Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Explore ABANDONED Places for a Living. There are 4 Rules to Survive

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

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My name is Jesse, and I do weird jobs for money. That is the cleanest way I know how to put it. The internet would tell you it's called urban exploration or haunted tourism, though it's a lot more than that. People hire me when they don't want to call the cops or can't call anyone else. When a landlord needs someone to spend a night in a haunted Tokyo apartment to prove it's been spiritually cleansed, yeah, that's May.

When a backyard grave starts sinking a little too, fast after a quiet funeral. And the family needs someone to sit out there overnight just in case the soul gets restless. That's me too. I get these jobs from message boards, private DMs, Craigslist sometimes. I've walked into houses with blood dried on the ceiling. I've documented basements that were still chained shut from the inside. I've stayed in motels where the clerk gave me two keys just in case the one they left behind doesn't work. People say you can't live off this kind of work. And they're right in the normal sense. I don't have a mortgage. I don't have a car newer than a decade ago. But I've got food, gas, a place to park, and a roof over my head when I need one.

It's an unstable but exciting life. Forced minimalism, one would say. Now my specialty, as locations. Places no one wants to go, but can't leave alone. Murder houses. Abandoned gas stations when a guy saw lights in the sky back in 84 and never came home. Tunnels with no blueprints, barns with padlocks on the inside, and lakes that were never on the map to begin with. The kind of spots where, if you say the right name in a diner five towns over, someone will drop their fork and say, No one goes there anymore. That's where I go. I have a small blog that is weirdly active.

I post under the name Field Manual underscore 07 on Reddit. If you've seen it, you already know what I do. If you haven't, don't bother unless you're ready to lose a few nights asleep. My audience is small but loyal. They're the kind of people who read every police report and still have to, what didn't get filed. They send me tips too. Sometimes the really good job start in my inbox with just a screenshot and the words you'll like this one. I didn't get into this line of work to upload YouTube videos. Good thing too since I barely know how a camera works. I have

the small blog and that's about it. I've just always loved strange, unexplainable things. Been that way since I was a kid. Always drawn to the things. other people tiptoe around. If a teacher said, don't open that door, I'd have it halfway open before they finish the sentence. I used to think I'd grow out of it. Turns out of it. Which, surprise, surprise, my parents did not like one bit. And my biggest supporter is my dog, man's best friend and certainly mine. His name is Barney. Barney's been with me for most of my life. I got him when I was a kid, back when my entire world was school. Saturday morning TV, and whatever stray thought drifted through my head. He was a small rescue puppy then,

all oversized paws and sharp little teeth, and I named him after the first show I saw on Nickelodeon that afternoon. My parents said I could have done much worse. I guess they just felt relieved. I didn't name the dog, SpongeBob. That actually would have been a good name. They grew fast. Some kind of shepherd mix, according to the vet. With a sort of build that makes people think twice before stepping too close. But he's gentle, loyal in that old-fashioned way, where he checks on you every few minutes to confirm the world hasn't changed while his back was turned.

When I started doing the work, you know, documenting strange buildings, spending nights and places that still had police tape on the floor. Barney came with me. Not because I wanted to bring a dog into danger, but because he refused to stay behind. If I packed a bag, he sat on it. If I stepped out of the house, he ran after me. Eventually, I stopped trying to convince him to stay with my parents, and I just take him everywhere I go now.

I trained him as best I could. Not for attack work, you know, nothing like that. I needed him to sniff things out. to alert me if something wasn't normal, to stick close and stay calm. He wears a purple bandana around his neck, mostly because it makes people smile and assume he's friendlier than he looks. But the truth is, he's my partner. He listens better than most humans I've worked with.

He notices details I miss, and he never asks why we're driving out to the middle of nowhere. Most of my jobs take me far from city streets. I go where people don't want to look. Abandoned houses. Empty service stations. Forgotten motels with locked doors that have no keys. Some clients, they want proof that a building is safe enough to sell. Others want someone to walk through a location that scares them, even when they don't want to admit it. This one time, a landlord in Tokyo paid me to spend a night in an apartment that was supposed to be clean after a priest performed rights.

My task was simple. Stay until sunrise. Record anything unusual and confirm nothing followed me out. People worry about strange things, and I've learned not to laugh at any of it. Every place has a reason someone wants answers. Sometimes it's a rumor. Sometimes it's real history. Old mining towns are common requests.

Settlements built on bad land or rushed construction tend to have stories attached. Structures collapse. People go missing. When someone tells me a town is half buried in dust and the locals refuse to step within a mile of it, I know where that's probably where my next job is. Another type of call comes from the Cold War leftovers. bunkers, research stations, storage facilities with sealed steel doors. Many of them were supposed to stay locked forever.

Yet somehow they do not. Someone breaks in. Someone reports lights where there shouldn't be lights. Someone else wants proof that whatever opened that door didn't break anything important. They hired me to camp inside, explore the place, and record every detail. The job I'm on now is one of those. A mining settlement with a long list of missing people and a bunker not too far from it that recently woke up after decades of silence.

I don't know yet if the two things are connected, but someone out there thinks they might be. That's why they paid me. They want eyes on both. Before I go any further, I should explain something. I don't walk into these jobs blind. I've been doing this long enough to know that if you treat this kind of work like a joke or worse, like it's a thrill ride, you will not be doing it for very long. You'll end up missing, hurt, or talked about in the kind of forum post that start with, anybody ever hear what happened to that guy?

I'm still here because I follow my rules. I wrote them down when I was younger, after the first few jobs that didn't go as planned. They weren't clean rules at first. More like rough ideas. The kind of notes you scribble on paper scraps in the middle of the night. But over time they got sharper. I saw what happened when I broke them, even a little. And I decided I was not going to test them again.

There are four of them. I don't take a job unless I know I can follow all four. If I can't, I walk away. matter how good the money looks. And if you want to get into this type of feel, you better listen close. So here they are. Let's start with rule number one. Now before I get into the details of the first rule, I want to explain whether rules matter

so much. They are practical steps that keep me grounded when I walk into places where most people would not take a single step. Following them keeps my work simple. They also give me something steady to rely on when everything else feels unpredictable. With that in mind, the first rule grew out of real mistakes, a few scares, and advice I picked up long before I knew this would become my job. Rule 1. Obtain permission whenever possible. If not possible, apologize later. This rule has two sides. One is legal,

and the other is the part that everyone likes to laugh at. Now, most abandoned places aren't actually free to explore. They look empty, but that doesn't mean they don't belong to someone. Buildings rot, roofs fall in, fences collapse, but the deeds still exist somewhere. A company might own it, even if they forgot about it. A private owner might have inherited it and never bothered to fix anything. A city might hold the title because taxes weren't paying. Either way, walking in without permission is trespassing, and trespassing can lead to fines or getting arrested.

I learned that early. Back when I first started, I assumed abandoned meant nobody cares. Turns out plenty of people care when they see someone wandering around a structure that is technically theirs. So now I research ownership every time. I look through public records, old business filings, county, databases. If I can find the owner, I contact them. I explain who I am and what I do. Sounds strange, but a lot of owners appreciate someone taking interest in their forgotten property. Some even ask for my footage afterward. Others say no, and in that case, I walk away if the line looks too clear. I pick my battles. Getting handcuffed in front of a collapsing house is not great for business. But the other side of this rule, it's not about the law anymore. It's about respect or maybe habit. Comes from my family. My grandpa was the most superstitious person I have ever met.

He grew up in rural Hungary and he took all the culture with him when his family left for America. He treated every forest trail, broken shed, an empty field like something was already living there and had been living there long before humans showed up. He never stepped into a space without announcing himself. He would say his name out loud, explain his purpose, and wait a moment before crossing the threshold. He taught me to do the same. When I was young, I thought it was just one of his quirks.

You know, he had a lot of him. He believed the Thay liked honey more than anything, and they stayed in forgotten places because they preferred quiet over noise. He said abandoned buildings were perfect for them, because nobody bothered them there. He told me, If you're going into someone else's home,

even if you can't see them, you should let them know. It sounded odd, but he said it with such seriousness that I never questioned him at the time. As I got older and started walking into my own strange places, his advice came back to me. So before I enter any sight, I follow his old routine.

I stand at the entrance and say my name. I explain why I'm there and what I intend to do. I asked to come in and give it a moment, even if I know I won't be getting any answers. Then I step inside. I do this even when I know the only thing in there is dust and old wood. I do it when I know the building has been empty for decades. I do it even when other people are with me, and they roll their eyes or make comments under their breath.

I also bring a small offering. I carry tiny honey jars in my pack for this reason. Nothing fancy, just enough to leave behind at the doorway or on a window cell. My grandpa used to say honey was a sign of goodwill. They notice intentions, he'd say, Give something sweet when you enter him, and you won't be chased out. No, I didn't believe him, literally, but I still bring the jars. They're small, easy to pack, and they feel like a connection to someone

who taught me how to look at the world differently. People do make fun of me for it. other urban explorers, documentary teams, amateur, you know, thrill seekers, they all react the same way. They think it's cute or strange or unnecessary. They laugh when I talk to an empty space. And they laugh harder when I leave a honey jar behind like I'm feeding invisible wildlife. But you know what? I have noticed something they never do.

They trip. They twist ankles. They fall through the freaking floor sometimes. They lose their balance on stairwells. They get sick from breathing in dust. They end up in the ER with cuts, sprains, and worse. Me? I come out clean, man.

No broken bones, no hospital visits. I don't even have a paper cut. Now maybe it's just dumb luck. Maybe following my grandpa's rule. keeps me slow and careful, which keeps me safe. I don't have a fancy explanation for it. But what I do know is simple. When I follow this rule, things go fine.

When people ignore it, things go very wrong. Barney and I have had to rescue a few idiots who fell through the floor once or twice. So remember, permission is not always available. Ownership gets murky. Records vanish. Sometimes no one alive even remembers the place you're trying to explore. In those cases, I follow the second half of the rule. Apologize later. If someone shows up angry, I explain myself plainly. I show my research and I offer to leave. I give them space to cool off, you know, most people respond well when you stay calm.

This rule protects more than just my body. It protects the work. It keeps the process. It keeps the process. steady and predictable, even when the environment is anything but. It reminds me that I'm stepping into someone else's story, not dragging mine into theirs. It keeps me grounded. And that's why Rule 1 always comes first. You never know who's home you're stepping into out there. So be on your best visitor behavior. Then you should be fine.

Rule 2 is simple. Take nothing but photos. leave nothing but footprints. Most people think it means don't be an idiot, which is true. It's something you hear early in this line of work. You see it scrawled on message boards,

tagged on rusted water tanks, stenciled on the backs of old explorer jackets. For most people, it's just a slogan. A reminder not to be a jerk. Don't break windows, tag walls, or leave any of your trash behind. And most of all, don't take anything. I learned it because I watched what happened to someone who ignored it.

That someone was Danny. Now Danny used to work with me sometimes. I wasn't a close friend, but we got along well enough to meet up for jobs when our schedules lined up. He had a growing YouTube channel about abandoned places, and he talked a lot about turning it into a full-time job. He had energy and ideas, and he moved quickly through every place we entered. I liked him. if I didn't share his pace.

Barney liked him too. My dog is usually cautious with strangers, but he warmed up to Danny right away. On shoots, Barney would trail after him, sniffing whatever Danny pointed out, tail wagging, whenever Danny stopped long enough to give him a pat. It made our work lighter

to have someone my dog trusted. We met at an abandoned hospital one afternoon. The building was three-story, tall and mostly empty inside, with long hallways and peeling paint. I remember the sky was a dull gray. Barney walked ahead of us, checking the rooms before we stepped inside, but he always circled back to stay near my leg. The anatomy wing was on the top floor. Most of the cabinets had been opened years earlier, their contents scattered or stolen, but a few shelves still held old equipment. Danny found the skull on the back shelf.

It rested there, like someone had placed it down during a normal day and never returned to finish the task. He picked it up with both hands and started explaining to his camera what it might be worth. Barney stopped walking. He lowered his head and backed up until his tail brushed my knee. He didn't bark or growl. but he watched Danny with a level of tension I'd never seen in him before. Danny laughed. He loved the camera, but he loved the idea of making an impression even more.

He turned the skull toward the window, angling it, so the light hit across the very top. This is going to do crazy numbers, man. Imagine the thumbnail, he said. I told him to leave it. But Danny brushed me off. Said it wasn't a grave. Said it was abandoned twice over. And that someone online would pay a fortune for it.

He tucked it into his pack. Well, we parted ways in the parking lot. Barney jumped into the backseat of my truck without waiting for me to open the door all the way. I watched Danny walk back towards his car with a backpack slung over one shoulder. The camera is still hanging from his neck. And that was the last time I saw him alive. A few months passed, I moved down to other jobs. And then on a Monday morning, I got a call from the police department in the same town where

the hospital was. They asked if I knew a man named Daniel Reyes, and if I could come in to answer a few questions. They found Danny on the hospital roof, not inside. on top, floating in the old water tower top that had been dry for decades. His shoes were placed neatly at the bottom of the ladder, as if he'd taken his time to line them up before climbing. There were no signs that he'd slipped, nor was there any alcohol or drugs in his system. His lungs were clear. There were no bruises on his arms or shoulders, and his hands didn't show any sign that he had tried to fight for air,

but his right ear had been torn off. That was the phrase written in the report. Torn off. The coroner said that it was odd to have a wound so violent and yet have no signs of struggle anywhere else on the body. They searched the roof and the ground around the building and never found the missing ear. The detective told me they were classified.

it as an international drowning caused by psychological distress. They found a note in his jacket pocket that they believed explained everything. The note was short. The handwriting was shaky and tilted. The way it looks when a hand can't stop shaking. Danny wrote that something had been following him for weeks. He said it had three eyes, three arms, and three feet. He said it stood behind him when he slept and waited for him to notice. He wrote that it didn't speak, but he could feel it breathing against him, and that it knew him now. Those were his last words.

The detective called it psychosis, brought on by an erratic lifestyle. The lawyers called it an unfortunate accident. Everyone agreed it was tragic, and... That was the end of the file. I didn't argue. There was nothing I could have said that would have changed how they filed the paperwork. I just nodded,

signed my statement, and left. Barney was quiet for a long time after that. When we went on jobs, he stayed close, and he checked every doorway before letting me through. He paused more often than before, especially in places that felt old or wrong. I started trusting his judgment more than my own. Dogs don't explain things, but they don't lie either.

Whatever happened to Danny had left a mark on both of us, even if neither of us had been there to see it. And now I don't touch anything I don't need to. I don't have souvenirs, even small ones. I don't move objects for better camera angles. I don't pocket keys or photos or papers to look at later. When Barney hesitates, we turn around. If he refuses to step forward, we leave.

People online talk about Danny's death sometimes. They call it strange. They argue about the details. Some say the story doesn't make sense, that the missing ear was an exaggeration or a lie. Others say the note was a forgery. It had become one of those unexplainable mysteries. And to this day, it's unsolved.

Rule three is never go in alone. People hear that and think it's about teamwork or safety or being prepared for accidents. And they're right in part. Abandoned places aren't kind. Floors rot from the inside out. Ceilings give without warning. And one wrong step can turn a good day into a rescue call that never comes. but that's not why the rule exists, not entirely.

It's about having someone or something to keep you aware. Someone who can look where you can't, listen when you are distracted, or tell you when you've stayed too long. In my case, that someone is Barney. We've been doing this together since before I started taking jobs for money. He's trained to pick up things I miss. Movement. sense, changes in temperature, anything unusual. He gives me confidence in places that would

otherwise feel too still, and when I talk to him, it keeps me grounded. It's easy to forget how strange a place can sound when you're alone, but talking out loud makes it manageable. Most explorers don't have that. They prefer going solo. Some do it for the challenge. Others do it because it feels braver that way, like proof of authenticity for their followers online. It's good content. A single flashlight beam moving through a dark hallway gets better clicks than two people joking about camera angles. I see their posts sometimes. Footage of half-collapsed schools, burned houses, factories, asylums. They walk in with headlamps and go-pros strapped to their chest, narrating is if their audience is right behind them.

It looks cinematic until you realize that one wrong board could give way under their weight. Then it stops looking brave and it looks stupid. When I first started, I thought those people were reckless. Now I just think they're young. I remember being that kind of young, too, you know, think of the rules were flexible, that caution was optional, that the bad things only happened to other people, But you learn or you don't. Barney is my ears when the wind picks up, my eyes when the light fades, and sometimes he's the only reason I know when to leave.

A single sound from him, a growl or a whine, or even the way he stops walking, is enough for me to trust that we're done. Still, not everyone follows the rule. This one night, I found myself at a bar, the edge of town, kind of place where there's locals and travelers. I'd finished a job that afternoon, a simple inspection gig for a warehouse that hadn't been opened in like 30 years, and I wanted something warm to eat that didn't come out of a can. Barney sat on the floor by my legs, head down and snoring peacefully. The place was half full. A few regulars leaned over their

drinks, and a group of tourists filled the corner booth. Their jackets were covered in dust, and their camera bag sat piled beside the table. I didn't need to ask what they did. I could tell. Urban explorers always recognize their own. Made sense, I thought. It was the season for it. There were always more of us gathered around during the summer.

Well, I set up the bar, ordered a meal, and listened to a group of people who more or less invited me to join them in chat. The group started talking about a story they'd heard. while hiking earlier that day. It was a local legend. Something about a mountain north of town where a man had gone missing years ago. According to them,

he hadn't gone missing alone. He'd been climbing with a friend, got caught in a blizzard, and the friend never came back. When they finally found the man, he wasn't the same. The group's tone shifted when they reached that part. They lowered their voice,

but still spoke loud enough for me to catch the words. They said the man had eaten his companion to survive. They said the land was cursed, and that when rescue finally came, what they found wasn't a man anymore, but something else. One of them said it had three eyes, three arms,

and three feet. My fork paused halfway to my mouth, my mouth. The explorers laughed it off after a while. They said people still saw it near the woods sometimes, that it watched hikers from the ridgeline or followed anyone who whistled after dark. They called it a local myth, one of those stories every small town has to keep kids from wandering too far. They joke that they might go looking for it tomorrow for exclusive footage. The bartender rolled his eyes, and he told him that kind of. to talk was bad luck. He said the locals don't go near that mountain, not even during the day.

When they noticed me, one of them asked if I believed in the story. I told them no, but asked them where they'd heard about it. The tallest one said it came from a ranger they'd met at a gas station. I finished my meal, paid my tab, and stepped outside. Barney stood up when he saw him, wagging his tail. The night air felt still, and across the street the woods formed a dark shape against the edge of town. As we walked back to the motel, I kept thinking about that legend, the man who had eaten his friend, the blizzard, and the curse. I had heard similar stories before, but not with details that matched Danny's description so precisely. Three arms, Three eyes, three feet.

Barney brushed against my leg, and I looked down at him. He glanced up at me once, then kept walking, nose to the ground. He didn't seem bothered. Yeah, don't worry, boy, we're not doing anything stupid, my sad as I scratched him. I told myself it was just another story. Every place has one. Every explorer hears dozens. but still when we reached the room.

I double-checked the locks and made sure my gear was packed. Barney settled by the door like he always does. I sat on the bed and wrote down everything I'd heard, the details, the names, the description. I didn't know what to call it yet. Coincidence or warning, but it didn't matter. I'd learned that ignoring patterns in this line of work led to trouble. Months passed before I heard of the same monster again.

That brings me to rule four. I always do recon. Yeah, this one sounds boring, I know. It's not dramatic like the other rules. But honestly, this is the one that saved me the most. I tell people all the time, don't get excited until you've seen it in person. Unless I'm sure that something is going to be a slam dunk, which is rare, I plan a recon trip. It's like scouting a campsite before spending the night there. You don't

just show up in the dark and hope for the best. I try to do this as early as possible, because there's nothing worse than spending hours researching a cool abandoned site, hyping it up to your friends, driving 90 miles out of state, and then realize you're staring at an empty dirt lot. That exact thing happened to me once. I'd been planning for weeks. to visit an old brick factory just outside Columbus. I had maps, drone shots, photos from a forum. I even convinced a friend to tag along. We get there. And all that's left is a parking lot. A brand new one. Turns out the whole place had been torn down just a month earlier. That trip cost me gas, lunch, and a good mood. But it also taught me something important. You can't trust

the internet. Photos go out of date fast. One year can mean the difference between a haunting, half-collapse structure, and a clean stretch of pavement. So I started scouting every site in person before making a plan. Sometimes that means driving out early in the morning and walking the perimeter. Sometimes it means talking to a neighbor or someone at a nearby business, anything to make sure it's still there. But RECON isn't just about checking. if something's there. It's about making sure it's safe enough to enter. A lot of newcomers don't get that. They find an address on some message board, read an article or two, and think that's enough. They don't check the floors. They don't check the structure. They don't

test for soft ground or weak ceilings. And that's how people get trapped or worse. The internet doesn't tell you when the floor boards have given out. or when the lower levels have flooded. I once heard about a pair of explorers who followed a set of old directions into an abandoned theater. The main floor had collapsed years ago, but no one had updated the post they used.

Well, they fell straight through and had to be pulled out 12 hours later. One of them broke both legs. And that's why I do recon, every single time. The last time I ignored my own rule, I ended up pulling someone else out of a mess. It started with a message on my blog from a teenager named Nathan. He said he'd found a site a few towns over, a former office complex that had been shuttered

since the 90s, and wanted to know if I'd checked it out. I hadn't. Wasn't on my list? But something in his message told me he wasn't asking just out of curiosity. curiosity. He mentioned weird noises and a bad feeling. Well, I drove out there that afternoon, and the building was exactly the kind you expect to find in the middle of nowhere. It was plain, square, gray, half the windows broken. A small fence circled the perimeter, but half of it had been flattened by a fallen tree. Barney

hopped down to the truck and started sniffing along the fence line. When I called Nathan's number, I heard it ring from inside. And that's when I knew he hadn't just been visiting. He'd gone in. I found him about 20 minutes later. Part of the ceiling had collapsed in one of the hallways, trapping him in a corner between two steel beams. He was terrified, but thankfully unhurt. Dust covered his jacket, and his flashlight had gone out.

Couldn't have been more than 16, this kid. All right, don't move, I'll get you out, I said. The collapse wasn't severe. A large metal support beam had fallen across the doorway, but I could see a small gap near the top. All I needed was leverage. I went back outside to grab my crowbar, and when I returned, Barney was lying near the entrance,

ears twitching. He wasn't barking, but he was watching something. deeper in the hall. I didn't see anything at first. The building was silent, except for the sound of Nathan. And then I heard a scrape, a slow, dragging. I crouched down beside Nathan, and I put a finger to my lips. He nodded. And through the gap in the debris, I saw movement. At first I thought it was another explorer. The shape was wrong, though.

Its back was hunched in a way that looked painful. It stepped into the light spilling from the window, and I saw it clearly. Three eyes all set in a line across the phase. Three arms, long and bent in strange directions. Three legs that didn't quite move right. And the worst part was that it had two heads, conjoined at the shoulders, splitting apart at the torso, like something that had once been one and had decided to separate halfway through. It was dragging a deer carcass by one arm.

The body was half eaten, ribs exposed. It left a dark trail behind as it walked. Nathan's eyes widened, but I slapped my hand over his mouth before he could breathe a single sound. Barney stayed silent. The creature stopped near the end of the hallway, tilted one of its heads, and sniffed the air, and then it kept moving until it disappeared around the corner. I waited another full minute before I spoke.

Hey, we stay quiet and we're leaving. I wedged the crowbar under the fallen beam and pushed very carefully. It took both hands and most of my weight, but the metal shifted just enough for Nathan to crawl through. And we got out of there as fast as we could. I drove the kid home to his parents myself. I didn't report what I saw, at least not yet. A month later, I'd be able to. I drove past that same building again.

The whole lot was fenced off. And a large sign out front said it was under development for a new resort. I talked to one of the foremen standing by the gate. And he said they'd already had problems. Equipment breaking, workers injured. A small fire nobody could explain. A couple of people had been driven to the ER just that week. All broken bones, dude when

unexplainable equipment failure. After a few days, I couldn't shake it. Every time I thought about that building, I saw the thing standing there with a deer in its hand. I told myself it wasn't my problem anymore, that I'd done my part by getting Nathan out. But that didn't hold up. The news about the construction accidents kept coming in,

tools going missing, scaffolding collapsing. A worker breaking his life. after falling through a stairwell that had already been inspected. It felt wrong to know and stay quiet. So I sat down one night and wrote an email. I didn't use my real name. I created a new address, something generic, and I sent them three separate messages,

one to a construction foreman, one to the listed property owner, and one to the local police. I told them what I'd seen. I wrote about the old building. about Daniel Reyes and his death, about the pattern of injuries happening now. I included a rough map of the area and a short note warning them not to work there after dark. I didn't use the word creature. I said something dangerous. I figured that would make it seem less like a joke.

Before hitting send, I sat with the draft for a long time. My hands hovered over the keyboard. But then I thought about Danny, about Nathan, about the blood on the floor, and the trail that thing left behind. So I sent them all. Never got a response. Not from anyone. But that was fine. I didn't write them to get a reply.

I did it because I couldn't sit and just hold that information. It was the only way I could live with what I'd seen. Though a couple days later, I heard the place had been officially sealed off by the city mayor. Well, it's been a few months since the thing of the construction site. Barney and I keep moving. We take jobs, quiet, small ones. I don't post anything online like the others. I'm not one for the cameras.

I do write, though. Not for an audience, you know, not really. Just on a small Reddit forum where people like me trades to Like me trade stories and half-believed encounters. It's part habit, you know, part diary. I don't share everything, you know, just the parts that help me think. The parts that remind me while the rules exist. Some people read it.

They assume I'm making it all up. You know, that's fine. Maybe I am in their world. I've been hearing about this new place lately. Somewhere out in West Texas, off a forgotten highway. where the land dips into a dry river basin. A few posts mentioned strange noises at night. Livestock going missing.

Search parties losing their bearings. One hiker claimed to have seen something moving in the brush, something tall and watching. Three eyes. Three arms. And three feet? I don't know if it's the same thing, but it's your sounds like it and I want to find out so I'm heading there next week it's reckless probably stupid but this work does not let you rest easy when there's still questions

I'll take the rules and I'll take my chances