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Gregg was an adventurer despite everything he
had been through. He took to the

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hill behind his home with firm footsteps, marching up the mile long road like

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it was a path to great treasure. Even as his sister and I plodded

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behind him, swear pouring down us
in the stifling August heat, He turned

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and cried for us to keep up. How he was so animated, I

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didn't know. Not even grasshoppers chirruped
under the midday sun, and the tall

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grass, usually so green, had
turned to yellow straw as summer reached this

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peak. Come on, he cried, as he reached a seemingly arbitrary spot

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on the road. I saw it
this way, he pointed into the grass,

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a thin footpath barely visible between wavering
fronts. What did you see?

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Samanthus shouted. She was usually so
calm and responsible, but I could tell

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she was close to blowing that cool
head of hers. Not long ago,

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Greg and Samantha had been a trio. The loss of their older brother,

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gone two years by this point,
had broken their parents in an unusual way.

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It was not uncommon to lose children
in my home town. It felt

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like every year the class register grew
shorter by at least two names. But

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where most parents became overprotective, Gregg's
had gone the other way. They grew

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listless and morose, withdrawing not only
from the world but their remaining children.

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Three times a week, Gregg and
Samantha came to my house and ate food

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with us. The rest of the
time, Samantha cooked for a family,

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just as she packed at Gregg's lunches, and washed his clothes and did anything

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else that a parent usually did.
If she had been older, she would

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have probably forbidden Greg's expeditions entirely.
But she was young and exhausted, and

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every time Greg set out to explore
the wilderness at the edge of town,

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his face lit up so bright it
must have been impossible to say no.

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Today, he dragged us both to
see something. He'd found, something that

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he claimed was incredible. You have
to see it for yourself, he said.

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When we caught up with him.
Samantha and I were breathless, but

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Greg was practically jumping on the spot
with excitement. I need a break.

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I wind a good idea Stephen,
Samantha replied, between heavy breaths. Let's

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just enjoy the view. We turned
to face home, on on left was

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the forest. On our right open
space, and below us, built on

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the sloping side of the mountain was
our hometown. Looking at it from so

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far, it appeared plain and small
and normal. But in the corner of

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her eyes, drifting from the spaces
between the trees of the forest, we

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could see the red twine. Hundreds, maybe thousands of strands floated over open

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air down the slope. We just
climbed and entered the town miles below,

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where it formed a complex and ever
changing web. Each string had small golden

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bells attached at every meter, and
you'd think that with a string strung so

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far between such distant points, that
every gust of wind would create a chorus

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of ringing. They were silent,
and they would remain so unless someone was

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careless enough to touch one of the
snares. It's actually kind of beautiful,

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Samantha mused quietly, And I found
myself agreeing. You've checked for snow on

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this route, she asked her brother. I checked yesterday, he cried,

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turning to the path like a dog
straining on a leash. It's not far,

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it's right there. The twine could
have moved since then, she said.

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I don't like this. I don't
think we should be doing this.

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It's dangerous. Think about the golden
rule. I know the golden rule.

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Gregg suddenly screamed, don't touch the
thread. Gregg kept shouting the phrase over

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and over until his face turned pink. Did it help Jonathan, he finally

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shrieked as he lost energy. No, he was the most careful of all,

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and it's still got him. So
what's the point. Samantha's gasp was

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so loud it stopped Gregg's tantrum dead
in his tracks for a second. Her

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hand twitched, and I thought she
was going to hit her younger brother.

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But it was only the slightest of
movements, right, she said, as

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stern as any head mistress. That's
it. Back we go, Stephen.

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I'm sorry Greg had to ruin this
by being a potty mouth. Greg's face

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soud into regret and despair. No, no, no, no, no,

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no. You have to believe me. You have to see it.

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Samantha took a deep breath and knelt
down to Greg's level. Do you know

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what the most important rule really is? Don't touch the thread? Greg sobbed.

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No. Samantha shook her head the
most important rule. The one that

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you'll one day appreciate is the hardest
of them all, is the one that

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says you never ever help someone who's
touched the snare. I know that his

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words were choked out between heaving breaths. No you don't. I mean you

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do, but you don't really know
what it means. What it actually means

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is leaving someone you love behind,
even if they scream, even if they

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cry, and when it comes to
take them, you walk away, run

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if you can, and you don't
look back. Could you do that for

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me? Greg? If I was
lying there crying for you to help me,

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could you just run away? I
I don't know. If I had

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to do that, I think it
would kill me. My heart would never

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be whole again. Do you want
to leave me for dead if something goes

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wrong. Greg shook his head to
signal no, that's why we should turn

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back. Samantha continued. It's too
risky, you're too excited. Do you

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know what it would do to me
if you run over one? Do you?

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Samantha swallowed and wiped her teary eyes
with a cardigan's sleeve. We're going

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home, that's final. She turned
towards me and went to speak, but

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in a few seconds where her back
was to Greg, his face crunched up

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and all his anger returned. I
thought he was going to leap at her

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and start kicking and punching, but
he did something much worse. He ran

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into the tall grass. Samantha didn't
even have time to turn around and call

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his name before he saw the grass
disturbed and heard a loud thump, followed

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by a twang and the ringing of
a bell. The snare wherever it was

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must have been perfectly placed to catch
him. There were a few agonizing seconds

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before Gregg started crying. I could
tell from his voice that my friend had

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seriously hurt himself, but neither Samantha
nor I moved. The bell kept ringing.

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It would not stop. It was
an unnatural sound, and one by

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one the red twine in the distance
began to shiver sympathetically, and a thousand

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other bells joined in. The haunting
sound lit up not only the mountainside but

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the town below us, and I
knew that already my family would be terrified

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to find me and know that I
was safe. I wanted to run back

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to them, to flee the rising
alarm that seized not only my thoughts but

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the very air around me, as
miles and miles of web thrummed with anticipation.

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But before I could turn, Gregg
appeared out of the grass and stared

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at us. He was, in
spite of everything silent. He must have

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been shocked. He certainly looked like
he was surprised to find several meters of

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ordinary looking twine fused to the bear
skin on his arms and face and coiling

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bunches. No blood, just swollen
flesh slowly turning pink, as if it

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too were shocked to find its own
boundaries violated and was now having a delayed

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reaction. Quick invader shut it down, But this was no microbe or allergen.

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Several strands of the stuff had fused
to his hair and face and arms,

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and in places like his cheeks and
ears. It had even punched through

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the flesh entirely and emerged on the
other side with a firm grip. It

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was slowly but surely beginning to pull
him back into the woods. That force

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would only increase with every passing second
until there was simply no resisting. But

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Gregg fought on. He pushed against
them and staggered towards us, reaching out

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a hand readed with twine. Samantha
didn't move, but she did raise a

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hand as if to embrace him.
The sound of me crying out and falling

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backwards made a look away from her
brother, who finally began to wail and

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sob. She fixed me with teary
eyes, and in that moment I watched

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Samantha's heartbreak before she turned from a
weeping brother grabbed my hand and ran.

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Greg followed. Neither of us knew
in detail what happened when the snare catches

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you, but as Greg continued to
stumble after us, his cries and please

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grew increasingly furious. I darkly found
myself wishing it'd just hurry up and be

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over with. Looking back, I'm
surprised at the ten year old's imaginative vocabulary,

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But he was face death, and
I think his mind dug deep.

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God, he hated us in those
moments. I'm sure of that. He

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was scared and hurting, and the
only people close to him were abandoning him.

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He told us we'd go to hell. He told us we deserve to

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die. He told us a lot, not stopping until halfway down the hill

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when he finally fell. I turned, not meaning or wanting to, and

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saw him push himself up with his
hands, gravel embedded in the puffy,

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bleeding skin of his face, and
he glared at me with burning hatred.

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He tried to pull out the snares
embedded in his forearms, but his hands

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bonded to the twine immediately, and
it only left him too tangled to resist

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any further. The twine pulled harder
and he fell back backwards, and with

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kicking feet, he was dragged slowly
out of sight. I was so afraid

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of what I'd seen. I sowed
myself and my vision blurred. My legs

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grew faint, and Samantha, barely
slowing, picked me up and carried me

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the rest of the way. When
we reached the town, my parents were

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waiting for us. They held me
so tight that it hurt my little ribs,

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but I didn't care. I sobbed
into my mother's arms and paid only

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a moment's notice to the weak,
hysterical Samantha, whose own parents were nowhere

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to be seen. I can't believe
you bought it. I can't believe they

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sold it, I replied, as
the helicopter banked over the town below.

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From this eyeh up, the snares
resembled something blood red and fleshy, the

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floating celia of a strange jellyfish tangled
in an artificial reef. The town,

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a litter of miniatures that grew from
the mountainside like coral, was clearly abandoned.

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It had never been well looked after, not even when we lived there,

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But over the last few years it
had begun to look apocalyptic. Did

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the government tell you any more about
what they found? Samantha rasked. I

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looked across at the woman beside me. She looked older than her age,

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but there still remained a ghost of
the teenage girl who'd saved my life.

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And if I looked further, still
a hint of resemblance to her brother.

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Does it hurt for her to look
in the mirror? I wondered? Does

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that familial resemblance sting? So many
ghosts lingered around her, not just Gregg's

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two brothers, two parents. No
one was around to witness the latter subduction,

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but their disappearance was no mystery.
How could it be? People did

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not go missing in my hometown.
Everyone knew what it meant if someone failed

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to show up at breakfast, or
was a no show at work or church.

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It meant they'd gotten careless. It
meant they touched the snare, and

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there was no coming back from that
mistake, although in the case of Samantha's

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parents it was unclear if they'd done
so by accident. They didn't find anything,

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I said, nothing concrete anyway.
I think it frustrated them, this

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unsolvable problem. Maybe they hoped I'll
throw enough money at it to figure it

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out. Let some billionaire spend his
cash and leave their budget alone. God

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knows his what most people think when
they find out I have money. An

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00:15:03,799 --> 00:15:09,039
awkward silence settled between us. Thank
you, Samantha said, wanted a godnon

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long enough. I know you must
get a lot of people asking for charity.

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Don't worry, I replied, cutting
her off. I didn't mean to.

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It's the least I could do.
He was my friend too. It's

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just if that drone footage is real. She was referring to the one bit

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of fruitful evidence the government had dug
up, a short video taken by an

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aerial drone racing through overgrown trees.
It lasted no more than five seconds,

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covering one hundred or so meters before
the machine had failed. But for the

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first time in mine was Samantha's life, we had finally had a glimpse into

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the forbidden woods, which are the
source of the red snares. Five seconds

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of nothing, seconds of blurry trees
and autumnal leaves, and a frame,

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a single frame, A frame that
was emailed to Samantha by an anonymous researcher,

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A frame that prompted her to call
me and cash in all that guilt.

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I could have been angry to find
this ghost that my child had returned,

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demanding I spend millions on some whim, but I wasn't. She had

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sent me the image, and I
immediately knew what she wanted and why.

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Six months later, and I'd managed
to bribe in off officials to let me

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purchase the derelict and empty remains of
my hometown. The image was of Greg,

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a blurred shadow, recognizable only by
the distinct make and coloring of his

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clothes, details burned into both mine
and Samantha's memories, details neither of us

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could forget. No, you could
not see his face, but we didn't

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have to. We knew it was
him anyway. Samantha's expression grew sad as

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her eyes fell to the window.
With a town passed directly beneath us,

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we were slowing. As the chopper
approached the landing site. I briefed the

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pilot that the situation was fluid and
he would need to keep a keen eye

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out for a place free of snares. A glance at the direction he was

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taking told me he was heading straight
for the church. Do you know what

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it was like in the end,
she asked, Eyes still on the town.

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Even from this height, we could
see thousands of snares, snaking from

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building to building, window to window, through abandoned cars, and around tilting

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telephone poles, a cat's cradle of
sh shimmering red twine. My dad called

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a few weeks before he disappeared.
I answered. Every couple of months,

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he'd call and go through the list
every time it got smaller. In the

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end, he was just one person. I asked if it had been a

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00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:22,240
good month, if people had been
extra careful. He told me they just

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weren't enough people to go missing anymore. In the end, he was the

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last, too stubborn who refused to
move down below. The church raced into

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view In the months since the town
had emptied, the once impeccable kept grass

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had been left to grow wild and
unkempt in the autumn heat. I wondered

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what it might hide, so I
leaned forward and got the pilot's attention.

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00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:56,359
Radio the guys on the ground and
tell them not to step on the grass.

200
00:18:56,839 --> 00:19:02,519
I shouted. They used to keep
it short for a reason. The

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00:19:02,599 --> 00:19:07,079
pilot gave me a thumbs up before
speaking into his mic. Standing sheepishly at

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the edge of the old lawn,
three small figures looked up at us and

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00:19:11,759 --> 00:19:18,319
waved to get our attention. When
I first paid for the expedition to enter

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the town and map its contents,
there had been four two scientists and two

205
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:30,079
former soldiers hired a security. It
didn't surprise me, looking down that we

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00:19:30,079 --> 00:19:36,559
were missing one of the scientists.
It's worse than before. Dr Wagner,

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00:19:36,839 --> 00:19:41,519
the expedition scientist, looked at me
with curiosity as we picked away carefully down

208
00:19:41,559 --> 00:19:47,279
main Street. It wasn't unusual for
one of the roads to have a few

209
00:19:47,319 --> 00:19:51,359
snares across it, I added,
but the air is practically red with the

210
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:56,920
stuff. Perhaps it has become frustrated
with the lack of food. She replied,

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00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:03,720
you think it eats them? And
she nodded. Seems possible, I

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00:20:03,799 --> 00:20:08,160
added, as I studied a nearby
shop window, a little boutique that sold

213
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:15,680
dresses the kind women would wear to
charge. I remember waiting outside while my

214
00:20:15,759 --> 00:20:21,400
mother bruised inside for what felt like
hours on end. Sometimes I would grow

215
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:26,119
impatient and want to go inside too. But something about the mannekin in the

216
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:33,200
window scared me. Faceless, featureless, hard plastic limbs. What was it

217
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:37,200
about the lack of eyes that left
me convinced it was looking right at me?

218
00:20:38,599 --> 00:20:44,000
It had only cotten worse with age, its head a raw shack of

219
00:20:44,079 --> 00:20:49,799
peeling paint, beige and white,
untarnished gun metal grays. It must be

220
00:20:49,839 --> 00:20:56,279
intelligent, sentient, if not sapient, Wagner said, as I turned away

221
00:20:56,279 --> 00:21:00,960
from the unsettling doll. The scientist
was a small woman in her late forties,

222
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:07,799
usually quite brazen and funny, but
twenty four hours in this town had

223
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:12,599
already worn her down. It knew
to target the objects that Mike doctor Magnola

224
00:21:12,839 --> 00:21:22,079
touched regularly. I cringed at the
reminder of the expedition's losses. It isn't

225
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:26,240
just intelligent, I said, it's
vindictive. Did I tell you what happens

226
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:32,839
if you damage the thread? She
shook her head. One man set fire

227
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:36,680
to a whole bunch of snares on
his lawn, I told her used a

228
00:21:36,759 --> 00:21:40,359
can of spray paint, and his
lighter woke up the next day to find

229
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:44,440
a snare punched right through his belly
and tied to a bedspring on the other

230
00:21:44,519 --> 00:21:51,599
side. The scientist winced at the
thought, but I left out the part

231
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:55,519
where the man had stayed in his
bed for a full two days before he

232
00:21:55,640 --> 00:22:00,279
was finally driven mad by the itch
of the twine running through his guts.

233
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,759
I'd heard from some older kids that
in the end he tore at himself like

234
00:22:03,799 --> 00:22:10,160
an animal in a trap, and
in a rare twist, the twine did

235
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:15,079
not take him. It left his
body there, skewered on a piece of

236
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,720
string, and the doctor had to
come round with a couple farmers and cut

237
00:22:18,759 --> 00:22:25,200
him out. But still the twine
stayed fixed and taught, so that his

238
00:22:25,279 --> 00:22:29,640
family could not get rid of anything
it touched. Not the sheets, not

239
00:22:29,759 --> 00:22:33,839
the mattress, not even the half
inch or so of flesh the twine had

240
00:22:33,839 --> 00:22:40,400
bonded to the stink of infection infested
the house, they said, and on

241
00:22:40,519 --> 00:22:45,680
hot summer days it even reached the
streets. It must have been hell living

242
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:52,559
here. Why would any one stay? Most people didn't. Just about everyone

243
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,640
my age left as soon as they
got old enough. Town went from five

244
00:22:56,720 --> 00:23:02,160
thousand to a few hundred in just
a couple decades, I replied. When

245
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,559
my dad was a kid, there
were maybe two or three snares at the

246
00:23:04,599 --> 00:23:08,799
time, few enough that if he
got tangled, others would cut you out

247
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:14,599
without too much risk to themselves.
Hurt like hell, mind, but survivable

248
00:23:15,839 --> 00:23:18,279
by the time it got real bad. Some people were just too old or

249
00:23:18,319 --> 00:23:23,279
stubborn claus I suspect some stayed in
the hope that was taken would come back.

250
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:30,200
My father was definitely in that camp. At least you got out,

251
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,839
Wagner said. If you'd stayed,
you would have either been taken already or

252
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:41,079
probably gone insane from the loneliness.
I understood the words, but I didn't

253
00:23:41,079 --> 00:23:45,960
feel them. People who were born
into this were never really normal. I

254
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:51,720
couldn't go to the bathroom without checking
the door five times each way. Sleep

255
00:23:51,839 --> 00:23:55,839
was short, fitful at best,
since there was always when you were most

256
00:23:55,960 --> 00:24:00,680
vulnerable. From what I understood,
most people who'd left the town hadn't fared

257
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:07,839
so well, I suppose. I
shrugged, and we continued to carefully step

258
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,680
over strands of red twine. The
thrumed with excitement as our feet passed over.

259
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:19,920
We got maybe halfway down main Street
before Wagner tripped, fell and set

260
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:29,240
off the first of the snares drop
it. She lowered her backpack without taking

261
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:33,359
her eyes off it. Lucky woman
had fallen in such a way her bag

262
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:38,119
had taken the hit, but already
other snares started to gom up the fabric.

263
00:24:40,319 --> 00:24:45,119
They attracted each other somehow. You
never saw the move. They just

264
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,960
appeared when you weren't looking, almost
like they were always there. But a

265
00:24:49,039 --> 00:24:56,960
quick person could beat them. Jesus, I cried. Step away. Wagner

266
00:24:57,079 --> 00:25:03,880
ran over to me as dozens more
snawes appeared wrapped around her backpack. Slowly

267
00:25:03,079 --> 00:25:08,319
they began to constrict, melding into
and right through the material, looking for

268
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:14,319
the flesh of its owner, while
still dragging it further into the web so

269
00:25:14,519 --> 00:25:19,039
more snares could seize it. Slowly, but surely, the bag was dragged

270
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:26,039
into the darkness of a nearby alley. I was close, the scientist said,

271
00:25:26,279 --> 00:25:30,839
once the bag was out of sight. I didn't bother chastising her.

272
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:34,359
No one could really get used to
this kind of place. He had to

273
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,880
live with it for years before the
lessons had taught you, sank In.

274
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,240
I merely offered to take a short
break, sharing what little food I had

275
00:25:44,759 --> 00:25:48,240
before the pair of us continued.
At least she was a little more watchful

276
00:25:48,319 --> 00:25:55,720
going forward. Nothing more I could
ask for. The journey dragged on for

277
00:25:55,880 --> 00:26:00,640
hours, with our pace so slow, we used the time to document what

278
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:06,720
we saw the state of the town. Crumbling buildings, twined punched glass without

279
00:26:06,759 --> 00:26:11,640
shattering, it blending perfectly with wood, rock, metal, and plastic.

280
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:15,039
Where one end met man made structures, while the other ran off towards the

281
00:26:15,079 --> 00:26:22,000
horizon, inevitably disappearing into the darkness
beneath the forest's canopy. From there,

282
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:29,200
no one knew where it led,
only that disappearing into the woods meant you

283
00:26:29,319 --> 00:26:34,680
never came back. Meanwhile, the
silence bore down on us. I wasn't

284
00:26:34,759 --> 00:26:40,519
used to it, certainly, not
here of all places, what was once

285
00:26:40,559 --> 00:26:45,599
a home to me. But aside
from us moving and speaking, there was

286
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:51,039
nothing to break up the eerie silence, And even then our words felt intrusive

287
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:56,279
and dangerous, like we might catch
the attention of something lurking just out of

288
00:26:56,359 --> 00:27:02,559
sight, perhaps somewhere behind the windows
that peered down on us, old,

289
00:27:03,039 --> 00:27:08,799
gray and grimy, the rooms beyond
hidden like islands in the fog. The

290
00:27:08,839 --> 00:27:15,559
only splash of color the red twine
that ensnared the spaces within those decrepit rooms,

291
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:22,400
hardware shops, florists, record stores, apartments once occupied by people who

292
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,759
had left no one behind to claim
their things. So now toasters and TVs

293
00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:33,279
and ovens and fridges and all manner
of personal items lingered on, gathering no

294
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:40,119
dust because there was no one to
shed skin and create some I felt watched

295
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:45,720
by those windows. Slowly but surely, my paranoia spiked, like a child

296
00:27:45,839 --> 00:27:51,920
in a haunted house, convinced that
something was waiting to jump out. Wagner

297
00:27:52,039 --> 00:27:56,440
spoke to me in places, and
I just ignored her, willing her into

298
00:27:56,519 --> 00:28:00,599
silence out of fear of something coming
along. At one point she had to

299
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:06,880
grab me to get my attention.
Do you hear that? She asked,

300
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:12,400
her eyes wide with fear, and
I realized for the first time it wasn't

301
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:21,799
just me who'd been feeling the pressure. I listened there. It was the

302
00:28:21,839 --> 00:28:26,640
tinkle of a bell, but unlike
the ones I'd heard when a snare was

303
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:33,720
touched, this was gentle, playful, singular, A lone bell, a

304
00:28:33,799 --> 00:28:38,480
lone piece of twine somewhere being played
with, like a cat batting a toy.

305
00:28:40,839 --> 00:28:45,359
What the hell? I muttered,
clearly more baffled by this than Wagoner.

306
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:51,039
The bells did not ring alone.
I knew this. Every one in

307
00:28:51,079 --> 00:28:56,720
the town knew this. They always
screamed in unison. As quickly as it

308
00:28:56,759 --> 00:29:03,480
came, it stopped, but we
investigated anyway. Pulled by the law into

309
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:11,519
the doorway of a shop, I
went first, Wagoner close behind. When

310
00:29:11,519 --> 00:29:17,319
she saw the figure standing there,
she gasped, but whatever noise I wanted

311
00:29:17,319 --> 00:29:22,799
to make was caught in my throat. At first I assumed there was another

312
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,640
person for their stock. Still pose
could not have been achieved by any one

313
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:34,240
with a pulse. It was a
mannekin, the mannikin the one I'd studdied

314
00:29:34,319 --> 00:29:38,480
at at the other end of the
street. It even wore the same clothes.

315
00:29:40,839 --> 00:29:45,039
It had been punjured by snares in
dozens of places, the head,

316
00:29:45,279 --> 00:29:49,839
the neck, the yelbow, and
knees, so much so it resembled Marionette,

317
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,680
and even as the comparison popped into
my head, it turned to face

318
00:29:56,759 --> 00:30:03,559
us. Stiff rotat achieved by the
tug of a twine. With more stilted

319
00:30:03,599 --> 00:30:11,240
movement, it reached out and held
up Wagner's bag, suddenly unharmed, albeit

320
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:18,720
a little scoffed should I Wagner almost
reached out. Hell no, I cried,

321
00:30:18,759 --> 00:30:22,880
while snatching a wrist. I've never
seen anything like this, But jeez,

322
00:30:23,119 --> 00:30:26,599
if it doesn't look like a trap, I don't know what does.

323
00:30:26,319 --> 00:30:30,720
No. No, we need to
move. We need to find the others

324
00:30:30,759 --> 00:30:36,440
and get the hell on with this
expedition. No more notes radio the others,

325
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,880
I added, more, glaring at
the empty street, watching for signs

326
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:45,799
of further movement. Behind all that
dull and lifeless grass, It's time to

327
00:30:45,839 --> 00:30:52,400
move into the woods. Samantha and
I were standing on the crest of the

328
00:30:52,519 --> 00:30:59,240
same hill where Gregg had fallen over
twenty years ago. Only now the air

329
00:30:59,359 --> 00:31:03,200
was cooler and the grass greener,
and plenty of birds chirruped in the nearby

330
00:31:03,279 --> 00:31:08,839
trees. It had seemed, through
no gentle twist of fate, we'd been

331
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:15,480
brought to the trail He'd singled out
years ago. This is definitely what the

332
00:31:15,559 --> 00:31:19,319
satellite picked out, I asked,
while Samantha chewed anxiously on a thumb.

333
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:26,960
This is the root, Wagner replied. Why is there something wrong with it?

334
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,160
It's just that the infrared and elevation
scans made it clear. If we

335
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:37,119
want to enter the forest, this
is our best bet. No, if

336
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,480
you're sure, you're sure, I
said, or briefly, nudging a charred

337
00:31:41,519 --> 00:31:47,200
shoe back into the long grass.
I could only hope Samantha hadn't noticed.

338
00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:52,400
Come on, one of the soldiers
said, while taking point. We need

339
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,440
to get moving, or else all
risk getting stuck here in the dark.

340
00:31:56,359 --> 00:32:02,039
The woods were surprisingly free of snares, but for the last century the townspeople

341
00:32:02,079 --> 00:32:07,079
had treated it like cursed land,
and it seemed so had the wild life.

342
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:13,960
No trails, no paths, no
sign of intervention by humans or animals.

343
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:19,119
Nothing dared to encroach on these trees
to weather down their grip on the

344
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:24,480
earth. They grew over one another
like people in a jostling crowd. Roots

345
00:32:24,599 --> 00:32:30,759
left to thicken and fight tooth and
nail, crowding so tightly they burst through

346
00:32:30,759 --> 00:32:35,680
the soil and crawled over one another. Like something in a mangrove swamp.

347
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,440
You didn't hike through this forest.
You crawled along on your hands and knees,

348
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:45,279
climbing steep inclines, one moment,
gripping gnarled roots like the rungs of

349
00:32:45,319 --> 00:32:52,240
a ladder, before descending the other
side in reverse. Was this place always

350
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:58,359
free of snares? One of the
soldiers asked, Honestly, I don't know,

351
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:05,000
I replied. Both Samantha and I
had been shocked by the fact that

352
00:33:05,119 --> 00:33:09,240
neither of us had talked since noticing
it. No one went into the woods,

353
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:15,200
Samantha added, as the same man
helped her over a particularly steep set

354
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:20,000
of roots. It wasn't even a
matter of being forbidden. It was just

355
00:33:20,079 --> 00:33:25,000
that if you entered, you never
returned. High stakes for a hike,

356
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:30,039
he replied, I'm not sure I'm
being paid enough to never see the sun

357
00:33:30,079 --> 00:33:35,839
again. Well, we've walked what
thirty minutes, and we're still alive,

358
00:33:36,359 --> 00:33:43,200
Wagner said. Maybe people just got
lost. Nothing, says Wagner, was

359
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,200
climbing beside sam as she spoke,
only her words came to a startling halt.

360
00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:52,480
Before she could finish. She cried
out, lost her footing and tumbled

361
00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:58,880
backwards, but as she fell,
her cries grew shrill and almost hysterical,

362
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,440
and I rushed over to help,
unsure of what had happened. When I

363
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,400
reached her, she was on her
back clutching an old piece of root.

364
00:34:07,519 --> 00:34:12,480
In a blur, she threw it
far away from herself and began to point

365
00:34:12,519 --> 00:34:15,719
at something inside the roots. Oh
no, no, no, no no,

366
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:22,400
she muttered, while hyperventilating. Oh
my god, Samantha cried as her

367
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:27,679
eyes picked out what had upset Wagner. It took a second to see it.

368
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,119
I had crawled over that exact spot
just moments ago and noticed nothing.

369
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:38,800
But there it was, a moss
covered bundle of leathery and muffled skin,

370
00:34:39,679 --> 00:34:45,519
the features below so brutalized by decay
that it was scarcely recognizable as anything that

371
00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:54,599
might have once skittered or skulped around
these woods. The dear dead desicated taken

372
00:34:54,800 --> 00:35:00,599
years before, poor Wagner had gripped
one of his bony mistaking it for a

373
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:06,800
route. It was nearly identical due
to the moss covering it, but only

374
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:10,719
the slimy gift of its skin beneath
her fingers had clewed her in and then

375
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:16,000
once she saw those hollow eyes gazing
back at her from the darkness. Well,

376
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:22,320
it's a wonder she hadn't screamed the
whole place down. Looks like it

377
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,199
died and got caught up in the
tree roots, one of the soldiers said,

378
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:30,800
as he took a closer look.
Do you think it touched one of

379
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,920
the snares? Wagner asked, as
she rubbed her hands clean on her trousers.

380
00:35:36,159 --> 00:35:40,000
Guys, does it even take animals? Wagner added, it can,

381
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:45,719
I replied, Guys, weren't a
loud pets because of it. Samantha added,

382
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:51,800
birds seemed to avoid the snares instinctively, but cats, dogs, anything

383
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:57,320
like that really didn't fare so well, guys. One of the soldiers shouted

384
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:01,159
from the nearest deadfall, where he
peeked over the top. I found the

385
00:36:01,199 --> 00:36:08,199
townspeople. They moved. Chasing them
or walking towards them was a sure way

386
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:14,639
to get lost, and the soldiers
let us know that empathetically. We were

387
00:36:14,679 --> 00:36:20,239
to continue as is, penetrating deeper
into the forest in the hope of finding

388
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:25,320
something, anything, that gave us
answers. Meanwhile, all we could do

389
00:36:25,599 --> 00:36:32,239
was ignore the strange figures that bobbed
amongst the trees. Limp bodies, hanging

390
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:37,639
arms, drooping heads, hair full
of twigs and leaves, mouths full of

391
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:45,519
soil, moss coated skin, pallid
and soft. Dead bodies suspended like poppets

392
00:36:45,519 --> 00:36:52,039
and twine. They didn't run if
you approached them. They merely drifted away,

393
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:57,639
as if the hands that controlled them
were taking them off stage. This

394
00:36:58,039 --> 00:37:01,000
was the first time in my life
I've seen the red thread use for something

395
00:37:01,199 --> 00:37:12,679
other than snares. Somehow this felt
worse, Guys, I said, after

396
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,039
we march for another hour, I
think we can safely say how that image

397
00:37:16,079 --> 00:37:21,400
of Greg was taken. I gestured
to one of the bodies that floated amidst

398
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:27,119
the trees, its body swaying in
unseen currents. Are we sure we need

399
00:37:27,159 --> 00:37:30,760
to go further? He's right,
one of the soldiers said, as he

400
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:36,480
dropped his bag and began to roll
out his shoulders and back. I don't

401
00:37:36,559 --> 00:37:39,039
like this one bit, and we
now know the context of that screen grab.

402
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,760
I know I'm not paying for this
whole thing, but I think it's

403
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,800
time to call it a day.
He reached down and grabbed the bag,

404
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:53,519
ready to pull one strap over his
shoulder when we heard it. How had

405
00:37:53,559 --> 00:38:00,480
we been so stupid? The woods
had never been free of snares. It

406
00:38:00,599 --> 00:38:05,239
was just another way of getting us
to lower our guard. When the soldier

407
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,079
had reached for the bag, his
hand, bare skin even had brushed against

408
00:38:09,079 --> 00:38:14,880
the snare that it appeared. When
her eyes were turned, a dozen brass

409
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:19,400
bells rang out from the contact,
and slowly joining in one by one,

410
00:38:20,119 --> 00:38:25,639
A thousand, a million others joined
a deafening, maddening, ear splitting cry,

411
00:38:27,639 --> 00:38:32,000
the most unnatural thing I've ever heard
in my life. Decades gone without

412
00:38:32,039 --> 00:38:37,880
it, but here it was once
more, powerful, enough to make me

413
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:44,360
feel like a weeping child waiting to
be grabbed by Samantha's arms. The soldier

414
00:38:44,559 --> 00:38:49,599
looked at me, terrified. You
said there weren't any in the forest.

415
00:38:50,039 --> 00:38:54,039
He cried, pale as a ghost, and began to stammer. I wanted

416
00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:59,360
to say we'd made no promises,
that I'd only agreed with others observations.

417
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:05,960
But what would that achieve? Calm
down, I shouted instead, But he

418
00:39:06,039 --> 00:39:10,480
tried to run towards us. Already
new snares had appeared to tangle up his

419
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:15,159
feet, binding to his clothes,
wrapping around his limbs from the ever rising

420
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:24,599
panic that made him thrash about The
man was going to die, destined too.

421
00:39:25,119 --> 00:39:30,440
It was too late. Maybe if
we'd taken it slowly, reacted just

422
00:39:30,639 --> 00:39:37,440
right, But that ship had sailed. Now he was bound in dozens of

423
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:43,599
them, and as he continued to
panic, it only grew worse. They

424
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:47,639
melted into his scalp, his cheeks, his brow, his hands, and

425
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:52,440
where his top rode up in the
mad struggle. They now began to weld

426
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:57,119
to his chest and back. No, no, no, no no,

427
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,639
He muttered the words over and over. His friend took a step towards him,

428
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:06,719
but I held out a hand to
stop him. What could you do?

429
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:13,360
The soldier continued to thrash in fear. Anyone who got near him would

430
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,280
end up touching a snare, and
there was no coming back from that.

431
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:22,519
His panic made him as dangerous to
us as he was to himself. We

432
00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:28,320
had to watch as the snares ramped
up their pressure, dragging him with increasing

433
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:36,039
speed up and over a cluster of
roots. Oh no, Wagner was the

434
00:40:36,079 --> 00:40:40,320
first to notice. The snares did
not run over all the roots, They

435
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:46,000
went through them, under them.
Their path was a complicated weave in and

436
00:40:46,039 --> 00:40:52,559
out of ancient bows and roots.
Don't watch, was all I managed to

437
00:40:52,559 --> 00:40:57,880
say, as his body hid the
first of many split directions. As one

438
00:40:58,159 --> 00:41:02,000
we turned away. Manthera scrunched the
face, trying as hard as she could

439
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:07,320
to shut out any and all light. Wagoner clasped her hands over her ears

440
00:41:07,519 --> 00:41:13,480
to block out the sound of breaking
bone, but there was no escaping those

441
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:21,519
screams. She surely must have heard
them, and the remaining soldier, for

442
00:41:21,639 --> 00:41:29,199
some reason, he watched. When
it was done, there was only blood

443
00:41:29,199 --> 00:41:32,840
slicked tree, limbs, torn and
shredded clothes, and a grown man on

444
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:37,679
his knees, throwing up and crying
from what he'd just seen. And behind

445
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:44,960
us. All around us, all
except for a single router head. The

446
00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:52,840
snares had returned so many the air
thrummed like a dropped guitar, so many

447
00:41:52,079 --> 00:41:57,360
it was hard to see further than
a few meters in any direction, So

448
00:41:57,519 --> 00:42:02,440
many that the message they sent was
clear. After all, the timing of

449
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:07,960
the first snare could not have been
an accident. Whatever lay them was telling

450
00:42:08,039 --> 00:42:17,960
us as loud as it could,
there's no turning back. We did not

451
00:42:19,119 --> 00:42:23,280
hear the soldiers cries, but we
heard the struggle. I'm still not sure

452
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:28,280
what happened, only that by the
time we turned, he was one foot

453
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,719
off the ground, his mouth a
mask of twine so thick it resembled a

454
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:37,400
writhing nest of earthworms, a faceless
body floating, his limbs shivering from the

455
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:43,000
overwhelming agony. God, I hope
that if he can die of pain,

456
00:42:43,519 --> 00:42:47,880
it at least happens quickly, and
his face a quivering, ever shifting bundle

457
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,719
of blood red. The sight was
like a nightmare, and it was all

458
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:58,320
the worse that we hadn't even seen
it happen. If it hadn't been for

459
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,559
one of his shoes falling off he
had a seizure, we might never have

460
00:43:01,679 --> 00:43:07,599
even known he was gone. But
that wasn't the worst of it. No,

461
00:43:09,199 --> 00:43:17,360
the worst was that he came back. Wagner noticed first. She was

462
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:22,599
already at the rear when it became
apparent to her that another person had floated

463
00:43:22,679 --> 00:43:28,920
up behind and was now just a
few meters away. She mewed a desperate

464
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:34,400
cry for help, and Samantha and
I turned in unison. The man who

465
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,840
had been taken just an hour before
had resumed his position at the back of

466
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:43,719
the group. He bobbed along the
woodland floor, but his feet did not

467
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,960
touch the ground. If we approached, he moved away, just like the

468
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,840
others, but unlike them, he
was being paraded in full view, close

469
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:59,320
behind, to make sure we stayed
on track. If we took a step,

470
00:44:00,079 --> 00:44:06,199
he took a step as well,
bouncing along in mock imitation of us.

471
00:44:07,039 --> 00:44:10,159
Whatever had happened to him in the
canopy. He looked broken now,

472
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:17,519
crunched, crumpled, plado squeezed in
a fist of an angry child, sunken

473
00:44:17,519 --> 00:44:23,599
eyes and a toothless mouth hung low, his dislocated jaws swinging freely as saliva

474
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:30,480
collected on a swollen tongue, just
like the Mannikin with a stiff arm.

475
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:37,239
The twine moved him and gestured for
us to carry on. At last,

476
00:44:37,559 --> 00:44:40,119
after the hours had gone on for
so long, the sky turned a dull

477
00:44:40,159 --> 00:44:46,320
gray, ready for nightfall. We
found it a clearing in the woods,

478
00:44:46,559 --> 00:44:52,440
as large as any stadium. And
there before us lay what I could only

479
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:59,559
describe as a congregation, And like
many great gatherings, held him secret and

480
00:44:59,599 --> 00:45:05,519
silence. They knelt in supplication,
heads pressed to the floor, skin and

481
00:45:05,599 --> 00:45:09,719
hair withered away, released marred by
the filth around them that they were hard

482
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:16,639
to tell apart. Individual identity meant
little in this crowd. The clothes,

483
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:22,000
too, were close to falling apart. But all these people on their knees.

484
00:45:22,599 --> 00:45:28,280
Somehow, their shoes still told the
story. Leather boots, rogues,

485
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:34,400
moccasins, slippers, trainers, chocks, nikes, Doc Martin's boomers to millennials,

486
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:38,960
three generations of a town brought to
their knees, bright and colorful,

487
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:45,199
stern and business like. The elderly
and the younger like lay before us,

488
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:55,800
dead men and women praying to a
woman bound in twine. She was not

489
00:45:57,119 --> 00:46:02,840
another floating marionette. This was immediately
apparent. Her features were not hidden,

490
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,760
her skin not marred by soil.
Her hair, a rich chestnut brown,

491
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:13,960
was long and flowing. Her clothes, what little we could see beneath a

492
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,880
cocoon of red twine, was a
pale white gown. But time had not

493
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,199
left her alone. Her head was
a withered skull, her mouth a lieringape,

494
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:29,400
A corpse as surely as any other, but free from the abuse of

495
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:32,880
a life on the forest floor,
For she floated high amongst the trees,

496
00:46:34,679 --> 00:46:38,519
thousands of red snares emerging from her
body to suspend her in the center of

497
00:46:38,559 --> 00:46:45,199
an explosion of red lines that radiated
out from her core. Beneath her lay

498
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:51,599
the remnants of an ancient bonfire.
Above her, the branches and canopy had

499
00:46:51,599 --> 00:46:55,239
been scorched black, but the woman
appeared to have been untouched by the flame,

500
00:46:57,079 --> 00:47:00,840
A ghostly image of death. It
was like something out of a Renaissance

501
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:07,760
painting, beautiful and haunting, otherworldly
and divine. The sight of her made

502
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:14,800
my heart break, even if I
couldn't say, why, Who is she?

503
00:47:15,599 --> 00:47:22,480
Wagner asked, her voice choked with
tears. All at once, the

504
00:47:22,559 --> 00:47:27,719
bodies turned to face us, moving
from their bad position just enough to fix

505
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:34,000
us with vacant, cloudy eyes.
Gregg was one of those many. I

506
00:47:34,079 --> 00:47:39,000
spotted him nearby, still a child. He glared at me with empty sockets.

507
00:47:39,119 --> 00:47:44,599
There seemed darker than any shadow,
like a flicker of his betrayal remained

508
00:47:44,599 --> 00:47:50,320
alive within him. Had he worn
that furious expression for all these years?

509
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,280
I wanted to answer Wagner's question,
but the answer froze in my throat.

510
00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:00,239
I had no definitive proof, but
couldn't see the betray on the woman's face,

511
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:07,519
couldn't see the hatred in a hollow
eyes god being stood there. It

512
00:48:07,599 --> 00:48:13,599
felt wrong, felt dangerous. It
felt like I just wandered into Chernobyl and

513
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:19,360
was making direct contact with the elephant's
foot. Whoever that woman was, she

514
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:24,639
radiated hate the same way the sun
radiates heat. Whatever the details of her,

515
00:48:25,119 --> 00:48:30,320
there was no mistaking the intensity of
her contempt for us. I'd spent

516
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:37,000
decades wondering what force or creature could
hate my town so much they would torture

517
00:48:37,039 --> 00:48:42,559
us. For nearly three decades,
looking at her, I understood easily where

518
00:48:42,559 --> 00:48:47,400
that cruelty came from. A witch
burned? Perhaps I never heard of that

519
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:52,039
in our history, and who burns
a witch in the nineties? But who

520
00:48:52,079 --> 00:48:57,880
knows what happens in the deep woods? Who knows what atrocities are committed in

521
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:04,000
the dark? And so far from
watching eyes? Then again, did she

522
00:49:04,119 --> 00:49:07,639
need justification to hate us? A
part of me felt like I was standing

523
00:49:07,679 --> 00:49:12,960
before a god of some kind,
and who knows what they do or do

524
00:49:13,119 --> 00:49:17,480
not take offense to? After all, do you explain to an ant why

525
00:49:17,519 --> 00:49:23,440
you crush it? As if hearing
my thoughts, she turned to face me,

526
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:30,400
dead but alive, rotting but whole, And for a brief passing instant,

527
00:49:31,079 --> 00:49:37,039
I saw enough to render the world
white, for blood to come bubbling

528
00:49:37,119 --> 00:49:40,239
out of my ears in a warm
stream. I wouldn't notice for hours more.

529
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:51,840
And then, after that silence darkness, my final thought was the realization

530
00:49:52,199 --> 00:50:00,639
that I had been right. I
had just heard a God speak. From

531
00:50:00,639 --> 00:50:07,159
the town came church bells. Even
from where we sat on the hut of

532
00:50:07,159 --> 00:50:12,119
her car, miles away awaiting extraction, I could see the glow in the

533
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:17,880
tower. The town had come alive
at last. Our journey from the woods

534
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:24,079
had not been alone. Her congregation, easily a thousand rotting bodies, floated

535
00:50:24,119 --> 00:50:31,000
down behind us, and she came
in toe looming overall like some nightmarish puppeteer.

536
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:36,920
Only when we reached the bottom of
the hill and passed the first building

537
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,360
did the woman in red move into
the lead, where she slowly took a

538
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:46,800
congregation to the center of the town. There she remains even now, still

539
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:53,519
floating, still bound in a million
threads, but her congregation moved on.

540
00:50:54,800 --> 00:51:00,360
Gregg returned home. My father too, hand in hand with the mother,

541
00:51:00,199 --> 00:51:06,320
the woman he'd loved so much.
There wasn't much room for me. Others

542
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:12,159
had work to do. Shopkeepers flicked
close signs to open, switches were flicked,

543
00:51:12,519 --> 00:51:15,880
barber's poles came to life. Neon
signs began to throw, and glow

544
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:23,440
light floated the nighttime streets as ancient
bulbs flickered once twice, and then finally

545
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:30,920
fell into a steady hum. All
of them lifeless bodies, manipulated by the

546
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:37,480
twine, cloudy eyes, brains as
inert as lumps of insulation. And yet

547
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:44,159
they were animated with just enough hints
of a former life as to make me

548
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,760
wonder what exactly the woman in Red
had been doing with them up there for

549
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:54,360
all those years. Either way,
if Versimile was shocking, if you could

550
00:51:54,400 --> 00:52:00,159
ignore all the snares and the strange
way its citizens floated and bobbed along,

551
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:07,480
the town almost appeared normal as life
began to slowly flood back in. It

552
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:12,280
had been a miracle to get electricity
back on so quickly, But the woman

553
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:16,800
in Red brought no argument. Her
demands were many, and if I hadn't

554
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:22,719
accepted them, she would have boiled
my brains right there in that clearing.

555
00:52:23,559 --> 00:52:30,000
What happens when we die? One
day, Samantha rasked as we watched houses

556
00:52:30,119 --> 00:52:35,000
light up one by one. What
happens if there's a power cut. She

557
00:52:35,079 --> 00:52:40,320
can move the cars on her own, but electricity I don't know, I

558
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:45,360
replied, or shaking my head.
But already I was thinking of ways to

559
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:52,840
install a generator something The twine could
maybe move in emergencies enough to keep the

560
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:59,039
town going while I took care of
the rest. But I'd really rather not

561
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:16,119
find out what happens if she doesn't
get her own way. I collect random

562
00:53:16,199 --> 00:53:22,000
home VHS tapes, a simple hobby, very niche too, so it can

563
00:53:22,039 --> 00:53:28,320
be quite cheap compared to more common
hobbies. A lot of young people clearing

564
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:34,840
out their deceased relatives home find tapes
and droves either blanks or random taped shows.

565
00:53:36,039 --> 00:53:39,559
There's a fun feeling to finding snippets
of old shows, sometimes they're not

566
00:53:39,639 --> 00:53:46,039
even well documented, and there are
forums dedicated to post findings to people love

567
00:53:46,159 --> 00:53:51,960
finding lost episodes of the shows of
old. There are many in the space

568
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:57,239
who solely dedicate themselves to this side
of the hobby, but personally, I

569
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:02,320
like the real life lootbox feeling of
simply watching what's on the tapes. I

570
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:08,400
have a room dedicated to my collections
on top of my memorabilia sections, which

571
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:13,760
are some toys and collectibles from shows
I used to love. I have two

572
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:20,199
main shelves, one of random shows
that I label and categorize. The other

573
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,360
shelf is of home videos that were
mixed in with the blanks or unmarked VHS

574
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:30,679
patches. These I collect after I
try get back in touch with the seller

575
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:35,280
to try to send them back to
no avail. As for the blanks,

576
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:39,519
I have them boxed away. I
later resell them since I have no use

577
00:54:39,559 --> 00:54:45,559
for them. One of these tapes, however, has taken my whole attention.

578
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:52,800
It came in a box of mostly
blanks, white labels, unmarred except

579
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:57,639
for one which had most of its
sticker blacked out with a thick marker.

580
00:55:00,119 --> 00:55:04,840
Either there was something written on it
that was blocked over, or it was

581
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,360
heavily marked to stand out from the
rest. If that was the case,

582
00:55:09,039 --> 00:55:15,280
it worked because I picked it out
immediately. I haven't acquired a new tape

583
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:22,199
since because I've been obsessed over this
one. So I'm sharing his contents that

584
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:27,039
i've seen so far. Once you
see what I mean, you'll know why,

585
00:55:28,039 --> 00:55:32,760
and you'll know why you can never
see it. It started with my

586
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:38,400
first watch. I made sure it
was fully rewound and sat back, hoping

587
00:55:38,519 --> 00:55:43,639
it was a good one. The
shots started with a man at his desk.

588
00:55:44,519 --> 00:55:47,400
He seemed to be working on something
challenging, as all his attention was

589
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:52,519
on the papers in front of him. His brow furrowed constantly as he meticulously

590
00:55:52,679 --> 00:55:58,960
chipped away at the mountain of literature
in front of him. It seemed rather

591
00:55:59,039 --> 00:56:04,119
inane at first, just a man
working hard and for some reason, filming

592
00:56:04,199 --> 00:56:09,800
himself. I hoped the scene would
develop, trying to piece together a plot.

593
00:56:10,159 --> 00:56:15,199
If this scene was from an old
TV show, this made my eyes

594
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:22,599
wonder, hoping something would happen.
But as he continued to dive deeper into

595
00:56:22,639 --> 00:56:29,159
his work, I noticed the mirror
slightly off angled behind him, a calmon

596
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:35,320
narrative device in more artsy visual storytelling. In it was a small snippet of

597
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:38,920
the wall behind the camera. Every
time he pulled his head up from his

598
00:56:39,039 --> 00:56:45,800
desk, he would clip into the
frame of the mirror. But something seemed

599
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:51,920
off. I couldn't figure out what
I found off about it, but keeping

600
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,679
an eye in it made the many
minutes of this shop more amusing to watch,

601
00:56:55,360 --> 00:57:00,360
as I wasn't getting any enjoyment from
watching a man struggling late into a

602
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:07,280
nine to five. There was one
part that solidified what seems strange about it,

603
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,920
though. It was when he swung
back far to stretch his back out

604
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:15,079
a bit. As he ended up
in the mirror's frame for a bit longer

605
00:57:15,119 --> 00:57:22,840
than usual, I noticed this reflection
was imperfectly mirroring his actions. It seemed

606
00:57:23,079 --> 00:57:29,320
a bit out of sync, almost
like the reflection wasn't a reflection but another

607
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:34,239
person trying to be a reflection.
I thought it could have been a shoddy

608
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:39,119
attempt from the director of trying to
replicate a mirror. However, that seemed

609
00:57:39,159 --> 00:57:45,679
way too elaborate for this kind of
work. Once I noticed this, the

610
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:51,880
oftness became much more apparent. Even
on the tiny snippets. The reflection seemed

611
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:54,360
to be like he was slightly more
turned than he should have been, with

612
00:57:54,599 --> 00:58:00,079
just a few frames too late in
response. Before I knew it, the

613
00:58:00,119 --> 00:58:05,840
scene ended, The tape snapped black, and the whir of the VHS players

614
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:10,519
spanned to rewind. It was the
end of the tape. It was only

615
00:58:10,559 --> 00:58:15,480
about twenty minutes, but the time
flew by after my fun little game started,

616
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,760
so as soon as it clicked back
to the start of the tape.

617
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,639
I immediately hit play to try to
see how early this strange, unsynked mirror

618
00:58:25,679 --> 00:58:32,239
started. But instead of a man
at a desk, it was something else

619
00:58:32,599 --> 00:58:39,199
entirely. It was now a woman
in a shopping aisle. She was deciding

620
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:45,000
between two similar brands of cereal and
trying to figure out which one she wanted.

621
00:58:45,119 --> 00:58:50,400
It seemed the decision between strawberry or
chocolate was a hard one, because

622
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:54,119
she was at this for a while. But while she was engrossed in the

623
00:58:54,239 --> 00:59:00,599
thoughts, something in the background started
to move. A colorful box of cereal

624
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:07,679
slightly further up the aisle started to
shift slightly. It moved so slowly that

625
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:13,360
she took no notice. However,
I could see it in full, just

626
00:59:13,519 --> 00:59:20,079
slowly inching out little by little.
Eventually it was almost all the way out,

627
00:59:20,639 --> 00:59:23,639
teetering on the middle of its own
weight, before it toppled over and

628
00:59:23,719 --> 00:59:29,360
fell. She immediately turned at the
noise of it hit in the ground,

629
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:34,280
staring at it for a few moments. Once she realized it was just a

630
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,880
box that fell, she went back, picked up the strawberry option, put

631
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:44,480
it in a basket, and walked
away At this, the scene ended,

632
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:52,039
and the tape went back to black
and started rewinding. This established the pattern

633
00:59:52,239 --> 00:59:57,679
of my new obsession for a start. This scene wasn't nearly as long as

634
00:59:57,679 --> 01:00:01,360
the first one, yet it still
hit the end of the tape. More

635
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:08,119
importantly, it was completely different to
what was on the tape before. I

636
01:00:08,199 --> 01:00:13,599
hit play once more, and once
again, it was a different scene entirely.

637
01:00:15,239 --> 01:00:19,079
I don't know how it worked,
but I knew I had something strange

638
01:00:19,079 --> 01:00:23,159
in my possession, so I took
to seeing what else would happen if I

639
01:00:23,239 --> 01:00:30,199
kept watching the tape over and over, at first for fun, but later

640
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:37,440
not so much. I took to
the forums, but as you can imagine,

641
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:44,519
they were no help. This obviously
wasn't how tapes worked, so even

642
01:00:44,559 --> 01:00:49,559
the most vague description of my first
experience was either ignored or made fun of.

643
01:00:51,079 --> 01:00:54,239
But this didn't deter me. I
never did this hobby for attention,

644
01:00:55,039 --> 01:01:00,880
so since then, I've just kept
this to myself, something I can enjoy

645
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:06,280
in my free time. And plus
it saved me money too. I no

646
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:09,760
longer had to hunt down new tapes, knowing this one provided new content to

647
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:15,239
watch each time. It was my
own personal heaven. The goose that laid

648
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:21,880
golden eggs. My next few watches
went similar to my first two. A

649
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:27,280
person sitting at a park feeding ducks, but instead of ducks, disheveled children

650
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,599
came to eat the bread, which
the patron didn't seem to bat an eye

651
01:01:30,599 --> 01:01:35,760
too. A man fervently driving his
car, making sharp turns to the wheel

652
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:40,159
and looking around frantically, which after
a slow, long zoom out, the

653
01:01:40,239 --> 01:01:45,840
car turned out to be unmoving,
stuck in a ditch. Some impatient patrons

654
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:51,280
outside a bar waiting for it to
be open if the building looked derelict and

655
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:57,239
boarded up so it couldn't open.
They were like little dark comedies, twisted

656
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:01,639
punchlines for no one to appreciate but
me. But my last watcher that night

657
01:02:02,039 --> 01:02:07,440
set a different tone. The scene
was of a figure lying in a bed.

658
01:02:08,519 --> 01:02:14,760
The skin was jet black, charred
and crisp. Wisps of steam danced

659
01:02:14,800 --> 01:02:19,840
around the body. Between the dried
cracks of skin, there were thin lines

660
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:24,760
of red where it split. This
caught my attention as it was significantly different

661
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:30,639
from any of the previous times I
viewed the tape. They were dead still,

662
01:02:30,119 --> 01:02:36,199
the camera too, the only light
color in this dark scene was their

663
01:02:36,239 --> 01:02:43,280
eyes leaking softly out of the socket. After many chilling minutes of silence,

664
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:49,679
the body twitched once, then twice, then started spasming violently, jitters and

665
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:54,320
jumps, flinging around wildly periodically,
until it was all they were doing.

666
01:02:55,760 --> 01:03:00,559
As they constantly spun around and writhed. Colours slowly returned to their skin.

667
01:03:01,639 --> 01:03:07,119
Panic restored on their slowly forming face. I figured there were screaming, but

668
01:03:07,199 --> 01:03:14,880
couldn't confirm with the lack of audio. Eventually they were back to human,

669
01:03:15,079 --> 01:03:21,280
a middle aged woman twitching in her
bed until she settled down, back to

670
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:27,679
a peaceful slumber. No sign of
danger on the way like they somehow burned

671
01:03:27,719 --> 01:03:31,039
alive, and their tape was reversed, yet no fire was ever seen.

672
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:37,039
I thought this was a hint to
reverse the tape, so I hit rewinder

673
01:03:37,119 --> 01:03:42,960
see if anything would change. But
when the scan lines shot around and the

674
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:46,880
tape word, the shot went to
black and for the rest of that scene

675
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:54,239
no picture showed. That was a
new lesson I'd learned. Any interference with

676
01:03:54,360 --> 01:04:00,039
the tape and it would cut to
black until the tape ended and rewound itself.

677
01:04:02,039 --> 01:04:06,280
The next day I took off work. I wanted to see as much

678
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:12,840
as possible, even though some of
the snippets were a bit dark. Seeing

679
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:16,400
it through the scan lines of an
old cort TV dampened the blow somewhat.

680
01:04:17,079 --> 01:04:23,440
My thirst for knowledge had just gotten
started. I sat down with my early

681
01:04:23,519 --> 01:04:29,159
morning coffee and popped in the tape. The first watch started with an over

682
01:04:29,199 --> 01:04:32,880
the shoulder shot of an elderly man
standing in front of his bathroom mirror.

683
01:04:34,159 --> 01:04:39,159
Though I couldn't see him directly,
I could make him out clearly through the

684
01:04:39,239 --> 01:04:45,719
cleaned mirror he stared into. He
stared intently at his reflection, seemingly willing

685
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:50,719
it to do something. After a
few tense moments, he slowly raised his

686
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:59,199
right hand and hesitatly waved at himself. The reflection followed along, which seemed

687
01:04:59,199 --> 01:05:04,840
to anger the man slightly, the
reflection mimicking his fore a demeanor. He

688
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:12,599
tried again, slowly raising his hand
giving an uneasy wave, and again the

689
01:05:12,679 --> 01:05:18,519
reflection seemed to follow along, perfectly
reflected. He tried this over and over,

690
01:05:19,360 --> 01:05:25,000
the same movements, the same reactions. I almost thought the tape was

691
01:05:25,079 --> 01:05:30,039
looping, until he started acting more
and more frantic, waving and waving,

692
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:35,519
not seeming to get the reaction he
wanted defeated. His shoulders sunk and he

693
01:05:35,599 --> 01:05:43,840
turned to leave, but his reflection
didn't, and it continued to stare in

694
01:05:43,880 --> 01:05:50,119
the direction of the camera. The
tape ended. There after the whirr of

695
01:05:50,119 --> 01:05:56,639
the VHS stopped. I hit play
again. This next scene faded into a

696
01:05:56,679 --> 01:06:00,079
panning shot of a room full of
plushes and toys, a mix of relatively

697
01:06:00,159 --> 01:06:06,880
old releases and very retro collectibles from
old mechas the soft plushes, though I

698
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:11,840
could tell there was some marring from
dust, they looked like they were placed

699
01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:17,039
with pride, something I did myself
with my own collection. After the slow

700
01:06:17,119 --> 01:06:21,280
pan the shots centered on one of
the dolls in the middle of one of

701
01:06:21,280 --> 01:06:28,360
the shelves. Slowly it zoomed in
the frame, getting smaller and smaller.

702
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:32,079
However, as some of the toys
were getting cropped out of the shot and

703
01:06:32,119 --> 01:06:39,000
the sides, I swear I could
see them twitch a little. Some would

704
01:06:39,039 --> 01:06:44,000
lean as if pushed slightly, but
some looked more deliberate, like a leg

705
01:06:44,119 --> 01:06:50,079
jerking or a joint pivoting. Eventually, the camera was so zoomed in that

706
01:06:50,159 --> 01:06:56,760
only a few toys remained, and
when enlarged unscreen, I could see it

707
01:06:56,800 --> 01:07:01,199
more clearly. Toys were moving or
to anymously when they were almost out of

708
01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:06,239
shot, like the timing was just
off from trying not to be caught or

709
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:12,480
trying to be deliberate enough for me
to see. Eventually, the shot landed

710
01:07:12,519 --> 01:07:17,440
squarely on the scented toy's eye,
a disturbing extreme close up of the glossy

711
01:07:17,519 --> 01:07:23,159
bead that made up part of its
face. The shot lingered for a good

712
01:07:23,199 --> 01:07:30,800
few moments before its eye blinked and
the scene cut. Each watch seemed to

713
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:35,239
bring something new, yet I pieced
together that there seemed to be a vague,

714
01:07:35,360 --> 01:07:41,400
reoccurring theme of mirrors, and the
eye stood out to me as it

715
01:07:41,480 --> 01:07:45,559
made me think back to the woman
in bed. I watched the tape over

716
01:07:45,639 --> 01:07:50,159
and over, taking small breaks to
eat and do general tasks throughout the day,

717
01:07:51,199 --> 01:07:56,039
but went away from the screen.
My mind never left my one seater

718
01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:00,440
in front of my dusty CRT TV. The tape was coming up with these

719
01:08:00,440 --> 01:08:06,039
scenes and the fly then it never
seemed to run out of ideas. However,

720
01:08:06,079 --> 01:08:11,760
the effects were done. They were
pulled off immaculately, where ahead of

721
01:08:11,800 --> 01:08:15,400
their time. If there was some
trick to the tape that did this,

722
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:19,560
like it was somehow connected online,
pulling random horror scenes from lesser known movies.

723
01:08:20,640 --> 01:08:25,840
It was beyond me, Like the
goose that laid golden eggs, analogy

724
01:08:25,880 --> 01:08:30,159
I've already mentioned. I didn't want
to cut the goose open out of greed.

725
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:34,800
After eating the quickest meal I could
make, I popped back into my

726
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:41,000
collector's room, hoping to get some
new watches in before bed. Even though

727
01:08:41,039 --> 01:08:45,079
I took off work, I knew
I couldn't stay up. Obsceemly late,

728
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:50,520
the scene sparked a life with flickers. The lightings seemed to be sketchy in

729
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:56,800
the room, but when it lingered
long enough between the flashes, I saw

730
01:08:56,920 --> 01:09:02,439
tile and old bottles. It was
a ceramic coated bathroom, a sterile white

731
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:09,920
veneer that screamed cheap rent. Eventually, there was a final crack of energy

732
01:09:10,359 --> 01:09:15,760
and the bulb clung to life enough
to light the scene. The camera led

733
01:09:15,880 --> 01:09:20,880
with a tilt top, tracking across
the bathroom floor or the while an occasional

734
01:09:20,960 --> 01:09:28,600
sloshing could be heard, the tub
sounding very full. Sometimes a squeaking sound

735
01:09:28,640 --> 01:09:33,880
would sting, like skin shifting on
porcelain, the movements of someone uncomfortable in

736
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:40,520
the bath. The camera had tracked
up slowly leading to the lip of the

737
01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:46,399
tub with a sloshing and jostling got
louder. The frame lingered level to the

738
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:51,760
edge for a few moments, not
revealing the inner of the tub, and

739
01:09:53,119 --> 01:09:59,239
the first sign that something was off
was when some of the liquid spilled over

740
01:09:59,279 --> 01:10:04,680
the edge. It was only slight, but a thin red streak glistened down

741
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:11,279
in a fast red line. This
was the camera's que to lift over.

742
01:10:13,479 --> 01:10:20,119
The reveal was not what I wanted. The liquid was of viscous and thick

743
01:10:20,239 --> 01:10:28,720
red, rumbling with little movements underneath
a meek struggle beneath the shallow depths.

744
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:34,199
Occasionally a pale arm or leg would
bob up briefly, momentarily freeing itself to

745
01:10:34,239 --> 01:10:41,560
the surface, before plunging back under
an arm and leg and an arm again,

746
01:10:42,319 --> 01:10:45,760
like they were coming up for air
in sporadic intervals, yet no head

747
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:51,920
ever came up. The shifting became
more erratic, so much so that the

748
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:58,279
liquid looked like it was boiling.
The water splashed over the lip, spilling

749
01:10:58,319 --> 01:11:01,840
over the now pink hued floor,
until it all came to a sudden still

750
01:11:03,439 --> 01:11:12,039
and whatever was under rested on the
surface. The parts weren't of a person

751
01:11:12,199 --> 01:11:17,399
trapped under the water, but many
parts dismembered arms and legs of a half

752
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:25,359
dozen similar looking people. The only
one that wasn't a limb was an eye

753
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:33,760
that floated haplessly in the middle.
The tape cut black. After this,

754
01:11:34,600 --> 01:11:40,800
I was unsettled. Sure there was
some things that bordered on dark that I'd

755
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:45,359
seen before, but this was so
many steps up the others I could pass

756
01:11:45,399 --> 01:11:49,560
off as tricks of the camera,
or at best the kundriins from the mind

757
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:58,079
of directors being too experimental. But
this went too far. I cut my

758
01:11:58,199 --> 01:12:03,640
viewing sessions shorter than I'd want.
That night at work, I waded up

759
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:09,560
if I should just stop. Let
me tell you. If I had,

760
01:12:10,399 --> 01:12:15,079
life would have been simple. I'd
go back to working my regular job and

761
01:12:15,239 --> 01:12:19,520
hunting for tapes in my spare time. But as you can tell, the

762
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:29,279
story doesn't end here. See,
this hobby had me addicted. The thrill

763
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:34,319
of finding some rare or unique footage
was exhilarating. I'm sure you can liken

764
01:12:34,359 --> 01:12:40,000
it to the biggest rush in whatever
hobby you're into. Make your own similarly

765
01:12:40,039 --> 01:12:45,600
for how it feels so to get
that on demand, rather than waiting days

766
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:48,319
for a listening to show up,
fighting over others like me in a bidding

767
01:12:48,359 --> 01:12:53,760
war, and then waiting the sometimes
weeks for it to get here because sellers

768
01:12:53,840 --> 01:12:57,720
cheap out so much on shipping,
and that also causes some tapes to be

769
01:12:57,800 --> 01:13:02,880
wrecked by the time they arrive to
mention package thieves. It was easy for

770
01:13:02,960 --> 01:13:08,680
me to cope that that last episode
was on one off, something that could

771
01:13:08,720 --> 01:13:13,479
just randomly happen in the pool of
footage. It seemed to hold, so

772
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:20,039
maybe I could keep going. What
were the odds of something like that happening

773
01:13:20,079 --> 01:13:34,960
again? I decided to challenge those
odds. I tried to resist when I

774
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:40,960
got home, give myself some breathing
room for a bit, but after finishing

775
01:13:41,000 --> 01:13:44,560
some chores around the house and taking
some time to make a nice meal,

776
01:13:45,239 --> 01:13:50,520
the downtime was deafening and I wanted
to fill it with my obsession. The

777
01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:57,039
tape was already in the player,
untouched since the bathtub scene. I sat

778
01:13:57,119 --> 01:14:01,880
down and hit play. The camera
panned over her serene park on a cloudy

779
01:14:01,960 --> 01:14:06,760
day, and the camera revealed a
young woman on a bench. The camera

780
01:14:08,000 --> 01:14:12,359
was close enough to make out the
name tag on her chest. Anna,

781
01:14:13,439 --> 01:14:16,800
she looked like she was feeling directionless
and came to the park to try and

782
01:14:16,840 --> 01:14:21,600
clear her head. She gazed up, lost in her mind for a while,

783
01:14:23,319 --> 01:14:28,840
eyes glazed, and thought that something
got her attention and snapped her out

784
01:14:28,840 --> 01:14:33,840
of a stupor a whisper in the
wind that quarter off guard. Yet I

785
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:42,000
could hear it too. Look up, was all it said in a low,

786
01:14:42,119 --> 01:14:47,720
soothing voice. She must have been
desperate because instead of looking around or

787
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:54,399
even contemplating whether or not to follow
a randomly given direction, she followed it

788
01:14:54,520 --> 01:15:00,079
like divine intervention. Anna stared at
the dull sky, skinn around for something,

789
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:05,760
though not knowing what. But it
didn't take long for her to find

790
01:15:05,840 --> 01:15:13,840
what she was looking for. Anna's
face switched through so many emotions. Whatever

791
01:15:13,880 --> 01:15:17,600
had her attention must have been otherworldly, because I can't think of anything that

792
01:15:17,640 --> 01:15:23,920
could appear in an open sky that
would garnered that kind of reaction. Maybe

793
01:15:23,920 --> 01:15:28,600
the cloud sending a message or a
vision of some sort. I would never

794
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:34,319
know, because the shot only stayed
on her. Her face settled and beheld

795
01:15:35,359 --> 01:15:41,760
something in the sky had a smitten
in a divine way. Anna was soaking

796
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:45,840
in the bliss of whatever She gazed
upon hope returned to her face, which

797
01:15:45,880 --> 01:15:53,479
seemed like something she'd been missing for
a long time. However, the sky

798
01:15:53,720 --> 01:15:59,640
soon got darker, A thick cloud
passed over the lowering sun and her face

799
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:06,439
draw Whatever she was looking at twisted
something grotesque. Yet she never once looked

800
01:16:06,479 --> 01:16:15,159
away, and the scene ended.
Hooked on the mystery, I hit play

801
01:16:15,199 --> 01:16:20,760
again. The room in the opening
was sterile. A large mirror was centered

802
01:16:20,800 --> 01:16:26,119
on the wall. There was obviously
a two way to me, but not

803
01:16:26,279 --> 01:16:30,680
to who they were observing. The
subject was a girl, definitely in the

804
01:16:30,760 --> 01:16:36,319
single digits of age. She was
in a hospital gown with pajamas underneath,

805
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:42,920
and in front of her were a
number of old dolls. A clack sounded,

806
01:16:43,399 --> 01:16:48,239
and over a fuzzy integomb speaker,
her voice asked, can you talk

807
01:16:48,319 --> 01:16:56,720
to one of the dolls? Okay, she replied meekly, and she proceeded

808
01:16:56,720 --> 01:17:02,039
to introduce herself to the first one. Not that one, a low voice

809
01:17:02,039 --> 01:17:09,960
said, though it didn't have the
intercom static like the previous voice. It

810
01:17:10,119 --> 01:17:15,000
said, not this one, she
said back. The interviewer must have been

811
01:17:15,039 --> 01:17:20,239
confused by this, as there was
a pause of contemplation before he re formed

812
01:17:20,239 --> 01:17:27,359
a new question, which doll is
speaking? Honey? It seemed that the

813
01:17:27,399 --> 01:17:30,760
girl could hear the voice, as
could I, but the man observing and

814
01:17:30,880 --> 01:17:36,439
possibly others behind the screen could not. She turned back to the dolls and

815
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:45,640
asked them who was speaking me?
The low voice responded. She turned towards

816
01:17:45,680 --> 01:17:49,760
the doll in the middle and pointed
at it. Okay, honey, can

817
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:55,600
you ask him some questions for me? The man said mm hm. She

818
01:17:55,720 --> 01:18:01,039
obeyed. When addressed, the doll
seemed to move slightly, almost as if

819
01:18:01,079 --> 01:18:05,880
trying to turn to face her.
However, she was unfazed by this.

820
01:18:08,560 --> 01:18:13,640
What is it that you want,
child, the doll quizzed, which she

821
01:18:13,720 --> 01:18:17,479
repeated back to the hidden man.
The man on the other side of the

822
01:18:17,520 --> 01:18:24,039
two way mirror, intrigued by the
doll's response, asked, can you ask

823
01:18:24,119 --> 01:18:29,119
him who he is? The girl
turned back to the doll and repeated the

824
01:18:29,199 --> 01:18:36,079
question. The doll's head tilted slightly
as if considering its answer. I am

825
01:18:36,119 --> 01:18:42,319
a vessel, it said, his
voice had grown, which she echoed back.

826
01:18:44,119 --> 01:18:47,079
The silence lingered as the man seemed
to ponder more about what to ask,

827
01:18:48,119 --> 01:18:53,359
but just as he hit the intercom
button, sounding that awful clack.

828
01:18:53,880 --> 01:19:00,680
I was about to ask the doll
another question, something happened. The doll's

829
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:05,279
eyes began to twitch, blinking rapidly
UNSYNCD, and its head spun around to

830
01:19:05,359 --> 01:19:11,720
face the two way mirror. I
see you, the doll said, his

831
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:17,840
voice echoing throughout the room. I
see all of you. The man frantically

832
01:19:17,920 --> 01:19:24,399
called out, what's going on?
What is he saying? It seemed they

833
01:19:24,399 --> 01:19:29,439
had never encountered her anything like this
before. But before she could answer,

834
01:19:29,800 --> 01:19:35,640
the doll spoke again. The eye
sees all, it said, and now

835
01:19:35,760 --> 01:19:43,720
the experiment ends. With that,
The doll fell silent, its eyes returning

836
01:19:43,760 --> 01:19:50,039
to their normal lifeless state. There
was no response as the girl asked over

837
01:19:50,239 --> 01:19:55,680
and over if she could be let
out, unfazed with a whole ordeal.

838
01:19:56,560 --> 01:20:00,079
As the static rattled out from the
intercom from the buttom that was still held

839
01:20:00,119 --> 01:20:08,560
down, no more voices came from
behind the screen. The scene abruptly cut

840
01:20:08,600 --> 01:20:15,039
to black. I had seen a
handful of thematics of eyes, or rather

841
01:20:15,279 --> 01:20:19,479
a singular eye, but this was
the first true mention, addressing it as

842
01:20:19,560 --> 01:20:25,920
some sort of thing. This was
enough for me for the night, so

843
01:20:26,039 --> 01:20:30,800
I turned in now, wanting to
figure out the narrative theme of the clips.

844
01:20:31,640 --> 01:20:36,439
The weekend was the perfect time to
try and pack this. I swore

845
01:20:36,479 --> 01:20:42,119
that I'd watch over and over no
matter what I saw. I was in

846
01:20:42,239 --> 01:20:46,720
deep and I wanted to weather the
deep end for a satisfying conclusion. If

847
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:51,840
something disturbing came up, I'd simply
get over it and watch again. There

848
01:20:51,880 --> 01:20:57,880
was a message here, and I
wanted to figure it out. Scene after

849
01:20:57,960 --> 01:21:02,159
scene. I watched the tape over
so many times that day. A shot

850
01:21:02,159 --> 01:21:06,560
of a person sitting on a couch
reading a book. As the camera zoomed

851
01:21:06,560 --> 01:21:11,119
in on the book, I realize
that it was not a normal one.

852
01:21:11,920 --> 01:21:16,039
It was some ancient tome with a
strange symbol on the front. A scene

853
01:21:16,079 --> 01:21:21,000
of a person standing in front of
a window watching the rainfall. As the

854
01:21:21,039 --> 01:21:26,000
camera zoomed in on the rain drops, I saw that they were not normal

855
01:21:26,079 --> 01:21:30,880
water droplets. They were black and
oily, and they seemed to be eating

856
01:21:30,880 --> 01:21:36,640
away at the windowpane. The person
was nonchalant about his impending danger. A

857
01:21:36,720 --> 01:21:42,239
shot of a man walking through a
forest at night with strange symbols etched on

858
01:21:42,319 --> 01:21:47,039
the trees. He hears strange,
otherworldly whispers all around him, but can't

859
01:21:47,039 --> 01:21:53,159
make out what's being said. Suddenly, a figure appears behind him, its

860
01:21:53,159 --> 01:21:58,880
face hidden. The figure speaks in
a soft, whispered voice, promising to

861
01:21:58,920 --> 01:22:03,039
reveal the secret the universe to the
person if they're willing to make a sacrifice.

862
01:22:04,199 --> 01:22:10,359
The person hesitates with the figures words
are hypnotic, and they find themselves

863
01:22:10,439 --> 01:22:15,399
drawn in. The scene ends with
a person making a pact with the figure,

864
01:22:15,159 --> 01:22:20,239
the details of which are left unclear. I had a patterned paper to

865
01:22:20,319 --> 01:22:26,039
jot down things I thought could be
important. I saw a reoccurring symbol in

866
01:22:26,079 --> 01:22:30,119
a handful of the clips. It
looked like an uppercase h with a cruelly

867
01:22:30,199 --> 01:22:36,119
drawn circle in the middle, A
new reoccurring theme that would occasionally pop up

868
01:22:39,119 --> 01:22:43,960
as I watched. I felt unnerved. At first. I thought it was

869
01:22:44,000 --> 01:22:48,479
from the more disturbing scenes that would
occasionally happen, but it lingered even as

870
01:22:48,520 --> 01:22:54,199
I wandered my room while getting a
drink. It felt like eyes were upon

871
01:22:54,279 --> 01:23:00,640
me, A thought implanted into my
head from what I'd seen, But I

872
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:08,159
wasn't wrong. I was being watched. My collectible memorabilia, the things I

873
01:23:08,239 --> 01:23:14,199
collected outside of VHS tapes were in
the room with me. Inane decoration for

874
01:23:14,359 --> 01:23:19,039
most of my life that now loomed
in the corners with watchful eyes. I

875
01:23:19,079 --> 01:23:23,680
collected them all up in a box
and store them up in the attic,

876
01:23:24,359 --> 01:23:28,039
far enough away that I hoped they'd
be out of sight, out of mind.

877
01:23:28,960 --> 01:23:32,479
But even with them in the house, I felt uneased. Though I

878
01:23:32,479 --> 01:23:36,600
couldn't bring myself to outright throw em
away because they meant so much to me,

879
01:23:39,640 --> 01:23:44,479
my sense of a knees never left. I found myself catching glimpses myself

880
01:23:44,479 --> 01:23:48,640
in my mirrors, never seeing anything
off, but feeling like something was amiss

881
01:23:48,720 --> 01:23:54,520
when I wasn't looking, doubting myself
when it felt like my reflection was out

882
01:23:54,560 --> 01:23:59,800
of sink in the corners of my
eyes as I'd turn away. I eventually

883
01:23:59,840 --> 01:24:02,880
came and boxed them up too,
and left them in the attic in a

884
01:24:02,920 --> 01:24:10,279
box next to my collectibles. But
it didn't help. Even without mirrors,

885
01:24:10,560 --> 01:24:14,840
I'd catch my reflection in the dark
color in my cup or the back of

886
01:24:14,880 --> 01:24:23,199
a clean spoon. But one I
could never avoid was myself looking back at

887
01:24:23,239 --> 01:24:29,720
me from the blacked out CRT screen. After each episode ended, fervently denying

888
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:36,640
anything off about my reflection. One
more I kept telling myself one more and

889
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:42,359
I'd be done. I just needed
one more scene to satiate my curiosity.

890
01:24:43,680 --> 01:24:47,119
Even though I was reaching new levels
of anxiety and stress, it was still

891
01:24:47,199 --> 01:24:51,319
an adrenaline rush of catching a scene
that felt like I was progressing through this

892
01:24:51,439 --> 01:24:59,600
nightmare. I hit play. The
camera showed a person trapped in a small

893
01:24:59,680 --> 01:25:03,119
room with walls that seemed to be
closing in on them. The person tried

894
01:25:03,159 --> 01:25:09,479
to push against the walls, where
the pressure was too strong. Strange whispers

895
01:25:09,479 --> 01:25:13,640
and screams echoed through the room.
The person looked like they were on the

896
01:25:13,760 --> 01:25:18,119
verge of going insane. As the
walls got closer and closer, the person

897
01:25:18,199 --> 01:25:23,960
started scratching at them, which were
marred with the strange symbols from before.

898
01:25:25,000 --> 01:25:28,199
They looked that they were carved with
a sharp blade, and they seemed to

899
01:25:28,199 --> 01:25:33,359
be pulsing with an otherworldly energy.
Suddenly, I heard a clear, sinister

900
01:25:33,520 --> 01:25:42,560
voice above the whispers. You can
never leave. The voice said, You're

901
01:25:42,760 --> 01:25:49,800
trapped here forever. The scene ended
with the person realizing that there was no

902
01:25:50,000 --> 01:25:56,600
escape, though I wondered if there
was a hint of irony that the message

903
01:25:56,720 --> 01:26:00,960
could be about me. This was
and what I wanted, so I hit

904
01:26:01,039 --> 01:26:06,319
play again. Next was the shot
of a person entering a derelict house.

905
01:26:08,239 --> 01:26:12,560
The camera followed them as they explored
the many rooms of this place. The

906
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:16,079
air was thick with dust and cobwebs, and the only sound was the person's

907
01:26:16,079 --> 01:26:21,640
footsteps and the creaking floorboards. As
he went deeper into the house, he

908
01:26:21,720 --> 01:26:27,319
stumbled upon a room filled with old
dolls. The dolls seemed to be looking

909
01:26:27,359 --> 01:26:32,720
at the person with accusing eyes and
unease washed over the man's face. Suddenly,

910
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:38,279
the dolls started to move on their
own, the joints creaking as they

911
01:26:38,359 --> 01:26:42,840
turned their heads to look at the
person. They seemed to be controlled by

912
01:26:42,880 --> 01:26:46,520
an unseen force, and the person
realized too late that they were in danger.

913
01:26:48,039 --> 01:26:51,800
The scene ends with the person trying
to flee the house, but the

914
01:26:51,840 --> 01:26:56,920
dolls seemed to be blocking their escape, and the scene fades the black.

915
01:26:58,399 --> 01:27:02,720
The reoccurring themes of curateosity and danger
was lost to me as I searched for

916
01:27:02,760 --> 01:27:09,199
what I could deem my last watch. All I could do was ignore my

917
01:27:09,399 --> 01:27:15,279
unmatched reflection on the black screen and
keep hitting play one more time. I

918
01:27:15,359 --> 01:27:19,520
repeated again, this will be the
last one. A lie, I tried

919
01:27:19,520 --> 01:27:27,039
to reaffirm myself with the tape popped
to life once more, but instead of

920
01:27:27,079 --> 01:27:32,079
a shot there could start a new
narrative, it just lingered on an extremely

921
01:27:32,199 --> 01:27:38,840
uncomfortable zoom of an eye. The
shot so grainy from the zoom and lighting

922
01:27:39,159 --> 01:27:42,680
that I couldn't make out the collar
of the eye nor the shade of skin.

923
01:27:44,239 --> 01:27:48,199
It just stared. The only indication
that it wasn't frozen was the occasional

924
01:27:48,279 --> 01:27:56,399
twitch of the eyelid, though it
never blinked. Once I could swear I

925
01:27:56,439 --> 01:28:00,720
saw something what could be a clue
in the black of the pupil, a

926
01:28:00,840 --> 01:28:04,920
swirling movement that caught my attention,
but it was too small on the screen

927
01:28:04,960 --> 01:28:10,199
for me to see from where I
sat. So I stood up to get

928
01:28:10,199 --> 01:28:16,840
a closer look, and as soon
as I did, it moved. The

929
01:28:16,920 --> 01:28:24,600
eye tilted slightly upwards and stayed in
that new position. I didn't dare move

930
01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:29,000
in case I missed something, but
it now lingered at this new angle in

931
01:28:29,039 --> 01:28:33,920
the same motions as before, So
I slowly edged around my coffee table to

932
01:28:33,960 --> 01:28:39,439
get that closer look I wanted,
trying to not let my eyes leave the

933
01:28:39,479 --> 01:28:45,439
screen for even a moment, and
as I did, it moved once more,

934
01:28:45,800 --> 01:28:53,319
a slow bank to the right,
exactly where I was moving. He

935
01:28:53,479 --> 01:28:58,640
watched me. I don't know how, nor did I want to entertain that

936
01:28:58,720 --> 01:29:03,720
Idea was tracking me like an animal
track this prey. My froze at the

937
01:29:03,760 --> 01:29:13,840
realization. I only to confirm my
fears. It stopped too. I slowed

938
01:29:13,880 --> 01:29:17,359
my breathing, not knowing what to
do, frozen like a deer in headlights.

939
01:29:18,159 --> 01:29:21,399
Though at least a deer would sooner
or let her know what kind of

940
01:29:21,479 --> 01:29:29,560
danger it was in, I was
completely in the dark. Eventually, an

941
01:29:29,560 --> 01:29:33,800
intrusive thought came to me that if
it really was watching me, that it

942
01:29:33,880 --> 01:29:39,680
was something I needed to stop as
soon as possible. So I dove down

943
01:29:39,720 --> 01:29:43,680
to my coffee table and hit all
the buttons of my remote, the eye

944
01:29:43,760 --> 01:29:47,399
snapping in the direction I moved.
As I did so, the screen cut

945
01:29:47,479 --> 01:29:51,760
black at the moment of interference,
as it had before, and played out

946
01:29:51,880 --> 01:29:58,479
with a black screen until the end. I racked my brain trying to think

947
01:29:58,520 --> 01:30:03,279
of my next move as the machine
clicked and started to rewind. The scene

948
01:30:03,359 --> 01:30:06,520
was not long enough to give me
pause for thought, as it hit the

949
01:30:06,560 --> 01:30:14,560
start of the tape much too quickly. And played automatically. The shot didn't

950
01:30:14,560 --> 01:30:18,760
give me the reprise of fading in. It cut instantly to a shot of

951
01:30:18,840 --> 01:30:25,560
my room framed directly from the point
of view from my TV, the brightness

952
01:30:25,560 --> 01:30:29,319
of the shot lighting me up enough
to be visible in the screen, which

953
01:30:29,319 --> 01:30:33,680
seemed like a cinematic paradox I didn't
even want to try to unpack. The

954
01:30:33,760 --> 01:30:39,760
fluorescent of the screen flickered with life
enough for me to see myself frozen at

955
01:30:39,800 --> 01:30:44,000
the side of the coffee table.
Remote still in hand, and I was

956
01:30:44,039 --> 01:30:48,600
once again frozen in thought. All
the while none of the buttons were working

957
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:56,159
to stop this nightmare I was now
in. A new time limit was added

958
01:30:56,439 --> 01:31:00,920
as I stared at the screen,
with the angle of the shot thus the

959
01:31:00,000 --> 01:31:04,560
right amount of illumination. A glass
pane on one of my units I used

960
01:31:04,560 --> 01:31:11,479
to display some of my more prized
collectibles just caught my reflection in it,

961
01:31:11,600 --> 01:31:18,640
something I didn't think the consequences of
until my reflection started moving without my accompanied

962
01:31:18,680 --> 01:31:25,600
action. It slowly turned, fighting
some unseen force that tried to pull it

963
01:31:25,680 --> 01:31:30,000
back to how it should be.
All the while, movement caught my attention

964
01:31:30,159 --> 01:31:35,079
from my coffee table. My car
keys had a keychain of a small rubber

965
01:31:35,119 --> 01:31:42,359
duck fashioned into a fasimile of a
superhero. I heard that labored plastic bend

966
01:31:42,800 --> 01:31:46,199
as its head tried to lean up
to look at me. It seemed whatever

967
01:31:46,319 --> 01:31:54,720
moved the toys from the scene wasn't
constrained to logical humanoid shapes looking back at

968
01:31:54,720 --> 01:31:59,840
the screen. Against all odds,
my reflected self managed to turn it off

969
01:32:00,079 --> 01:32:03,520
to face me through the screen and
was trying to raise its hand like someone

970
01:32:03,720 --> 01:32:09,920
reaching towards a window pane, an
idea that scared me into a fight response.

971
01:32:11,640 --> 01:32:15,199
I ran over to the TV and
kicked it over with as much force

972
01:32:15,239 --> 01:32:20,079
as I could, something I felt
needed, as old CRTs have some hefty

973
01:32:20,079 --> 01:32:25,359
weight to them. It was enough
to send it reeling back, and I

974
01:32:25,479 --> 01:32:30,319
used this opportunity like ad somehow stunner
person by kicking their head and grabbed the

975
01:32:30,399 --> 01:32:33,720
VCR player from under the unit and
ripped it out of its nest of wires.

976
01:32:34,800 --> 01:32:39,760
I ran all the way to the
front door and mudged to the behest

977
01:32:39,800 --> 01:32:44,319
and my confused neighbors threw it out
as hard as I could and slammed the

978
01:32:44,399 --> 01:32:50,039
door shut locks slammed into place.
I caught my breath, trying to suck

979
01:32:50,119 --> 01:32:55,800
back in my sanity with each gasp, hoping that I wouldn't suffer any of

980
01:32:55,800 --> 01:33:00,079
the fate of the many whom I'd
witnessed over the many times I've watched the

981
01:33:00,119 --> 01:33:03,920
tape. I locked the door to
my collector's room, resigning it to a

982
01:33:03,960 --> 01:33:10,039
problem for future me. For then, I was content to letting the dust

983
01:33:10,039 --> 01:33:18,520
settle, and paranoidly staying awake until
sleep forced itself into me. Since then,

984
01:33:19,119 --> 01:33:24,560
I'd only been in that room once. The TV was still kicked over,

985
01:33:25,119 --> 01:33:29,520
the VHS taped shelves were unmoved.
My couch was where it always sat,

986
01:33:30,039 --> 01:33:32,479
neatly, where the indents of the
feet had rested for the years since

987
01:33:32,520 --> 01:33:38,279
it was placed there. The VCR
remote still scattered to the side from how

988
01:33:38,279 --> 01:33:42,800
it bounced off the coffee table when
it fell. Mycabinet was the last place

989
01:33:42,840 --> 01:33:46,640
I wanted to look. But no
matter how much I tried to rationalize what

990
01:33:46,720 --> 01:33:53,039
I was seeing, there was enough
for me to know that this was real.

991
01:33:54,640 --> 01:33:59,479
The sweaty remains of a handprint pressed
on the other side of the glass.

992
01:34:00,680 --> 01:34:02,439
Sure I could say I might have
done it myself from the last time

993
01:34:02,439 --> 01:34:06,359
it was opened. Many months ago, and I'd somehow forgotten to clean it,

994
01:34:06,720 --> 01:34:13,399
despite myself always keeping that glass crystal
clear on a regular basis. But

995
01:34:13,520 --> 01:34:17,239
the symbol etched in the scenter of
the palm was much too specific to explain

996
01:34:17,279 --> 01:34:24,960
away. I yet do not know
if whatever ritual happened was far enough for

997
01:34:25,039 --> 01:34:30,199
something worse to happen, whether I
stopped it in time or delayed the inevitable.

998
01:34:30,479 --> 01:34:34,319
The VCR was gone in the morning, and I hoped it was collected

999
01:34:34,319 --> 01:34:40,199
as refuse and left a rot and
a daunt somewhere. I can't imagine the

1000
01:34:40,239 --> 01:34:45,119
demographic of a retromedia collector had somehow
thought they stumbled upon a new find,

1001
01:34:45,760 --> 01:34:48,119
and that a neighbor took the hint
that it was not worth salvaging from the

1002
01:34:48,159 --> 01:34:56,079
condition I left it in as it
cracked around on the concrete outside. I've

1003
01:34:56,119 --> 01:35:00,359
since boxed up all my tapes and
disposed of them. Oh many great memories,

1004
01:35:00,880 --> 01:35:05,920
many of which were unique, now
gone. All my childhood toys and

1005
01:35:05,960 --> 01:35:12,600
memorabilia from that era gone to along
with anything reflective enough to see a shape

1006
01:35:12,680 --> 01:35:16,520
myself in. For things I couldn't
move, like my bath double windows,

1007
01:35:17,479 --> 01:35:25,439
I simply coated them with a map
finished spray. No, I don't have

1008
01:35:25,520 --> 01:35:43,680
a profound message to tell, just
don't be stupid. It'd be wrong to

1009
01:35:43,720 --> 01:35:46,640
say I don't like kids. It's
adults I have more of a problem with.

1010
01:35:47,840 --> 01:35:50,479
In my last school, when I
called one of the ten year old

1011
01:35:50,560 --> 01:35:56,520
boys in my class a little asshole, he wasn't the problem. His parents

1012
01:35:56,520 --> 01:36:00,439
are the ones who insisted I get
fired. But that boy didn't mind me

1013
01:36:00,520 --> 01:36:04,680
swearing at him because he knew damn
well he'd keeped my car even if I

1014
01:36:04,720 --> 01:36:10,720
had no proof. He just thought
it was funny. No different to the

1015
01:36:10,800 --> 01:36:15,399
sort of interaction he'd have with an
older sibling. On that note, I

1016
01:36:15,439 --> 01:36:21,239
wouldn't say I like children either.
Kids are little adults. They're more truthful,

1017
01:36:21,319 --> 01:36:27,760
but only because the stakes are lower. People with jobs and mortgages tell

1018
01:36:27,960 --> 01:36:30,920
great, big, tremendous lies.
Kids don't have the weight to the world

1019
01:36:31,000 --> 01:36:35,960
and their shoulders, So why lie
about mistresses and promotions and why you've been

1020
01:36:35,960 --> 01:36:42,840
crushing up antibiotics s into your wife's
morning smoothie. Instead, they just lie

1021
01:36:42,960 --> 01:36:47,199
about where their homework is. The
kids I teach are right on the cusp

1022
01:36:47,239 --> 01:36:51,199
of it. Some of the boys
might get caught giggling at the back,

1023
01:36:51,720 --> 01:36:57,920
or showing each other naughty little videos
they don't understand but can't look away from.

1024
01:36:58,159 --> 01:37:01,039
But then they go out and chase
each other around, do cartwheels,

1025
01:37:01,079 --> 01:37:05,720
play tag, hide and seek,
cry if they take a particularly bad knock.

1026
01:37:08,720 --> 01:37:13,079
Kids are weird. Got one whose
dad is in jail and he talks

1027
01:37:13,119 --> 01:37:16,279
about it like it means nothing.
His old man tried to kick a woman

1028
01:37:16,319 --> 01:37:19,720
to death in the parking lot of
a bar and won't be out until the

1029
01:37:19,760 --> 01:37:26,560
boy's a teenager. Kid don't care, doesn't get it. If anything,

1030
01:37:27,000 --> 01:37:31,920
he thinks it's funny. But then
last week I confiscated his novelty pencil that

1031
01:37:32,039 --> 01:37:35,960
was the size of a cucumber,
and he screamed so hard he threw up

1032
01:37:36,079 --> 01:37:41,159
all over the speckled tile that had
been glued to the floor since ninety six.

1033
01:37:42,520 --> 01:37:45,439
Ten is a weird age, old
enough to feel the vaguest hint of

1034
01:37:45,479 --> 01:37:50,640
life's problems just beneath the surface,
like lumps in a pillow, to question

1035
01:37:50,720 --> 01:37:56,039
why mommy downs three bottles of wine
on a Tuesday. A white daddy changes

1036
01:37:56,079 --> 01:38:00,279
his shirt and hides it in the
garage before coming in from work, but

1037
01:38:00,479 --> 01:38:05,279
too young to know what's really under
the surface. These kids can feel something

1038
01:38:05,319 --> 01:38:11,239
is wrong with the world. They
just don't know what not yet Anyway,

1039
01:38:12,359 --> 01:38:17,159
they have my sympathy. Twenty six
years of teaching has eroded most of everything

1040
01:38:17,199 --> 01:38:24,680
else. I'm not particularly invested in
whether these little turres become scientists or janitors,

1041
01:38:25,319 --> 01:38:30,640
nor am I particularly interested in helping
them process their emotional luggage. If

1042
01:38:30,680 --> 01:38:32,760
any of you want me to undo
the damage you've done to your own kids,

1043
01:38:33,359 --> 01:38:35,920
then you can start by paying me
a hell of a lot more.

1044
01:38:38,119 --> 01:38:42,319
But I do feel sorry for them
because they don't really know what's going on.

1045
01:38:43,560 --> 01:38:46,079
But unlike a five year old,
they can't just fumble around in blind

1046
01:38:46,119 --> 01:38:54,359
ignorance. They're stuck in between worlds, one where you cry yourself to sleep

1047
01:38:54,359 --> 01:38:59,199
at night over your parents divorce,
but still think Santa and the tooth Fairy

1048
01:38:59,279 --> 01:39:03,680
are real. Maybe it's different at
a rich school, one where kids don't

1049
01:39:03,680 --> 01:39:08,800
go to food banks, but where
whole families don't have to share a smartphone.

1050
01:39:10,640 --> 01:39:15,640
I doubt it. Don't know why. I just doubt anyone's out there

1051
01:39:15,680 --> 01:39:19,560
living the plot of the Bernstein Bears, rich or otherwise. I used to

1052
01:39:19,680 --> 01:39:23,880
dream of teaching at one of the
big schools, A couple of towns over

1053
01:39:24,520 --> 01:39:30,159
the ones with all the funding.
Oh, that'd be nice walking into a

1054
01:39:30,159 --> 01:39:33,119
building that doesn't look like a set
dressing for the next season of True Detective.

1055
01:39:34,760 --> 01:39:41,439
Now I just dream of getting out
of this profession entirely. Maybe if

1056
01:39:41,439 --> 01:39:45,760
I play my cards right. Sounds
crazy to say out loud, so I

1057
01:39:45,800 --> 01:39:51,239
won't. But maybe I found a
way out. Well, to be exact,

1058
01:39:53,600 --> 01:39:57,920
the kids found it. Don't know
what they got, of course they

1059
01:39:57,920 --> 01:40:02,720
don't. The kids, They haven't
a clue. But I think I'm maybe

1060
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:10,000
thirteen weeks from another go and when
that happens, you can bet your ass

1061
01:40:10,079 --> 01:40:14,479
I'm asking for a ticket out of
here. At first, I planned on

1062
01:40:14,520 --> 01:40:17,439
getting a cushy job in one of
the schools a few towns over one,

1063
01:40:17,439 --> 01:40:21,960
where the school bus doesn't have to
plan its route around multiple trailer parks.

1064
01:40:23,600 --> 01:40:29,720
Now I realize I was thinking small. If I'm smart, I won't ever

1065
01:40:29,800 --> 01:40:39,640
have to work another day in my
life. Imagine that thirteen more weeks.

1066
01:40:40,319 --> 01:40:45,720
Right now, Greenwig is with Laila, sweet girl, but she's smart enough

1067
01:40:45,760 --> 01:40:49,720
for it to be a problem.
The dumb ones for the best. You

1068
01:40:49,800 --> 01:40:55,840
wake up to something grinning at you
at your bedroom window. It helps to

1069
01:40:55,840 --> 01:40:59,960
have a sort of mind that doesn't
ask questions about what floor you're living on.

1070
01:41:00,319 --> 01:41:05,199
Layla isn't winning a genius grant anytime
soon. But I can tell it's

1071
01:41:05,239 --> 01:41:13,359
bothering her because deep down she knows
how wrong this all is. Dark circles

1072
01:41:13,479 --> 01:41:16,960
under the eyes, pallid skin,
eyes that keep darting to the corners.

1073
01:41:18,159 --> 01:41:23,520
Sometimes she falls asleep at a desk. Sometimes she wakes up with a little

1074
01:41:23,600 --> 01:41:29,640
jump, like something only she can
see has startled her. It's hard.

1075
01:41:30,800 --> 01:41:34,399
The only reason she sticks it out
is the same reason you or I would

1076
01:41:35,560 --> 01:41:42,960
the rewards. She got a smartphone
last time. I wonder what'll be this

1077
01:41:43,039 --> 01:41:48,319
time. These kids don't ask for
a lot toys mainly one of them got

1078
01:41:48,399 --> 01:41:55,560
crazy good at football real quick.
That makes sense, But it's that kind

1079
01:41:55,560 --> 01:41:59,199
of thing, you know. They
don't ask for the lottery. Well,

1080
01:41:59,279 --> 01:42:03,760
nothing like that, because money's a
little too abstract right now. Strange thing,

1081
01:42:03,840 --> 01:42:08,840
though, as young and naive as
they are, they learned the rules

1082
01:42:08,880 --> 01:42:14,800
pretty quickly. I guess Greenwig's lessons
aren't subtle. Just look at one of

1083
01:42:14,800 --> 01:42:19,159
my former students, Jared Now.
At the time, all this flew under

1084
01:42:19,159 --> 01:42:25,720
my radar, kidding my class lost, the parent moved away, so what

1085
01:42:26,359 --> 01:42:31,359
things happen. Turns out he asked
for his father to get sober. Next

1086
01:42:31,439 --> 01:42:36,119
day, the poor guy got caught
in the machinery at his job. CCTV

1087
01:42:36,199 --> 01:42:42,840
footage was very popular in live leagues, makes for grim viewing. I'm not

1088
01:42:42,880 --> 01:42:45,800
particularly handy, so I never knew
a lathe could do that to a human

1089
01:42:45,840 --> 01:42:51,640
body. Anyway, it's not good
to ask things for other people. I

1090
01:42:51,680 --> 01:42:58,119
wish my dad was this, I
wish my mom was that. Ugh Aliot

1091
01:42:58,159 --> 01:43:01,079
told me that upfront, around the
time I started asking why half the kids

1092
01:43:01,079 --> 01:43:06,840
in my class had new iPhones and
Nintendo switches. She said it was easy

1093
01:43:06,880 --> 01:43:12,000
to ask for things, but it
was riskier to ask to chain something into

1094
01:43:12,039 --> 01:43:16,079
another thing, and downright awful to
ask it to change a person in any

1095
01:43:16,079 --> 01:43:20,960
way, no matter how small.
Even that kid who got good at football

1096
01:43:21,000 --> 01:43:26,399
played a risky game. It paid
off, but the other kids wouldn't go

1097
01:43:26,479 --> 01:43:30,159
near him for a week. They
kept expecting something bad to happen to him,

1098
01:43:30,359 --> 01:43:35,119
and they didn't want to be in
the splash zone. I can't pretend

1099
01:43:35,119 --> 01:43:41,640
to understand the subtleties like the kids. I can only observe what happens to

1100
01:43:41,760 --> 01:43:47,119
other people, and learn the lessons
that in parts, nothing about Grenwig is

1101
01:43:47,159 --> 01:43:53,760
guaranteed. There are no certainties.
Even the kids get worn down by it.

1102
01:43:55,159 --> 01:44:00,640
Whoever has it, they're a pariah
risk assessment in under a Lean's strange

1103
01:44:00,640 --> 01:44:05,399
thing to see. But unless it's
your turn, you don't even want to

1104
01:44:05,479 --> 01:44:12,439
risk something as inane as a game
of catch with his chosen friend Grenwig,

1105
01:44:12,720 --> 01:44:20,920
his territorial, possessive bizarre. Didn't
even believe it until it was somehow my

1106
01:44:21,079 --> 01:44:30,560
turn, which the kids found pretty
alarming. Grenwig doesn't like adults. I

1107
01:44:30,600 --> 01:44:35,479
thought it was a ghost at first, lights coming on and off, footsteps

1108
01:44:35,520 --> 01:44:42,520
in the corridor outside my apartment,
pretty creepy, sharing my home with something

1109
01:44:42,560 --> 01:44:46,479
I couldn't see. I didn't like
it, but it had only been a

1110
01:44:46,520 --> 01:44:50,600
couple of nights, and I did
a good job of convincing myself there was

1111
01:44:50,640 --> 01:44:58,720
no ghost or poltergeist, just an
overactive imagination. Yeah, sure, the

1112
01:44:58,800 --> 01:45:02,199
TV changed and there were finger marks
on my bathroom window I hadn't put there,

1113
01:45:03,199 --> 01:45:08,439
so what wait. At the back
of my mind, I'd reserved a

1114
01:45:08,479 --> 01:45:13,279
little bit of space for the possibility
of a haunting, but otherwise I remained

1115
01:45:13,279 --> 01:45:18,199
a skeptic. Jesus, if only
it was as simple as a haunting.

1116
01:45:21,239 --> 01:45:25,840
I don't know if I could explain
to you how it felt the first time

1117
01:45:26,159 --> 01:45:31,399
I woke up to Greenwig gently stroking
my toes, the violation of it,

1118
01:45:31,960 --> 01:45:38,000
the feeling of a world that didn't
make sense. My eyes glared at his

1119
01:45:38,079 --> 01:45:43,319
fingers, terrified, heart pounding,
head throbbing like I'd taken a knock,

1120
01:45:44,279 --> 01:45:48,439
and I kept waiting for it to
make sense. My eyes wandered, tried

1121
01:45:48,479 --> 01:45:55,000
to find the hands those fingers belonged
to, but they just kept going and

1122
01:45:55,199 --> 01:46:00,880
going and going. They stretched for
meters, and they disappeared into the shadow

1123
01:46:00,960 --> 01:46:06,880
of my closet. Whole time,
they kept massaging the big toe, cold

1124
01:46:08,039 --> 01:46:14,600
as ice. I started counting the
knuckles. I got to thirteen and gave

1125
01:46:14,720 --> 01:46:20,479
up. But they were fingers.
I could tell from the nails, the

1126
01:46:20,600 --> 01:46:26,520
hair that ran along the dimpled skin, the color of cement. And then,

1127
01:46:26,960 --> 01:46:30,159
just as I started to really appreciate
that I was awake, one hundred

1128
01:46:30,199 --> 01:46:34,520
percent, stone cold, sober,
and lucid, and what I was seeing

1129
01:46:35,199 --> 01:46:42,520
wasn't a dream or a nightmare or
some other conjuration of the mind, just

1130
01:46:42,560 --> 01:46:45,840
as I felt panic began to flare
up inside my chest like a burgeoning heart

1131
01:46:45,880 --> 01:46:55,439
attack. Those impossible fingers withdrew into
the darkness like a spider curling its legs.

1132
01:46:56,279 --> 01:47:00,840
I got up and thrown the lights, found my claws empty. Felt

1133
01:47:00,840 --> 01:47:05,439
the world was coming apart. Had
to be a night terror, I decided,

1134
01:47:06,239 --> 01:47:12,880
hadn't had one for decades, But
what else could it be. I

1135
01:47:12,960 --> 01:47:16,720
wanted to go back to sleep,
to at least try, but I was

1136
01:47:16,760 --> 01:47:23,119
so scared I couldn't face the dark
again. So I decided to stay up.

1137
01:47:23,920 --> 01:47:28,039
Went out into the living room and
turned the TV on, plopped down

1138
01:47:28,039 --> 01:47:31,960
on the sofa and let my head
tilt back. I might have drifted off

1139
01:47:32,000 --> 01:47:38,920
again, I don't know for sure. All I remember was the feeling is

1140
01:47:38,960 --> 01:47:45,239
the cushion beneath me adjusted, and
I heard it the sound of something tightening,

1141
01:47:45,920 --> 01:47:53,479
like a creaking door. I looked
down and saw white bands wrapped around

1142
01:47:53,520 --> 01:48:00,359
the entirety of the sofa fingers.
They tightened, and the material a let

1143
01:48:00,399 --> 01:48:04,119
out a groan as the tension went
up a notch. I flew upwards in

1144
01:48:04,159 --> 01:48:10,119
a terrible panic. By the time
I turned back, the fingers were gone,

1145
01:48:11,119 --> 01:48:18,359
but the indent they'd left and the
sofa remained. This repeated itself all

1146
01:48:18,760 --> 01:48:25,920
night. Each time I felt close
to drifting off, those impossibly long fingers

1147
01:48:26,039 --> 01:48:30,880
would reach out of the darkness somewhere
and make an appearance. They knock glasses

1148
01:48:30,920 --> 01:48:34,920
off, countertops, opened the fridge, turned on the oven, and whenever

1149
01:48:35,000 --> 01:48:42,119
possible, they touched me, stroked
an ear, tickled my nose, slid

1150
01:48:42,159 --> 01:48:45,920
between my fingers, and tried to
hold my hand. I tried to play

1151
01:48:45,960 --> 01:48:49,439
chicken with it, at least once. I stayed stock still as a greasy

1152
01:48:49,479 --> 01:48:54,199
finger plucked at my lips and tried
to find its way into my mouth.

1153
01:48:55,479 --> 01:49:00,199
But before it met any success,
I flipped out and ran, shrieking into

1154
01:49:00,239 --> 01:49:06,199
the corridor outside my apartment. Panting
in the hallway. I told myself I'd

1155
01:49:06,319 --> 01:49:12,439
never stepped foot in that apartment.
There was something about the way all my

1156
01:49:12,520 --> 01:49:15,760
neighbors came to their doors one by
one and just stared at me in my

1157
01:49:15,880 --> 01:49:20,640
underwear and sweat stained vest. I
felt like a damn idiot. Before I

1158
01:49:20,680 --> 01:49:27,159
knew it, I was offering modeled
apologies whilst slinking through my front door.

1159
01:49:29,600 --> 01:49:32,000
By the time I got to school
the next day, I felt like I

1160
01:49:32,079 --> 01:49:38,439
was teetering on the edge of a
breakdown. I genuinely suspected my day was

1161
01:49:38,439 --> 01:49:43,119
going to end with me being carted
off in a straight jacket last people.

1162
01:49:43,159 --> 01:49:49,079
I expected to find any understanding from
with my students, But when I came

1163
01:49:49,119 --> 01:49:54,640
in looking like a sleep deprived drunk, they all stared at me in silence.

1164
01:49:55,680 --> 01:49:59,600
And this wasn't the slight Jeorge idiocy
I'm sometimes used to with these kids.

1165
01:50:00,359 --> 01:50:02,399
At that time, I told them
I used to have a wife.

1166
01:50:02,680 --> 01:50:10,079
This was something else. Took me
a second to decipher. It not the

1167
01:50:10,119 --> 01:50:15,079
sort of expression I'm used to from
that age group, with what with half

1168
01:50:15,119 --> 01:50:20,439
of them being miniature psychopaths. It
was sympathy. They felt sorry for me.

1169
01:50:21,399 --> 01:50:26,680
But when I took a step forward, every single one of them scooted

1170
01:50:26,720 --> 01:50:32,399
their chairs backwards. Just like that. It clicked. I spent the last

1171
01:50:32,479 --> 01:50:38,720
year watching them take turns ostracizing one
another, and I'd just ridden it off

1172
01:50:38,800 --> 01:50:44,920
as just a peculiar product of childhood
social dynamics. It felt cruel, and

1173
01:50:45,000 --> 01:50:49,159
I tried over and over to mitigate
it, to sit with the excluded kids

1174
01:50:49,199 --> 01:50:54,640
and talk with them, try to
figure it all out. But it was

1175
01:50:54,680 --> 01:51:00,199
an enigma, all of it.
If it wasn't for the fact that this

1176
01:51:00,319 --> 01:51:04,319
messed up system seemed to operate and
a kind of wrotor, I would have

1177
01:51:04,359 --> 01:51:10,560
been forced to intervene. But as
it was, the kid who was targeted

1178
01:51:10,800 --> 01:51:14,720
would always be back with the crowd
a week later, and they'd be the

1179
01:51:14,720 --> 01:51:20,439
ones excluding someone else. But now
all of that made sense the way they

1180
01:51:20,439 --> 01:51:27,640
were looking at me pity recognition.
They knew what I'd spent the night going

1181
01:51:27,680 --> 01:51:31,800
through, and for the last year, they'd gone through it themselves, one

1182
01:51:32,079 --> 01:51:39,600
by one. You should play with
Grenwig, sir. One of the quieter

1183
01:51:39,720 --> 01:51:44,479
girls piped up, looking wide eyed, like a hostage at gunpoint, and

1184
01:51:44,520 --> 01:51:48,840
all the other kids nodded, Yeah, he wants to play. You need

1185
01:51:48,920 --> 01:51:57,239
to play with them. He gets
real impatient. A chorus of whispering AHAs

1186
01:51:57,640 --> 01:52:03,039
Grenwig. I muttered, one word
is that what is called? I wondered,

1187
01:52:04,000 --> 01:52:06,960
and all the other kids nodded,
But they could read my mind.

1188
01:52:11,159 --> 01:52:15,520
There are no records of Greenwig anywhere, by the way, Good God.

1189
01:52:15,800 --> 01:52:20,399
I tried a thousand times over to
find something anything. The best I could

1190
01:52:20,439 --> 01:52:25,880
think of was that Greenwig was a
kind of boogey man. But what does

1191
01:52:25,880 --> 01:52:30,560
that even mean? Just the word
use to give the world a little more

1192
01:52:30,600 --> 01:52:35,119
shape, a little more structure.
I'm not sure Greenwich has much of either.

1193
01:52:36,439 --> 01:52:41,119
The games he plays are like what
a toddler or a young dog would

1194
01:52:41,159 --> 01:52:46,640
be interested in. Basic stuff,
no rules. I moved something, Greenwig

1195
01:52:46,680 --> 01:52:51,560
moves it back. Our was lost
tracing the spiral of my hair, or

1196
01:52:51,600 --> 01:52:57,920
pulling at my cheeks and face to
create strange new expressions of flicking the lights

1197
01:52:58,000 --> 01:53:01,359
on and off. In that time, I took to eating lunch in my

1198
01:53:01,439 --> 01:53:06,199
car, largely because it was hard
to be around people who couldn't see why

1199
01:53:06,199 --> 01:53:11,399
a glass went flying at the wall
or why I had to keep stacking plates

1200
01:53:11,520 --> 01:53:15,520
until they were so tall they toppled
over. At least the kids gave me

1201
01:53:15,560 --> 01:53:21,600
a heads up, most important warning
I ever gotten in my life. Every

1202
01:53:21,680 --> 01:53:28,920
kid had their own observations, some
more relatable than others. Most of them

1203
01:53:28,960 --> 01:53:34,279
boiled down to the simple fact that
for seven days you belonged to Greenwig,

1204
01:53:35,359 --> 01:53:42,079
you were a toy, a source
of endless amusement for something that had the

1205
01:53:42,119 --> 01:53:45,920
sense of humor of a three year
old. Pretty Much every kid agreed on

1206
01:53:45,920 --> 01:53:58,119
one concrete thing, though saying no
to Grenwig was dangerous. Now I can't

1207
01:53:58,119 --> 01:54:02,680
say for sure, but I'm poussile
Grenwig gave the kids more leeway. He

1208
01:54:02,760 --> 01:54:09,119
left them alone for lunch and dinner. Bedtime games were usually quieter, but

1209
01:54:09,239 --> 01:54:12,920
for me, it was almost like
part of the game was watching me go

1210
01:54:13,000 --> 01:54:17,399
about my adult life as he did
everything to mess with me. He'd snatch

1211
01:54:17,520 --> 01:54:23,239
my steering wheel, giggling from the
dark foot well, yellow eyes peering up

1212
01:54:23,279 --> 01:54:27,640
from between my legs. He grabbed
my phone and throw it into the middle

1213
01:54:27,640 --> 01:54:31,760
of traffic, or sit there tickling
my neck and armpits as the principal demanded

1214
01:54:31,840 --> 01:54:38,199
to know why my classes behavior was
so erratic. He made it difficult,

1215
01:54:38,920 --> 01:54:45,039
pushed me right up to breaking point. Eventually I snapped. I slapped his

1216
01:54:45,119 --> 01:54:49,199
hand away as he tried to mess
with me during a traffic stop. Felt

1217
01:54:49,199 --> 01:54:55,079
like screaming at him that he was
this close to getting me shot, but

1218
01:54:55,199 --> 01:55:00,960
of course I couldn't. Just had
to sit there as this cop looked over

1219
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:06,239
my license and mulled give me a
sobriety test. Couldn't blame him. I'd

1220
01:55:06,279 --> 01:55:12,960
been swerving all over the road until
I saw the flashing lights. Didn't help

1221
01:55:13,000 --> 01:55:16,600
when as he approached my I pulled
over car, he saw me slapping furiously

1222
01:55:16,640 --> 01:55:24,079
at the steering wheel, hissing stop
it, over and over. He inevitably

1223
01:55:24,199 --> 01:55:28,399
issued the test, which I passed. The cop gave me a long,

1224
01:55:28,520 --> 01:55:32,399
narrow eyed stare before telling me to
go get some sleep. He must have

1225
01:55:32,439 --> 01:55:36,840
figured I was just a stressed mental
case instead of a drunk, and he

1226
01:55:36,960 --> 01:55:44,920
was right. It was day six
and I barely slept. Despite all the

1227
01:55:44,920 --> 01:55:48,760
grave warnings from the kids about the
dangers of telling Grenwig off, I drove

1228
01:55:48,800 --> 01:55:54,760
off, hoping that maybe he would
just let this one go. I went

1229
01:55:54,800 --> 01:56:00,119
to school and taught lessons as usual, but Grenwig made no appear, and

1230
01:56:00,199 --> 01:56:04,359
says I asked the kids if his
little rota ever found itself wrapping up a

1231
01:56:04,439 --> 01:56:10,479
day early, and they all shook
their heads like they knew bad news was

1232
01:56:10,520 --> 01:56:15,319
coming my way, but none of
them wanted to say for sure. Still,

1233
01:56:15,840 --> 01:56:19,760
it was my first time, so
I ignored the look in their eyes

1234
01:56:20,199 --> 01:56:26,119
and tried my best to focus on
the hope that maybe Greenwig was going to

1235
01:56:26,199 --> 01:56:33,800
finally leave me alone. A feeling
and I dissolved in its entirety when I

1236
01:56:33,920 --> 01:56:40,520
opened my front door and found a
package on the floor, A large box

1237
01:56:40,720 --> 01:56:45,680
about one foot cubed It looked like
old cardboard, like what happens when it

1238
01:56:45,720 --> 01:56:51,640
gets soaked but left out to dry, just dingy. Its sides had been

1239
01:56:51,680 --> 01:56:57,600
stable together two and that gave it
a real homemade look that went the extra

1240
01:56:57,680 --> 01:57:03,439
creepy little mile. I expected something
bad. I knew the second when I

1241
01:57:03,479 --> 01:57:08,319
went to lift it and it was
too heavy, that something was wrong.

1242
01:57:09,640 --> 01:57:15,359
It just felt well, fell,
like lifting an overfull bucket from the bottom.

1243
01:57:15,479 --> 01:57:20,079
And then there was the smell and
the noise that sounded like a distant

1244
01:57:20,079 --> 01:57:26,800
transmission of a mewing child, tinny, like the muffled cries of someone on

1245
01:57:26,880 --> 01:57:31,720
the other side of a very thick
wall. When I finally opened it,

1246
01:57:34,000 --> 01:57:43,359
I found the policeman inside familiar because
of the shield and name he Well,

1247
01:57:44,520 --> 01:57:47,319
he'd been folded, I guess,
is the best way I can describe it.

1248
01:57:48,760 --> 01:57:55,760
At first I thought it was just
this uniform, but well, clothes

1249
01:57:55,800 --> 01:58:00,119
aren't warm, and obviously a folded
uniform wouldn't explain the force hair and skin

1250
01:58:00,319 --> 01:58:06,960
poking out the side. I recoiled, terrified, fell backwards onto my ass,

1251
01:58:08,760 --> 01:58:14,680
and this was when Greenwig made his
appearance. His eracnid fingers curled out

1252
01:58:14,680 --> 01:58:18,800
from the box, I'd say about
a dozen of them this time. There

1253
01:58:18,800 --> 01:58:24,960
are always more in the dark,
out of sight. And these did when

1254
01:58:24,960 --> 01:58:30,560
I couldn't have brought myself to do
on my own. They unfolded the policeman

1255
01:58:30,399 --> 01:58:34,720
lifted him up like a tailor shone
off a suit, and the flayed's skin

1256
01:58:35,039 --> 01:58:45,680
opened up to reveal the barely recognizable
outline of an adult man. He was

1257
01:58:45,720 --> 01:58:50,319
still alive, and the rest of
him, I soon found out, was

1258
01:58:50,359 --> 01:58:59,119
in my bathtub, and that half
was also very much alive, thrashing and

1259
01:58:59,199 --> 01:59:02,960
sliding as it struggled to gain a
grip on the smooth ceramic, begging for

1260
01:59:03,000 --> 01:59:08,640
its other half. Words I don't
really think were a natural fit for the

1261
01:59:08,680 --> 01:59:15,239
stern man who'd interrogated me just ten
hours ago, But then again, it

1262
01:59:15,359 --> 01:59:20,199
wasn't really the same man either way. He spoke of the darkness between atoms,

1263
01:59:20,640 --> 01:59:25,800
the infinite space where time doesn't exist, and the endless shapes that swim

1264
01:59:25,880 --> 01:59:32,359
the murky abyss fleeing their cruel God. More than that, he lamented no

1265
01:59:32,439 --> 01:59:38,880
longer being whole, feeling himself in
two places at once. He called it

1266
01:59:38,920 --> 01:59:45,319
wrong, and on that he had
my agreement. I begged Greenwig to take

1267
01:59:45,359 --> 01:59:50,960
it away to undo what he had
done, and that was how I used

1268
01:59:51,000 --> 01:59:58,279
my first favor, the box,
and the man disappeared, dragged off to

1269
01:59:58,399 --> 02:00:01,920
some dark corner that was out of
sight, and that was the last I

1270
02:00:02,000 --> 02:00:08,800
saw of him, although a bit
of research later on revealed that while Greenwig

1271
02:00:08,840 --> 02:00:13,199
did indeed put him back together,
the poor man has been catatonic in a

1272
02:00:13,239 --> 02:00:24,239
hospital bed ever since, alive but
definitely not well. The next day,

1273
02:00:24,880 --> 02:00:29,479
the kids asked me what I'd requested. I told them I asked for a

1274
02:00:29,520 --> 02:00:35,039
new PlayStation. Didn't tell them the
truth, partially because it would traumatize them,

1275
02:00:35,279 --> 02:00:42,560
but partially because acknowledging it even happened
would traumatize me. After that,

1276
02:00:42,760 --> 02:00:46,680
I crunched the numbers. I figured
out the number of kids and how often

1277
02:00:46,680 --> 02:00:50,680
the rotor would fall on me.
Based on this info, I booked the

1278
02:00:50,680 --> 02:00:59,920
week off ahead of time, and
well, I just waited. I tried

1279
02:00:59,920 --> 02:01:02,279
to support the kids as best I
could when it was their turn, but

1280
02:01:02,359 --> 02:01:08,079
they didn't really have the same problems
as me. I mean, it wasn't

1281
02:01:08,119 --> 02:01:13,079
a holiday for them either. Each
one came to school looking like they'd spent

1282
02:01:13,159 --> 02:01:18,840
the night watching their dog die over
and over. Just this straw ruined exhausted,

1283
02:01:20,119 --> 02:01:25,880
But like I said, Greenwig generally
let them eat their food or interrect

1284
02:01:25,920 --> 02:01:31,960
with their parents and siblings without demanding
attention at the worst possible time. Eventually

1285
02:01:32,800 --> 02:01:40,039
round two came along. The kids
seemed damned relieved. As for Greenwick's games,

1286
02:01:40,760 --> 02:01:45,319
this time I came prepared. I
had already noticed that Greenwig only ever

1287
02:01:45,359 --> 02:01:50,479
emerged from the shadows, and the
kids corroborated that fact. So in the

1288
02:01:50,600 --> 02:01:55,720
run up to my turn, I
spent the week setting up my bathroom with

1289
02:01:55,840 --> 02:02:00,840
as many lamps and torches as I
could find. Was an EA to eliminate

1290
02:02:00,880 --> 02:02:04,920
all those shadows. I had a
lot of sleepless nights trialing different arrangements,

1291
02:02:05,760 --> 02:02:12,600
but eventually I got one as close
to perfect as I could. I figured,

1292
02:02:13,039 --> 02:02:15,359
if I could just have one or
two nights of sleep, it'd be

1293
02:02:15,479 --> 02:02:21,520
damn easier to deal with. An
hour passed before my stomach began to ache.

1294
02:02:23,960 --> 02:02:28,199
By the time I realized what Grenward
was doing, I could already feel

1295
02:02:28,199 --> 02:02:32,479
the urge to throw up. Guess
I hadn't given him much of a choice.

1296
02:02:32,520 --> 02:02:35,840
He wanted to play, and there
was only one place in that room

1297
02:02:36,039 --> 02:02:42,840
that was still dark. Wasn't until
I threw myself out into the living room

1298
02:02:43,199 --> 02:02:47,119
and switched off all the lights that
the pain eased up. By then,

1299
02:02:47,600 --> 02:02:54,560
I was already close to suffocating on
the finger sticking out of my throat when

1300
02:02:54,600 --> 02:02:58,840
it finally withdrew and I took my
first breath in over a minute. I

1301
02:02:58,920 --> 02:03:03,159
collapsed to the floor, unable to
do much of anything except heave and sob.

1302
02:03:05,159 --> 02:03:11,520
Greenwig yellow eyes glaring at me from
the space between my sofa, giggled.

1303
02:03:12,960 --> 02:03:17,079
In hindsight, I'm lucky he found
it funny. I think he thought

1304
02:03:17,159 --> 02:03:21,199
he was a game of sorts.
God knows what would have happened if that

1305
02:03:21,239 --> 02:03:27,960
little stunt had made him mad.
Otherwise, a second round passed without incident.

1306
02:03:29,199 --> 02:03:32,840
At least I wasn't at work.
It was hell, but I didn't

1307
02:03:32,840 --> 02:03:38,560
have to worry about driving anywhere or
being out in public waiting for those wretched

1308
02:03:38,600 --> 02:03:43,840
hands to find me. I just
stayed indoors and played his weird little games,

1309
02:03:44,439 --> 02:03:48,239
which mainly just involved me cleaning up
whatever stupid thing he decided to make

1310
02:03:48,279 --> 02:03:53,760
a mess of. I found it
helped if I played up my exasperation.

1311
02:03:54,840 --> 02:04:00,439
The less I reacted to his mischief, the more likely he'd escalate. When

1312
02:04:00,479 --> 02:04:10,279
it was all over, I asked
for a winning lottery ticket. Unfortunately I

1313
02:04:10,359 --> 02:04:15,199
didn't specify the amount, which I
suppose is my fault. At least the

1314
02:04:15,239 --> 02:04:20,279
amount I won covered rent that month, even if my expectations were a little

1315
02:04:20,359 --> 02:04:27,560
higher. Still, I figured it'd
be better next time. I'd be more

1316
02:04:27,600 --> 02:04:36,000
specific. I decided best laid plans
of miceome men. You ever lost someone,

1317
02:04:36,279 --> 02:04:42,560
most people have, I have,
for sure more than once too.

1318
02:04:42,840 --> 02:04:46,760
It nearly unmade me, and I
was a fully grown man. It was

1319
02:04:46,800 --> 02:04:54,199
about a couple days before my turn
that Alia experienced the first loss. Most

1320
02:04:54,279 --> 02:05:00,399
kids, it's a hamster if they're
unlucky. A grandparent for her, who

1321
02:05:00,439 --> 02:05:06,000
was her older brother. I taught
him eleven years earlier, and he was

1322
02:05:06,039 --> 02:05:11,840
a good kid, smart like her, went on to become a mechanic.

1323
02:05:13,239 --> 02:05:18,239
His passing wasn't anything strange or sinister, just an accident. Jack popped off

1324
02:05:18,760 --> 02:05:25,960
car crossed him random devastating. She
was called out of a lesson by the

1325
02:05:26,000 --> 02:05:30,880
principal and her parents, the three
of them looking like hell, like they'd

1326
02:05:30,920 --> 02:05:35,479
spent a month one on one with
Greenwig. A little reminder that not all

1327
02:05:35,560 --> 02:05:41,800
nightmares hide in the dark. I
suppose. I don't know why this hit

1328
02:05:41,840 --> 02:05:46,399
me hard. I think it was
probably my own experience with grief. Either

1329
02:05:46,399 --> 02:05:51,239
way, it stuck with me.
Her absence, the empty chair and desk

1330
02:05:53,159 --> 02:05:57,279
felt hard to ignore day after day, knowing what she was going through.

1331
02:05:58,800 --> 02:06:02,279
I think it's one thing to except
that these kids will face circumstance, poverty,

1332
02:06:02,600 --> 02:06:06,680
bad parents. Life isn't fair.
I don't get a say in the

1333
02:06:06,680 --> 02:06:13,039
way societies say some kids get ponies
and others get rickets. But there's something

1334
02:06:13,079 --> 02:06:17,159
about losing someone that way, just
a random confluence of bad luck, that

1335
02:06:17,279 --> 02:06:23,279
it's harder than most. I don't
know if I can explain it. It's

1336
02:06:23,319 --> 02:06:27,319
just earlier. It's already grown up
at the bottom wrung of had not very

1337
02:06:27,359 --> 02:06:31,119
invisible class system. Hadn't she had
a fair share of bad luck already.

1338
02:06:32,359 --> 02:06:38,760
I mean, damn, even Greenwick
Grant's favors, even that wretched monster isn't

1339
02:06:38,800 --> 02:06:44,279
all bad. But an accident like
what happened to Alia's brother, there's no

1340
02:06:44,439 --> 02:06:51,399
upside. It's just a mess.
Thing is like I said, my turn

1341
02:06:51,560 --> 02:06:57,000
was coming up, and I mean
the way I saw it, the boy

1342
02:06:57,119 --> 02:07:00,920
was already dead, right, wasn't
like he could die getting wrapped up three

1343
02:07:00,920 --> 02:07:05,520
times around a Lathe was that already
come to pass. I decided to do

1344
02:07:05,560 --> 02:07:12,560
something, But even at the time
I figured to be pretty stupid. But

1345
02:07:12,640 --> 02:07:16,600
if there was a chance it could
work, well, I had to try.

1346
02:07:19,039 --> 02:07:25,640
Round three of Greenwig went real easy. I preemptively bought a bunch of

1347
02:07:25,720 --> 02:07:30,680
jigsaws and left them half done.
He honed in on them straight away.

1348
02:07:31,000 --> 02:07:34,560
I did as much as I could
in a single sitting, turned around,

1349
02:07:34,760 --> 02:07:40,760
turned back, and he'd muddel them
all up. I'd play out my anger

1350
02:07:40,800 --> 02:07:45,479
in irritation, then go back to
it. Drank a lot of coffee and

1351
02:07:45,479 --> 02:07:50,920
whiskey, watched a lot of movies. Grenwig loved it. Broke a couple

1352
02:07:50,920 --> 02:07:56,880
of plates and mugs too. It
was an all plain sailing. Woke up

1353
02:07:56,920 --> 02:08:00,680
one night to find him licking my
neck and had to ruster the hospital to

1354
02:08:00,680 --> 02:08:05,760
get the chemical burn treated. Still, for the most part, the week

1355
02:08:05,840 --> 02:08:11,760
went by without much incident, because
well, I had something in mind.

1356
02:08:11,239 --> 02:08:16,520
Couldn't get it out. This idea. I had to act on it,

1357
02:08:16,600 --> 02:08:22,079
and the promise of what it would
mean if it worked meant I practically skated

1358
02:08:22,119 --> 02:08:26,600
through the week with a smile on
my face. At least I had the

1359
02:08:26,720 --> 02:08:31,760
sense to specify. The boy returned
to me not earlier. I thought if

1360
02:08:31,800 --> 02:08:39,119
anything went wrong, it'd be best
if she didn't have to see it.

1361
02:08:39,119 --> 02:08:43,600
It was four in the morning when
I was awoken by a sound that had

1362
02:08:43,640 --> 02:08:48,119
slipped into my dreams as a kind
of creaking door. But as I opened

1363
02:08:48,159 --> 02:08:54,279
my eyes and reality reasserted itself,
I realized that what I was actually hearing

1364
02:08:54,840 --> 02:09:03,000
was a little more gravel being trod
on strain which distant quiet. I held

1365
02:09:03,039 --> 02:09:09,000
my breath, if only so that
I could hear better, but it seemed

1366
02:09:09,000 --> 02:09:13,279
to only amp up the sound of
blood rushing through my ears white noise.

1367
02:09:16,000 --> 02:09:20,199
It's so hard to perceive what's there
sometimes, isn't it. All I wanted

1368
02:09:20,439 --> 02:09:24,920
was for my ears or eyes to
report something useful to me without having to

1369
02:09:24,960 --> 02:09:30,840
get out of the safety of my
own bed. Instead, all I got

1370
02:09:30,920 --> 02:09:37,520
were dim shadows and the sea like
sucerrations of my own breathing. At least

1371
02:09:37,600 --> 02:09:43,760
I could ascertain I wasn't alone in
my apartment. Over time, the longer

1372
02:09:43,800 --> 02:09:50,960
I waited, the more sure of
that I became. Something was out there

1373
02:09:50,800 --> 02:09:56,199
in the corridor between my bedroom and
the living room had a guess, moving

1374
02:09:56,520 --> 02:10:01,520
with a kind of irregular rhythm that
belongs only to live things. This wasn't

1375
02:10:01,560 --> 02:10:09,520
the wind or some pipe settling.
Something was moving, and it was moving

1376
02:10:09,720 --> 02:10:15,560
in my direction, low to the
ground, a noise I couldn't put any

1377
02:10:15,600 --> 02:10:22,560
shape to wrong. All wrong made
me think of breaking pencils, grinding teeth.

1378
02:10:24,960 --> 02:10:28,239
In the end, I couldn't help
myself. I got up and called

1379
02:10:28,279 --> 02:10:35,399
out, who's there? The words
didn't feel real to me. The world

1380
02:10:35,520 --> 02:10:39,520
took an a realer than real distortion
that comes with terror, coupled with a

1381
02:10:39,640 --> 02:10:45,760
prickling white heat at the nape of
the neck. For a moment, I

1382
02:10:45,840 --> 02:10:50,159
swore as outside my own body,
staring down at myself from above. It

1383
02:10:50,279 --> 02:10:56,439
was too much, but that sound
was clearer than ever before. There was

1384
02:10:56,479 --> 02:11:07,800
no pretending this ghost wasn't real.
I turned on the light. Alia's brother

1385
02:11:07,000 --> 02:11:13,600
screamed and crawled away from the light, Neglected whimpers left behind like a trail

1386
02:11:13,680 --> 02:11:16,479
that led me to the living room, where I found him curled around a

1387
02:11:16,520 --> 02:11:24,680
table leg. He was alive,
but not whole. Guess I hadn't given

1388
02:11:24,760 --> 02:11:30,479
much thought to what a car would
do to a man's chest. Every breath

1389
02:11:30,640 --> 02:11:35,840
was a strange orchestra, too many
sounds, the disantangle bone on bone,

1390
02:11:37,439 --> 02:11:43,199
crumbled, ribs expanding, or at
least trying to and draw an oxygen into

1391
02:11:43,199 --> 02:11:48,079
blood filled lungs. Moss had grown
across his face even in the short time

1392
02:11:48,079 --> 02:11:54,840
he'd been in the ground. A
hand ice cold shot out and grabbed my

1393
02:11:54,880 --> 02:11:58,760
wrist and cried out, but he
didn't let go. He followed as I

1394
02:11:58,760 --> 02:12:05,960
tried to push myself away, his
bottom half trailing along limp and misaligned with

1395
02:12:05,000 --> 02:12:11,319
his torso felt like pulling a sack
of meat across an ice rink. Don't

1396
02:12:11,960 --> 02:12:20,279
send me back, he whimpered,
don't send me back. Eventually my foot

1397
02:12:20,319 --> 02:12:24,920
hit the sofa and I fell into
it. He dragged himself using his hands,

1398
02:12:26,039 --> 02:12:28,960
over to the side so that we
will face the face before I even

1399
02:12:30,000 --> 02:12:37,720
had time to push myself upright.
He likes you, he whispered, and

1400
02:12:37,800 --> 02:12:43,119
I recoil at the smell of his
breath. There are so few things in

1401
02:12:43,159 --> 02:12:50,800
the dark that know how to leave, but he doesn't. Don't ask him

1402
02:12:50,880 --> 02:12:58,960
to send me back. Please.
For the first time, my mind started

1403
02:13:00,119 --> 02:13:05,720
working. Was he talking about Grenwig, i wondered, But of course I

1404
02:13:05,800 --> 02:13:15,720
told myself who else? What what's
over there, I asked. He went

1405
02:13:15,760 --> 02:13:20,680
to answer before the words choked in
his mouth and his face twisted into a

1406
02:13:20,760 --> 02:13:26,239
mask of melancholic agony. Trying to
utter something, he burst into painful sobs.

1407
02:13:28,560 --> 02:13:33,279
Don't make me go back. That
was all they could manage to say.

1408
02:13:35,000 --> 02:13:39,359
Don't make me go back. Don't
make me go back. Please,

1409
02:13:39,920 --> 02:13:43,720
please, don't send me back there. You don't know what they do to

1410
02:13:43,800 --> 02:13:50,119
us. I don't I don't know
what to do, I stammered. The

1411
02:13:50,159 --> 02:13:54,119
boy grabbed me and pulled me close. Unsure of how to comfort him,

1412
02:13:56,319 --> 02:14:01,239
I let him hold me in an
embrace. We aren't the same when it's

1413
02:14:01,279 --> 02:14:09,159
done with us. What. I
never saw him take the knife from the

1414
02:14:09,239 --> 02:14:13,239
kitchen, but I suppose he'd been
in my home for longer than I'd been

1415
02:14:13,239 --> 02:14:18,359
awake, and he had plenty of
opportunity. First thing I felt, which

1416
02:14:18,399 --> 02:14:24,119
surprised me even in the moment,
was that it suddenly became hard to breathe.

1417
02:14:24,439 --> 02:14:30,000
That was the punched lung, but
like the worst pneumonia I'd ever had

1418
02:14:30,119 --> 02:14:35,000
come over me in the space of
five seconds. Just boom, suffocating on

1419
02:14:35,079 --> 02:14:39,239
your own blood so much that it
spilled over my lips and down my chin.

1420
02:14:41,680 --> 02:14:45,600
By the time I registered the aching
waves of dull agony pulsing out of

1421
02:14:45,640 --> 02:14:48,640
the spot on my rib cage,
I was already slumping back down onto the

1422
02:14:48,680 --> 02:14:52,880
sofa, sitting there like I was
getting ready for a Friday night move,

1423
02:14:54,399 --> 02:15:00,600
not that I was helpless. I
took maybe two seconds tops after what had

1424
02:15:00,600 --> 02:15:05,880
happened to understand it, and then
I was able to drive my heel into

1425
02:15:05,920 --> 02:15:11,000
his head as he tried to climb
up onto me. Weirdly, his broken

1426
02:15:11,079 --> 02:15:16,199
back helped him. He sort of
just bent with a blow, but it

1427
02:15:16,279 --> 02:15:20,239
didn't actually dislodge him. I had
to kick him again to do that,

1428
02:15:20,319 --> 02:15:24,880
and then I just stand up and
do it again and again, and I

1429
02:15:24,920 --> 02:15:31,479
think around the fourth or fifth kick
I realized I had something of a problem.

1430
02:15:33,319 --> 02:15:37,520
The pain didn't really bother him,
Not when I kicked him in his

1431
02:15:37,560 --> 02:15:41,039
pulp chest, not when I stamped
on his hand as he tried to push

1432
02:15:41,119 --> 02:15:45,960
himself back up for the tenth time, Not even when I rolled him over

1433
02:15:46,000 --> 02:15:48,840
and stamped on his head, struggling
to aim my foot through the tears in

1434
02:15:48,880 --> 02:15:54,920
my eyes, even as I'd immobilized
him, Even as I fumbled around and

1435
02:15:54,960 --> 02:15:58,640
found an old bike helmet, and
clubbed his skull until my arm grew sore.

1436
02:16:00,399 --> 02:16:03,319
He didn't cry out in pain,
he just kept trying to get back

1437
02:16:03,399 --> 02:16:09,319
up. Damn, I screamed.
As seconds turned a minutes, which just

1438
02:16:09,439 --> 02:16:15,079
kept ticking on. I felt like
I was swinging for hours, but in

1439
02:16:15,159 --> 02:16:20,600
truth, I don't know how long. Eventually I stopped for breath and frantically

1440
02:16:20,640 --> 02:16:24,840
looked from one corner of the room
to another, desperate for the first time

1441
02:16:24,880 --> 02:16:30,880
of my life to see those horrible
long fingers take him. I cried,

1442
02:16:31,159 --> 02:16:39,200
for God's sake, take him back. I suspected he'd been waiting and watching,

1443
02:16:39,520 --> 02:16:46,920
because with very little delay, Greenwig
finally made his appearance. Yellow eyes,

1444
02:16:48,120 --> 02:16:52,520
clustered together like frog spawn, winked
at me from a shadow under the

1445
02:16:52,600 --> 02:16:58,159
table. They seemed self satisfied,
as they always did, but I didn't

1446
02:16:58,200 --> 02:17:03,920
care. The mutilated man who lay
in the floor continued to bark, with

1447
02:17:03,959 --> 02:17:09,159
wet laughter pouring at me with broken
fingers. I was feeling faint, and

1448
02:17:09,239 --> 02:17:13,239
my whole right side was burning hot
and cold all at once, as warm

1449
02:17:13,239 --> 02:17:18,680
blood began to pull. Oh God, I cried, just take him back.

1450
02:17:20,959 --> 02:17:26,120
Greenwick's hands wasted little time, and
that man's laughter grew only more hysterical

1451
02:17:26,520 --> 02:17:33,239
as the fingers wrapped around his chest
and legs and slowly towed him towards the

1452
02:17:33,319 --> 02:17:37,879
dark. I felt a brief moment
of relief as I hoped this would be

1453
02:17:37,920 --> 02:17:43,840
the end of my mistake. But
then I felt his arms wrap around my

1454
02:17:43,959 --> 02:17:50,959
legs. Even broken, his strength
was something special, trapped in a bare

1455
02:17:52,000 --> 02:17:56,520
hook, slowly being pulled toward that
abyssel's shadow. I began to panic,

1456
02:17:58,840 --> 02:18:03,360
but it was far too little and
far too late. I went feet first,

1457
02:18:03,879 --> 02:18:09,399
a feeling like nothing else I'd ever
had. In the end, I

1458
02:18:09,440 --> 02:18:13,200
was clinging by the tips of my
fingers to an impossible ledge. Above me

1459
02:18:13,559 --> 02:18:18,479
was a sort of opening with no
defined beginning or end, and on the

1460
02:18:18,520 --> 02:18:26,120
other side laid my living room.
I looked down and for the first time

1461
02:18:26,559 --> 02:18:33,000
saw Grenwig as a whole. In
hindsight, it had been a mistake to

1462
02:18:33,040 --> 02:18:37,440
think of him as humanoid. I
think I just decided the bugeyman should look

1463
02:18:37,520 --> 02:18:43,680
like a man. But what floated
in the strange ether beneath me was more

1464
02:18:43,680 --> 02:18:50,360
akin to a jellyfish or maybe a
spider, I don't know. It was

1465
02:18:50,440 --> 02:18:56,680
dark in that void and yet impossibly
clear. I could see things in there

1466
02:18:58,520 --> 02:19:03,479
more than just Greenwig. It defied
dimensions as we understand it. It was

1467
02:19:03,520 --> 02:19:09,360
both an ocean and a landscape.
In the distance, le Viathans swam through

1468
02:19:09,399 --> 02:19:16,559
open space. I'm not even sure
I was seeing based on light. When

1469
02:19:16,559 --> 02:19:24,120
I blinked, I still saw everything. Greenwig found it all hilarious. He

1470
02:19:24,239 --> 02:19:30,000
had a mouth, and it laughed
moniacally as it peeled Elia's brother from around

1471
02:19:30,000 --> 02:19:33,440
my waist, leave me free to
kick and pull my way back into reality.

1472
02:19:35,920 --> 02:19:41,479
As I slid onto the carpet on
my living room, his laughter persisted.

1473
02:19:43,600 --> 02:19:46,920
As soon as I was out,
I crawled and rushed to the bathroom,

1474
02:19:46,120 --> 02:19:50,760
where I locked the door and passed
out. Greenwig's next turn with me

1475
02:19:52,079 --> 02:19:56,239
lasted two weeks, which I think
was because I made two requests, one

1476
02:19:56,360 --> 02:20:01,000
rawliest brother to return from the dead
and and the other for him to be

1477
02:20:01,120 --> 02:20:07,000
taken away. Either way, I
didn't begrudge Greenwig's games, but it did

1478
02:20:07,120 --> 02:20:13,559
mean I didn't get another request.
I have to wait until next time.

1479
02:20:16,120 --> 02:20:20,719
Meanwhile, I've watched the children approach
the end of the school year, and

1480
02:20:20,799 --> 02:20:24,479
I find myself wondering if they'll age
their way out of Greenwig or take him

1481
02:20:24,520 --> 02:20:30,319
with them to the next teacher's class. If he leaves them alone, will

1482
02:20:30,360 --> 02:20:35,000
he terrorize the next lot of kids
I teach? Either way, I think

1483
02:20:35,040 --> 02:20:41,559
Grenwig will let me double up again. And that's important because if so,

1484
02:20:43,760 --> 02:20:48,600
I know what I'm going to do. Like I said before, I'm out

1485
02:20:48,600 --> 02:20:56,159
of here, no more teaching.
I'm cashing out. But I've decided,

1486
02:20:56,959 --> 02:21:00,719
after what I did to earlier and
her brother, that I can at least

1487
02:21:00,719 --> 02:21:05,799
take Greenwig with me. He can
become a permanent friend. Leave the kids

1488
02:21:05,840 --> 02:21:11,479
the hell alone. I don't want
him following them or haunting the next bunch

1489
02:21:11,559 --> 02:21:16,840
to come along. I'm going to
stuff my pockets so full of cash that

1490
02:21:16,920 --> 02:21:22,959
I can build him and me a
playground and he won't ever have to bother

1491
02:21:22,079 --> 02:21:37,360
them again. They have enough to
deal with. I worked as a social

1492
02:21:37,399 --> 02:21:43,680
worker for twelve years out on the
East Coast. I saw children who were

1493
02:21:43,680 --> 02:21:48,440
mistreated, women that were abused,
and plenty of others that had mental health

1494
02:21:48,479 --> 02:21:54,760
problems, bad judgment or worse luck. So many people suffering, and you

1495
02:21:54,799 --> 02:21:58,920
get invested and try to help and
then have to leave it at the job

1496
02:21:58,280 --> 02:22:03,959
so it doesn't eat you were alive
when you go and for the most part,

1497
02:22:03,799 --> 02:22:09,559
I was good at compartmentalizing that stuff. But then, five months before

1498
02:22:09,559 --> 02:22:15,680
I quit and moved across the country, I met a young, traumatized woman

1499
02:22:16,600 --> 02:22:24,760
and everything changed. Her name was
Hattie McGovern, and she was a college

1500
02:22:24,799 --> 02:22:28,840
student who had been attacked the night
before as she crossed through a park and

1501
02:22:28,920 --> 02:22:33,120
the way to a neighborhood. When
I saw her, she was on the

1502
02:22:33,159 --> 02:22:37,319
first day of three days of observation. She had injuries, sure, but

1503
02:22:37,440 --> 02:22:43,280
there were largely cuts and abrasions to
a scalp, and what she was saying

1504
02:22:43,440 --> 02:22:48,799
didn't entirely make sense. When we
were alone and I was finished telling her

1505
02:22:50,040 --> 02:22:54,959
about the government services she might benefit
from, I asked her if she wanted

1506
02:22:54,000 --> 02:22:58,719
to talk about what happened. I'd
heard enough from the nurse outside to know

1507
02:23:00,159 --> 02:23:05,760
it would be wild, but I
had no idea of the details until she

1508
02:23:05,799 --> 02:23:13,120
began to speak in a soft,
hoarse voice. She said she'd been half

1509
02:23:13,159 --> 02:23:18,040
way through the park, walking at
a fast pace because she planned on taking

1510
02:23:18,079 --> 02:23:20,799
a shower and then heading back out
to meet some friends, and was running

1511
02:23:20,840 --> 02:23:28,479
behind when she realized an older man
was walking next to her, well not

1512
02:23:28,680 --> 02:23:33,520
next to her, she said,
about fifty feet away traveling across the grass,

1513
02:23:33,079 --> 02:23:37,760
stepping over hedges and sidewalks, without
slowing or even looking at where he

1514
02:23:37,879 --> 02:23:43,040
was going. Instead, he was
just keeping pace with her, step for

1515
02:23:43,200 --> 02:23:48,719
step and staring at her with a
wide smile that made him look like a

1516
02:23:48,760 --> 02:23:54,559
skull between his pale skin and his
bald head. This freaked her out,

1517
02:23:54,600 --> 02:23:58,719
of course, and she began walking
faster. She didn't run, she said,

1518
02:24:00,200 --> 02:24:03,200
because she felt like it was kind
of like running from a bear.

1519
02:24:03,280 --> 02:24:07,520
You shouldn't show weakness or fear,
but just get away before things went from

1520
02:24:07,559 --> 02:24:13,920
weird to bad. So she turned
to look to where she was going and

1521
02:24:13,959 --> 02:24:18,200
to see if she saw any people
closer than her apartment complex ad block away.

1522
02:24:18,479 --> 02:24:22,719
There was none, and when she
looked back to where the man had

1523
02:24:22,719 --> 02:24:30,159
been, he was gone. That
when she felt the hand plunging into a

1524
02:24:30,280 --> 02:24:35,159
long blonde hair and pulling her to
the ground, I'd known he was going

1525
02:24:35,159 --> 02:24:39,799
to be something about her hair.
Her injuries, other than a bruise on

1526
02:24:39,840 --> 02:24:43,959
her throat and a couple of other
scrapes, were all on her head,

1527
02:24:45,440 --> 02:24:50,639
dozens of oozing places where the strange
bold man had held her down and roughly

1528
02:24:50,680 --> 02:24:56,239
cut off all her hair with a
straight razor. Crying softly, She showed

1529
02:24:56,280 --> 02:25:01,479
me a picture of her the week
before. Long curly hair the color of

1530
02:25:01,559 --> 02:25:07,920
summer honey framed her, then smiling
face. I passed her that didn't know

1531
02:25:07,079 --> 02:25:13,799
what was about to happen. The
version of her before me looked ten years

1532
02:25:13,840 --> 02:25:20,879
older and broken in some fundamental way. Sniffing back tears, she said that

1533
02:25:20,959 --> 02:25:24,559
when the men yanked her to the
ground, the breath went out of her,

1534
02:25:24,360 --> 02:25:28,799
but she immediately started trying to get
up and get away. That he

1535
02:25:28,840 --> 02:25:33,959
had grabbed her by the throat and
held her back down, but just for

1536
02:25:33,000 --> 02:25:41,120
a moment, just long enough that
he could spit on her face. Hattie

1537
02:25:41,120 --> 02:25:46,840
said it made no sense, But
after he did that, she couldn't move

1538
02:25:46,879 --> 02:25:52,040
anymore, not at all. The
girl told me the doctors had tried to

1539
02:25:52,079 --> 02:25:56,760
say it was shock or fear,
but she said that was nonsense. She

1540
02:25:56,920 --> 02:26:01,799
was paralyzed by the thick, foul
smelling wad he'd spat onto her face,

1541
02:26:03,840 --> 02:26:07,479
and even him producing the straight raizor
from a hidden pocket didn't get a move

1542
02:26:07,559 --> 02:26:13,399
And again, beyond the hammering of
her heart, he never said anything,

1543
02:26:15,280 --> 02:26:20,120
just smiled as he began gripping handfuls
of her hair and scraping them off a

1544
02:26:20,239 --> 02:26:24,319
scalp. I asked her if it
hurt, and she gave me a wardy

1545
02:26:24,399 --> 02:26:31,239
laugh. She said that sure it
did, but that wasn't the worst part.

1546
02:26:33,239 --> 02:26:35,959
He was feeling so violated and having
a part of her taken away,

1547
02:26:37,159 --> 02:26:41,120
even more than the fear of what
he might do to her after The feeling

1548
02:26:41,319 --> 02:26:46,040
had been the worst. When he
had rolled her over to a stomach to

1549
02:26:46,079 --> 02:26:50,040
cut the rest of her hair off, she felt the first tingles of movements

1550
02:26:50,159 --> 02:26:56,280
starting to come back, not enough
to really move, but some small,

1551
02:26:56,319 --> 02:27:01,440
stirring twitches. She decided to wait, let it come back more, and

1552
02:27:01,479 --> 02:27:07,360
then tried to run when the opportunity
came or he was distracted, not that

1553
02:27:07,399 --> 02:27:13,079
she was just sitting and waiting for
him to do whatever he wanted. Every

1554
02:27:13,120 --> 02:27:16,360
moment she was tensed to try and
fight if she saw the blade coming for

1555
02:27:16,399 --> 02:27:20,719
a neck, or if he tried
to take her clothes off. She just

1556
02:27:20,799 --> 02:27:26,280
knew that she couldn't really move or
fight yet, and she wanted him to

1557
02:27:26,319 --> 02:27:31,760
either go slow or just stop and
leave her alone. He chose the latter.

1558
02:27:33,120 --> 02:27:37,559
When he had cut off the last
of her hair, he scooped up

1559
02:27:37,559 --> 02:27:41,920
the pile next to her head and
walked a few feet away out of a

1560
02:27:41,040 --> 02:27:46,079
line of sight. She heard some
kind of gasping, choking sound then,

1561
02:27:46,959 --> 02:27:52,319
and while it took all her strength, she managed to turn her head slightly

1562
02:27:52,559 --> 02:28:00,520
to see what he was doing.
He was eating her hair, all of

1563
02:28:00,559 --> 02:28:05,840
it. Golden fistfuls were crammed in
one after the other as he chewed and

1564
02:28:07,000 --> 02:28:13,120
gasped and choked and swallowed. The
sound was disgusting, but seeing it was

1565
02:28:13,159 --> 02:28:18,479
worse. She said it scared her
worse than before, though she couldn't have

1566
02:28:18,520 --> 02:28:22,959
said why. And it was then, as she lay frozen and horrified,

1567
02:28:24,639 --> 02:28:31,319
that the man suddenly let out a
gasping groan and toppled over onto the grass.

1568
02:28:31,000 --> 02:28:35,120
He lay there, twitching for what
felt like a minute or two,

1569
02:28:35,280 --> 02:28:39,520
and though from her angle she couldn't
see his face, she felt like he

1570
02:28:39,639 --> 02:28:46,040
was either having a seizure or choking
to death. She hoped for the latter,

1571
02:28:46,040 --> 02:28:52,680
but didn't dare rely on that.
Forcing her limbs to move, she

1572
02:28:52,760 --> 02:28:56,600
got to her hands and knees and
started to crawl out of the street.

1573
02:28:58,360 --> 02:29:03,159
Everything felt weird and slow, oh, but she started making progress, periodically

1574
02:29:03,200 --> 02:29:09,040
looking back to see if the man
was still out, first time, still

1575
02:29:09,079 --> 02:29:16,760
down and twitching. Second time,
he was sitting up and staring at her.

1576
02:29:20,479 --> 02:29:26,479
It was at this point that she
started shaking and crying harder. So

1577
02:29:26,840 --> 02:29:30,959
after waiting a couple of minutes,
I asked the question to prompt her.

1578
02:29:31,719 --> 02:29:41,000
Did he come for her again?
No, she said, They looked at

1579
02:29:41,000 --> 02:29:46,360
each other, he gave her another
smile, and she started crawling faster or

1580
02:29:46,520 --> 02:29:50,159
screaming her head off. The guy
was jogging down the other side of the

1581
02:29:50,200 --> 02:29:54,600
street and came over to help.
When she looked back the next time,

1582
02:29:56,520 --> 02:30:03,440
her attacker was gone. Thank god, I said, and she nodded in

1583
02:30:03,559 --> 02:30:09,680
mute agreement. But I could tell
there was something more. When I asked,

1584
02:30:11,319 --> 02:30:16,799
she paused a long time before shaking
her head. You'll just think I'm

1585
02:30:16,840 --> 02:30:22,000
a crazy liar, like they do. I had to reassure her that I

1586
02:30:22,040 --> 02:30:26,639
wouldn't think any such thing several times
before she finally told me the rest.

1587
02:30:30,040 --> 02:30:35,479
When he sat up. When I
saw him that last time, he wasn't

1588
02:30:35,520 --> 02:30:41,040
bald any more. He had long, curly hair, blonde hair just like

1589
02:30:41,159 --> 02:30:52,239
mine. He ate my hair and
stole it from me. Over the next

1590
02:30:52,239 --> 02:30:58,079
couple of months, I checked on
her case. Hattie had moved back to

1591
02:30:58,120 --> 02:31:01,680
Wisconsin to be with her family,
and while her physical wounds were healing well

1592
02:31:01,799 --> 02:31:07,719
enough, she still had emotional issues
she was working through from the attack.

1593
02:31:09,159 --> 02:31:13,319
When I called her mental health counselor
at a new college, she tried to

1594
02:31:13,360 --> 02:31:18,559
talk very broadly and not give me
any details. But toward the end of

1595
02:31:18,600 --> 02:31:26,440
the conversation she did let one slip
the poor dear, it's so strange how

1596
02:31:26,479 --> 02:31:33,719
her hair won't grow back. It
was another month and a half before I

1597
02:31:33,840 --> 02:31:39,399
saw the graffiti. I normally took
a bus home to just two blocks from

1598
02:31:39,399 --> 02:31:43,719
my work, but one day my
normal bus line was delayed due to an

1599
02:31:43,760 --> 02:31:48,719
accident, so I had the choice
of paying for a taxi or walking further

1600
02:31:48,840 --> 02:31:52,520
to a different stop. I picked
the latter, And while the neighborhood I

1601
02:31:52,639 --> 02:31:58,520
traveled through didn't seem especially rough or
dangerous, it was more run down than

1602
02:31:58,559 --> 02:32:03,120
the places I worked or lived,
more closed businesses and unkent plots, and

1603
02:32:03,200 --> 02:32:09,959
graffiti scattered along the walls here and
there. It was when I was nearing

1604
02:32:09,959 --> 02:32:13,399
the bus stop that I had to
walk under an overpass bridge that I had

1605
02:32:13,440 --> 02:32:20,399
colorful drawings and sayings, insults and
boasts. Yet among that riot of lines

1606
02:32:20,440 --> 02:32:26,000
and squiggles, one thing stood apart, as though none of the rest wanted

1607
02:32:26,079 --> 02:32:33,680
to be close to this single line, written in simple letters of dark red,

1608
02:32:33,879 --> 02:32:41,600
he only eats the best of us. A year earlier, I would

1609
02:32:41,600 --> 02:32:46,840
have laughed at the line, wondering
if it was a social commentary or a

1610
02:32:46,879 --> 02:32:52,360
line from a movie. But walking
through that patch of shadows, as the

1611
02:32:52,399 --> 02:32:56,479
words burned down at me from above, my mind immediately went a hattie,

1612
02:32:58,360 --> 02:33:03,399
and I walked faster until I reached
my stop. When I reached it,

1613
02:33:03,159 --> 02:33:11,799
I looked back, and that's when
I saw him, a thin, pale

1614
02:33:11,920 --> 02:33:20,360
man with long flowing blonde hair.
I might have let out a little scream

1615
02:33:20,440 --> 02:33:24,959
right then, I don't remember.
I do recall turning back to the street,

1616
02:33:24,520 --> 02:33:30,840
thinking I needed to call a taxi
or get someone's attention. When I

1617
02:33:30,840 --> 02:33:33,959
saw the bus turning the corner,
A blocked down and I nearly cried in

1618
02:33:35,040 --> 02:33:39,479
relief. Running to meet it,
I jumped on as soon as the doors

1619
02:33:39,520 --> 02:33:43,920
opened, and when I looked back, I saw no sign of the man

1620
02:33:45,040 --> 02:33:50,879
anywhere. Heart pounding, I scanned
my pass and took a seat in the

1621
02:33:50,920 --> 02:33:56,159
middle of the bus. It was
only half full, but the comfort of

1622
02:33:56,239 --> 02:34:01,639
being around other people, even total
strangers, was deniable. I felt like

1623
02:34:01,680 --> 02:34:07,440
a gazelle hiding in the herd from
a stalking lion. The dramatic flare of

1624
02:34:07,520 --> 02:34:13,559
the thought made me laugh. Wasn't
I overreacting? Had I really seen the

1625
02:34:13,600 --> 02:34:18,879
man? Or had I just imagined
it because I was tired and taking a

1626
02:34:18,920 --> 02:34:24,319
strange route that made me uneasy.
Glancing at my phone, I guessed my

1627
02:34:24,399 --> 02:34:31,159
nearest stop to home would be about
twenty minutes away. After a moment's debate,

1628
02:34:31,680 --> 02:34:35,799
I set my phone alarm for fifteen
in case I dozed off, though

1629
02:34:35,959 --> 02:34:41,000
that seemed unlikely given the panic I'd
felt a few moments before, I might

1630
02:34:41,120 --> 02:34:48,559
not ever sleep. I woke up
to words being spoken right next to my

1631
02:34:48,680 --> 02:34:56,879
ear. You have lovely eyes.
I jumped in my seat and started to

1632
02:34:56,920 --> 02:35:01,760
turn around. When I froze.
The evening had fully come on by now,

1633
02:35:03,280 --> 02:35:05,959
and the windows of the bus were
all black with the growing night outside.

1634
02:35:07,200 --> 02:35:11,159
In the reflection of the window closest
to me, I could not only

1635
02:35:11,159 --> 02:35:18,680
see myself, but who had spoken
to me. It was the old blond

1636
02:35:18,719 --> 02:35:24,520
man, leaning against my ear like
a whispering lover. In the reflection,

1637
02:35:24,000 --> 02:35:31,479
my terrified gaze found his milky eyes
hanging like infected moons above his sickly sickle

1638
02:35:31,600 --> 02:35:37,079
smile. He held me with that
look for a moment before rasping out the

1639
02:35:37,120 --> 02:35:46,479
words again, you have lovely eyes. My fear broke the spell this time,

1640
02:35:46,799 --> 02:35:48,959
and I jumped out of my seat
and rushed to the front, yelling

1641
02:35:50,000 --> 02:35:52,000
for the driver to let me out. Let me out now, goddamn it.

1642
02:35:54,600 --> 02:35:58,040
Looking surprised and irritated, he pulled
at the curb even as my phone

1643
02:35:58,079 --> 02:36:03,280
alarm went off. I was just
two blocks away now, and I wasn't

1644
02:36:03,360 --> 02:36:09,840
above running the entire way, so
that's exactly what I did. I jumped

1645
02:36:09,840 --> 02:36:15,440
off the bus as the doors opened, pulling off my heels and running barefoot

1646
02:36:15,479 --> 02:36:20,559
down the sidewalk for two blocks to
my building. I never looked back the

1647
02:36:20,760 --> 02:36:24,879
entire time, and it wasn't until
I was behind my door and the dead

1648
02:36:24,920 --> 02:36:28,479
bolt was thrown that I took a
breath or dared to look back out through

1649
02:36:28,520 --> 02:36:35,479
the peep hole. I saw no
sign of anyone out there, and when

1650
02:36:35,479 --> 02:36:39,719
I went to my windows to look
for any sign of the old man following

1651
02:36:39,760 --> 02:36:46,559
me, I found none. Good
it was maybe a coincidence, but even

1652
02:36:46,600 --> 02:36:50,280
if it was, Hatti's guy.
He couldn't have followed me all the way

1653
02:36:50,319 --> 02:36:54,719
home, not with how fast I
was. There was a knock at the

1654
02:36:54,760 --> 02:37:01,760
door. Stifling another scream. I
crept back to the door, not wanting

1655
02:37:01,799 --> 02:37:07,120
to betray that I was home.
Looking back through the people, I saw

1656
02:37:07,200 --> 02:37:11,479
nothing. Maybe it had been a
mistake and the person had realized they had

1657
02:37:11,479 --> 02:37:16,559
the wrong door and went on.
I waited for a couple of minutes,

1658
02:37:16,000 --> 02:37:22,879
watching and listening for someone, and
there was nothing. It wasn't until I

1659
02:37:22,920 --> 02:37:28,000
turned to go into the living room
that a new knock returned, this one

1660
02:37:28,200 --> 02:37:33,360
more rhythmic and familiar, knock knock, kno knock, knock, knock knock.

1661
02:37:37,239 --> 02:37:41,879
I gave a shudder as I realized
I recognized what that was. Shaven,

1662
02:37:41,920 --> 02:37:48,159
a haircut, two bits. Biting
my lip, I went back to

1663
02:37:48,200 --> 02:37:52,680
the door and stared out again through
the hole. There was still no one

1664
02:37:52,680 --> 02:37:56,399
out there that I could see,
not that I was about to open the

1665
02:37:56,440 --> 02:38:01,600
door to fully check if they were
just standing to the side waiting for me

1666
02:38:01,680 --> 02:38:07,200
to crack the door. I debated
calling the police, but I wasn't sure

1667
02:38:07,200 --> 02:38:11,000
what to tell them, or if
they'd even come for something so small,

1668
02:38:13,200 --> 02:38:18,920
so instead I called the building's handyman. George told him I thought a creepy

1669
02:38:18,959 --> 02:38:22,719
guy might have followed me into the
building, and now someone kept knocking on

1670
02:38:22,799 --> 02:38:26,680
my door. I asked him,
did he mind coming up and just see

1671
02:38:26,719 --> 02:38:33,760
if he saw anything. He sounded
sleepy and irritated initially, but when he

1672
02:38:33,760 --> 02:38:39,440
heard the fear of my voice,
he said he'd be right there. Less

1673
02:38:39,440 --> 02:38:43,399
than five minutes later, there was
a new knock on the door, but

1674
02:38:43,520 --> 02:38:48,639
this time it was quickly followed by
George's voice. Miss Castillo, there's no

1675
02:38:48,680 --> 02:38:52,840
one out here. Now. I'm
going to double check the other doors,

1676
02:38:52,440 --> 02:38:56,559
but I think you're okay. Someone
did leave you something out here, though.

1677
02:39:00,399 --> 02:39:05,280
I unlocked the door and opened it
part way. Left something what?

1678
02:39:05,879 --> 02:39:11,079
George pushed the items through the crack
and handed it to me. There,

1679
02:39:11,959 --> 02:39:16,959
that's for you. I guess.
I think you're okay, but you be

1680
02:39:16,040 --> 02:39:22,879
careful. Okay, there are some
bad things out there. I noticed that

1681
02:39:22,959 --> 02:39:28,799
he said things instead of people,
but I let it pass. George,

1682
02:39:30,559 --> 02:39:35,840
is something wrong? He looked a
little paler as he forced a smile and

1683
02:39:35,879 --> 02:39:41,280
shook his head, never raising his
eyes to me. No, I think

1684
02:39:41,319 --> 02:39:48,000
everything is okay. Just keep your
door locked, O. Kay, and

1685
02:39:48,120 --> 02:39:52,319
let me know if you have any
more trouble. I gotta get back downstairs.

1686
02:39:54,120 --> 02:39:58,840
I thought about reminding him to check
the other floors, but then he

1687
02:39:58,000 --> 02:40:03,680
was gone, shutting the door back
and locking it. I decided it didn't

1688
02:40:03,760 --> 02:40:09,959
matter. I had a feeling he
wasn't going anywhere except down to his own

1689
02:40:09,959 --> 02:40:16,239
apartment to turn his own dead bolt. That feeling only grew when I turned

1690
02:40:16,239 --> 02:40:18,920
on the lights and looked more closely
at what had been left for me.

1691
02:40:22,879 --> 02:40:28,280
Maybe it had been a mocking threat
or a warning, but I knew what

1692
02:40:28,360 --> 02:40:37,360
it felt like a promise. So
the next day I gave my notice and

1693
02:40:37,479 --> 02:40:43,239
moved most my stuff into an extended
stay hotel. Three weeks later, I

1694
02:40:43,280 --> 02:40:48,680
was driving a moving truck across the
country to my new home. The first

1695
02:40:48,680 --> 02:40:52,840
thing I set out in my new
house was the gift I got that night.

1696
02:40:54,879 --> 02:40:58,120
I hate looking at it, but
I need to see it, be

1697
02:40:58,239 --> 02:41:03,959
reminded of it. Like a head
or heart full of scars, or the

1698
02:41:03,000 --> 02:41:09,920
red letter scrawled underneath a bridge.
It warns me to never let my guard

1699
02:41:09,959 --> 02:41:15,760
down, to never assume that the
darkness has nothing but empty fear waiting for

1700
02:41:15,840 --> 02:41:20,319
me in its depths. Even now, I can see it on my mantle,

1701
02:41:20,959 --> 02:41:26,520
gleaming a dull gray. I think
it's made of pewter, and it

1702
02:41:26,559 --> 02:41:31,959
feels very heavy and old. The
few times I've been able to make myself

1703
02:41:31,040 --> 02:41:37,159
touch it, not that I need
to any more, I still see it

1704
02:41:37,239 --> 02:41:43,520
when I close my eyes. A
thick handled metal spoon with a deep round

1705
02:41:43,520 --> 02:41:50,760
bowl that tapers to a sharp edge
on the outer rim, not by initial

1706
02:41:50,799 --> 02:41:56,520
design, but by use of whetstone
or a grinder. It's more of a

1707
02:41:56,600 --> 02:42:03,040
razor, now hard and cold and
bitingly thin, shaped for cutting and digging.

1708
02:42:03,559 --> 02:42:07,719
And I know without checking that if
someone were to stick it into my

1709
02:42:07,799 --> 02:42:13,520
eye socket, they could sliced through
the lid and scoop out my eyeball like

1710
02:42:13,559 --> 02:42:20,159
a bit of overripe melon. My
hands are shaking as I tell you this.

1711
02:42:20,440 --> 02:42:24,239
I can't quite look at the mantle
any longer, so I look out

1712
02:42:24,280 --> 02:42:31,639
the window instead. It's not dark
yet, but the shadows are growing fatter

1713
02:42:31,000 --> 02:42:37,520
with each passing morsel of the day. I force myself to keep looking into

1714
02:42:37,559 --> 02:42:43,280
the deepening twilight, and some nights
I even tell myself I'm not still afraid,

1715
02:42:45,840 --> 02:42:50,280
but the whisper in my heart is
enough. Bravery or strength. It's

1716
02:42:50,319 --> 02:42:56,639
the dreadful double thrum of the gazelle's
heart, looking out into the darkness,

1717
02:42:58,360 --> 02:43:05,440
not looking out of courage, but
out of terror and necessity and weak trembling.

1718
02:43:05,520 --> 02:43:13,280
Hope, hope that when we look
out into the darkness, nothing looks

1719
02:43:13,319 --> 02:43:28,760
back or is drawing near. A
few years ago when I was invited to

1720
02:43:28,799 --> 02:43:33,799
a dinner party, and it wasn't
that fancy, just a few o friends

1721
02:43:33,799 --> 02:43:39,799
reconnecting people I hadn't seen since high
school. Some of the people on that

1722
02:43:39,879 --> 02:43:43,520
list were people I hadn't seen or
heard of for years, so it'll be

1723
02:43:43,520 --> 02:43:50,520
a nice opportunity to catch up.
My wife couldn't come, though invites only

1724
02:43:50,680 --> 02:43:56,639
she didn't mind. I looked forward
to it all week. I dug out

1725
02:43:56,680 --> 02:44:01,600
my old TOMSCG high school baseball cap
and went through the guest list. There

1726
02:44:01,600 --> 02:44:05,479
were a few names I recognized at
the drop of a hat, and a

1727
02:44:05,559 --> 02:44:09,840
few that I didn't. I figured
some people had changed their names over the

1728
02:44:09,959 --> 02:44:16,879
years. While it wasn't a proper
reunion, more I could get together of

1729
02:44:16,920 --> 02:44:20,319
old friends, I still got the
sense that there was something more to it.

1730
02:44:22,760 --> 02:44:26,639
There was no anniversary coming up,
so it sort of came out of

1731
02:44:26,680 --> 02:44:31,600
nowhere. I got the impression that
maybe something else was up, like a

1732
02:44:31,639 --> 02:44:37,760
proposal or some other announcement. The
big night took place on a Saturday.

1733
02:44:37,639 --> 02:44:43,879
I had a rented venture just outside
of town, some old clubhouse, nothing

1734
02:44:43,920 --> 02:44:48,479
big or fancy, but enough to
house the eight party goers that had pressed

1735
02:44:48,520 --> 02:44:54,719
the I will attend button. I
got there a bit early, dressed up

1736
02:44:54,760 --> 02:45:00,399
in my favorite jacket, sporting the
classic baseball cap. It smell a bit

1737
02:45:00,479 --> 02:45:05,079
like mildew, but what the hell. If there ever was a time to

1738
02:45:05,120 --> 02:45:09,879
wear it, this was it.
Rolling up to the house, the first

1739
02:45:09,920 --> 02:45:16,680
person I ran into was the host, herself, Jerry, short for Geraldine.

1740
02:45:18,200 --> 02:45:20,840
She was the de facto head of
the av club back in high school.

1741
02:45:22,600 --> 02:45:26,680
The elected president of the club was
often missing or off doing their own

1742
02:45:26,760 --> 02:45:31,120
thing, leaving Jerry to take care
of the practicalities. If there was one

1743
02:45:31,159 --> 02:45:35,399
person I'd bet on to arrange a
night like this, it'd be her.

1744
02:45:37,959 --> 02:45:41,680
She swept me up in a big
hug, pulling a little on my baseball

1745
02:45:41,719 --> 02:45:46,040
cap. Oh we're bringing out the
big guns, eh, she laughed.

1746
02:45:46,520 --> 02:45:52,000
Should have kept my club sweater.
Got to represent the Tugs, the stupid

1747
02:45:52,079 --> 02:45:56,920
name we used for the locals.
It was still around. Over time,

1748
02:45:58,120 --> 02:46:05,479
the others dropped in, the overachiever
Olly or Ole who was on the student

1749
02:46:05,559 --> 02:46:11,280
council, Chris and Corey, the
twins Omar who didn't move in until the

1750
02:46:11,319 --> 02:46:16,959
final year but instantly made himself part
of the group. Finally, we just

1751
02:46:18,000 --> 02:46:22,280
waited for Tess. It was getting
late, so we figured she could catch

1752
02:46:22,319 --> 02:46:28,600
up later. We had a couple
of drinks and got snacking on some appetizers

1753
02:46:28,639 --> 02:46:33,760
Jerry had arranged for a catered meal. It didn't take long for us to

1754
02:46:33,840 --> 02:46:37,239
fall back into our old roles,
finding our way back to each other like

1755
02:46:37,319 --> 02:46:41,559
we'd never left. There is a
saying that the better you know someone,

1756
02:46:43,000 --> 02:46:48,360
the less you need to talk to
them. It really is true. It

1757
02:46:48,440 --> 02:46:52,280
was just a matter of minutes before
we were right back to where we left

1758
02:46:52,280 --> 02:47:00,520
things all those years ago. But
Tess was a no show. I figured

1759
02:47:00,559 --> 02:47:05,280
she'd run into some sort of last
minute issue, but Jerry wasn't convinced.

1760
02:47:05,840 --> 02:47:13,959
If anything, Jerry was being a
bit strange about it, avoidant. Halfway

1761
02:47:13,000 --> 02:47:18,879
through the main course, Nelly cheked
her phone. She fell silent all of

1762
02:47:18,920 --> 02:47:24,959
a sudden. It was hard to
tell since everyone else was laughing and chatting

1763
02:47:24,000 --> 02:47:30,280
about but I saw her lift her
hand to her mouth and her eyes stopped

1764
02:47:30,319 --> 02:47:39,000
blinking. She'd seen something, something
shocking. I gently elbowed Omar next to

1765
02:47:39,040 --> 02:47:43,799
me, who noticed the same thing. Once the two of us quieted down,

1766
02:47:43,399 --> 02:47:48,120
so did the others. It didn't
take long for the entire table to

1767
02:47:48,239 --> 02:47:56,200
notice. Nelly looked up at us. She's there's been an accident. I

1768
02:47:56,319 --> 02:48:03,399
think she tests it's not, she
sniffled, putting down a phone. She

1769
02:48:03,440 --> 02:48:07,159
buried her face in her hands,
trying her best to hold back the tears.

1770
02:48:09,399 --> 02:48:13,399
Everyone picked up their phones, trying
to see if what she'd said was

1771
02:48:13,479 --> 02:48:22,000
true, checking local news, social
media, anything, But I kept my

1772
02:48:22,079 --> 02:48:30,200
eyes on Jerry. She was unnaturally
quiet about this. It didn't take long

1773
02:48:30,280 --> 02:48:35,000
for the room to devolve. Nellie
was openly weeping. Oley just went pale,

1774
02:48:35,319 --> 02:48:41,479
staring into the wall. Chris and
Corey started arguing about the details as

1775
02:48:41,479 --> 02:48:46,159
they differed from one source to the
next. Omar just shook his head over

1776
02:48:46,319 --> 02:48:52,799
and over, trying to convince himself
it wasn't true, but of course it

1777
02:48:52,000 --> 02:48:58,760
was. Turns out Tess had some
kind of aneurysm earlier that day, out

1778
02:49:00,239 --> 02:49:07,319
light the moment she sat down in
a car completely unavoidable and undetectable. It

1779
02:49:07,440 --> 02:49:11,440
just took some time for people to
notice, since it looked like someone just

1780
02:49:11,479 --> 02:49:16,319
sitting in their car. But Jerry
just sat there, sipping a whine.

1781
02:49:18,280 --> 02:49:22,319
She didn't look at her phone,
and she didn't join the conversation. There

1782
02:49:22,360 --> 02:49:28,559
was a shake to her hand,
like she was suddenly nervous. I wanted

1783
02:49:28,600 --> 02:49:31,159
to pull her aside and ask her
about it, but there was no space.

1784
02:49:33,360 --> 02:49:39,360
People were talking over one another,
calling out demanding my attention, all

1785
02:49:39,399 --> 02:49:50,239
the while Jerry didn't move a muscle. Then the power went out. It

1786
02:49:50,319 --> 02:49:54,680
went completely dark. For a moment, all I could see were faces lit

1787
02:49:54,760 --> 02:50:01,760
up by smartphone screens. Like ghastly
apparitions joined in and so did Jerry.

1788
02:50:01,600 --> 02:50:07,239
With discussion just died as we all
looked at one another. At some point,

1789
02:50:07,559 --> 02:50:11,319
someone turned their phone towards the table, as if looking for something.

1790
02:50:11,719 --> 02:50:18,319
As the light panned across the room, we all noticed in unison a shape.

1791
02:50:20,479 --> 02:50:24,319
It was only there for a fraction
of a second, something tall,

1792
02:50:24,840 --> 02:50:31,799
dark and spectral arms that reached all
the way to the floor. Something sickly

1793
02:50:31,920 --> 02:50:39,520
thin and black as oil. There
was a shrill screech like the cables inside

1794
02:50:39,559 --> 02:50:46,200
the walls were burning, screaming for
help. This high pitched burn, something

1795
02:50:46,399 --> 02:50:52,799
overloading, bathing the room in the
smell of burnt plastic and gypsum. In

1796
02:50:52,879 --> 02:50:56,719
the blink of an eye, the
power returned, and with it, the

1797
02:50:56,799 --> 02:51:05,559
dark disappeared. The room irrupted.
Nelly was on her feet, backing away

1798
02:51:05,639 --> 02:51:09,840
from the table. Ali crouched down. The twins just stood up, looking

1799
02:51:09,879 --> 02:51:16,079
lost. Omar just froze, not
knowing what to do. But my eyes

1800
02:51:16,319 --> 02:51:24,920
landed on Jerry and what she was
doing. She just sat there, staring

1801
02:51:24,959 --> 02:51:28,879
at the space where the dark thing
had stood. As the room fell silent.

1802
02:51:31,040 --> 02:51:37,920
I caught her attention. What's going
on? I weezed, what was

1803
02:51:37,959 --> 02:51:43,319
that? Jerry shook her head.
As the rest of the room turned her

1804
02:51:43,360 --> 02:51:48,440
attention to her. She began stuttering, Her eyes shifted from one to the

1805
02:51:48,479 --> 02:52:00,520
next, until she finally gave in. It's it's hard to explain, So

1806
02:52:00,680 --> 02:52:05,319
now we got the real story.
It started a couple of months ago.

1807
02:52:05,840 --> 02:52:11,319
It started with a woman named Gwen. She had been an acquaintance at best,

1808
02:52:13,000 --> 02:52:16,639
someone that most of the group hadn't
interacted much with. She was part

1809
02:52:16,719 --> 02:52:22,120
of another clique in a way,
and there was much crossover between the groups.

1810
02:52:22,559 --> 02:52:30,000
She had suddenly passed, leaving some
former classmates devastated. Tess had heard

1811
02:52:30,040 --> 02:52:35,079
about it somewhere in a social peripheral. One post in particular had stood out.

1812
02:52:37,440 --> 02:52:43,280
In one of the memorial comment sections, someone mentioned she knew this was

1813
02:52:43,360 --> 02:52:48,680
coming. She'd seen the specter of
death, she told me, and I

1814
02:52:48,760 --> 02:52:54,159
think she was at peace. After
that, there'd been two more deaths,

1815
02:52:54,920 --> 02:53:00,000
a man and a woman, both
dropping dead within a month of one another,

1816
02:53:01,440 --> 02:53:09,000
again vague hints to seeing something and
a specter, but this time Test

1817
02:53:09,079 --> 02:53:13,040
knew them a little better. In
fact, she talked to one of them

1818
02:53:13,440 --> 02:53:20,520
just weeks ahead of their death.
Two things became apparent, one that they

1819
02:53:20,520 --> 02:53:26,159
were being followed by something, and
two that they knew their time was running

1820
02:53:26,200 --> 02:53:31,840
short. By that third death,
Tess figured who was no longer a coincidence

1821
02:53:33,719 --> 02:53:37,920
their old friends were dropping like flies. She reached out to Jerry to kind

1822
02:53:37,920 --> 02:53:43,079
of get the gang together to talk
about it, But only days ahead of

1823
02:53:43,120 --> 02:53:50,200
the reunion, she'd started to see
the specter herself. She wanted us to

1824
02:53:50,239 --> 02:53:54,639
go ahead with or without her,
said Jerry. She knew this would happen.

1825
02:53:56,040 --> 02:54:01,280
So what does it mean? Nearly
asked, We all saw it are

1826
02:54:01,280 --> 02:54:07,799
we all next. Jerry shook her
head as the questions reigned. What the

1827
02:54:07,799 --> 02:54:11,479
hell is that? Yelled Corey?
Were you going to tell us? Chris

1828
02:54:11,559 --> 02:54:20,600
joined in, question after question after
question. Finally, Jerry just slumped into

1829
02:54:20,639 --> 02:54:26,280
a chair, still shaking her head. I don't know, she repeated,

1830
02:54:26,600 --> 02:54:33,200
over and over. I I just
don't know. Olly was the first to

1831
02:54:33,280 --> 02:54:37,760
react. He headed for the door. I'm getting the hell out of here,

1832
02:54:39,159 --> 02:54:45,040
he yelled, screw this. The
moment he opened the door, the

1833
02:54:45,159 --> 02:54:50,719
power was cut again. My phone
was glowing hot in my hand, overloaded

1834
02:54:50,760 --> 02:54:56,920
by static electricity. All the illuminated
faces flickered as our phones struggled to stay

1835
02:54:56,920 --> 02:55:01,559
alive. In a vague flicker from
one of our phone screens, Ione caught

1836
02:55:01,559 --> 02:55:07,639
a glimpse of it, a figure
so tall we couldn't see the head as

1837
02:55:07,680 --> 02:55:13,000
it loomed outside the door, and
impossibly long arm reached in. Olli just

1838
02:55:13,040 --> 02:55:18,440
screamed, evolving into a series of
ever repeating no, no, nos,

1839
02:55:20,079 --> 02:55:26,920
until he was silenced. It took
longer for the lights to return now.

1840
02:55:28,079 --> 02:55:31,159
When they did, Olli was curled
up on the floor like a dying bug,

1841
02:55:31,920 --> 02:55:37,479
face frozen in surprise and horror.
He was already pale as limestone,

1842
02:55:39,079 --> 02:55:43,840
his eyes glazed over, a single
tear in the corner of his frozen eye.

1843
02:55:45,239 --> 02:55:52,840
Dead as a doornail, the room
irrupted into panic. Jerry screamed at

1844
02:55:52,840 --> 02:55:56,639
them to stop. The twins headed
for the back door, only for the

1845
02:55:56,719 --> 02:56:01,159
lights to go out again. A
bull popped from the fridge, and I

1846
02:56:01,200 --> 02:56:05,879
could smell something burning. The scene
played out as if there was strobe light.

1847
02:56:07,799 --> 02:56:11,959
As light bulbs struggled to come back
to life, little snapshots of chaos

1848
02:56:13,440 --> 02:56:20,879
burned into my retinas. Chris dropped
immediately in the doorway. Corey made it

1849
02:56:20,920 --> 02:56:26,040
all the way back to the dinner
table before he collapsed, and impossibly long

1850
02:56:26,159 --> 02:56:31,719
arm touching the back of his head. He fell haphazardly forward, breaking the

1851
02:56:31,760 --> 02:56:35,760
two legs at the short end of
the table. He pulled down most of

1852
02:56:35,799 --> 02:56:41,000
the tablecloth, along with the plates
and glasses. Carefully prepared mimosas and half

1853
02:56:41,079 --> 02:56:46,920
drunk wine bottles spilled onto the floor, mixing with froth and dust. He

1854
02:56:48,079 --> 02:56:54,200
was dead before he hit the ground. Omar panicked but nearly managed to hold

1855
02:56:54,280 --> 02:56:58,520
him back. Jerry was hiding in
the corner. I was just standing there,

1856
02:57:00,239 --> 02:57:05,360
deer in headlights, trying to remember
how to breathe. I had never

1857
02:57:05,399 --> 02:57:11,799
been the one with a vital flight
instinct, like a genetic thing. Nellie

1858
02:57:11,840 --> 02:57:16,360
shook her head. I have to
do regular checkups for work, she said.

1859
02:57:16,799 --> 02:57:20,959
I got a clean bill. We
went through a checklist of things,

1860
02:57:20,479 --> 02:57:26,360
trying to figure out an answer to
why us. It was the only thing

1861
02:57:26,440 --> 02:57:30,760
we could do. Our phones were
dead, and no one dared to leave.

1862
02:57:31,200 --> 02:57:35,120
We just stood there, our thoughts
running away from us at the speed

1863
02:57:35,159 --> 02:57:41,760
of panic. It didn't make sense. We were different genders, backgrounds,

1864
02:57:41,840 --> 02:57:48,360
ethnicities, and religions, with different
occupations, aspirations, hopes, and dreams.

1865
02:57:48,319 --> 02:57:54,120
For all intents and purposes, we
were wildly different people. The only

1866
02:57:54,159 --> 02:58:00,760
thing tying us together was our association
with one another and our share time at

1867
02:58:00,799 --> 02:58:05,159
Tomskug High. At one point,
we'd all curled up against the walls.

1868
02:58:07,120 --> 02:58:11,479
I hugged my knees close to my
chest. I couldn't look at Jerry without

1869
02:58:11,479 --> 02:58:16,040
my eyes crossing paths with Corey's body
curled up like a dead bug, fingers

1870
02:58:16,120 --> 02:58:24,680
twisted and turned in a painful final
expression. I opted to just not look

1871
02:58:24,719 --> 02:58:31,000
at her, instead speaking generally to
the room. So that's it. Then,

1872
02:58:31,559 --> 02:58:35,639
I said, there's no reason.
We just screwed. We tried to

1873
02:58:35,760 --> 02:58:43,920
leave and were screwed. That can't
be said Omar. Then why wait,

1874
02:58:43,440 --> 02:58:48,959
why not just kill us? None
of this makes sense, muttered Nelly,

1875
02:58:48,159 --> 02:58:56,159
shaking her head. Why now,
that was a good question. We considered

1876
02:58:56,360 --> 02:59:00,719
what had been going on in our
lives lately. I mentioned moving into a

1877
02:59:00,760 --> 02:59:03,319
new house with my wife, who
started a new job as a realtor.

1878
02:59:05,280 --> 02:59:09,840
Nelly talked about accepting a position in
Minneapolis. Omar was moving to South Dakota

1879
02:59:09,920 --> 02:59:15,239
to be with her sick mother.
Jerry had been working remotely for a company

1880
02:59:15,239 --> 02:59:18,399
in Dallas for years, and only
recently they decided to enforce a return to

1881
02:59:18,440 --> 02:59:24,840
office policy. There were no obvious
patterns, relationships, families, jobs,

1882
02:59:26,719 --> 02:59:33,360
It all looked very different. Omar
tried a different approach. Maybe it's more

1883
02:59:33,440 --> 02:59:39,639
practical, he said, Maybe we
have to leave as a group. Why.

1884
02:59:39,799 --> 02:59:43,799
I don't know. I don't even
know what it is. So let's

1885
02:59:43,879 --> 02:59:48,719
look at it rather than us.
Let's look at what it's doing. I

1886
02:59:48,799 --> 02:59:54,879
said, it's keeping us here,
It wants us to be here. We're

1887
02:59:54,959 --> 03:00:00,000
safe now, right. We all
looked around as if to make a point,

1888
03:00:00,000 --> 03:00:07,879
and we were indeed safe for now, but despite it all. No

1889
03:00:07,920 --> 03:00:11,959
matter how much logic we tried to
apply to it, I couldn't wrap my

1890
03:00:11,000 --> 03:00:18,040
brain around what we'd been looking at. Some kind of otherworldly entity tearing through

1891
03:00:18,120 --> 03:00:28,040
us without any kind of retaliation,
or maybe there was. Nelly argued that

1892
03:00:28,079 --> 03:00:31,920
we should attack it. We'd seen
it, so it was some kind of

1893
03:00:31,959 --> 03:00:37,440
physical entity. It had a shape, a form that in itself should mean

1894
03:00:37,719 --> 03:00:43,040
that it could be destroyed. Slowly
getting off the floor, we looked at

1895
03:00:43,040 --> 03:00:50,000
what we had. A few broken
table legs as clubs. Jerry figured we

1896
03:00:50,000 --> 03:00:52,680
could try using salt, and as
it was supposed to have some sort of

1897
03:00:52,879 --> 03:00:58,719
supernatural properties on non worldly entities,
Oh my, figured trying a cross wouldn't

1898
03:00:58,760 --> 03:01:05,200
earth. We armed ourselves to the
best of our abilities, figuring we should

1899
03:01:05,239 --> 03:01:09,680
try something as a group. If
it really was a physical entity, that

1900
03:01:09,840 --> 03:01:16,559
meant it was constrained by its own
properties, meaning it couldn't catch all of

1901
03:01:16,639 --> 03:01:20,360
us at once, So instead of
moving as a pile of pigs through the

1902
03:01:20,399 --> 03:01:26,520
slaughter, we would spread out,
scattering to the wind. It was risky,

1903
03:01:28,440 --> 03:01:33,639
but who was all we got.
Omar positioned himself by the front door

1904
03:01:33,680 --> 03:01:37,159
with a table leg. Jerry got
the back door with a frying pan.

1905
03:01:39,000 --> 03:01:43,719
Nellie and I took windows on the
opposite side of the room. She armed

1906
03:01:43,760 --> 03:01:48,079
with another table leg well. I
used the roast pan as a shield and

1907
03:01:48,120 --> 03:01:54,520
a kitchen knife. We reviewed the
plan again. We would go on five,

1908
03:01:54,079 --> 03:01:58,879
heading in different directions. Once out
we would be calling for help.

1909
03:02:00,680 --> 03:02:05,319
If confronted by the entity, we'll
be using what we had to force it

1910
03:02:05,399 --> 03:02:09,760
back just enough to run. We
hadn't seen it move much, so maybe

1911
03:02:09,760 --> 03:02:16,159
it wasn't that fast. It was
a risky, stupid plan, but we

1912
03:02:16,159 --> 03:02:22,840
were desperate. Nellie counted down from
five. I held my hand on the

1913
03:02:22,879 --> 03:02:28,719
window, watching the other's follow suit. As the countdown continued, I could

1914
03:02:28,760 --> 03:02:33,239
feel the strength in my arm wane, like everything in me just wanted not

1915
03:02:33,319 --> 03:02:41,040
to run, but to crawl into
a corner and just wait. And yet

1916
03:02:41,879 --> 03:02:48,319
the countdown reached zero, Nellie flung
the window open, Omar kicked the front

1917
03:02:48,319 --> 03:02:54,639
door open, Jerry pushed into the
back door, and me I realized my

1918
03:02:54,840 --> 03:03:07,760
window was locked. The reaction was
immediate and violent. Out of every window

1919
03:03:07,959 --> 03:03:15,559
and every door, dozens of shade
like appendages appeared. Knife sharp, bonelike

1920
03:03:15,680 --> 03:03:20,440
fingers reached for us. The windows
blown apart by the pressure, covering my

1921
03:03:20,559 --> 03:03:26,399
hand in a hundred little cuts,
shattered pieces of glass boring into my hair.

1922
03:03:28,000 --> 03:03:33,360
I didn't fight that instinct just wasn't
there. I scrambled backwards, doing

1923
03:03:33,440 --> 03:03:39,879
exactly what my instinct taught me to, to make myself as small and invisible

1924
03:03:39,920 --> 03:03:46,879
as possible. Omar thought Nelly too. Jerry actually managed to hit something.

1925
03:03:46,719 --> 03:03:50,520
I could hear the thwunk of the
frying pan, but it was quick,

1926
03:03:52,760 --> 03:03:58,760
no screams. As the lights died, I saw Jerry's head being grasped as

1927
03:03:58,799 --> 03:04:03,559
she was dragged outside. Her heart
stopped before she even dropped the frying pan.

1928
03:04:03,760 --> 03:04:07,360
Nelly got half way across the room
before they got to her, making

1929
03:04:07,399 --> 03:04:13,879
a face plant into the hardwood floor
in a morbidly comical manner. An entire

1930
03:04:13,959 --> 03:04:20,760
life snuffed out, ending with an
embarrassing self inflicted nothing. Ohmar just stood

1931
03:04:20,760 --> 03:04:24,799
there as one of the things loomed
over him. It reached for him,

1932
03:04:24,920 --> 03:04:31,639
and he did nothing. It was
calm, collected, even reverent in a

1933
03:04:31,680 --> 03:04:37,280
way. But as what looked like
a thumb approached his forehead, he started

1934
03:04:37,319 --> 03:04:43,559
shaking his head. No, he
pleaded, no, I can't not like

1935
03:04:43,639 --> 03:04:50,959
this, and with that he fell
to the floor. Empty, They made

1936
03:04:52,079 --> 03:04:56,600
no sound. Dozens of dozens of
specters pulled into the room, surrounding me.

1937
03:04:58,079 --> 03:05:01,680
I wanted to screen. When my
breath was stuck in my throat.

1938
03:05:03,840 --> 03:05:07,120
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was so far from the world.

1939
03:05:07,159 --> 03:05:11,760
I knew that it started to feel
like a bad dream. It simply

1940
03:05:11,799 --> 03:05:18,280
couldn't be well and truly real.
But feeling that cold, hardwood floor against

1941
03:05:18,319 --> 03:05:24,280
my cheek made me think differently.
I looked up only to see one of

1942
03:05:24,280 --> 03:05:28,200
the specters looming over me, so
tall that its head cut through the ceiling.

1943
03:05:30,479 --> 03:05:33,559
It reached to me, a thumb
like appendage reaching for my forehead,

1944
03:05:35,760 --> 03:05:43,520
and in that moment it spoke to
me, less of a voice and more

1945
03:05:43,520 --> 03:05:50,760
of a series of impressions. It's
hard to explain. It showed me flashes

1946
03:05:50,799 --> 03:05:56,600
of a life me settling down with
my wife, growing little blue sunflowers in

1947
03:05:56,639 --> 03:06:01,120
the backyard, having kids, growing
old, and dying on a park bench

1948
03:06:01,200 --> 03:06:05,760
near Frog Lake, never leaving the
little Minnesota town where I'd grown up,

1949
03:06:05,840 --> 03:06:11,920
a long, peaceful and uneventful life, little spots of sunshine and joy along

1950
03:06:11,920 --> 03:06:20,000
a gray path. One I'd willingly
bind myself too. But then it showed

1951
03:06:20,040 --> 03:06:26,120
me something else, a different world
full of dark shapes, in an endless

1952
03:06:26,159 --> 03:06:33,920
desert of black sand. There I
wondered as another faceless thing, saying nothing,

1953
03:06:33,360 --> 03:06:41,799
doing nothing, and there was no
end, learning hellscapes where my flesh

1954
03:06:41,879 --> 03:06:46,559
was reforming as fast as it melted
from my bones in a perpetual cycle of

1955
03:06:46,600 --> 03:06:52,120
pain. In another place, I
was stuck in an empty, starless void,

1956
03:06:52,840 --> 03:06:58,760
where my being was spread among dying
stars, eternally drifting. In another

1957
03:06:58,120 --> 03:07:03,399
I was floating and a sensationless ocean, staring up at a night sky or

1958
03:07:03,440 --> 03:07:09,440
a single red eye, the sighs
of a moon stared back. I was

1959
03:07:09,479 --> 03:07:15,879
a consciousness bound as stages of life
I could never break free from. It

1960
03:07:16,000 --> 03:07:22,319
was an invitation. They were asking
me to stay here, there and forever.

1961
03:07:22,920 --> 03:07:30,120
That's what had killed the others.
They had wanted to leave. I

1962
03:07:30,239 --> 03:07:35,120
finally understood I wasn't running, I
wasn't leaving. I was staying in this

1963
03:07:35,239 --> 03:07:41,360
town, while the others had been
eager to settle elsewhere. But this invitation

1964
03:07:41,719 --> 03:07:48,600
wasn't just about me and they're here
and now. This was about an endless

1965
03:07:48,680 --> 03:07:54,479
multitude of existences waiting to happen,
one where an end was not promised a

1966
03:07:54,520 --> 03:08:01,319
perpetual me, bound to whatever form
necessary, like them, Like all of

1967
03:08:01,360 --> 03:08:07,680
them. I could feel myself shaking
my head into a no. I could

1968
03:08:07,680 --> 03:08:11,639
feel my tongue licking the roof of
my mouth, looking to push out that

1969
03:08:13,000 --> 03:08:22,280
n but I couldn't. I froze, Yes, I cried, Yes,

1970
03:08:22,639 --> 03:08:30,440
of course, A cold dumb touched
me as if drawing an invisible mark across

1971
03:08:30,479 --> 03:08:37,079
my forehead. And that was it. One by one they left. They

1972
03:08:37,200 --> 03:08:43,319
gained what they came for, a
recruit someone to stay with them, to

1973
03:08:43,440 --> 03:08:48,559
join their group at an unfathomable cost. The final one left, with the

1974
03:08:48,559 --> 03:08:56,600
breeze knocking over my Tomskock high baseball
cap home of the Togs. I just

1975
03:08:56,639 --> 03:09:03,479
stood there alone. Contorted remains of
people I used to know littered the floor

1976
03:09:03,559 --> 03:09:11,520
husks. The lights came back on, phones buzzing across the room, pings

1977
03:09:11,559 --> 03:09:18,000
from mist calls and messages. But
after all their notifications died down or that

1978
03:09:18,200 --> 03:09:26,319
was left. It was me,
sobbing on the floor, doomed. You

1979
03:09:26,440 --> 03:09:31,040
might have heard about all this,
but in another way, they blamed it

1980
03:09:31,079 --> 03:09:35,959
all on wine poisoning. There was
a sham investigation. I think something around

1981
03:09:35,959 --> 03:09:41,520
two thousand bottles were recalled. Not
a single soul believed my testimony, and

1982
03:09:41,600 --> 03:09:46,200
my lawyer recommended me to retract my
official statement, as it would either send

1983
03:09:46,200 --> 03:09:54,360
me to a madhouse or get me
in legal trouble perjury. Maybe instead I

1984
03:09:54,399 --> 03:09:58,559
said that I simply didn't drink any
wine, that I had settled for a

1985
03:09:58,600 --> 03:10:03,159
beer that in itself was a lie, but everyone was willing to believe it.

1986
03:10:05,360 --> 03:10:09,719
Perhaps they all knew there was more
to it, perhaps they didn't care.

1987
03:10:13,399 --> 03:10:16,319
A few years down the line,
now I have two daughters, I

1988
03:10:16,360 --> 03:10:20,360
have a nice job. My wife
and I get along well, caring for

1989
03:10:20,399 --> 03:10:26,319
the house together. It is a
good life. But I can't help but

1990
03:10:26,399 --> 03:10:33,399
to get that nagging feeling that I've
doomed myself, that there was something waiting

1991
03:10:33,440 --> 03:10:39,559
for me that I can't come back
from. That maybe at the end of

1992
03:10:39,600 --> 03:10:45,079
all this, I am the one
getting the raw deal and not the shriveled

1993
03:10:45,159 --> 03:10:52,120
up corpses that I left behind in
that clubhouse. They say that you never

1994
03:10:52,200 --> 03:10:56,200
really leave the small town life,
that it follows you through your life one

1995
03:10:56,239 --> 03:11:16,799
way or another. I never thought
it'd be this literal. My name is

1996
03:11:16,799 --> 03:11:20,040
Alex and for the past eight years
I've been a nine to one to one

1997
03:11:20,079 --> 03:11:26,120
dispatcher, I worked tirelessly in a
dimly lit room filled with glowing screens,

1998
03:11:26,399 --> 03:11:31,799
buzzing equipment, and low chatter.
Nearly every day I sit at my station

1999
03:11:33,239 --> 03:11:39,000
wearing a headset that connects me to
the voices of those in need. Working

2000
03:11:39,040 --> 03:11:43,639
as a dispatcher has changed me,
though. After handling countless emergency calls,

2001
03:11:45,399 --> 03:11:50,479
you develop a certain level of emotional
resilience. You have to. There's no

2002
03:11:50,600 --> 03:11:56,559
room for panic or hesitation when someone's
life is on the line. I've heard

2003
03:11:56,600 --> 03:12:01,239
the fear in people's voices, the
desperation that terror. I've listened to the

2004
03:12:01,319 --> 03:12:07,040
last words, sent help racing to
the location, and done everything in my

2005
03:12:07,159 --> 03:12:13,559
power to keep them calm until help
arrives. It's a heavy burden to bear,

2006
03:12:13,559 --> 03:12:20,239
but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Still, though it can get

2007
03:12:20,280 --> 03:12:24,319
to you, leave you in a
dour mindset at the end of a night.

2008
03:12:24,239 --> 03:12:31,000
Night spent drinking to forget some of
the more unforgiven circumstances that you endure

2009
03:12:31,040 --> 03:12:37,040
through the night. Life at the
Core Center has become a sort of second

2010
03:12:37,040 --> 03:12:41,680
home for me. I form close
bonds with my fellow dispatchers, sharing stories,

2011
03:12:41,879 --> 03:12:46,920
laughter, and tears during our long
shifts. Together, we've become a

2012
03:12:46,959 --> 03:12:52,719
tight knit family, supporting each other
through the emotional highs and lows that come

2013
03:12:52,760 --> 03:12:58,000
with a job. It's a demanding
career, one that often leaves me feeling

2014
03:12:58,040 --> 03:13:03,879
physically and emotionally drained the end of
a shift. But as I lay my

2015
03:13:03,920 --> 03:13:07,719
head down to rest each night,
I find solace in the knowledge that I've

2016
03:13:07,719 --> 03:13:15,040
made a difference in the lives of
those who needed me most. Sometimes it

2017
03:13:15,120 --> 03:13:18,159
feels like a thankless job, one
where I just tether the right people to

2018
03:13:18,200 --> 03:13:24,159
whoever's in trouble. But at times
I get to be the voice that stays

2019
03:13:24,159 --> 03:13:30,280
on the line during a traumatic moment, which spurs me on. I remember

2020
03:13:30,799 --> 03:13:35,360
it was a cold, rainy night
in October when I received the strangest call

2021
03:13:35,520 --> 03:13:41,840
of my career. My shift had
started as usual. It was a week

2022
03:13:41,920 --> 03:13:46,000
day, so the first few hours
had been relatively quiet. I just settled

2023
03:13:46,000 --> 03:13:52,719
in with a fresh cup of coffee
and the phone rang. Glancing at the

2024
03:13:52,760 --> 03:13:56,879
caller id, I was confused that
it was coming from my own number.

2025
03:13:58,120 --> 03:14:01,159
I tap my phone, which was
face upon my desk, to see it

2026
03:14:01,200 --> 03:14:05,959
was idle on the log screen,
no pocket dial going out despite it being

2027
03:14:07,000 --> 03:14:15,760
impossible anyway, so I hesitated for
a moment before answering the call. As

2028
03:14:15,799 --> 03:14:18,600
I picked up the call, my
mind raised with thoughts of why there would

2029
03:14:18,680 --> 03:14:24,600
happen. Maybe it was a similar
number off by one digit that I'd misread

2030
03:14:24,639 --> 03:14:30,280
at a glance, or a simple
mistake on the system. Either way,

2031
03:14:30,639 --> 03:14:37,159
my mouth autopiloted the opening words that
I'd said a thousand times over nine one

2032
03:14:37,200 --> 03:14:43,639
one, What is your emergency?
The voice on the other end of the

2033
03:14:43,719 --> 03:14:50,840
line was unmistakably mine, which sent
a chill down my spine. It was

2034
03:14:50,879 --> 03:14:56,159
full of fear and panic. Alex, I needed to listen to me.

2035
03:14:56,440 --> 03:14:58,840
I don't have much time. There's
going to be an accident on the corner

2036
03:14:58,840 --> 03:15:03,879
of Oaken Elm in ten minutes.
You have to warn the authorities and get

2037
03:15:03,920 --> 03:15:09,600
them there before it happens. Lives
are at stake. I was dumbfounded.

2038
03:15:11,440 --> 03:15:15,600
The voice sounded so much like my
own that it was impossible to believe it

2039
03:15:15,639 --> 03:15:20,520
could be anyone else. As the
fear in the voice gripped me, I

2040
03:15:20,559 --> 03:15:24,159
felt my own fear rising. I
knew I couldn't afford to let it cloud

2041
03:15:24,200 --> 03:15:31,479
my judgment, though maintaining composure was
a core part of the job. Who

2042
03:15:31,559 --> 03:15:35,719
is this, I asked, hesitantly. Just trust me, Alex, The

2043
03:15:35,799 --> 03:15:39,639
voice implored, you'll understand later.
Please just send help to Oak and Elm.

2044
03:15:41,200 --> 03:15:48,479
You can prevent a tragedy. Before
I could respond, the line went

2045
03:15:48,559 --> 03:15:54,040
dead. I stared at the phone, my hands shaking, my thoughts a

2046
03:15:54,159 --> 03:15:58,920
whirlwind of confusion and fear. My
instincts as a dispatcher urged me to treat

2047
03:16:00,079 --> 03:16:05,200
the callers legitimate. A part of
me couldn't help but question the bizarre circumstances.

2048
03:16:07,399 --> 03:16:11,200
With a deep breath, I decided
to trust the voice and dispatched the

2049
03:16:11,200 --> 03:16:16,280
emergency services to the intersection. As
I did, I couldn't shake the feeling

2050
03:16:16,440 --> 03:16:22,719
of discomfort. It only just hit
me that he knew my name, adding

2051
03:16:22,760 --> 03:16:31,600
more to the pile of mysteries.
I anxiously awaited an update from the responders,

2052
03:16:31,040 --> 03:16:37,159
hoping beyond hope that I had made
the right choice. When the radio

2053
03:16:37,280 --> 03:16:41,559
crackled to life, confirming that a
major accident had indeed occurred at the exact

2054
03:16:41,600 --> 03:16:48,079
location and time the voice had predicted, my heart dropped. I was flooded

2055
03:16:48,120 --> 03:16:52,840
with relief that I had taken the
warning seriously, but at the same time,

2056
03:16:54,360 --> 03:16:58,760
the sense of dread gnawed at me. If the voice had been right

2057
03:16:58,799 --> 03:17:05,559
about the accident, what else did
it know. Just as I was beginning

2058
03:17:05,559 --> 03:17:11,000
to process the implications of the first
call, the phone rang again. My

2059
03:17:11,079 --> 03:17:15,600
heart leaped into my throat as I
saw my own number displayed once more.

2060
03:17:16,719 --> 03:17:20,000
The fear and anxiety that had been
building within me threatened to overtake me,

2061
03:17:20,840 --> 03:17:26,600
but I knew that I couldn't let
it. I'd been witnessed to so many

2062
03:17:26,719 --> 03:17:31,399
dramatic calls that I had a strong
resolve, and I pulled on that experience

2063
03:17:31,639 --> 03:17:37,719
to push me to do my job
despite the horrendously terrifying situation. With a

2064
03:17:37,760 --> 03:17:43,000
trembling hand, I picked up the
call, praying for answers and stealing myself

2065
03:17:43,280 --> 03:17:50,559
for whatever came next. Alex,
the voice urgently whispered, I know you're

2066
03:17:50,600 --> 03:17:54,920
scared, and I know this is
difficult to believe, but you have to

2067
03:17:54,959 --> 03:17:58,479
trust me as a woman named Sarah
who will call you in exactly three minutes.

2068
03:18:00,200 --> 03:18:03,760
Her abusive ex boyfriend is trying to
break into her apartment. She'll be

2069
03:18:03,799 --> 03:18:07,639
hiding in the closet. Tell her
to stay quiet and send the police to

2070
03:18:07,680 --> 03:18:13,120
her dress immediately. As I listened
to the voice. My emotions were a

2071
03:18:13,159 --> 03:18:20,200
swirling tempest of disbelief and concern.
I was terrified by the unexplainable connection I

2072
03:18:20,239 --> 03:18:24,520
seemed to share with this caller,
But at the same time, I couldn't

2073
03:18:24,559 --> 03:18:28,840
ignore the fact that if the first
call was legitimate, then there were potential

2074
03:18:28,879 --> 03:18:33,639
lives at stake. I felt in
immense pressure to make the right decision.

2075
03:18:35,200 --> 03:18:39,399
Who are you, I asked again, my voice wavering, How do you

2076
03:18:39,479 --> 03:18:45,760
know all this? I can't explain
everything right now, but I promise you'll

2077
03:18:45,799 --> 03:18:50,520
understand soon. The voice replied,
a hint of desperation creeping in, almost

2078
03:18:50,600 --> 03:19:00,920
matching my own. Please just trust
me. Once again, line went dead,

2079
03:19:01,479 --> 03:19:05,559
leaving me with nothing but my racing
thoughts and the dull hum of the

2080
03:19:05,600 --> 03:19:11,280
call center around me. As the
second sticked by, I felt a growing

2081
03:19:11,360 --> 03:19:16,959
sense of her knease, the tension
in the room almost palpable. I glanced

2082
03:19:16,959 --> 03:19:20,280
around at my colleagues, wondering if
they were having as similar experience as me.

2083
03:19:22,760 --> 03:19:26,840
After the longest three minutes of my
life, just as the voice had

2084
03:19:26,879 --> 03:19:33,479
predicted, Sarah's call came through.
Her panicked voice echoed in my ear,

2085
03:19:33,000 --> 03:19:39,000
and I knew that I couldn't ignore
the warning I'd been given. I guided

2086
03:19:39,120 --> 03:19:43,040
Sarah through the terrifying ordeal, keeping
her calm as I dispatched the police to

2087
03:19:43,079 --> 03:19:48,319
a location, all the while my
own emotions threatened to bubble to the surface,

2088
03:19:50,040 --> 03:19:56,840
a strange sense of connection to this
woman I'd never met. When I

2089
03:19:56,879 --> 03:20:01,120
received the confirmation that Sarah had been
safely rescued and her ex boyfriend apprehended,

2090
03:20:01,719 --> 03:20:07,120
a wave of relief washed over me. But that relief was short lived as

2091
03:20:07,159 --> 03:20:13,079
the way of the situation continued to
bear down on me. The voice on

2092
03:20:13,120 --> 03:20:16,319
the phone had known these events would
happen, and I couldn't shake the feeling

2093
03:20:16,600 --> 03:20:24,479
that there was more to come.
It wasn't long before the third call came.

2094
03:20:24,719 --> 03:20:28,840
My heart was leaping as my own
number appeared on the screen once more.

2095
03:20:31,159 --> 03:20:35,879
I hesitated for a moment, my
hand hovering over the phone. I

2096
03:20:35,920 --> 03:20:39,639
felt a deep sense of dread,
which screamed at me to tear my hand

2097
03:20:39,680 --> 03:20:45,280
away. But I couldn't ignore the
call, not when lives were potentially on

2098
03:20:45,319 --> 03:20:52,040
the line. Swallowing hard, I
picked up the receiver and braced myself for

2099
03:20:52,159 --> 03:20:58,760
what was to come. Alex,
Alex, the voice said, now sounding

2100
03:20:58,799 --> 03:21:01,600
more urgent than ever. You need
to leave the call center right now.

2101
03:21:01,920 --> 03:21:05,879
There's a gas leak in the building. It's going to explode in less than

2102
03:21:05,879 --> 03:21:11,639
five minutes. You have to get
everyone out. My blood ran cold as

2103
03:21:11,680 --> 03:21:16,200
the gravity of the situation hit me
like a ton of bricks. Everything that

2104
03:21:16,280 --> 03:21:20,920
had been building within me throughout the
night threatened to overwhelm me. But I

2105
03:21:20,959 --> 03:21:26,520
knew I couldn't let it. I
had to act quick. How do you

2106
03:21:26,559 --> 03:21:31,879
know this, I demanded, my
voice trembling. Who are you the voice

2107
03:21:33,079 --> 03:21:35,959
now? Frantic replied, don't freak
out, Alex. There isn't time.

2108
03:21:37,399 --> 03:21:41,159
I'm you. I'm calling from the
future. I know this is hard to

2109
03:21:41,200 --> 03:21:43,559
believe, but you have to trust
me. There's no time to explain.

2110
03:21:45,079 --> 03:21:52,000
You need to evacuate the building right
now. My mind raised as I tried

2111
03:21:52,040 --> 03:21:56,680
to process what I was hearing.
Was it really possible that I was speaking

2112
03:21:56,680 --> 03:22:00,959
to myself from the future. The
notion seemed too real to be true,

2113
03:22:01,520 --> 03:22:05,440
yet the evidence was impossible to ignore. I had to make a decision,

2114
03:22:05,879 --> 03:22:11,799
and I had to make it quickly. Feeling the weight of responsibility bearing down

2115
03:22:11,840 --> 03:22:16,360
on me, I made my choice. I slammed down the receiver and jumped

2116
03:22:16,399 --> 03:22:22,399
to my feet, my heart pounding
as I rushed to alert my colleagues with

2117
03:22:22,479 --> 03:22:28,000
a frantic and confused evacuation, hailed
by constant questions from everyone moving past me,

2118
03:22:28,000 --> 03:22:33,799
I was too deep in thought to
explain anything to them. Many protested,

2119
03:22:33,239 --> 03:22:37,879
knowing how important the job was and
to leave the center was a huge

2120
03:22:37,000 --> 03:22:43,239
endangerment to the people in need,
but I just layered on the urgency until

2121
03:22:43,280 --> 03:22:50,479
they too left. We barely made
it out in time. As we watched

2122
03:22:50,520 --> 03:22:54,959
from a safe distance, the building
was engulfed in flames, the explosion shaking

2123
03:22:56,000 --> 03:23:01,959
the very ground beneath our feet.
I stood there, my fellow dispatchers huddled

2124
03:23:01,000 --> 03:23:13,479
around me, their faces etched with
shock and relief. As the reality of

2125
03:23:13,559 --> 03:23:18,159
what had just happened began to sink
in, I found myself grappling with a

2126
03:23:18,159 --> 03:23:24,239
whirlwind of emotions, relief that we
had all escaped unharmed, gratitude to the

2127
03:23:24,319 --> 03:23:28,000
voice that had warn me, and
a lingering sense of disbelief that I had

2128
03:23:28,000 --> 03:23:33,120
truly been communicating with my future self. When asked how I knew what was

2129
03:23:33,200 --> 03:23:39,239
going to happen, I gave some
half hearted response about smelling something, but

2130
03:23:39,399 --> 03:23:45,840
most people were too much in shock
to probe further than that. But amidst

2131
03:23:45,840 --> 03:23:52,959
the chaos and confusion, one thing
became clear. I been given a gift,

2132
03:23:52,920 --> 03:23:56,440
a chance to changed the course of
my life and the lives of those

2133
03:23:56,479 --> 03:24:03,120
around me, and I knew I
couldn't let that gift go to waste.

2134
03:24:05,319 --> 03:24:09,040
In the days that followed the explosion, I found myself consumed by the events

2135
03:24:09,040 --> 03:24:13,680
that had transpired. The voice on
the phone, my own voice, had

2136
03:24:13,719 --> 03:24:18,719
saved countless lives, including my own, and although I struggled to wrap my

2137
03:24:18,760 --> 03:24:24,559
head around the concept of communicating with
my future self, I couldn't deny the

2138
03:24:24,600 --> 03:24:28,040
reality of what had happened. As
I tried to come to terms with the

2139
03:24:28,079 --> 03:24:33,920
situation, I realized that the knowledge
I had gained could be both a blessing

2140
03:24:33,120 --> 03:24:39,399
and a curse. I was suddenly
faced with the daunting responsibility of this secret

2141
03:24:39,440 --> 03:24:43,000
knowledge, and I couldn't shake the
feeling that every decision I made could have

2142
03:24:43,159 --> 03:24:50,159
life altering consequences. The weight of
that responsibility felt like an immense burden,

2143
03:24:50,680 --> 03:24:56,559
but I couldn't let my fear hold
me back. I knew that I potentially

2144
03:24:56,719 --> 03:25:01,479
had a unique opportunity to make a
difference to those who needed it most.

2145
03:25:01,760 --> 03:25:07,719
And so with each passing day,
I found myself more determined than ever to

2146
03:25:07,799 --> 03:25:13,600
trust the voice and see if I
can use these calls for good. A

2147
03:25:13,680 --> 03:25:18,760
nearby building was rented and very quickly
set up to take dispatcher calls. It

2148
03:25:18,840 --> 03:25:24,000
was necessity, so no expense was
spared in getting the setup expedited. I

2149
03:25:24,079 --> 03:25:28,879
dove head first into my work,
answering calls with a renewed sense of purpose

2150
03:25:30,000 --> 03:25:35,600
and urgency. I kept a close
eye on the caller id, always anticipating

2151
03:25:35,680 --> 03:25:39,239
the next mysterious call from my future
self, and when those calls came,

2152
03:25:39,840 --> 03:25:45,719
I heeded their warnings without hesitation,
trusting my own voice to guide me.

2153
03:25:48,000 --> 03:25:52,319
I found myself constantly on edge.
I felt a deep sense of loneliness,

2154
03:25:52,760 --> 03:25:56,440
knowing that I couldn't share my secret
with anyone, not even my closest colleagues.

2155
03:26:00,120 --> 03:26:03,840
The days turned into weeks, I
began to see the impact of my

2156
03:26:03,920 --> 03:26:11,239
actions. Lives were saved, tragedies
subverted, and hope restored. And with

2157
03:26:11,319 --> 03:26:16,360
each success, I found my confidence
growing, my fears slowly giving way to

2158
03:26:16,440 --> 03:26:20,120
a sense of pride and accomplishment.
I knew that I was walking a fine

2159
03:26:20,159 --> 03:26:26,360
line, playing with forces that I
couldn't fully understand, but in my heart

2160
03:26:26,719 --> 03:26:31,000
I believed that I was doing the
right thing. No one suspected anything.

2161
03:26:33,120 --> 03:26:37,399
Often, the dispatcher is simply the
bridge between the caller and the services,

2162
03:26:37,159 --> 03:26:41,000
so it was easy to think that
it was a coincidence that I had simply

2163
03:26:41,040 --> 03:26:46,040
been the one to pick up the
phone. As I continued to heed the

2164
03:26:46,079 --> 03:26:50,840
warnings from my stranger self, I
came to understand that the greatest power I

2165
03:26:50,920 --> 03:26:56,000
possessed wasn't the ability to predict the
future or change the course of events.

2166
03:26:56,719 --> 03:27:01,360
Rather, it was the power of
choice, the choice to trust an urgent

2167
03:27:01,440 --> 03:27:07,920
voice to embrace the unknown. One
night, as I sat at my station,

2168
03:27:09,680 --> 03:27:15,159
the phone rang once again, this
time displaying an unknown number. I

2169
03:27:15,239 --> 03:27:18,559
read it in anticipation. As I
picked up the receiver, the voice and

2170
03:27:18,639 --> 03:27:24,360
the other end was familiar, but
off, as if it wasn't quite human.

2171
03:27:26,360 --> 03:27:31,680
Alex, the voice growled, you've
grown complacent. There's a terrible future

2172
03:27:31,719 --> 03:27:37,719
ahead of you. I've seen it, and you must prevent it. Drette

2173
03:27:37,799 --> 03:27:43,000
washed over me, my mind raising
as I tried to figure what was happening

2174
03:27:43,040 --> 03:27:48,559
this time. Was this another version
of myself? I listened cautiously as the

2175
03:27:48,639 --> 03:27:56,239
voice continued. Over the course of
several calls, the voice provided cryptic warnings

2176
03:27:56,239 --> 03:28:01,760
and riddles, each one hinting at
a potential disaster or tragedy that I needed

2177
03:28:01,760 --> 03:28:07,399
to avert. At first, the
instructions seemed relatively benign. In the first

2178
03:28:07,440 --> 03:28:11,280
call, the voice told me about
an argument that was about to take place

2179
03:28:11,559 --> 03:28:16,040
between two of my close friends,
which would lead to the end of their

2180
03:28:16,079 --> 03:28:20,479
friendship. It gave me the exact
time and location to intervene and mediate the

2181
03:28:20,520 --> 03:28:26,959
conflict. I hesitantly followed the instructions, and to my surprise, I managed

2182
03:28:26,959 --> 03:28:31,920
to prevent the fallout between them.
The second call, the voice directed me

2183
03:28:31,959 --> 03:28:37,159
to leave an anonymous tip to the
police about an elderly neighbor who was at

2184
03:28:37,239 --> 03:28:41,040
risk of a gas leak in a
home. The voice claimed that if I

2185
03:28:41,079 --> 03:28:46,799
didn't act, she would suffer a
terrible accident. I wrestled with the decision,

2186
03:28:46,239 --> 03:28:50,680
but eventually decided to make the call. The next day, I found

2187
03:28:50,719 --> 03:28:54,719
out that the police had indeed discovered
a gas leak in a home and had

2188
03:28:54,760 --> 03:29:01,959
it repaired just in time. As
the calls continue nude, the voice's aggression

2189
03:29:01,040 --> 03:29:07,280
and demands began to escalate. It
instructed me to break into a coworker's home

2190
03:29:07,319 --> 03:29:11,200
to find evidence of a conspiracy plot, convincing me that the coworker was planning

2191
03:29:11,239 --> 03:29:18,000
something malicious that would affect many people. Reluctantly, I obliged, only to

2192
03:29:18,079 --> 03:29:24,159
find seemingly inconclusive evidence, which made
me question my actions and the tips I

2193
03:29:24,200 --> 03:29:30,680
was getting. The next call pushed
me further, urging me to sabotage the

2194
03:29:30,719 --> 03:29:35,079
breaks of a car to prevent an
accident that would lead to a catastrophic chain

2195
03:29:35,159 --> 03:29:43,639
reaction. Each instruction was darker than
the last, leaving me increasingly lost compared

2196
03:29:43,680 --> 03:29:48,920
to the first Alex that was calling
me. Still, though there was a

2197
03:29:48,040 --> 03:29:52,440
chance that I was still doing good, the glimmer of hope sparked by the

2198
03:29:52,520 --> 03:29:58,520
many calls, still stuck in my
heart. Fearing the consequences of not heeding

2199
03:29:58,600 --> 03:30:01,520
the warnings, I became and to
follow the voice's instructions to the letter,

2200
03:30:03,319 --> 03:30:09,239
even when they involved morally questionable actions. As I did, I felt my

2201
03:30:09,280 --> 03:30:15,239
relationships with friends, family, and
co workers deteriorate, leaving me isolated and

2202
03:30:15,319 --> 03:30:22,319
paranoid. As I continued to follow
the voices instructions and nag in, doubt

2203
03:30:22,479 --> 03:30:26,719
started to grow in the back of
my mind. I couldn't help but question

2204
03:30:26,959 --> 03:30:33,319
whether the voice was genuinely another version
myself or something more sinister. The line

2205
03:30:33,360 --> 03:30:37,079
between right and wrong had been blurred, and I struggled to make sense of

2206
03:30:37,159 --> 03:30:43,399
the chaos that had enveloped my life. Feeling increasingly lost and desperate, I

2207
03:30:43,479 --> 03:30:48,920
decided to do some research, hoping
to financewers or any explanation for the bizarre

2208
03:30:48,920 --> 03:30:54,120
events that had been occurring. I
had to dredge through many hoaxes, correct

2209
03:30:54,120 --> 03:31:00,639
parts of keyboards, and straight up
other worldly conspiracies. In my search,

2210
03:31:01,280 --> 03:31:07,520
I stumbled upon a concept called tulpa, a sentient being created from the collective

2211
03:31:07,639 --> 03:31:13,840
thoughts, believes an energy of its
creator. According to the information I found,

2212
03:31:15,280 --> 03:31:20,600
a tulpa can become powerful and independent, even capable of interacting with the

2213
03:31:20,600 --> 03:31:24,840
physical world. The more I read, the more I became convinced that the

2214
03:31:24,920 --> 03:31:31,879
voice on the phone was a tulpa. I had inadvertently created. My loneliness

2215
03:31:31,959 --> 03:31:37,360
and the emotional turmoil of working in
the emergency Dispatcher Center had given birth to

2216
03:31:37,440 --> 03:31:41,000
this entity, which had begun to
take on a life of its own,

2217
03:31:41,000 --> 03:31:46,040
something that had been masquerading as my
future self all along. It had been

2218
03:31:46,159 --> 03:31:50,799
using me as a pawn to create
scenarios that brought suffering, feeding on the

2219
03:31:50,840 --> 03:31:58,079
emotional highs and lows it had caused. With this revelation, I knew I

2220
03:31:58,079 --> 03:32:03,719
had to take control of the situation
and reclaim my life. I understood that

2221
03:32:03,799 --> 03:32:07,440
it fed and my fear, despair, and loneliness. So I had to

2222
03:32:07,440 --> 03:32:13,719
face my emotions and confront the entity
head on. I waited for the next

2223
03:32:13,760 --> 03:32:18,319
call. My anxiety was through the
roof as I prepared to confront it,

2224
03:32:20,159 --> 03:32:24,879
though now for different reasons. When
the phone rang, I answered it without

2225
03:32:24,879 --> 03:32:33,159
hesitation, asserting my new found determination. I know what you are, I

2226
03:32:33,239 --> 03:32:37,120
told a voice firmly, and I
won't let you control me any longer.

2227
03:32:39,280 --> 03:32:43,680
It laughed, attempting to undermine my
resolve. You think you can just get

2228
03:32:43,760 --> 03:32:48,799
rid of me, Alex. I'm
part of you, you know, I

2229
03:32:48,840 --> 03:32:54,559
said in my voice, focusing on
staying strong. I created you, and

2230
03:32:54,639 --> 03:33:01,680
I can unmake you. I won't
let you hurt anyone else. I hung

2231
03:33:01,760 --> 03:33:07,920
up and carried on through my shift
with a forced composure, realizing that I

2232
03:33:07,959 --> 03:33:11,680
had to weaken it by depriving it
of the negative emotions it fed upon.

2233
03:33:11,680 --> 03:33:18,200
I began to reconnect with friends and
family, rebuilding the relationships I had neglected

2234
03:33:18,600 --> 03:33:22,959
while under this thing's influence. I
saw professional help to cope with the emotional

2235
03:33:24,040 --> 03:33:31,000
stress and loneliness I had experienced as
a result of my job. Over time,

2236
03:33:31,479 --> 03:33:37,319
the callless power waned. The scenarios
it called in were more and more

2237
03:33:37,440 --> 03:33:41,520
mundane, until all it could conjure
was a cat stuck in a tree.

2238
03:33:41,920 --> 03:33:48,559
As I continued to cultivate positive connections
and emotions, its voice grew weaker with

2239
03:33:48,639 --> 03:33:52,840
each call. As it became increasingly
desperate to maintain its grip on me,

2240
03:33:54,159 --> 03:33:56,760
I knew that I had to sever
the connection completely to put an end to

2241
03:33:56,840 --> 03:34:03,200
its existence. One night, I
received the final call from my number.

2242
03:34:05,559 --> 03:34:11,319
I faced it with a sense of
calm and determination. This is the end,

2243
03:34:11,959 --> 03:34:16,440
I told the voice firmly. I've
taken back control of my life and

2244
03:34:16,520 --> 03:34:20,959
you no longer have power over me. The talber's voice faded into a whisper,

2245
03:34:22,559 --> 03:34:28,479
its existence flickering on the edge of
oblivion. You can't do this,

2246
03:34:30,760 --> 03:34:35,840
but I had already made my choice. Goodbye, I said, and hung

2247
03:34:35,920 --> 03:34:45,360
up the phone for the last time. From then on, it was gone,

2248
03:34:46,360 --> 03:34:50,520
vanished from my life forever, I
faced my inner demons come real,

2249
03:34:50,840 --> 03:34:58,239
and conquered them, emerging stronger and
more resilient than before. Ther Deal had

2250
03:34:58,280 --> 03:35:03,479
taught me valuable lessons about the power
of emotions and the importance of staying connected

2251
03:35:03,639 --> 03:35:07,719
with the people I cared about.
As I moved forward with my life,

2252
03:35:09,559 --> 03:35:13,719
I carried the lessons I had learned
with me, determined to use them to

2253
03:35:13,760 --> 03:35:16,479
shape a brighter and more fulfilling future.