, it's not quite real when I tried to put things together in my head. But with writing, it becomes clearer. In any case, by the time anyone reads this, I doubt I'll be around to listen to their criticisms. I doubt I'd care even if I did

hear it. Because there are lots of stories in this world, real and imagined. And this one? Well, this one is mine. I've never been a big fan of other people. Even when I was a child myself, I felt out of phase somehow. My classmates seemed to shun me, not out of any particular malice, but simply in the way that a round hole shuns a square peg. Of course, the fact that my family moved just about every other year for most of my life and didn't help matters much. It started when I was in grade school, and there never seemed to be any reason for it. My folks didn't have military contracts or job transfers.

I'd just come home and find another for-sale sign on the front lawn. I spent so much time feeling disconnected from the people around me that it started to feel normal by the time I was in my twenties living alone wasn't so much a choice as a necessity I didn't have any close friends I had no siblings and since my teens I had been getting a strong impression that my parents really wanted me to leave that impression waned somewhat when they helped me lease a small house of my own for my 23rd birth

but solidified again later. Overhearing a conversation expressing relief at your forthcoming absence will do that. Nothing like hearing your own parents say that they can't wait until their own kid is out of their hair for good.

So, that's how I wound up in this two-bedroom rancher. I have a job with one of those big software companies. So the second bedroom is my office. and that's where I spend most of my time. A lot of the clients were overseas, so my hours are pretty scattered and often extend into the small hours of the morning.

Doesn't leave much time for a social life. I don't mind it much, though. Computers are nice and predictable. Very few problems that can't be solved with a new patch or a look at the instruction manual. People are complicated. They don't come with instructions. They lie.

They laugh at you. They kick you when you're down. Yes, it's people you have to look out for. It was on one of those late nights that all of this started. I'd just taken a break from a template redesign. I was walking out to the kitchen for a snack. When movement out of the front window caught my eye. I went over for a closer look.

There was a kid standing in my driveway. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl through the gloom, but it looked like they were wearing a hooded sweatshirt. I figured it was just one of the neighbours' kids, sneaking out. I didn't know anyone on my street by name, so I couldn't have told you whose kid it might have been. In any case, it was none of my business, so I got my snack and went back to work.

About ten minutes later, somebody knocked at my door. Now, sometimes I order a pizza or take away tie, when I can't get away to cook something, but on this particular night, I hadn't. Rumbling at the interruption, I went to answer. If it was that kid from earlier, I was going to be pissed. Sure enough, I could see the same kid through the window, standing on my front step.

I went to open the door, ready to tell the kid to go the hell home. But then I stopped. Something felt wrong. My eyes were glued to the silhouette behind a frosted glass. My hand frozen on the door handle. A strange, cold feeling crept into my stomach. Like I'd swallowed a lump of ice. For one split second

My entire being Was filled with an overwhelming certainty That if I opened that door Something awful was going to happen The figure outside Raised a hand and knocked again I nearly jumped out of my skin And then had to laugh at myself

For being such a candy house I'd handled living alone just fine And I could damn sure handle one annoying little ding-dong ditch even if the kid was planning to try some stupid prank. Leaving the security chain latched, I opened the door just enough to peer out at my visitor. The porch light cast the kid's face in shadow,

but I thought I saw short hair and boyish features underneath. I couldn't decide for an exact age. An educated guess might have been somewhere in that indeterminate period between 11 and 13. His jeans were dirty. Likewise, the battered sneakers on his feet. The red hoodie looked oddly down. Had it been raining? I couldn't recall hearing rain on the roof.

More importantly, what was the kid doing walking around at this time of night? Hey, I said. Proud that my voice sounded firm and confidence. No trace of a wall. You need help, kid? can I come in the question sound rehearsed

like the kid was reading from some hidden script he made no move to raise his head and I still couldn't get a good look at his face um excuse me can I come in are you lost

do you need me to call your parents or something I need to call my parents let me in That chill rippled up my spine again Something had sounded off that time Not just like the lines were rehearsed But as though the kid were using a stage voice It had just slipped

Something was underneath that childish tone I couldn't put my finger on it But it was nothing good The security chain suddenly looked a whole lot less secure Listen, I said If you want me to call somebody, I'll do that Are you in trouble? Do you want me to call the cops? Silence for a moment

Then the kid raised a fist and banged on the door again The sound echoed like cannon fire The blow vibrated the whole frame Making the glass panes rattle Hey, what the f f f- Let me eat There was no mistaking the menace now. There was such malice behind that voice.

Such anger. More snarl than speech. And a strange undertone like the screech of tearing metal. That was not a child's voice. There was just no way. Another blow struck the door. I rushed to close it. The kid was looking straight at me through the gap under the security.

pretty chain. I could see his face now, and it made that sick, chilly feeling creep into my gut again. His skin was white, whiter than salt, whiter than cracked ice, whiter than snow. White like paste or paper with a too perfect finish, like someone have sculpted it, fired it and sanded it smooth, a facsimile of a child's face, a life-sized dog, but the eyes are they or the worst. Pitch, black, pools of lifeless ink, horrible in contrast to the porcelain skin. The porch light made stars of half-consumed light in their depths, but only just barely. The child thing smiled, and one thin hand reached toward the gap in the door, toward the increasingly flimsy-looking chain,

the only thing between me and this thing from the pit. I threw myself against the door. The kid jumped back to avoid losing a finger as it slammed shut. I threw the deadbolt and leaned against it, waiting for another blow. It never came. After a few seconds I heard footsteps on gravel and realised with a terrified jolt that the kid, the thing, was moving around the side of the house. I dashed for the back door and bolted that too.

Barely seconds later, the knob began to rattle. Unlike the front door, this one had no glass panes, only a peephole. For once, I was grateful for that. The footsteps circled the house for the next several hours. I closed all the blinds so no one could see in and huddled on the couch in that living room. Baseball bat in hand, staring at the front door. At any second, I expected to hear another knock,

or the sound of breaking glass from one of the other rooms. The thought of calling the cops, as I'd threatened to do earlier, Did cross my mind. But what could I tell them? 911, what is your emergency? Um, yeah, I'm trapped in my house and there's a creepy-looking kid walking around outside. At best, they'd laugh at me. At worst, I could be fine for prank calling emergency services.

Either way, they wouldn't send help. No, I was on my own. Story of my life. Around 5 a.m., I realised that I hadn't heard the footsteps in a while. I risked a peek through the blinds in several rooms. It showed that kid thing had vanished. I hadn't heard it leave. It was just gone, as if some distant timer had dinged,

and the lurker had vanished with the snap of its chalk white fingers. I went through the rest of the day in a bit of a daze, trying to wrap my head around the night's events. Was it some sort of elaborate prank? Something involving sclera contacts and voice modulators. Had I had some bad takeaway and just dreamed the whole thing? Was I finally losing it after too many late nights been staring at a computer screen?

Well, I tried to work, even though it was my day off. That was my usual go-to when I was my usual go-to when I didn't know what else to do with myself. Work and more work. It felt safer outdoors while the sun was up. But when the afternoon started to wane, I still made sure all the doors and windows were locked. I finished early, so I made myself some dinner

and settled in to watch a movie. A little bit of paranoia kept me glancing at the front door, but all was still. By 1 a.m., I had almost managed to convince myself that I'd imagined the whole thing. There was no creepy kid that I should just pack it in and get some much-needed sleep. And then, I didn't want to look, but somehow I had to. I crept to the front door, and sure enough, there was that kid-sized silhouette behind the frosted glass. One arm raised.

Let us in. that same in human turn that same underlying snarl it wasn't even bothering to pretend i wasn't dreaming i wasn't dreaming and i wasn't crazy this was happening we know you're there let us in wait us us what did it mean us a second set of knocks on the back door. My heart thumped so hard it almost choked me. Two of them. Go away! I yelled.

Go the hell away and leave me alone. I'm calling the cops. Cars in. Get lost. I grabbed my bat again. Glad I'd locked up well before dark. I went to find myself up. The hell with being laughed at

and the hell with fines. I was calling the cocks. One weird little kid playing a prank could be ignored. But two of them? Working together? Two nights in a row? No, that couldn't be ignored. I flicked over to the dial pad and was about to tap in the emergency number when I heard it.

Not on the door this time. God help me. It wasn't the door. It was my. bedroom, window, heart hammering against my ribs, I turned. And there, standing just outside the window, not even three feet away, was a little girl. I could only see her outstretched hand in the top of her head, but that was enough. Her nose was level with the sill, and a pair of dead black eyes were looking straight in at me.

The tiny hand that reached up to wrap against the glass was corpse white. The tiny fingernails were an odd shade of bluish grey, as if the blood that flowed beneath was something other than crimson. I heard her little voice through the window, tinny and nasal, overlaid with a rising yowl like an angry cat. Let us in! I yanked the blinds down. dashed across the hall into my office.

The window pane there was mercifully empty for the moment. I wasted no time in drawing the blinds there too. I pulled the tall bookcase in front of the window for good measure. The knocking continued for hours, as did the footsteps circling around the house. A few times they knocked on the window on the other side of the bookcase, but I stayed quiet, crouched inside the closet, waiting for the sun to come up. The next night they came back, and the next, and the next.

With each visit their numbers grew until it sounded like there was a small hand knocking on every square inch of the walls and windows. A bevy of screeching whispers followed my every step and filled my dream, and filled my dream, with a never-ending chorus of, Let's us in. I stopped sleeping. I barely made it through my work days. I only ever left the house in the broadest daylight.

I always searched each room thoroughly when I returned, half dreading that one of the little monsters would somehow get in and be crouched under my bed, or behind a door, waiting for me. What could I do? The house was all I had. had. My parents weren't going to take me in. I didn't have any friends to call, nor did I have the money for a hotel. Moving was out of the question, and anyway, it wouldn't happen fast enough to help me.

I was on my own. I covered my windows with newspaper to block out the sight of those small shapes darting by. I couldn't tell exactly where they were, but at least they couldn't see me. me either. The baseball bat was never out of my reach, not for one second. I didn't know how much good it would do against these things, but if they were determined to get to me, then I was just as determined to go down-swinging. On the seventh night, as I huddled in my office closet with bat in hand, I heard the voice of the boy thing from the very first night. right outside the window. Alice, I nearly had a heart attack.

I know you can hear me, Alice. Let us in. Get Ben, you little creep. I muttered under my breath. We have so much to tell you, Alice. There is so much you need to know. Let us in, Alice. Adrenaline and anger flooded.

my veins, driving away the fear for a few blissful seconds. I thumped the bad heart against the wall, as if it could magically pass through and smack the creeper in his pasty china doll face. Go away! I screamed at the top of my lungs, not caring how hysterical it sounds. Get the hell off my property before I come out there and beat your rotten heads in. Oh, you won't do that, Alan. Gwen was calling my bluff part of the plan. Oh, we know you, Alice. You're ours.

You've always been ours, and we know you so very, very well. Just let us in. That scared me more than anything. This wasn't random. These things hadn't just decided to torment someone. They'd happened to discover living alone on a dead-end street. No, they knew my name. They were looking for me, trying not to hyperventilate.

I put my fingers in my ears, curled into a ball on my closet floor, and stared at the bookcase covering the window until the feeble light of dawn glimmered around the edges of the dark wood. That day, I blew off work in time and dove headfirst into the internet, looking for information.

A lot of wild theories circulated about weird creatures that look like black-eyed kids who'd knocked on people's doors. Some sites said they were demons. Others insisted they were aliens. Still others had wild theories about the spirits of murdered children. I was at a loss. There was too much speculation and not enough hard evidence for me to draw any sort of conclusion.

The only thing the various sites agreed upon was that the only defence against these black-eyed kids was to lock your doors and windows and refuse to let them in. Not one mentioned what to do if they came to your house more than two nights in a row.

Three more nights passed. More knocking. More voices. More please for entry. I was in agony I couldn't eat couldn't sleep couldn't even think

the whispers were echoing in my head in the daytime by that point I tried to block the sounds out with noise cancelling headphones but the voices seemed to be inside my thoughts as well as outside my home like a thousand tiny fingers tapping on the windows of my mind

the bat had ceased to be a comfort nothing felt safe. When the sun went down tonight, I knew they would come. Knew it long before the knocking began. Before the voices leaked through the windows, before the whisper swelled into a scream,

and my own ragged cries joined the cacophony. Alice, Alice, let us in. Let us in. In. Sobbing, I bolted from the closet and made for the front door. I don't know what madness drove me. I wasn't feeling brave or heroic, or even angry anymore. I just wanted it to stop.

I ripped the newspaper off the window beside the door and flicked on the porch light. I froze. I felt my heart give a terrified, irregular jerk against its mouth. ribs, as if it too wanted to escape the sight. There weren't just a few of them now. Not even a dozen. They had to be close to 50, maybe more, all in those damp red hoodies. All standing stock still were those soulless eyes fixed on the house. Hell's own child choir. A congregation of black eyes and whispering mouths, through whose pale lips I imagined a faintly glimpsed, jagged, sore blade teeth. I could hear them through the door.

We know you, Alice. You belong with us. Let us in. Let us in. Shut up. I banged my fist against. the glass. Shut up, you creepy little bastards.

I'm not letting you in. Go away and leave me alone, damn it. The whispers stopped. The silence that followed was almost louder than the voices had been. They seemed to withdraw from the front porch ever so slightly. I didn't see them exactly move. They were just on the step one second, and then I blinked, and there were several feet further back on the walkway.

Another blink and that familiar face was inches away on the other side of the glass. He seemed to have gotten taller somehow since that first night. As if my fear was some sort of growth stimulant, our eyes were almost leveled with each other, and I stared into that pitiless darkness. Terrified that if I blinked again, I'd suddenly find him beside him beside him. me inside the house. Deep in those hollow voids, I thought I saw faint sparks the colour of rotten limes. Alas! Up close, his mouth looked like the moor of some primordial beast, too large for his face and full of teeth that sprouted like shards of broken glass from pale greenish

gums. He smiled at me. and the grin stretched halfway around his head. It's been a long time. A long time. What the hell did he mean by that? Was this all some sort of sick joke to them? I haven't seen you since you were very small. You've grown house, grown out of your pigtails and into your very own house.

Our little girl lost. all grown up now. What the hell are you talking about? You're ours, Alice. We lost you when you were very small, but now we've found you again. Lost me. I was falling into the bottomless pit behind those eyes. Something was nagging at the back of my mind, like pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit, trying to put themselves together. Your parents asked for you, Alice, begged for you. They brought sweets to the toadstool ring and soft, dead things to the old oak. They pleaded and cried, told us their child was dead, asked us to give them another. So we gave them you. The world seemed to fall away beneath my feet.

This couldn't be real. My parents were my parents. My mother had carried me, given birth to me. How many times had they told me this story of how my father had nearly fainted in the delivery room? They recounted it every year on my birthday, and they laughed. I had a birth certificate with their names on it. I was their child. Wasn't I?

But our children are not like human children. The thing outside the door continued. They looked like human children. Walk and talk and breathe and eat and cry the same. But there is always something just a little off. The mortal ones, they can't explain it. Can't even put words or reason to it. when they feel it Alice they feel the strange in you haven't you ever wondered why the

world seemed to hold you at arm's length why no one wanted to get close to you why even your parents never seemed sure of you I'd never even given it a second thoughts I'd always assumed that other children just didn't like the new kid who just arrived at school or the weird kid playing at the edge of the playground I'd always assumed that my parents hadn't wanted children, or maybe that I wasn't the kind of kid that they'd wanted. But looking back, everyone I'd ever met had given me the same look, cautiously friendly at first, and then inexplicably wary, uneasy, like I was some wild thing that might bite if provoked.

Your parents did not honor the bargain, Alice. You were only meant to be there for a short while before you came home, as all our children do. We tried to find you, Alice, for so very long we tried. But you just kept moving, hop-scotching from one sound to the next. Whenever we came calling, they'd pack up and run. And then you grew up and they sent you away. All those unexplained. changes of address. The strain looks on my parents' faces when I'd asked why I had to change schools yet again. The silence of clenched jaws on an early morning car ride I could only just barely recall. Why had we moved so much? I felt a few more puzzle pieces slide into place. A picture

was beginning to emerge. The grin was softening now. It looked almost friendly But now we've found you Alice We've come to take you home As we should have done all those years ago Open the door Alice The thing raised one hand and stick Thin fingers with tips the same shade as new moss

Tap gently against the glass Let us in My throat was drier than a thousand deserts. It seemed to close on itself as I tried to summon the will to choke out the words. Who? What are you? The sea of smiles opened in my yard. Cavernous eyes lit with spring-colored sparks. I almost heard the words before the whispers came.

Family. Your family. We are your family. The tall boy on my porch smiled, and there was something like affection in it. Alice, it's time to come home. I don't know quite how I ended up on the couch, but I know I've been sitting here for a long time, riding this all down.

Like I said, it makes more sense that way. that way. Makes the pieces fit together in my head. I check the internet too, just once more. And there's a word for this sort of thing. For stolen children, substituted children. You don't see it much outside of the old fairy tales, but it does exist. Changelie. Yeats even wrote a poem about it. Come away, oh human child, To the waters and the wild, with a fairy hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. There are so many more like me.

People they've lost as children for one reason or another, that they come to retrieve. But if those people have spent too much time away, they don't recognize their family anymore. They just know there's something strange, something off about. the kids knocking at their door and fear makes them run like I did I don't know why my parents did what they did why they asked for me why they held on for years to a child that they couldn't bring themselves to love why they didn't just give me back when it became apparent I was too strange too other for their safe little world maybe they wanted to keep trying maybe they were desperate

I don't know. It doesn't really matter now. The kids in the red hoodies are still outside, but there's no more knocking, no more whispering. They're just standing there, like they're waiting for me. These fay, inhuman things,

my family. And I think, I think I'm ready to go with them now. In my bed, I am wrapped in my cozy blankets. All around me, the usually night-time set. Darkness surrounds me as I drift into sleep. Not a single sound from the world, not even peep. A cold shiver crawled its way down my spine.

My eyes widen, taking in every detail rough and fine. I observe every shadow looking for a movement. Not a single moment wasted. Everyone wisely spent. No sound emitted from the open window. And another shiver from a cold wind's blow. I contemplate over the shadows, some too dark from the rest. Each moment threatening to break me, putting my fear.

to the test. A creek sounds from a corner, forming a new feeling of horror. I pulled the sheets far over my head, muddled my limbs into the center of the bed. I waited and waited for a long time. I peaked and the clock said two on the dime. My eyes adjusted and I could see the silhouette of something my heart was thumping. I reached for the lamp, when the light was on, I saw nothing. Sit back and relax with your favorite drink, my dear, dear friends. Because now it's time to listen.

Night is a beautiful time when terrors come out to play. Whether from your own mind or reality. Crime is more prevalent. Ghosts are easier to see. Monsters lurk under beds. But how can we know for sure what's real or not? What is actually more terrifying? The idea of someone sneaking into our homes and hiding in a corner. Or a monster made of shadow and glowing eyes and gleaming teeth waiting for us to drop a toe. off the edge of the bed. I guess it really depends on who you might ask. To a child, a monster in the closet is easier to understand and be terrified of than a burglar who might stab you when caught. These are just some of the thoughts that trickle through my mind as I lay there,

desperately wanting to sleep. I couldn't deny that I felt uneasy, uncomfortable. as most people do I had trouble falling asleep in an unfamiliar place it didn't help that this small hotel was home to rumours of crime and ghosts alike if only there had been another motel open I would have switched to one that didn't have such a sordid reputation I would consider myself average when it comes to fears and horror

Not all scary movies actually frightening, but I wasn't immune to craving acute, childish comedy afterwards in order to clean my palate before sleeping. I didn't believe everything I heard about superstitions or urban legends, but I maintained a curiosity for hearing stories while also attempting to avoid putting myself into any situation that could cause supernatural ideations. Sure. I believe ghosts could be real, but I didn't put much stock in every ghost story I heard. I suppose I could be considered a skeptical believer.

I never doubted that things could happen to people, but at the same time, I never saw anything that made me think there was a heavy truth to the forces, not of this world. I sure as hell wouldn't risk it. I won't walk those supposedly haunted woods at night. There's no way I'm going into that old creaky abandoned house. And Ouija boards? Not a chance. I did believe, though, that rumours of crime and ardor currencies held weight

and could mar an establishment's reputation. In such a small city as this, you wouldn't think there could be. much of a bad part of town as it was, but there is, and that's where I found myself. In all reality, my worries were probably only caused by the chats with the locals I had just a few short hours before at the restaurant across town. The city I was spending the night in on my journey west had a population of around 23,000. It wasn't very large, but it was growing and appeared to be expanding rapidly. There are plenty of hotels and motels in the area, but being a popular tourist destination, and it being a big holiday weekend. The specific town I

stopped in was mostly book-solid, aside from a simple motel-6 on the south edges of the town. I decided to stop too late in the evening to convince myself to drive even one more mile to a nearby town for more availability options. When I walked into the front office of the motel, a bored older man sat behind the counter and I immediately recognized the air of third-rate employees and even worse patrons. I would only be here a single night though, so I'd deal with it. I procured a room towards the back of the building. It was on the second floor, but I didn't have much for luggage that would need to be brought, so I didn't mind. After paying and thanking the man behind the counter,

I drove around to the back and found what would be my sleeping sanctuary for the night. The air inside the room was stale and a little too warm to be comfortable. I unlocked the window and shoved it to the side, begging a breeze to wharf through the screen and eliminate the atmosphere of empty dreams and broken hearts. The sad and disgusting reality of what might happen on a regular basis in this motel room seeped into my paws and mingled with the two days on the road that made me feel grimy and unclean.

I felt a little better after I took a shower and put on some fresh clothes though. It was late, almost ten. But I decided to see about finding something to eat. I hop back in my car and drove to the north side of the city where I'd seen a plethora of shops and restaurants I settled on a barbecue joint that seduced me by the delicious smell it exuded into the air around it I took my place at the bar and ordered a drink while perusing the menu

throughout my weight for my meal and the meal itself I casually talked with a bartender and a few locals who perched themselves in my area. It was all light-hearted conversation until I was asked what hotel I was in. When I answered, the bartender and the man to my left shared a look that prompted me to ask what was wrong with the motel. For the rest of the night, my temporary friends explained to me

that the motel I would be staying in was known for its drug dealers and lacks policies on calling the plane. rumors of prostitution rings would spark up every so often and it was a known fact that a few people had died in various rooms from causes ranging from heart attacks, overdoses, drug deals gone wrong and jealous spouses catching their cheating significant others. They added in some of the stories of the ghost that was said to hang around and spook those who stayed, including a kid who drowned in the pool,

A man who axed his wife when he found her with her lover, before the lover got hold of the axe and killed the man himself. And a young woman who was known to approach people offering her body, only to disappear after being let into their room. The worst story of them all. The one that really set me on edge was the one about the local man who escaped the nearby mental hospital after killing his two brothers, sister, father, and almost finishing his mother. mother off. Apparently, he'd just snap one day while his parents were out of town. Having mental disabilities, he lived with his parents even at the age of 32. With them out of town, his siblings took turns stopping by and keeping an eye on him. Somehow, he managed to kill each of them before his parents returned home, at which time they came upon the bodies of their children in the

large freezer that kept in the garage. Upon the discovery, the mother phoned the police, and the mentally deranged man pounced on his dad, bludgeoning him to death with a sledgehammer. When the police arrived, they found the man, a crazed look in his eyes, slicing his father's body into sections to add to the freezer. His mother had been hit in the head and was severely bleeding, but the responders were able to get her to the hospital in time. She would recover slowly, but still make it. When the officers arrested the man, it was reported he kept licking the blood off his fingers

and muttering things over and over. Depending on who you ask, what he muttered varies, but each account and tale agree that he was murmuring something about being. being told of the sweetest meat, being the helper of someone, that she would be happy with his sacrifice, and that only the best would be worthy of her. The man was being kept at a mental facility that really didn't have the means and proper security to contain someone such as him.

He'd managed to escape in less than a week, leaving three people with chunks bidden out of their arms and legs. was tracked down to where he was hiding out in a room of the very motel I would be sleeping in. The person occupying the room was found deceased in a horrifying manner, and the man was shot in the chest when he lunged towards an officer. Ever since that event, it is said that the ghost of the man appears in the room he had hidden in. Room 103. Also, the ghost of the woman he brutally murdered there is said to roam the grounds, weeping and whispering. Of course, most local tales speak of only the deranged psychotic man's ghost.

After people continually abandoned Room 103, screaming, and rumors began flying, stating that people mysteriously died in the room, the motel stopped renting it out. It has remained empty for almost ten years from what I'm. was told I turned over onto my side. The thin sheets rustling and scratching against the bare skin of my arms. It's just a local legend, I assured myself, not able to keep the thoughts of the crazed killer and ghosts out of my head. You're more likely to get shanked by a dealer or meth-down junkie than you are to see the ghost of a crazy murderer. Besides, you're on the second floor in the back. His room is on the first floor in the front.

You're nowhere near it. I sighed to myself. My thoughts trying to turn to the idea of a drug-addicted person breaking in to steal what they could. I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on the journey for the next day. I couldn't escape a nagging chill that grasped my spine and cause me to freeze and stop breathing at any little noise though. A crisp breeze drifted through the window I'd left open, and I sat up in bed. It's just noises from outside, and the cold is probably not helping. Just get up, shut the window, and you'll be fine.

I began pulling the blanket off of my body when I heard the faintest whisper float to my ears on the soft wind. My eyes darted to the window, and there, at the edge of the same, at the edge of the same, side furthest from the door was a sliver of shadow. It looked like it belonged to the silhouette of a person. I jumped out of the bed as silently as I could and stared. The image moved very slowly in the direction of the door, crossing more into view. I could see it was the shape of a woman, small and thin. I heard the whisper again. Don't. shut the window. This time it sounded like it was accompanied by a forlorn sobbing.

I took two steps towards the door, grabbing the first thing I could off of the table, so I had some sort of weapon. I glanced down at what I'd grabbed. My keys were clutched tight in my fingers, and I mentally thanked whatever force there was in the world that I hadn't grabbed my sunglasses. I flipped open the tiny keychain knife,

held it, ready to jab at whoever was outside. I closed my eyes tight and took a deep breath, preparing myself for my next move. After a third repetition of the whisper, I opened my eyes, hastily flipped the lock and yanked the door open, taking a step outside, a knife at the ready. I found no one. I looked up and down the outside corridor,

and there was no sign of anyone. My car sat in the lot below, mostly alone except for another couple of vehicles at least five rooms down. There was no door shutting, no footsteps to be heard, no more sobbing. The wind picked up in a short gust,

the bitter cold forcing me to shiver involuntarily. I stepped back in, shaking my head at myself. Those stories are just getting to you There was no whispering you buffoon It's just the wind Just go the hell to sleep And you'll feel better in the morning

I rolled my eyes at my paranoia And locked the door I gripped the window and slid it to the side Locking it back in place as well Before setting my keys back on the table And returning to bed I snuggled under the uncomfortable blanket and shut my eyes, letting out one last sigh.

A moment later, my breath caught in my lungs, as I heard a scuffling sound coming from the direction of the bathroom. My eyes shot open and I listened intently as the soft scraping sound approached my bed. My back was to the direction of the sound, and I was frozen, unable to turn over and look at what could be causing it. I quickly recognized the sounds as steps and something being dragged I listened

my heart pounding so loudly I almost couldn't hear the noises over the blood rushing past my ears step drag step a wet cough crossed with a chuckle broke me from my immobile state and I sat up

turning to look at the visage of the visage of a man approaching the bed. The light from outside glared through the window and illuminated the figure. It was a man who appeared to be in his forties, disheveled with dark murky splotches all over his clothes. He was missing his right arm, but his left hand held an axe that was being loosely lugged across the floor. Blood streamed constantly in a thin rivulet between his eyes and down his face from a wound atop his skull. From where I was, I could see an indentation high on his head and immediately knew it was a blow inflicted from the axe he toted.

When he saw me, he smiled menacingly, and his hand gripped the weapon tighter. Thanks for shutting the window. It was too cold. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you.

Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, Sweet dreams and bye-bye.