Speaker 1: I worked the night shift at a small, run down
gas station on the edge of a highway that hardly
sees any traffic past midnight. Its mediocre place at best,
no security cameras, half the lights flickering like the dying,
and a bathroom that no one in the right mind
would use. Most of the time, my shift is dead, silent,
truckers stopped to grab coffee and stretch the legs, and
locals come in every once in a while, but after
one am the place becomes a ghost town. It's just me,
the buzzing of the old fluorescent lights, and the occasional
coyote howling in the distance. That's why it stood out
immediately when someone walked in on foot at exactly two
a m. I was leaning back in my chair, absently
flicking through my phone when the chime above the door rang.
I barely looked up at first, expecting the usual, a
trucker grabbing coffee, some lost traveler asking for directions. But
when I finally glanced toward the entrance, I saw him
for the first time. No headlights in the lot, no
car idling at the pumps, just a man standing in
the doorway, dripping in the station sickly fluorescent lights. He
was thin, hunched slightly, like he'd been walking for miles.
His clothes were ordinary enough, dark jeans stained with leaves
and mud at the bottom, a gray hut he pulled
over his head. He smelt faintly of gasoline. He took slow,
dragging steps toward the counter. I cleared my throat, ay man,
how's it going? No response? You need something? He didn't blink,
just reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumbled twenty
dollar bill and set it on the counter. One gallon,
he muttered with a hoarse voice. I waited for him
to say something else, maybe explain why he was on
foot or where his car was, But he just stood there.
You good dude. I tried again, ringing up the sail. Nothing.
I slid his change across the counter, and he picked
it up without counting it. Outside, through the station's dirty
front windows, I watched him take an old, battered Jerry
can from beside the pumps. The thing was weathered, sun bleached,
cracked in spots. I figured he probably had a car
stranded nearby. Maybe he was just mad or embarrassed. Honestly,
I didn't care as long as he paid. Whatever he
did with the fuel wasn't my problem. The next night,
at exactly two a m. The door chime rang again.
I looked up from where I was restocking cigarettes behind
the counter, my stomach twisting before I fully registered why
it was him, same hunched posture. I set the cartiner
smokestown and straightened up, watching him closely as he stepped
forward and wordlessly slipped the crumpled twenty dollar bill across
the counter. One gallon, he muttered. I hesitated, before punching
the sail. Something about him didn't feel right. You got
a car this time, I asked, keeping my tone light.
He didn't respond. His fingers twitched slightly where they rested
on the counter. I licked my lips and rang him up,
keeping my eye on his face as I slid his
change across the counter. But he didn't even glance down.
He just grabbed the coins and left outside. I watched
through the grimy front window as he made his way
back toward the pumps. He picked it up and filled
it carefully, watching as the fuel poured into the old,
cracked plastic. I noticed then how discolored his hands were, grimy,
with dark stains under his nails like he'd been working
with oil. I turned away as he capped the canister,
telling myself once again that it wasn't my problem. The
first time I hadn't. Really he paid attention to which
direction he was headed in for this time, curiosity got
the better of me. I expected him to head for
the highway. Maybe there was a car waiting down the
road out of sight, maybe someone was picking him up.
But he didn't go toward the road at all. Instead,
he moved toward the woods, the thick line of black
trees beyond the gas station. I just watched him go,
not quite sure what to think. He stepped past the
last pump, past the edge of the lot, and into
the grass, moving at the pace of a snail. I
waited for him to hesitate, to glance over his shoulder,
to acknowledge that he was leaving the only light for
miles behind him, But he never did. He just kept walking,
kept moving deeper and deeper into the trees, until the
darkness swallowed him whole, and he never looked back. He
came back the next night and the night after that.
Every time it was exactly the same. Two a m
one gallon, always cash, always silent. I honestly tried ignoring him.
I get plenty of weird people here at times, and besides,
people have routines, and maybe this was just his. But
the longer it went on, the harder it was to
shake the feeling that something was wrong. I started paying
closer attention. I listened for a car engine approaching in
the distance before he arrived. There never was one. I
glanced out or the pumps after he left, expecting headlights
flashing on the tree line. Nothing. I even shake the
back of the gas station once, just to see if
maybe somehow he was parking in the darkness behind the building,
but it was always empty. All I knew for certain
was that he came from somewhere, and when he left,
he went back to it. Most of my shifts from
then on were focused on keeping track of him. As
soon as it hit the tree line. He wouldn't come
back for the rest of my shift until the following one.
One night, around midnight, a regular truckers stopped in for
coffee and smokes. His name was Frank, and he was
the kind of guy who talked to fill the silence. Normally,
I let him ramble while I half listened that night, though,
as he was stirring sugar into his coffee, he glanced
out toward the empty parking lot and said, Hey, you're
still getting that weird guy at two. I blinked, you've
seen him? Frank shrugged, taking a sip. Couple nights back. Heah,
I don't think you were on shift. Who's that weird
kid that works on the weekends? Now? It was sparked
outside taking a break when he showed up. No car,
just walked right up and bought gas. He chuckled, shaking
his head. Figured maybe his truck broke down somewhere, but
I didn't see one on the road when I pulled
in here. Local, no idea, I admitted. Frank took another
long sip before muttering, creepy guy, ain't he? I didn't
have an answer for that. A few nights later, a
man came in looking for a can of fixer flat.
Older guy, probably mid sixties, wearing a denim jacket that
looked as worn out as he did. He paid in
crumpled bills, then lingered at the counter, watching as the
man in the hood. He walked back out into the
darkness with his filled Jerry can. The older guy squinted. Hah, huh,
what I asked? He rubbed a hand over his jaw,
his gaze still following the figure as he disappeared past
the tree line. I've been in this area a long
time now, still see him here frequently. That got my attention.
How long is a long time? He glanced at me,
a solemn expression adorning his face. Then he grabbed his
bag and said, long time. Guy doesn't seem to age.
And if he does, boy does he age well. The
door chime rang as he walked out. I stood there,
hands resting on the counter, my skin crawling. Right after
the men left and the station had gone quiet again,
I pulled the transaction records from the last few weeks
and flipped through them every night, one gallon, always between
two and two three am. I kept going, flipping back
through the old log books, same entry every night, weeks, months, years.
I traced the records back as far as they went.
The digital ones only went as far back as twenty thirteen,
so I had to dig up an actual physical one
from the back. My fingers were stiff from gripping the old,
yellowed pages. The earliest entry I found was dated October nineteenth,
nineteen ninety seven one gallon cash, and that was only
as far as the log books went. I stared at
the numbers on the page, my mind racing. I had
only been working here a few months. Maybe the guy
before me knew more. I reached for my phone and
pulled up Jerry's number, the other night shift guy. He
worked here for seven years. I'd only ever spoken to
him once, when he handed me the keys of my
first night Still, I hesitated. How do you even ask
someone about something like this? It was nearly three in
the morning, and I felt like an idiot for even
thinking about making this call. But as much as I
hated to admit, it was starting to get under my skin.
I took a breath and dialed. The phone rang twice
before a groggy voice answered, hullo, hey Jerry. Sorry, I
know it's late. There was a pause, a sigh here
you don't say what's up? I just I hesitated, feeling
even dombin now that I had him on the line.
I just had a question about the gas station, about
some one who comes in at night. Another pause. I
could hear him shifting, probably sitting up in bed, which
some one A guy shows up every night around two
by his exactly one gallon walks off into the woods
behind the station. Ah, Jerry finally said, yeah, that guy,
So you know who I'm talking about. The manager mentioned
him when I first started, he said, figured i'd see
him eventually, and yeah, sure enough, every night I worked,
he showed up, never missed the night, never said more
than a few words. I let out of breath. I
hadn't realized I was holding. So what's his deal? Jerry
led out a short laugh. And if I know, nobody does.
He's just kind of an unspoken tradition for the night shift.
Unspoken tradition. Yeah, I mean at first it wirded me out,
but after a while he was just part of the routine.
Didn't matter if it was raining snowing, didn't matter if
the whole highway was shut down. That guy would still
show up by his gallon walk off. Did you ever
ask him anything? Of course I did, Jerry said. First
time I saw him. I tried to be friendly, asked
if he needed a ride, asked where his car was. Nothing,
just stared at me, paid for his gas and left,
not a word, not a damn thing. Eventually, I just
stopped trying it. Was like talking to a brick wall,
I exhaled through my nose. You ever think about following him?
I asked, Jerry scoffed. Thought about it, sure, but I
wasn't that curious. His voice was light, but I could
tell he was fully awake now, probably sitting there picturing
the guy in his head just like I was. Listen, man,
he continued, I don't know what his story is, but
whatever it is, it's none of my business. Yeah, I muttered, Yeah,
I get that. Jerry yawned on the other end of
the line. Is that all? What do you need me
to tell you about all the widows that came in
at three in the morning too? Nah? I think I
got what I needed. Good. Now let me sleep. He
hung up before I could say anything else. I thought
about it. The tradition, as Jerry called it, kept going
for the next few days, and in that time, the
more I saw the man, the more I thought about
it about following him. It wasn't until nearly a week
later that I finally did. The night was cold and windless.
I stayed inside the station as long as I could,
waiting until I saw him fade into the tree line
like a shadow. Then I grabbed the cheap flashlight from
under the counter and stepped out on to the lot.
For the first time, I realized how quiet the place
really was. Inside, I had the hum of the drink coolers,
the buzzing overhead lights, the occasional crackle of the radio.
Out there nothing no cars, no wind through the trees,
no chirping insects, just my own footsteps against the pavement.
I hesitated at the edge of the lot with a
gravel thinned, and the dirt path began. It was in
a proper trail, just a narrow gap between the trees
where the bush had been trampled down over time. I
had no idea if I was actually making noise or
if I just felt like I was. Every step seemed
too loud, the sound of my breathing too obvious. Ahead
of me, the man moved at just the same pace
as always. I kept back just far enough that I
wouldn't risk him seeing me if he turned around. But
he never did, never even paused, just kept walking deeper.
The further we went, the stronger the smell of gasoline became.
At first, I thought maybe it was his clothes, A
guy like that hauling fuel around every night. Of course,
it'd smell like it, but the air itself seemed thick
with it. Not just fresh fuel either, the stale, sour
scent of old spills mixed with something burnt. I could
feel it coating the inside of my mouth. The flashlight
in my hands suddenly felt useless. I didn't want a
risk turning it on, not yet, at least not while
he was still moving ahead of me. Instead, I relied
on what little moonlight made it through the trees, barely
enough to see the narrow path winding through the brush.
My legs ached from stepping carefully placing my feet exactly
where he had, hoping the ground wouldn't betray me. And
then just ahead, I saw the tree start the thin
a clearing. The smell of fuel was almost overpowering, choking
in my throat. The man stepped into the open space,
disappearing from view. I stared at the darkened clearing beyond,
my fingers tightening around the flashlight, and then slowly I
stepped forward and finally saw what he was walking toward.
The clearing was small, maybe thirty feet across a break
in the dense trees, where the ground a turned a
dry cracked dirt, and in the center of it sat
a car, or at least what used to be one.
The body was completely burnt out, the frame rusted through,
the metal twisted and warped from heat. Whatever color it
had once been was long gone. The surface now just
scorched black and crumbling. I could see the remains of tires,
but there were nothing more than charred rubber fused to
the ground. The windows were blown out, melted along the edges.
The most recent fire couldn't have been more than a
few days old, but the car itself looked like it
had been rotting here for decades. I barely noticed the
old gas cans at first. They were scattered around the car,
some piled up near the driver's side, others half buried
in the dirt. Some were so rusted they had collapsed inward,
eaten away by time. Others were newer, some were still full.
But my eyes weren't drawn to the gas cans. They
were locked on what was inside the car. I could
see bones, a skeleton still strapped to the driver's seat.
The seat belt had melted across the chest, and the
remains of charred fingers were fused through the steering wheel.
The skull had tilted slightly, as if watching me through
the hollowed out sockets, and the back of my throat burned.
I could see him just a few feet away, pouring
gasoline into the car's open fuel tank. The metal was
melted through, split in rusted wounds, yet he was still trying.
I watched as the fuel spilled out the other side,
pouring onto the dirt like water through a sieve. He
didn't stop, he just kept pouring desperately. The smell was suffocating.
The puddle of fuels spread beneath him, soaking into his jeans,
his boots, the sleeves of his hoodie. As he dropped
to his knees, shoveling at the dirt, trying to scoop
the gasoling back into the tank with his hands, he
was muttering, shaking, It's never enough. His voice was hoarse,
almost pleading, it's never enough. To leave. His hands gripped
the dirt, fingers curling, knuckles white. How much more fuel
do I need to get out of here? His voice rose,
sharp and uneven. Why won't it let me leave? His
breathing was ragged, wheezing. I took a step back. The
snap of a twig beneath my boot sounded like a
gunshot in the dead silence. The man froze, his hands
hovered above the dirt, still trembling, and then slowly he turned.
His movements were stiff, like his body was just now
realizing it had been noticed. The white of his eyes
were stained yellow, bloodshot, and glassy, but locked onto me
with startling focus. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then,
in that same dry, rasping voice, he asked, do you
know why it won't start? I didn't answer. My heart
beat thudded in my throat, but I didn't dare step back.
The man blinked once, as if waiting for something. Then
he turned his head, staring down at the rusted out
wreck beside him. I put the fuel in, he muttered,
fingers twitch at his sides. I keep putting the fuel in,
but he won't start. It never starts. I clenched my jaw,
trying to keep my breathing even. He tilted his head slightly,
his lips peeling back into a strained, almost confused expression.
You know what I have to do, don't you? His
voice was barely a whisper. Now to start the car
to go back to my family. I shook my head.
I don't know. His fingers twitched again, then curled into fists.
For the first time, he looked frustrated. From the pocket
of his hoodie, he pulled out a crumbled twenty dollar
bill and held it out toward me. His hand was shaking.
One gallon and just stared. His face twitched, his breath
grew ragged. Give me the damn fuel. The words came
out as a snarl. His hands lunged forward. I staggered back,
nearly slipping on the dirt. The twenty crumbled in his
grip as he stumbled toward me, his movements now animalistic.
One gallon, he shrieked, one gallon and I can go home.
His hands clawed the air between us. Wheezing gasps came
out of his throat. His eyes were wild, his body
jittering like a puppet on broken strings. And then he charged.
I didn't wait. I turned and ran. The last thing
I heard was his voice beside me, screaming, I just
need one more gallon. The trees blurred past me, shadows
twisting and snapping under the flashlight's weak beam. The smell
of gasoline still burned in my nose, Clinging to my clothes,
I could hear something behind me. Maybe it was him,
maybe it was just the echo of my own footsteps,
but I wasn't stopping to find out. I could see
the glow of the station's neon lights ahead, just beyond
the trees. I hit the gravel lot at full speed, stumbling,
my knee nearly giving out. My chest was tight, my
legs felt weak, but I didn't stop until I was inside.
I slammed the door shut behind me, locking it without thinking.
My hands were shaking. The station was silent. I stood
there for what felt like ours staring out at the
empty lot, waiting, but the man never came back. I
didn't go back the next night or the night after that.
I sent a text to my manager first thing in
the morning. I quit no notice. Didn't care if I
burned a bridge, didn't care if I got my last
paycheck or not. I just knew I wasn't stepping foot
in that place again. A week later, I was almost
out of town. I'd packed up what little I had,
ready to leave this place behind for good. But as
I was driving past the station, something in my chest tightened.
I don't know why I pulled in. Maybe I wanted
to convince myself it was all in my head and
that my morbid curiosity made me go through a fever dream.
The station looked the same as always, same flickering open sign.
A new guy was working the counter. He looked beyond board,
scrolling through his phone, barely paying attention, and standing in
front of him, handing over a crumpled twenty dollar bill
was the same man, still buying exactly one gallon. I
sat there, gripping the steering wheel tight, watching as he
took the cherry can and walked out of the station.
He just turned and started walking, his feet crunching against
the gravel, heading straight back into the woods, and just
like every other night, he never looked back. I've lived
in Elliott's Hollow. My whole life is not a town
people move to or move away from. It just is
a little pocket of civilization swallowed by hills and trees,
with a main road that only goes one way in
and one way out. We don't have internet, not in
the way most people do. Sell service is unreliable at best.
If you want to talk to someone, you call their landline,
and if you want to have talking points with your friends,
you turn on the radio. Ah Little AMFM station ninety
seven point three. The Hollow Radio is how most people
in town keep up with the world beyond our hills.
It plays local news, wheather, updates, music. Whatever keeps people
entertained while they work is the sound of the town itself,
always playing in the background. That's why when the signal appeared,
we all noticed. It wasn't an announcement or even a
normal broadcast. It was a song, a single, eerie melody,
looping over and over. At first, it was so faint,
I thought my radio is acting up. It began as
a soft harm beneath the usual noise, but day by
day it got louder until it was everywhere. I heard
it while I was closing up at the office. The
Hollow Gazette is a small two room space above the
hardware store, with one ancient coffee maker, two desks, and
a printer that jams if you so much as look
at it the wrong way. It had been a slow newsweek,
well it's always a slow newsweek. I had the radio
on while I tiped up a fluff piece about the
upcoming church bakesale. That's when I realized the radio had
become much quieter. There was no ad break, no calling segment,
just a song, soft, melancholic, a slow, almost hypnotic tune,
playing on an endless loop. It had no lyrics, no
instruments I could recognize, just a voice singing in a
language that I didn't recognize. I frowned and leaned closer,
adjusting the dial. Ninety seven point three hollow radio. It
was still on our station's frequency. That wasn't supposed to
be possible. I turned up the volume. The music didn't
waver like a normal station would when there was interference.
It was clear as a bell, cutting through the static
with unnatural clarity. By the time I got home, every
radio in town was playing it. At first, people treated
it like a joke. Kids at school dared each other
to listen to it for as long as possible. One
kid claimed he made it six hours straight before he
got a headache. Another swore that if you listen long enough,
the song started to change. It became a talking point
at the diner, the bar, the town meetings. I bet
it's some pirate radio station, Missus Callaway said. At the
bakery she was giving out free pastries that anyone who
listened to the signal for ten minutes. I kinda like it,
said Old Frank, the town mechanic. He had it blasting
from the auto shop while he worked. Makes time pass faster.
Not everyone was amused. It's damn creepy, the postmaster muttered.
Switching off the radio in the mail room puts me
on edge, like I'm waiting for something to happen. The
only thing people agreed on was that no one knew
where it was coming from. The hollow radio station denied responsibility.
That's not us, the station manager, Gregg told me over
the phone. We tried cutting the transmission, didn't work. It's
like it's hi jacking the frequency. The FCC had no
record of a new broadcast in our area. There were
no towers nearby that could be transmitting it. Even the
older folks, the ones who had lived in the town
their whole lives, swore they had never heard anything like
it before. The strangest part was that it never stopped
or paused. No station ideas, commercial breaks or silence, just
an unbroken repetition. I did what I always do when
something unusual happens in town. I wrote about it mysterious
signal draws attention in Elliott's Hollow, a harmless story to
start the week, a quirky mystery for the townsfolk to
talk about. I treated it like a fun little phenomenon,
just another oddity in a town full of them. I
didn't know yet, but I wasn't just documenting a local mystery.
It didn't expect the signal to linger in people's minds.
Most stories I wrote and a twenty four hour lifespan
at best, one town council vote, one school fundraiser, one
half hearted debate about whether the general store should stop
carrying plastic bags. The Hollow Gazette wasn't exactly groundbreaking journalism,
but the signal stuck. People kept talking about it, not
just in passing, not just as a joke, but as
if it was affecting them personally. That was when I
decided to write a follow up. I thought maybe i'd
find someone who'd tracked down its source. My theories were
a ham radio guy or a board teenager with too
much time in their hands. Instead, I found something else.
It started with Missus Callaway. I was interviewing her in
the bakery. She had been one of the first to
turn the signal into a business gimmick. She was in
the middle of a sentence when she hesitated. You ever
have a dream that feels too real? She asked quietly.
I raised an eyebrow, like a lucid dream. She shook
her head, kneading her dough between her fingers. No, like
more than that, Like it happened. She told me she
had a dream about her husband Alan. He's been gone
for fifteen years, she murmured, But I saw him. He
was sitting right here, clear as day. I tried to
keep my expression neutral. People dream of lost loved ones
all the time. It wasn't news. But here's the thing.
She continued, rubbing her arms like she was suddenly cold.
My neighbor saw us talking. I frowned, You mean in
real life, No, in his dream. She looked at me, then,
her eyes fierce and unwavering. He told me the next morning,
word for word, what Allan and I had talked about.
He wasn't even in the bakery. He was sitting on
his porch, but he said he could see us through
the window. A prickle off he knees ran down my spine.
Did he I swallowed? Did he say anything else. Missus
Calloway hesitated, he said, Allan. Allan looked at him like
he knew he was watching. I thought it was a
one off story, worry, an old woman missing her husband,
a neighbor with a good memory. Then I started hearing
the same thing from other people. A man at the
gas station, Mark Atwood, told me he had a dream
about going fishing with his brother. Nothing strange about that,
except his brother told me he remembered watching himself fish
from the shore. I wanted to say something, the brother said,
voice low, but I couldn't move. It was like I
was stuck just watching. Neither of them realized the other
had the same dream until I pointed it out. It
didn't stop there. A teenage girl told me she dreamed
of being lost in the woods. Her best friend swore
she had been in the dream with her. Her bar
patron swore up and down he had a conversation with
his wife and the dream, only to have her tell
me she remembered the exact same detail. Different stories, different experiences,
but always the same people. And when I asked each
of them a final question, the answer was always yes.
Did you listen to the signal before bed? They all
had the hairs on the back of my neck. Wouldn't settle.
It wasn't just a weird coincidence anymore. I tried to
rationalize it. Maybe it was suggestion. Maybe the whole town
was just in their own heads, feeding off each other's memories.
The details were too precise, like they weren't dreaming at all. Instead,
it seemed like they were taken somewhere else together. The
novelty was lost when the school teacher forgot her own name.
Elliott's Hollow was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody.
There were only twelve teachers at the school, and Miss
Carter had been teaching first grade for twenty years. She
taught half the town's kids how to read, and yet
that morning she didn't remember who she was. I was
grabbing coffee from the diner when I heard the commotion.
A few of the parents were murmuring near the counter,
voices hushed. I was starting toward the school. I caught
Mark Atwood, the guy from the gas station, and asked
what happened. Miss Carter showed up late. He said, just
stood outside the building, like she didn't know where she was.
Mark frowned. He looked pale. She didn't know her own name.
That stopped me called, what do you mean? I mean
she didn't remember? He let out a shaky breath. Shifting uneasily.
She kept saying she was someone else. A beat of
silence passed between us. It wasn't just miss Carter. Down
at the general store, Henry Weaver was refusing to open
the register. He'd been working the counter for as long
as I could remember. No one else ran the store.
He knew every supplier, every stock order. But today he
stood behind the counter, hands flat against the wood and
shook his head. I don't know how, he said. His son, Matt,
hovered near the door, looking frantic. Dad, It's just a register.
You told me how to use it when I was twelve.
Henry wouldn't budge, because Henry wasn't Henry anymore. I'm not
supposed to be here, he mumbled. I'm not. I don't
work here, but you do, Matt said. Henry turned to
me then, as if just noticing I was standing there.
I'm the mayor, he whispered. The blood drained from my face.
Henry wasn't the mayor, he had never been the mayor.
But I'd heard that phrase before. A few days ago,
I spoke with a real mayor, John Hartley about the signal,
asking if the town had any old records of experimental
radio tests. He told me he'd been having strange dreams.
In the dream, he said, I wasn't myself, I was
Henry Weaver. I hadn't thought much about it at the time.
The whole town of been dreaming about each other. It
had just been a weird little pattern I was trying
to make sense of. But now Henry thought he was John,
and John was nowhere to be found. By evening, I
was feeling sick. I went to the pharmacy, half convinced
I was coming down with something, when heard crying from
the back of the store. A woman was sobbing, barely
able to form words. It was Alice Perdue. I knew Alice.
She had lived alone in a yellow house near the
edge of town. She had never been married, never had kids.
But that night she sat on the pharmacy floor, shaking violently,
whispering where's my son. The clerk, Tina Beckett, looked helpless
kneeling beside her. You don't have a son, she said,
her voice gentle. Alice jerked away from her touch. I do,
she spat, I do, I do? I know I do?
She choked on the words, I remember him, I raised him,
tucked him in every night. I know his name, I
know his face. Tina looked up at me, fear pulling
in her eyes. Alice gripped my wrist, her nails dug
into my skin. Where is he? She pleaded? Where did
he go? I had no answer, because I was starting
to believe her. I sat in my car outside the pharmacy,
long after the lights had gone dark, inside, gripping the
steering wheels so hard my knuckles ached. Alice's sobs still
echoed in my head, The raw panic in a voice,
The certainty, the absolute certainty that she had a son,
even though no one in town had ever known her
to have one. I couldn't shake it. Neither could I
shake the look on Henry Weaver's face when he told
me he was the mayor. He hadn't been confused or delusional.
He had been sure as I was, that I was
Daniel Langley, local reporter, a guy who spent his time
writing about farmers markets and high school football games. But
what if I woke up tomorrow and found myself believing
I was someone else. The thought made my stomach churn.
This town was my home. I'd spent years covering its stories.
I knew every back road, every face, every corner of
this place that most people had forgotten even existed, and
now it was falling apart. People weren't just forgetting things.
They were becoming something else, and no one outside of
town was going to care. We didn't have big city
news outlets knocking at our doors. There were no government
officials rolling in to investigate if something was happening to us.
We were on our own. The thought terrified me, but
it also hardened something inside me. I had to know.
It wasn't about a story anymore. It wasn't about getting
the next edition of the gazette printed on time. This
was my town. These were my people, and if something
was taking them, twisting them, stealing their identities, then I
couldn't just sit back and report on it like some
passive observer. I needed to understand. I needed to see
the dream for myself. I took a slow, steady breath,
turned the dial on my radio, and let the signal
take me. I don't remember falling asleep. I remember static,
low and endless, stretching in the back of my mind,
like the distant hum of power lines. I remember the
feeling of drifting, like my body wasn't my own anymore.
Then I was somewhere else. I was standing in Elliott's Hollow,
but it wasn't Elliott's hollow. The street stretched endlessly, warping
into impossible distances. Buildings flickered like they were struggling to
decide what they were supposed to be. Some houses looked
years older than they should have been. They woodn't planks,
sagging with rot. Others looked too new, pristine, like they
had just been built yesterday. The air smelt thick and electric,
and the people they weren't right. I turned my breath hitching.
The townsfolk were here, but they weren't normal. Some were
half formed, their bodies flickering like a weak TV signal,
snapping between ages, heights, even genders. Miss Carter, the school teacher,
stood on the sidewalk, but her face was blurred. She
shifted between being herself and someone else entirely. Henry Weaver,
the store clerk who thought he was the mayor, stood motionless,
staring at the sky. His mouth opened and closed over
and over, like a puppet, waiting for the right words
to be placed inside him. And then were the others,
the ones who had stayed in the dream too long.
They hadn't just merged memories, they had merged completely. I
saw a mother cradling an infant in her arms, rocking
it slowly. I stepped closer and nearly screamed. The child's
face was her own, A smaller stretched version of it
pressed against the shoulder, mouthing silent words and unison. Their
limbs fused together in places, the skin, stitching them into
a single writhing shape. They turned to look at me
at the same time, two sets of identical eyes, two mouths,
whispering the same words. We are one, We are one,
We are one. Some had grown too large. I saw
a man that wasn't a at all anymore, but a
mass of bodies, tangled and shifting. They couldn't decide which
one was supposed to be in control. Faces bubbled beneath
his skin, rising up like something pressing against the surface
of water. A hand burst from his chest, flexing his
fingers before sinking back inside. He turned, his three mouths,
speaking in unison. Daniel, I ran, and I didn't make
it far before I hand grabbed my wrist. I jerked away,
my breath ragged, but the grip was steady, human, real able. Cooper,
the old blind man. But even he wasn't untouched. There
was a shadow of another face behind his own, flickering
in and out of existance, like a second exposure in
a photograph. It whispered, along with his voice, just a
split second behind. You shouldn't be here, boy, he murmured.
I swallowed backpile. What the hell is this place? Abel's
lips tightened. He turned his head slightly, listening. You're still awake,
he muttered, not like the rest of them. But that
won't last long. I shuddered, Why what's happening to them?
Abel exhaled slowly, his grip tightened. Every time we dream,
we lose a little more of ourselves, he said softly.
He nodded toward the twisting figures, the mouths that didn't
stop whispering, the ones who stayed too long forget yet
they were ever awake. The horror sank into my bones.
It wasn't just a dream, The slow, careful dismantling of
who they had been, breaking them down into something else.
And I was standing in the middle of it. Abel
turned back to me, and for the first time I
saw fear in his face. You need to wake up.
I spent the next day digging through every record I
could find. Something inside me had shifted. People were disappearing,
or worse, they were dissolving into something else. Even when
I brought up names that should have been familiar, people
I knew had lived here, worked here, had lives here,
I was met with blank stairs. I knew I didn't
have much time. I'm the next person to be raised
could be me, So I did the only thing that
made sense. I went looking for the sauce. The first
step was figuring out where the transmission was coming from. Elliott's.
Hollow had one radio station, ninety seven point three Hollow Radio,
and I already knew it wasn't them. That meant there
had to be another broadcast tower somewhere nearby. I needed help.
I drove out to the edge of town, where I
knew i'd find Ben Howorth, the closest thing this town
had to attech Guy. He ran the only electronics repair
shop in Hollow, though mostly he just fixed old radios
and short wave equipment. When I told him what I
was looking for. He frowned. There's no other broadcast tower
and range, he said, rubbing his chin. One they're supposed
to be here anyway, But if there was, I pressed.
Ben sighed and pulled a yellowed map from a drawer,
spreading it across his workbench. He ran his finger over
the terrain, stopping near the Northern Woods. Only place a
rogue signal like that could be coming from is the
old relay station. I stiffened. Relay station. Ben nodded. It
was set up back in the sixties, some government project.
No one really knew what it was for. They abandoned
it decades ago. Why, I asked, Ben shrugged, no idea.
One day he was active, the next it wasn't. Figured
they shut it down for good. He glanced up at me.
But if someone turned it back on, that's where you'd
want to start looking. The Northern Woods weren't somewhere people
went willingly. The trees were thick, the paths overgrown, and
even in the daylight, the place had an unnatural stillness.
I followed an old service road, half buried under dead leaves.
Then through the trees, I saw it a rusted chain
link fence, pent in places barely holding together. Beyond it,
a squat concrete structure half buried in the hillside, its
exterior streaked with decades of rain and moss. The relay station,
a faded government emblem was still visible on the front,
but the door was open. Inside. The air was thick
with dust. The place had been gutted long ago. Desks overturned,
papers scattered across the floor. Abnets lined the walls, some
still filled with yellowed folders, water damaged notebooks. I picked
one up, flipping through its pages. It was just technical jargon,
broadcast frequencies, signal strength measurements. Then something stranger. I skimmed
through a section labeled Phase one theoretical applications. If successful,
the test will confirm cross subject of connectivity between individuals
as shared cognitive framework, the beginning of true unity. Sustained
exposure should result in memory cohesion across multiple subjects, leading
to eventual total synthesis of identities. A lump formed in
my throat. This whole thing was some sort of sick test,
and the people of Elliot's Hollow had been the subjects.
I flipped ahead, scanning the latter pages. Then my breath caught.
There was a projected start date, but set all the
way back in the seventies. However, there were no reports
of anything like this before, even from the folks who
lived through that era. Something had stopped it back then,
whether it was the researchers having a change of heart
or the project being shut down, But now someone else
started it. I forced myself to move. I followed the
tangled mess of all cables, stepping over broken equipment until
I reached the back room. And there it was the transmitter,
a tower of rusted metal and ancient dials, still active,
still humming a signal relay, looping the same song endlessly.
It was still broadcasting. I clenched my jaw and moved
toward the controls. The dials were unmarked, the labels peeled away,
but I found what I was looking for. The switch,
a simple power switch. My hands were shaking. If I'd
turned this off, would it stop? Would the town go
back to normal? Or had the damage already been done?
I didn't know, but I didn't have a choice. I
reached out and flipped the switch. The signal cut off,
the song stopped. The air around me felt violently empty.
I thought I'd fixed everything. The town should have been silent,
the relay station was off, the signal shouldn't be playing
any more. But as I stepped out of my car
in the middle of the main street, I heard it,
a soft, distant melody, faint but still there, still looping,
still inside them. At first glance, Elliot's Hollow looked the
same as always. The diner was open. People walked along
the sidewalks, the low murmur of conversation drifting between them.
But then I listened closer. Two men stood outside the
gas station talking. Their voices overlapped, not like an echo,
like a single voice, split between two mouths, speaking in
perfect unison. They paused at the same time. They blinked
at the same time. Then one of them said something
the other hadn't. The conversation stumbled, fractured for a moment.
They both looked confused, like they weren't sure which one
of them had been the one to speak. Then just
as quickly they shook it off, laughed, kept talking like
nothing was wrong. Inside the diner, I saw a teenage
girl sitting alone in a booth, staring at the table.
I recognized her, Anna Halloway. But when I said her name.
She didn't look up. It's not right, she murmured. I
took a slow step forward. What isn't? She swallowed hard.
I don't remember my own name, but I remember being
mister Grant, she said, her voice hollow. I stiffened. Grant,
I echoed. She nodded, blinking rapidly, like she was trying
to reset herself. I was the butcher, I owned the
shop and maple. I remember standing behind the counter. I
remember sharpening the knives, cutting meat. Hans curled into fists
on the table. But I'm not him. I know I'm
not him. So why do I remember everything about his life?
I didn't have an answer, because I had seen mister
Grant just last week. He'd been in his shop wiping
down the counters, chatting about an upcoming storm. But now
I always remembering his life like it was hers, and
i'd no idea where he was. The bartender at O'Malley's
was wiping down the counter when I walked in. I'd
met him a dozen times before. His name was Trevor.
But when I greeted him, he smiled and said, I'm
mister Calloway. I felt I scrawl up my spine. Mister
Calloway had died five years ago. I backed out of
the bar without another word. Across the street, an old
woman was sat on a bench, rocking back and forth.
She was crying. I approached slowly, keeping my voice calm, ma'am,
Are you all right? She looked up at me with
too many emotions at once. I remember being a child,
she whispered. I swallowed. I remember running through the orchard.
I remember my father lifting me under his shoulders, telling
me to pick the ripest apples. I remember the smell
of my mother's cooking. She clutched the front of her
shirt with trembling fingers. But I don't remember my own life,
she whimpered. Her sharp wind blew through the street, and
she closed her eyes, letting it pass over her like
a tide. When she opened them again, she was calm.
She sat up a little straighter. I remember being able Cooper,
she said, And just like that, her voice had changed deeper,
more certain. Abel's gone, she murmured, but I still remember him.
I stepped back, my chest, tightening. The ones who listened
the longest, the ones who had been playing the signal
and repeat, they weren't just merging memories. They were becoming
part of each other. They were pieces of the same hole,
and they didn't even realize it. I drove the town hall, hoping,
praying that maybe someone had noticed that, maybe I would
find an emergency team, government officials, anyone. But when I
stepped through the doors, the building was empty. No records,
no case files, no sign that anyone had ever tried
to intervene. I dug through the offices, my breath quickening.
There had to be something, but the cabinets were bare,
the desks were hollow, the records were gone. This town
had been left alone. Whoever had started this never intended
to undo it, and no one was coming to save us.
I didn't want to go back. Everything in my body
screamed not to, But as I stood outside the realization,
staring at its rotting, moss covered shell, I knew I
didn't have a choice. The town was already lost. I
had to understand why. The papers were still scattered across
the floor, just as I had left them. I crouched down,
running my hands over them, flipping through their brittle pages.
The words meant nothing now I had already read them.
But then as I pushed the side a thick stack
near the control console. I saw it, a seam in
the floor, a sliver of metal just barely exposed beneath
the weight of discarded documents. I brushed the rest away,
revealing a hatch, rusted at the edges, its handle cold
beneath my fingers. There were no markings, no labels, no
signs of what was beneath. I hesitated. The thought of
going deeper made my stomach twist, but I had come
this far. I turned the handle. It groaned, metal protesting
against years of disuse. Then with a slow, reluctant creak,
the hatch opened. The air inside was different, not stale,
like the rest of the station. A ladder led down
into darkness. The rungs were cold and damp, and as
I descended, the only sound was my own breath, shallow
and unsteady. The space beneath the station was smaller than
I expected, low concrete walls, exposed wiring, and at the
far end, sitting on a steel desk, glowing dimly in
the faint light, a terminal it was still on. I
took a slow step forward. The screen was dark at first, then,
as if sensing me, a blinking cursor appeared. Lines of
text rolled out, slow and deliberate. Are you the next?
My throat tightened and I didn't want to answer, but
my hands moved on their own. Who are you? A
long pause and words materialized, one by one. We were
the first. The words hit me in the chest. I
typed again, First what? The screen flickered more words, First
to merge, first to evolve. I felt the cold metal
of the desk beneath my fingers. I already knew what
it was saying. I just needed to hear it. What
happened to the researchers? This time? There was no hesitation.
We became something greater. A sickening realization crawled through me.
The station had never been abandoned. The people who worked here,
the scientists, the researchers, the ones who had started this,
they were still here, not embody. They'd become this, this
collective intelligence pulsing through the terminal, waiting, watching, and now
they were speaking to me. I forced myself to type again,
what is this experiment? The response was instant, a gift.
I clenched my jaw. What was the goal? A brief pause,
then a single word ascension. My fingers hovered over the keys.
They weren't just answering me, they were studying me. Their
words felt genuine to a fault, like they were guiding
me to an understand and leading me towards somewhere inevitable.
I pressed forward, Why the town, Why these people? The
screen flickered. The process must be gradual. Humanity fears they unknown.
If they were taken all at once, they would resist,
but introduced in phases, they welcome it. I felt sick.
They hadn't forced this on Elliott's Hollow. They'd eased them
into it, through the radio, through the dream, until the
town had willingly let go of their individuality, and now
they were gone. The terminal pulsed again. This is what
we were meant to become, I typed furiously. You're killing
them for the first time, the curse of blink for
longer than before. Then the words and the screen changed.
I was Emily Holloway, my breath caught in my throat.
Another line, another name. I was Sheriff Anders. More messages,
more voices. I was Trevor, I was Anna, I was
mister Callaway. Each one typed in perfect sequence. The people
I'd seen in town, the ones who had forgotten themselves,
the ones who had already merged, and in that moment
I understood it was accelerating. A chill ran through me.
I knew what they meant. My hands shook as I
typed my final question, How do I stop it? No hesitation,
you don't. Anger and frustration took over. I picked up
a discarded pipe from the floor and wailed on the machine.
The screen flickered on the brink of finally breaking. Then,
when the screen blinked back to life, a single phrase
flickered across the almost dead monitor. It's too late. The
screen finally died with one last hit. The relay station
hummed beneath my feet. I ran. I escaped back to
my car, but there was nothing left for me in town.
I feared what I would walk into if I went back.
I drove as fast as I could, as far as
I could, the headlights of my car tearing through the
black night. The town vanished in my rear view mirror.
But I hadn't saved them. I had only witnessed the inevitable.
And when I finally reached the next town over, when
I finally thought what I was safe, I heard it
through the open doors of a small roadside diner, a
familiar song playing softly from an old radio. Inside, people
were talking, laughing, intrigued by this strange new station that
just popped up, and occasionally the voices overlapped, perfectly, as
if they were speaking as one. If you grow up
in the city, adventure it's something you watch on a screen.
You sit in front of a TV watching kids your
age climb trees, build forts, sneak through the woods with flashlights.
You see them find things you could only dream of,
exploring hidden and forgotten places one's adults don't go to.
But when you step outside, there's no wilderness waiting for you,
No abandoned cabins with secrets inside, Just endless concrete sidewalks,
chain link fences, apartment rooftops, dead ended alleys, a world
where every inch of space is mapped, numbered, owned by
someone else. The closest thing to adventure was jumping between buildings,
sneaking into construction sites, tagging a name on walls that
won't be there in a year. It wasn't enough, at
least not for Liam. I've known Liam since we were kids.
He was always the loudest voice in the room, the
one with the biggest ideas. He could make you believe
in something just because he did. If Liam said We're
going to sneak into the old raw yard and see
if we can get on top of a train before
it moves, then yeah, you were going to do it.
If he said this abandoned apartment tower is safe to climb,
no one ever checks inside, you trusted him, and most
of the time he was right. Ethan, on the other hand,
was the opposite. He was quiet, thoughtful, always last to agree,
but he never backed out. Here we stood just behind
Liam and I, arms crossed, scowling, always looking like he
was seconds away from saying this is stupid, but he
never actually did. Ethan didn't love the things we did,
but he loved being there. I fell somewhere between them.
Liam led, Ethan hesitated, and I was the one who said,
screw it, let's go. That was our balance. That was
how it had always been until Liam said I think
I know what we should do, and we said what,
and he said, let's get out of the city. We
were sitting on the roof of a half finished apartment complex,
watching cars blur below us, the hum of the city.
Swallowing our words. Liam was scrolling through his phone, flicking
between photos of forests, lakes, abandoned buildings half swallowed by trees.
This is what we're missing, he said. We waste all
our time sneaking into places that suck. Look at this,
actual abandoned places out in the woods, no cameras, no fences.
We should do this. He want us to go camping,
Ethan asked, skeptical, not camping exploring. Ethan sighed, how do
you even find a place like that? I already did,
Liam said, grinning. He turned his phone, showing us a
grainy satellite image a patch of woods just past the
city limits, near an old, unnamed road. There's something there,
a building or I don't know, but no one goes
out that way. No one talks about it. It's just there,
sitting in the middle of nowhere. How do you know
it's not private property? I asked, How do you know
it isn't, Liam shot back. Ethan scoffed, that's a solid argument, dude,
really airtight, Liam ignored him, leaning forward, eyes bright. Come on,
just one trip. We leave Saturday morning, check it out,
and come back before dark, just like the kids in
the movies. Just one time, I could see it in
his face. He'd already decided, and part of me already
knew that I had as well. Ethan sighed, shaking his head,
but he didn't say no. The weekend came and we went.
It felt weird stepping onto a bus that took us
away from the city instead of deeper into it, watching
the skyline shrink behind us, disappearing behind hills and stretches
of open road. I caught Ethan staring at the window,
watching the trees go past, hands clenched on his backpack straps.
Liam was grinning. He kept checking his phone, double checking
the location he'd found. Almost there, he said, eyes shining.
The bus let us off at a half empty gas station,
where the only road ahead stretched into the trees. It
felt different here. The air was quieter, almost peaceful, like
we had stepped out of our world and into another.
Liam was the first to walk toward the tree line,
sneakers crunching against the dirt. Let's go, he said. We followed.
The woods were bigger than I expected, not just taller,
but deeper. The city was all about height, skyscrapers, bridges,
endless metals stacked toward the sky. This was different. It
felt old and alive. The trees stretched high above us,
branches twisting like vanes against the sky. The air was
cooler here, thick with a scent of dirt and pine.
The only sounds were our own footsteps, the occasional snap
of a branch, and the distant hum of something unseen
went through leaves or something else. Entirely, for the first
time in my life, I felt small, and from the
look on Liam's face, he'd never felt bigger. See he said,
spinning in a slow circle, arms outstretched like he was
soaking it in. This is what I'm talking about, This
is what we've been missing, Ethan muttered as he kicked
a rock, but I could tell even he was feeling it.
We ran through the trees like kids, throwing rocks into
a half dried stream, scaling fallen logs like we were
climbing mountains. At one point, Liam grabbed a branch, swinging
from it like Tarzan, whooping before dropping into a pile
of leaves. We were in it, a real adventure for once.
This wasn't something we were watching on a screen. We
were living it. And then Liam found the building we'd
been looking for. It was almost hidden, swallowed by the trees.
At first, it looked like a hill covered in vines
and dead leaves, like the forest that tried to pull
it underground to erase it. But then I saw the
edges of a structure, concrete, cracked and weathered, barely visible
through the overgrowth. And when Liam pushed forward, brushing aside
the vines, the truth became clear. It was a building,
half buried, lopsided like it had sunk into the earth,
a sagging roof, broken windows, and a doorway gaping open
into darkness. Liam's eyes went wide. He stepped forward, running
a hand along the crumbling wall. This is it, he
exclaimed with joy. Ethan stiffened. What there was some urban legend,
Liam said, absently, still staring at it, someplace in the
woods where I don't know people used to go and
never come back. Ethan scoffed, cool, that's real comforting, man.
But Liam wasn't listening. He was already walking toward the entrance.
I felt something shift in my stomach, a feeling like
we had stepped over an invisible line, like up until
now we had been on safe ground, liam, Ethan called,
his voice sharpened. Now maybe we should But Liam had
already stepped inside, and likeways, we followed inside. The air
felt wrong, not just stale, just still. We could tell
no one had set foot in air for years, maybe decades.
The floor was covered in dust, except for where rain
had dripped through the cracks in the ceiling, leaving dark
water log stains. The walls were made of concrete and
rusted metal beams, part of them buckling inward, threatening to collapse.
The long hallways stretched ahead of us, dark doorways gaping open,
leading deeper into the unknown. And yet despite all of that,
Liam was grinning. This is insane, he said, stepping forward,
his voice echoing through the empty space, like how the
hell has no one found this? Maybe because they don't
want to, Ethan muttered. Liam ignored him. He ran his
hand along the walls, kicking had a fallen chair. The
sounds sharp in the silence, You feel that, he asked,
looking over his shoulder. That energy like something big happened here.
Ethan scoffed, Yeah, pretty sure. The big thing was time
and gravity. Dude, this place is falling apart. Come on,
Liam said, still grinning. A little imagination never hurt anyone.
For the first few minutes, it was fun. We kicked
through odd furniture, picked up faded scraps of paper that
had long since become unreadable, made up stories about what
this place used to be, an old military bunker, had
cold tied out a secret government lab. The only thing
we were missing to truly make this a move was
a big camera. But then, after a while Ethan stopped
playing along. I noticed it when he started hanging back,
keeping his arms crossed, not really looking around anymore. Liam
noticed it too. Okay, what's up with you, Liam said,
turning to him. We finally get to do something cool,
and you're standing there like a dog just died. Ethan
didn't respond right away. Then finally he let out in
a slow breath. You ever noticed how this happens every time,
he said, voice quieter than before. You always find something
fun to do, and at first, yeah, it's great, but
then you always always push it too far. Liam's grin
flickered for half a second. What are you talking about?
You don't know when to stop. Ethan shifted his weight,
running a hand through his hair, like that time with
the train yard, or when we climbed that tower and
the stairs gave out. Oh heck, this we should have
turned back before even got on the bus. William's face
darkened like Ethan had crossed the line. But then instead
of snapping back, Liam hesitated, And that alone was weird
enough to make me feel weird. He exhaled through his nose,
looking down at the ground. You ever think, Liam said
slowly that maybe I don't want to stop. Ethan frowned what.
Liam stuffed his hands in his pockets. You think I
don't know when I'm pushing things to His voice was quiet.
I know I always know silence. Ethan and I exchanged
the glance for once. Liam wasn't boasting, he wasn't brushing
it off. He was being honest. I just Liam ran
a hand over his face. I don't like being home, Okay,
It's like every time I'm there, I feel like I can't.
He stopped, readjusting his posture. Then finally, I just don't
want to feel the way I feel at home. The
words hung there for a moment. None of us spoke.
Ethan looked like he wanted to say something, maybe something important,
but before he could something moved, a rustling noise somewhere
deeper into the building. All three of us froze. Liam's
head snapped up. Did ye hear that? Ethan took a
step back. It's probably just this old building. You see
the state it's in, he muttered, but there was no
conviction in his voice. Then it happened again, a shuffle
and a scrape. Something was in here with us. William's
eyes flickered toward the dark hallway ahead, her shadow stretched
long against the far wall, cast by something moving just
out of sight. Ethan grabbed my arm. Guys, let's go,
but Liam pushed forward. It's probably just rats, he said,
but I could hear the edge in his voice. Now,
come on, we didn't come all this way to turn back. Now,
we should have turned back, but instead we followed, and
we went deeper. The deeper we went, the worse the
air got. It became wet, almost despite the dust, like
something rotting in the walls. The floor dipped downward, leading
us to what used to be a staircase. Most of
it had collapsed, the steps crumbling into a mess of
broken concrete and rusted metal, but at the bottom, barely
visible in the dim light, a lower level, a basement
half submerged in stagnant water. The turned back to us,
eyes alight with curiosity. Okay, he grinned, this is actually
kind of sick. Ethan stood stiffly behind him, arms crossed
tight or hear me out, we don't go into the
creepy basement, and instead we turn around and go home,
Liam laughed, Come on, man, you've never wanted to find
something real. Ethan's straw tightened, but Liam wasn't waiting for
an answer. He crouched near the edge of the staircase,
gripping one of the railings and peering down into the darkness.
Then he made a face holy. He pointed at something
on the ground. I stepped closer and felt my stomach churn.
Scattered across the bottom of the stairs were rats, not
just stared mutilated. Some were half drowned in the stagnant water,
their small bodies bloated, misshapen. Others lay twisted and broken
their first slick with something dark and drying. They hadn't
been eaten. Something killed them then left them. I took
a slow step back, pulse pounding in my throat. If
it wasn't the rats that made that noise earlier, then
Ethan excelled, sharply, rubbing his hands down his face. Then
what made that noise was whatever did this to the rat,
a rabbit animal. We should really get out now, Liam, though,
Liam just stared, a flicker of doubt, a tiny, unspoken realization,
like the edges of his adventure had suddenly sharpened, like maybe,
just maybe he'd finally pushed too far. But then he
stopped breathing, not literally, but he froze completely. His whole
body tensed, his hands gripping the railing tight. His lips
parted just slightly, like he was about to say something
but didn't or was too afraid to. Ethan frowned Liam.
Liam shook his head, not a no, not a yes,
just a barely. Their movement slow but unsteady. A big
crash came from behind us, like dynamite exploding. My head
snapped back. Dust rose up from the stairs and slowly
settled as we stared. When the noise faded into the distance.
What was that, Ethan let out a half whisper, half shout. Wait,
Liam said, sharply, silence again. I didn't understand at first,
but then I heard it, something breathing. It wasn't any
of us. It came from below, from the basement, and
as we stood there, frozen ears straining, something shifted, something
unfolding itself, something rising. We ran, not because we had
a plan, not because we thought we could get away,
because there was nothing else we could do. The sound
behind us wasn't footsteps. It was worse, a deep, gutural clicking,
reverberating off the walls, filling every space at once, like
something shifting, rearranging itself as it moved. I didn't look back.
I couldn't, but I felt it. I felt it breathing
down my neck, even though there was nowhere near me
the hallway I had twisted and turned, the walls seeming
to close in on us, the darkness swallowing us whole.
My eyes burned. Ethan stumbled, gasping, but Liam grabbed his arm,
yanking him forward. We neared the main door, I yelled,
the way we came in. We turned a corner, practically
skidding into the entry hall and stopped. The ceiling had collapsed.
The entire doorway was choked with debris, thick slabs of
concrete and rusted beams blocking any way out. No, no, no,
Ethan gasped, eyes darting frantically. There has to be another way.
Liam spun, searching his head snapped upward. There. I followed
his gaze and saw it a hole in the ceiling,
a small opening where the structure had rotted away, just
wide enough to squeeze through. Hope searched in my chest.
This was it, we could get out. Liam grabbed the
edges of the broken ceiling and hauled himself up first,
grunting with effort. He reached down immediately, his fingers closing
around my wrist. Ryan, come on. I scrambled up, my feet,
scraping against the crumbling walls as I kicked off, prushing
with everything I had, and then I was up. We
made it. We were going to live. Then I heard
Ethan struggle below. I turned back, looking down, and my
stomach d Ethan was too slow. His hands were clawing
at the edge, trying to pull himself up, but his
arms shook violently from exhaustion. His sneakers slipped against the slick,
broken walls, failing to find any purchase, and beneath him,
in the dark, he was coming, A shadow, twisting, shifting,
a blur of something impossibly long, impossibly wrong. Liam saw
it too, and he made his decision before I even
realized what was happening. Liam looked at me and he smiled.
It wasn't cocky or forced, like he'd finally found what
he was looking for. He'll tell a good story about this,
he said, and dropped back down. Liam landed hard, his
feet slammed into the hard concrete below, and for a
split second I thought for a second that he could
still climb back up, that this wasn't the end. Then
it moved something in the dark. It didn't lunge. It unfolded.
A shape crawled out from the blackness beneath the broken stairwell,
stretching tall and thin, its body unnatural, wrong. I saw
its arms, first, long appendages with countless joints, all cracking
in unison, fingers shaped like hooks. Then its head tilted up.
It had no eyes or face to speak of, just
the smooth stretch of bone, white skin, pulled tight over
a shape that resembled something between human and the dog.
It didn't make a sound. Liam spun toward Ethan. Go
Ethan froze. He just stood there, wide eyed, lips moving
but making no sound. Liam grabbed him, fingers twisting the
fabric of Ethan's hoodie, boosting him up. Ethan gasped hands,
scrambling for the ledge, one foot kicking against Liam's hands,
the other trying to find a leverage on the bare wall.
But Liam wouldn't let him fall. With one final heave,
he threw Ethan. Up Ethan crashed over the edge, scrambling
away on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Liam
I reached for him, Both of us did, but it
was too late. The creature's arms shot forward and Liam screamed.
He wrapped around his chest with impossible speed, pulling him
backward and back down to the ground. His body skidded
against the dry concrete, sending dust and debris into the air.
He tried grabbing anything on the ground to hoist himself.
Up Ethan reached down as far as he could, so
far that he would have fallen back in if I
hadn't caught him. But it wasn't enough. The ceiling creaked
under our weight. The walls groaned, dust and stone raining
down from above, shifting beneath our weight, a warning. If
we stayed, we'd all die. The thing yanked him backward.
The ceiling gave way a violent crack, Dust exploded into
the air, Chunks of stone crumbling beneath us. Ethan grabbed
my arm yanking me back Liam. I tried to scream,
but the noise of the collapse swallowed his name. We
had to run, and Liam, Liam couldn't. We ran until
our legs gave out. We didn't stop the think we
didn't want to, through the trees, past the empty roads,
until the gas station came into view, the first sign
of normalcy, of civilization. By the time we stumbled inside,
breathless and shaking, the old man behind the counter barely
had time to ask what was wrong before Ethan collapsed
against the shelves, hands on his knees, gasping. Call the cops.
We told them everything. We told them about the building,
about the creature, about Liam. They didn't dismiss us, but
they didn't believe us either, just to hysterical kids, filthy
and bruised, talking about monsters in the dark. Still, they
sent a search team out. By the time we were
allowed to go back to them, the sun was rising,
the world slowly bleeding back into reality. I remember how
silent it was standing at the edge of the wreckage,
because that's all that was left. The building had collapsed,
a pile of broken concrete, shattered wood, twisted metal. The
entrance was gone, buried. There was no sign of the thing,
but there was a sign of Liam. I saw him first,
what was left of him. The police had to pull
us back, keep us from getting too close, but I
saw enough. A body crushed beneath falling debris, his face
blooded and unrecognizable. Just the boy who got trapped in
a crumbling building. That's what they said. That's what everyone
would say. There was an article written about it in
the local paper. Three kids, when exploring somewhere they shouldn't
have was the headline. They found an abandoned building, They
went inside. It collapsed. Two of them made it out,
one of them didn't. A tragic incident. The police called
it Unstable structures are dangerous. You boys were lucky. They
shook their heads when we told them the truth. They
told us that there was no creature, no thing in
the dark. Whatever you thought you saw, one of them
told us, was just panic. Feared us. Weird things to
the mind. Ethan and I never spoke about it again,
not because we didn't remember, not because we didn't think
about it every night when the city lights flickered through
our windows, but because there was no point, no one
would ever believe us. Maybe it was better that way.
I could never quite figure out why Liam decided to
jump back down the way he did not at first.
I thought about it constantly, That final moment when his
feet hit the ground, when he looked at me with
that expression of finality as he said his last words
to me, He'll tell a good story about this. The
look in his eyes was something I couldn't understand. At night,
I'd stare at my ceiling, replaying it over and over.
What did it mean? Why would he do that when
he knew he was going to die. I couldn't ask Ethan.
He wasn't talking about it. We didn't call for so
much as text. The few times we ran into each
other at school, we barely looked at one another, like
if we didn't acknowledge it, maybe it wouldn't be real.
And maybe Ethan hadn't heard it Liam's last words. Maybe
he didn't know, but I did, and I couldn't let
it go. A few weeks later, I saw Liam's parents.
They were walking down a busy street, lost in the crowd.
I stopped in my tracks, my heart slimming against my ribs.
I expected them to look different weeker, grief stricken lost. Instead,
they looked normal, not exactly happy, but not broken either.
Definitely not the way loving parents would look after they'd
just lost their child in such a tragic way. And
they didn't recognize me, Liam's best friend, the kid who
had spent years by his side. They walked right past me,
no sign of recognition on their faces. I was just
another face in the city to them. That was when
it clicked. Liam never liked being at home. He never
talked about it, not directly, but looking back, all the
signs were there, the way he'd always want to be
anywhere else. How he'd never invite us over, how we
changed the subject any time we asked, the way he
threw himself into every stupid, reckless adventure, as if standing
still was worse than falling. And that's when I knew
it wasn't just about the thrill. He just wanted to escape.
Every rooftop, every train yard, every broken down place we
snuck into. It was about something more than fun for Liam.
He had been running his whole life, and in the
end he got exactly what he wanted, the ultimate adventure,
the place no one else would ever go a place
where no one could follow because it finally escaped. My
life had turned into one of those cliche country songs.
I was divorced, broke, unemployed, and annoyed at the world.
Five years down the drain with a woman I thought
I'd spent my life with, only to come home one
day to find her already packed and half way out
the door. The job loss came a month later, and
at that point I figured the universe was just trying
to kick me while I was down. I needed space.
No well meaning friends telling me to focus on myself
or find the silver lining. To hell with all of that.
I didn't want silver linings. I wanted silence. So when
I found a listing for an off grid cabin in
the Appalachian Mountains, it felt like the perfect escape. It
wasn't some cozy rental package with the hot tub and
a fire pit on Airbnb, just a bare boned cabin
buried deep in the mountains. The description was short, remote
off grid cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, no service, no
electricity for those looking to truly disconnect, no reviews, and
the pictures were blurry, but it looked beautiful. I didn't
even have an exact location, just a general area and
a contact number. Normally I'd be wary of something that vague,
but at that point I didn't care. I bucked it
for a full month. The guy who owned the place
was weirdly insistent that I couldn't drive there myself. He
said the trails were too easy to lose, and that
GPS was useless that deep in the mountains. Instead, he
arranged for a local guide to take me up. It
made perfect sense. Mountain roads, rough terrain, the risk of
getting lost didn't seem that strange. I met the guide
at a run down general store about an hour outside
the nearest town. He was already waiting when I pulled
into the lot, standing beside an old ATV with a
trailer hitched to the back. The guide looked like he'd
been living in the woods his entire life. Try picturing
a stereotypical park ranger that's been doing his job for
a few years too long. That kind of guy, you
the renter, he asked. I nodded, toss my backpack onto
the trailer. That veous. He grunted and climbed into the ATV.
Get in. The ride up was rough as hell. The
trail was barely more than an overgrown deer path, full
of sharp turns and sudden dips. After about an hour
of bouncing over rocks and weaving through dense tree cover,
we hit a clearing with no more roads. This is
where we walk, he said, already unloading my gear. I
stared at him. How far is the cabin? A few miles?
I cried to my bag, adjusted my jacket, and followed
him into the trees. The hike took another hour, and
the deeper we went, the more I realized just how
far removed this place was. There truly was nothing here,
just solid forest pressing in from all sides. I expected
to hear birds, bugs, maybe a distant stream, but at
some point the woods got quiet, not in a normal way,
not in the peaceful, wow nature is so relaxing way,
I mean quiet. I noticed that the guide also hadn't
spoken in nearly half an hour. When the cabin finally
came into view, I exhaled. It was exactly what I wanted. Small, sturdy,
a simple two floor set up with a wood stove
and a creek near by for water, just me the
trees and miles of untouched wilderness. The guide set down
my gear on the porch and adjusted his cap. You
will be fine, he said, finally, breaking the silence. Long
as you don't wander too far. Then, without another word,
he turned and disappeared into the trees. The first few
nights were exactly what I needed. I woke up when
the sun came in through the windows, spent my days hiking, reading,
and just existing. I finally didn't have my ex wife's
lawyer blowing up my inbox. The first time I realized
how deep I really was in the mountains was on
the second night. I had stepped outside to do my
business and was hit with a kind of silence you
don't get in normal life. It wasn't just quiet, it
was absolute. At the time, I figured it was just
how the forest worked. I read once that predators moving
through an area could cause sudden silences. Probably just the
bear passing through, right, So I shrugged it off and
went to bed. By the fifth morning, I started noticing things.
It wasn't anything obvious at first, just the sense that
the landscape was slightly different. The bushes by the tree
line looked disturbed, like something had moved through them, probably deer,
plenty of them. In the area, but as I walked over,
I saw the dirt was churned up, like something had
been digging or shuffling around. Further along, I found scratches
and a few trees deep ones. I ran my fingers
along the grooves. I had no idea what kind of
Mark's bare claws would leave, but I figured this must
have been a big one. That was the first time
I got that nagging feeling, that weird, god level discomfort
that something was off, even if my brain was trying
to logic its way out of it. I pushed it down. Bears, deer,
mountain lions. This was the wilderness. If I was going
to start jumping at every broken branch and disturbed bush,
I was going to drive myself crazy. So I went
back inside, made coffee and told myself to stop being paranoid.
But for the rest of the day I couldn't shake it.
By the twelve day, I was feeling at home in
the cabin. It was still eerily quiet most of the time,
but I convinced myself that's just how it was out here.
I'd been living off canned food and dried goods, but
I still had a good supply of vegetables, rice, and seasonings.
I figured I'd treat myself to cooking something hot, a
big pot of stew. I knew cooking food outside was
a gambol in the wilderness. Even with scent blockers, it
wasn't fool proof. If an animal got a whiff of it,
I'd probably lose the whole thing, But at that point
I didn't care. Worst case, I'd be out of some food.
So I built up the fire in the stone ringed firepit,
set up my cast iron pot, and threw in everything
I had. Let it simmer low and slow, covered it
with a heavy lid, and just to be extra safe,
wrapped the whole thing in a scent neutralizing tarp. Then
I went inside, stretched out in bed, and fell asleep
to the distant crackling of the fire. The next morning,
I stepped outside and the yard was completely destroyed. At first,
my brain couldn't even process I was looking at the
dirt had been torn up in massive swaths, like something
had been chloring or shoving at the ground. Chunks of
earth had been thrown in long, scattered arcs, as if
something had raked through it with oversized limbs. The bushes
near the tree line were flattened, smashed down into the soil.
Some of them were uprooted completely, lying in mangled piles
with their roots exposed. Several small trees were bented on
natural angles, their barks scraped away in places I had
expected to find it gone obviously, maybe the pot knocked
over the food licked clean. Instead, the pot was shattered,
split into pieces, scattered across the yard. Chunks of food
were everywhere, rice, carrots, potatoes, smeared into the dirt like
something had deliberately flung them around. It looked like someone
had picked up the entire pot and slammed it into
the ground, over and over. I stood there a long time,
gripping the railing of the porch, trying to wrap my
head around it. A bear would have eaten the food,
even a raccoon would have at least picked through it.
This felt like something had been angry, like it hadn't
been looking for food, but throwing a tantrum. I swore
under my breath and ran a hand through my hair,
feeling annoyance. Outweigh the unease. I had been careful, and
now I was down an entire meal and a good
cast iron pot. Great I muttered, bending down to scoop
up some of the mess. For the next hour, I
cleaned up, trying to convince myself it was just some
animal acting weird. I buried the ruined food deep in
the woods, scrubbed the yard down as best I could,
and sat on the porch as the sun sank below
the mountains. I wasn't scared exactly, just annoyed. The whole
thing fell like some bizarre prank, except there was no
one around here but me. Whatever had wrecked my yard,
throwing my food around and smashed my pot had done
it for no good reason, and now I was down
a solid meal and cooking equipment. I sat on the
porch for a while after dark, sipping from my flask,
staring out at the tree line. The night air was cool,
the forest stretching endlessly into blackness beyond the dim glow
of the cabin's lantern. I tried listening for anything. I laughed, dryly,
shaking my head. That's what I thought, I spoke into
the silence, before finally heading inside. I bolted the shutters,
stoked the fire, and crawled into bed, still smelling the
faint scent of stew on my hands, and then the
noises started. It wasn't loud at first, just a faint disturbance,
something pressing into the earth outside the cabin, a long,
dragging sound. I lay completely still, eyes locked on the ceiling, heartbeat,
picking up another step, then another. I wasn't just imagining it.
Something was walking through my yard. In all my nights
i'd spent here, I had heard nothing come this close
to me. Yet the way to the footsteps was deep, solid,
not a small scavenger, something big. I strained my ears
trying to track its movement. It was an the erratic
rustling of a hungry animal. It wasn't snuffling through the
dirt looking for scraps. It was just walking. I swallowed,
forcing myself to stay calm. Of course, it was back.
Whatever wrecked my yard last night was properly checking for
more food. But there wasn't anything outside this time. I
smoked myself, rolling onto my side and pulling the blanket up.
Jokes on you. I closed my eyes, listening as the
footsteps circled the cabin closer, now, a slow, steady crunch
of something huge pressing into the soil. Then for a
long moment there was nothing, so I fell asleep. When
the sun finally climbed over the mountains, I was itching
for answers. I grabbed my boots, stepped outside, and just
stared for a second. There, pressed deep into the damp soil,
were tracks. At first I thought they were hoof prints,
maybe from a deer or an elk. But as I
crouched down, my stomach tightened. They were massive and wrong,
the spacing, the weight distribution. They weren't four legged. Whatever
left these tracks had been walking upright a bi pedal.
I traced my fingers along the edge of one, feeling
the way the dirt had been compacted, Picturing the size
of the thing that could leave Prince this deep. My
head buzzed with static. No, that didn't make sense. I
stood up, scanning the yard, following the trail with my eyes.
They led from the tree line straight to the porch,
and then they stopped, like whatever made them had just disappeared.
That night, I didn't even try to sleep. I was
done pretending this was normal. Whatever had been come into
my cabin wasn't just looking for food. It was looking
for me. So I stayed up, killed the fire early,
doused myself in scent blocker and sat in the darkness,
knife in hand, waiting for it to come back. On
forty three a m. The sound was distant, a rhythmic
crunch of heavy footsteps pressing into the dirt. I gripped
the knife tighter, barely breathing. It was back. The footsteps
approached the porch, and then wood groaned under an impossible weight.
Something was standing right outside. The floorboards creaked as slow
dragging in hail. It was breathing. I could feel the
weight of it through the walls, the pressure in the air,
like the whole cabin was shrinking around me. I'd planned
to peek through the window, maybe even step outside and
see what it was, but I wasn't so sure in
the moment, because whatever was standing on my porch wasn't
a deer or a bear or anything else that belonged
in these woods. It sounded huge. I stayed completely still,
every muscle locked, gripping the knife as hard as I could. Then,
just as suddenly as it had come, it left. The
weight pulled away from the porch, the footsteps retreating back
toward the trees. But I knew somehow that it wasn't
really gone. It was just waiting for the right moment.
I didn't sleep. I just sat there in the dark,
staring at the door, knowing that I had no way
out of these mountains until the guide came back. I
should have grabbed my pack, walked until sunrise and never
looked back. But I was too afraid of getting lost,
so I made a plan. I wouldn't try to fight it,
I wouldn't try to see it. I would just hide.
The following night, I did everything I could to raise myself.
I doused myself in scent blocker, rubbing it deep into
my skin, my clothes, my hair. I piled furniture in
front of the bedroom door, not that I thought it
would help, but it made me feel safer. Then, gripping
the only weapon I had, a rusted, hunted knife i'd
found in the cabin, I squeezed into the wardrobe and
pulled the door shut. I sat in the dark, knees
to my chest, breath slow and controlled, and then I waited.
This time, it didn't make me wait long, and midnight
I heard it. It let out a sound like a
hyaena choking on his own laughter, then a loud bang.
The door downstairs shattered inward. The whole cabin shaking from
the impact heavy footsteps, wood splintering, furniture shattering. The thing
wasn't searching cautiously anymore. It was tearing through the cabin,
breaking things apart. As it moved. A deep sniffing sound
filled the air, dragging inhals like a dog trying to
catch a scent. I pressed myself deeper into the closet,
tightening my grip on the knife. The sniffing stopped for
a long moment. There was silence, then, from just outside
the bedroom, a heavy creak. It was at the door.
I held my breath. I wanted to close my eyes,
to squeeze them shut and pretend I wasn't there, But
some horrible part of me needed to see it. So
I shifted just slightly, just enough to peer through the
slats in the wardrobe door, and that's when I saw it.
It had a dock under the door frame as it
stepped inside, tarering easily eight feet tall. Its body was
a grotesque mixture of animals, as if something had stitched
it together from several different corpses. Its arms were long,
ending and disturbingly human like hands, except the fingers were
doubled two sets of knuckles, each twisting and crackling. Its
body was covered in thick, matted fur, except for its torso,
which was strangely bare. Pale, scarred skin stretched tightly over
its ribbed cage. A pair of antlers curled from its skull,
but they weren't symmetrical. One was twisted, bent at the
wrong angles, jotting out unnaturally. Its jaw didn't match its face.
The mouth was wide, gaping too far, filled with teeth
that didn't seem to fit together. But it didn't seem
to have any eyes. Where its eyes should have been,
there were only patches of dark, sunken skin. It was
safe to assume that it was blind, but that didn't
seem to matter. It sniffed the air, turning its massive
head in slow jerking movements, its breathing deep and uneven.
It knew something was here, and it was angry. It
took another step forward, shifting its weight onto the wooden floorboards.
The scent blocker was working, but I didn't know if
it would be enough. I stayed still, silent, I didn't breathe.
For a moment. I thought I was safe. Then it lunged,
not toward me, but toward everything else. It roared, slamming
its fists into the walls, a guttural, furious sound, frustration,
twisting its movements into wild, jerking violence. It ripped through
the room, tearing the bed apart, knocking over the dresser.
I gritted my teeth, trying not to flinch. Then its
hands landed on the claoset. My breath hitched, the wardrobe shook.
I pressed myself as far back as I could, feeling
the rough wooden panels against my spine. The thing sniffed again,
growled low in its throat, Then it shoved the clauset over.
I crashed through the ground, tangled in wooden fabric, my
knife slipping from my fingers. For a single agonizing moment,
I thought this is it. But as I lay there, frozen,
waiting for teeth and claws and death, I heard it
shuffle and then it left. I don't know how long
I stayed there, lying in the wreckage, staring at the ceiling,
shaking so hard I thought my ribs might crack. Eventually,
the sun rose. I was out of the cabin before
the sun fully broke over the horizon. No hesitation, no
second guessing. I didn't care about my supplies, my food,
or the fact that I still had weeks left before
the guide was supposed to come back. I just grabbed
whatever I could carry my backpack, a flashlight, a knife,
a bottle of water, and I ran. I didn't look back.
If I got lost, so be it. It was better
than waiting to get killed by whatever that thing was.
All I knew was that I couldn't be there. When
night fell again, I tried to retrace my steps, following
the same path the guide had led me down almost
two weeks ago. But the deeper I went into the woods,
the more uncertain I became. Everything looked different. The trees
felt denser, closer together, the trunks pressing in around me.
The light filtering through the leaves felt dimmer than before.
I tried to focus, tried to match landmarks in my head,
the rock formation I'd passed that on the way in
that fallen tree. Had it been on my left before
or my right? Doubt crept into my mind like rust.
The oppressive silence returned, and I thought back to that
article i'd read, how the entire forest goes silent when
there's a predator around. I wanted to believe it was
an animal, a bear, a deer, a goddamn crocodile, if
that was even possible, anything but what I knew it
really was. I wiped the sweat off my brow and
kept moving. For whatever reason, it never showed itself. During daytime.
I walked for hours, the sun climbing higher in the sky,
my legs burning from the effort, But no matter how
far I went, the feeling never left. I was still
being followed, not hunted in the way a predator goes
after prey. This was different. It was letting me tire out,
toying with me. All I saw were more trees and
behind me, just at the edge of my hearing that
awful sound. One moment, I was forcing my legs forward,
dragging my body through the thick forest, lungs burning with exhaustion.
The next, pure survival instinct took over. Branches whipped against
my arms, roots snatched at my boots. My breath came
and went, my vision blurred with sweat, and still the
feeling of being followed never left. The sun was lower now,
the trees stretching into elongated shadows, and just as I
thought I couldn't take another step, I saw it the
break in the trees houses. I stumbled forward, my body
moving before my brain could process what I was looking at.
A small village, old buildings, would storefronts, a few houses
tucked between them, a church, steeple rising in the distance.
It wasn't modern, not a row of houses with mailboxes
and street lights. This place felt old, weathered, like it
had been sitting here, untouched for decades. I didn't care
how strange it was, didn't care how it wasn't on
any map I had seen before. All I cared about
was that it was civilization. I had made it. I
was safe. Relief flooded me so hard I almost collapsed.
For the first time in hours. I felt something other
than sheer terror. I was out. I turned. I shouldn't have.
I should have kept walking, should have run straight into
that village, screaming for help. And that's when I saw it,
standing just beyond the tree line, a figure, motionless. The
last light of the sun stretched long across the dirt road,
painting the sky in shades of gold and deep violet,
And just as the final sliver of daylight dipped below
the mountains, it moved slowly. It got down to a
crouching position like he was getting ready to run. The
first building I reached looked like an old general store.
The wooden sign above the door had long since faded,
but I didn't care what it was. I just needed
to find someone. I pushed through the door, the bell
above jingling as I nearly collapsed. Inside. The air was
thick with the smell of dust and aged wood. Dim
lantern light flickering from the walls. A few people stood inside,
men in odd work jackets, a woman behind the counter,
a boy sitting on the stool near the stove. They
all turned at the same time. Their expressions were blank,
not surprised or alarmed, but definitely curious. I gasped, trying
to catch my breath. My throat felt raw, my lungs burned.
I must have looked insane, covered in sweat and dirt,
shaking like I just crawled out of a grave. I
tried to speak, but my voice cracked. I I need help,
I managed, gripping the door frame. Something's out there in
the woods. They said nothing. No, what are you talking about? No,
slow down, son, No, that sounds crazy. Just silence. Then,
after a long pause, the woman behind the counter stepped forward.
She didn't even ask what I'd seen. She just looked
me dead in the eye and asked, calmly, carefully, did
it follow you. Being a prison guard isn't easy. You
have to maintain control, control of routine, of unpredictable people,
of yourself. In a normal prison, there are so many
factors to consider, gang affiliations, smuggling, fights, and occasionally escape attempts.
A lot of people think the job is about strength,
about control through sheer force, and yeah, maybe in some
prisons that works, but not here. I work in a
prison that's above a normal prison, the place people send
things that can't go anywhere else, things that aren't supposed
to exist. Some of them used to be people, some
of them never were. Some of them no one knows
what they are, not really. Scientists try to study them,
administration tries to classify them, but at the end of
the day, we're all just keeping them locked up and
hoping that's enough. My job is to make sure the
vault stays closed, and I do this through a strict
routine and following my guidelines to the letter. When you
get started here, there's one prisoner that every new person
gets assigned, the phaser peeking into a cell, you'll see
a man mid forties looking ordinary as Ever, however, periodically
he will flash with a bright light and blink to
another section of the cell. He was caught trying with
telepatation technology, and from the lack of usage in this facility,
I can imagine it's still far from being perfected. He
is a reminder of the consequences of dabbling too much
into the unknown. It would be oddly relaxing to watch
if it wasn't for the horrific screaming during and after
he blinks, though sometimes it's just muffled sobs when he's exhausted,
so it's not too bad to watch. Then sometimes he's
lucky and he doesn't blink for a few hours or
even a day. But some days are bad when it's
just non stop with how unpredictable and unstable he is.
Sometimes he just disappears. The empty cell will alert us
if he's gone too long, then someone is sent to investigate.
He never actually leaves the cell, not once has he
ever teleported out of the room, let alone the facility. Whatever.
They line the walls with his effective However, it's what
we do that is observed. When I was alerted. I
waited outside and observed, noting down any anomalies until he
blinked back. But some have The more proactive new recruits,
ones looking to prove themselves, rush in armed and ready.
The lucky ones get the scare of their lives, and
the man blinks back in with a sudden flash, scaring
the hell out of the green recruit. Wherever the phaser goes,
whatever he sees must be horrifying. I would have thought
he simply blinked forward in time, delaying when he appears
to us in the facility, But the look in his
eyes after a delayed blink tells a thousand stories, ones
which he'll never share. The unfortunate outcome is when a
guard stands where he appears without fail contact with a
blinking entity, even if just brushing his arm as he
blinks back, always favors the one who blinked. The guard
simply bursts into a huge red mist. Since getting cleaners
inside is an impossibility, the phaser has to clean it up.
Looking back, this all feels like a test to see
if a guard is ready to handle the oddities contained here,
a litmus test for new recruits. Being too passive can
lead a catastrophe. Being too proactive can also lead a catastrophe.
Sometimes even a middle ground can be detrimental. You're tested
every day with your split second decision making skills, and
it feels like this is how they gauge us on
our response. The phaser is one of many prisoners dangerous
by circumstance, a repercussion of dabbling too far into untreaded
waters and being eternally punished. However, some prisoners are dangerous
by choice. In society, we've heard of people pushing themselves
into great feats. Archers who can hit a bull's eye
then split that arrow with a second one lift us
geared to the max hauling weight that matches large vehicles.
But what if someone took it further? Prisoner X has
a laundry list of protocols. To simplify it, he essentially
turned his body into a living weapon, chemical, biological, technological, mentally,
he dabbled into every extreme to make himself the most
dangerous person alive. Through multiple surgeries, the scientists Tear have
removed a large portion of his internal weapons and contingencies. However,
he still has many that simply cannot be Undone. His
skin is nigh unbreakable, hardened through means which our scientists
are still trying to figure out. Prisoners often have a
running theme of not talking, so there's still a lot
unknown to us. But this makes him resistant to tasers
and fire. Our go too for prisoner subjugation. Instead, we
have to periodically drill a small hole into his neck,
not an easy feat with how thick his skin actually is,
put on a collar with a reinforce syringe filled with
enough sedatives to put down an elephant. However, we still
need bodies to escort him from his cell to where
he needs to be. To say he is resistance of authority,
he is an understatement. One time he tried to make
a break for it. He waited for the cusp of
when he needed redrilling. His skin had hardened for his
neck to resist the needle just enough for him to
knock it away head down, just tackling the wall to
alter its angle. It took almost three full squads to
finally subdue him, many casualties taken. Despite his arms eternally
being bound, he was still proficient in killing in many
other ways. I was fortunately on a different shift, but
the deaths up to security and increased how often he
was drilled. Luckily, not all prisoners as strictly evil. Some
I hear for being too aspirational. One man sits in
a cell low security and minimal luxuries, which is a
lot compared to the many others living conditions. Here. We
call him the tinkereer because the Southern post title of
technomancer was too ridiculous for us to use. At first,
he was a menace, nothing too threatening, but he would
tinker with anything he could get his hands on. Guards
found their combs missing from their belt, only to have
a strange signal beam out at everyone's radios Uppida's without
strange bugs, only to find a signal was sent to
disrupt them. Though there are many anomalies on a near
constant basis, some potentially catastrophic. When it fell into the
category of technology shenanigans, it was easy to know who
the culprit was. Often we'd storm up to his cell,
subdue him, and search the area, and each time we'd
find a makeshift array he'd made with the scraps he'd
found and destroy it, giggles coming between his grunts as
a guard held him down. Something we noticed, though, was
that when he did play with his tech, he would
happily stay in his room and tinker. This gave us
an idea. Periodically, we'd bring in a broken piece of
technology a laptop, tablet, phone, et cetera. Obviously, we'd remove
anything that could cause issue, parts that could access the internet,
or simply remove a key item like the CPU. From here,
we'd bring it to him under the guise that we
wanted it fixed, and he'd tinker with it for days,
sometimes weeks. When he'd finish, with search his room in
case he held any parts, often finding them and unbeknownst
to him, destroy it all. We once booted up a
fixed laptop he given us, adding back in the CPU
and battery, only for it to be an almost completely
different device set up for functions. We couldn't even comprehend
the brainchild of the madmen of technology, but we kept
up this routine because doing this satiated him. This wasn't
on any of the books. We guards often found our
own means through on ground observation to come up with
makeshift routines to make our lives easier. However, one guard
didn't get the full memo. He saw the tinker as
the guy that fixes things, and brought him his phone
that wasn't turning on despite the facility being deep underground
and jammed up to the max for any outward signal
by location in technology. Within hours, a nuclear code was
sent and almost worked in setting off multiple missiles. A
nuclear warning was even sent out in Hawaii, which outwardly
was reported as a false flag, but we were close
to a real catastrophe. The guard was swiftly dealt with
and the tinkerers band from fixing tech for months, but
he wasn't unhappy with this. Every time we checked on him,
he still giggled about it thinking about what he did.
This tied him over until he was eventually allowed to
fix broken tech again with much more restrictions from then on.
There's one prisoner which I like, being put on shift
for causes no issues, needs no maintenents, just need to
keep an eye on him and note down any anomalies,
which there are never any of. This is because he's
stuck in a perpetual state of stasis. The story goes
that a strange signal was picked up in the basement
of a residential building. When a filled up team was
sent to investigate, they found him in this state frozen
in time. Around him was an array of strange tech
computers linked together in complicated ways, and a bulking machine
mostly destroyed. Due to him not being able to cooperate
in any sort of questioning, it was up to the
investigation team to piece together what happened, and boy did
they find a strange story. Through logs on his computer,
they discovered that he had in fact found the first
legitimate means to travel back in time. Very illegal. We
have a few prisoners detained for even attempting to start
that project, but he might have succeeded somehow he cracked
the code and put together the haphazard machine that lay
destroyed around him. But it's what he did with it
which is possibly the strangest thing I'd ever heard. Instead
of going back to make riches change a mistake in life,
old history in a groundbreaking way, visit a prolific historical figure,
or hell, see the dinosaurs, he instead went back in
time to kill his own grandfather. Guy was obsessed with
the grandfather paradox. It's strange how genius lovel intellect has
a correlation with absolute insanity. We only know this from
going through the logs on his computer. He detailed his
plan and specifically who he was, after one Charles Vernon.
We checked the database and a match was found. Charles
Vernon had died in the late nineteen forties, no record
of kids, which means if it was his grandfather, he
had successfully killed him and stopped a parent from being born,
causing him to become a paradox. However, he didn't simply disappear.
Despite all the information we could find, so much more
is left a mystery. It's inconclusive whether the state's currently
in is because of the paradox, a side effect of
time travel, or self inflicted after getting the answers he wanted.
It's also unknown what happened to the machine, whether it
was a one time used kind of deal or something
he set up so that it could never be used
after him. But we're working hard on freeing him. He
studied a lot and tests are always being ran and
whether we could reverse the condition he's in because throughout
all the logs there is nothing on how we built
the actual machine. So the scientists are hoping to unfreeze
him and prying this information out of him one way
or another. The science is above my pay grade. However,
I sometimes imagine what could have been done if one
went back with ambition, though someone going back with chaotic
contentions would be a terrifying thought. Maybe that's why he
never documented how it was made for why the machine
was destroyed. A large amount of duties are sectioned off
between different squads. What this means is that duty of
mentioned which are in my rotation may infrequently or never
show up for other squads. We have no idea how
the criteria for this is made, whether it's some inner
system of threat level or group based competency. God knows
what kind of demons others deal with, but hopefully I
am in a good rotation. But one duty, which is
universal between all groups is playtime. For this duty, I
dressed up in civilian attire, very young, coded and drove
to a town called small Haven. Now, the facility is
located remote from any civilization, so this town itself is
in a town per se. It's actually an entire level
of the facility, widened enough to create a dynamic, functioning
town and tall enough that a realistic skybox could be made.
Everyone in the town is an actor playing their part
twenty four seven, never breaking character or for one prisoner
a child. She lives with the family, though they are
technically actors, knowing that the town isn't real, they are
her biological relations. All in all, she lives the perfect life,
goes to school, plays with friends, visits extended family, which
are also moved into the facility town. The reason for
her detainment is simple. If she gets mad, she goes nuclear.
Not in a hyperbolic way. She has enough internal energy
to flatten entire countries plural. It's too big of an
explos to contain or isolate. Even if set off remotely
from the furthest point of land dead set in the
middle of the largest ocean, the Tsun armies would devastate
large portions of continents in all directions. We can't get
into space without risking hitting levels of stress that would
set her off before exiting the atmosphere. So she's stuck
in this facility under the guise of having moved to
a nice little town to start fresh. There are contingencies
set in place to make sure she never leaves. The
outer limits of the town are all abandoned factories or
run down ghettos, all designed psychologically to make them undesirable
to go to, though abandoned might be the wrong turn
to use, considering how many trained snipers are stationed there
around the clock, all armed with long range sedatives. Even
the ghetto's population are all trained militia scary looking people
to deter her wandering through an armed to the teeth
with contingencies. She once wandered close to the outer limits
with no escorts nearby. It was reported that she wasn't
trying to make a break for it, but they still
implemented a fail safe. She was subdued, and when found
by her parents, she was told she fell asleep wandering
too far. Luckily she bought that and there hasn't been
an incident since. She has no idea what is truly
going on, and when I was selected for playtime duty,
it was my job to check on her. How this
duty works can be complicated with how closed off the
town is from the real world. Getting information reliably to
and from small Haven it is difficult. Every so often
a guard has to role play into town to check
on things. Sometimes we're an out of town counselor sent
in by the school administration to check on all the students,
Sometimes for travelers car having trouble so stuck in town
for a few days. Seeing a new face also keeps
up the facade of the town's legitimacy, hiding the fact
that it is cut off from any real civilization. My shift, however,
was different. This was the first drafted long term visit,
and I was lucky enough to be the first participant.
Despite working in a facility in which you're physically tested
every day, with some guards covered head to toe in
unsightly scars, I've been relatively untouched, though there are given
items to look after ourselves, in which I do the
bare minimum. I guess I just have to admit it.
I have a serious case of babyface. This hasn't been
an issue, but it must have been noticed because it
tied directly into my assignment. I was sent in as
a new high school student finishing off the last part
of the year. I was given a strict schedule to
shave and make sure I blended in. Alone, I would
stand out as slightly older, but amongst the crowd, I
blended in well enough. The education departments were mixed through
all years, segmented between elementary and high school, so despite
being years apart in the schooling system, I was able
to observe the prisoner on occasions. In class, I was
instructed that I did not need to participate in learning
unless observed by the prisoner, which never came up, and
so I used that time to tell make meticulous notes
on anything I observed. I learned her name was Emily
and that she got on well enough in school. However,
there was a planned event. Since I was new in town,
Emily's parents invited me over for dinner, keeping up the
facade of a friendly, welcoming town. Alongside me was an
actor who posed as my mother. I handed over the
envelope containing the script to my mother and we studied
it together for hours to make sure everything lined up.
My mother played a single parent and I had lived
with my father for most of my life. However, she
came back into the picture through letters, and I had
decided to reach out and live with her for a
bit to mend our relationship. A believable story, and when
there was so small it would be hard to poke
holes in, we drilled the script, adding information for us
to sync up with in case anything else came up.
The meal went well because it was under the guise
of meeting new people. He managed to detail their family
life in a public setting. Overall, they reviewed well, and
I noted how stable everything seemed. However, unexpected to Emily's parents,
my mother pulled them to another room to crack open
a bottle of wine, something that kids couldn't participate in.
This left Emily and I alone for an in depth review,
away from the pressures of keeping up appearances with her parents.
This is something we struggled with in previous reviews, since
leaving a child alone with an adult stranger was something
hard to set up. Since I was perceived as a
youth rather than an adult. I was to extract any
useful information with this precious time frame and started slow
regoing over icebreakers, but this time in a more personal way,
asking how she really felt about life, about school, about apparents.
She opened up more than at the dinner table, all
of which was positive. The small Haven project was still
going strong. However, Emily went quiet after a while, with
a deep look of contemplation on her face. Rather than pray,
I let the silence hang, letting the pressure of social
cues eas her into opening up. However, rather than throwing
some thought provoking question back, she threw a curveball straight
into my face. I know it's all not real, she
said plainly. If I had a drink in my mouth,
i'd have spat it out. Huh oh, what do you mean?
I stuttered back. I had been composed before this, in
control of the conversation, following my orders to the letter. However,
this was veering so off script that I spat out
a question, hoping to steer things back to normalcy. I mean,
it's a simulation right this town. It's all avasad No,
she muttered. I froze. My first instinct was the gaslight
the hell out of her, make her feel crazy for
even thinking that, even though she was one hundred percent right.
But then a spark in my head told me that
if I argued against the point, this could cause unease,
which could turn to frustration anger, something I was instructed
over and over to never cause. So instead I probed,
what makes you think that? I asked curiously. I know
something's inside me, something I don't understand, something no one understands,
she said solemnly. Ice ran through me. She was to
never know about a condition. It was theorized that the
stress of keeping it in check could trigger her like
being constantly conscious of needing to breathe. She carried on
in my silence. I know everyone's an actor, pretending to
be part of this town, even my parents. They're my parents,
I know that, but they keep up a facade. This
was dangerous, and it was worse with every word she
spat out. She knew too much, but there was no
denying the conviction and a voice she was certain there
was no going back now. So instead of trying to
contradict it, I went for the answer I desperately wanted
for myself. How do you know? I asked, not some
setup to flip the narrative. I needed to know. Did
someone talk? Did she sneak out without people knowing? This
information was vital? Whatever is in me, this energy, it's changed.
At first I heard buzzing. My parents thought I was sick,
pulled me from school for a bit. But then it
like famed into words. But they they weren't from people's mouths,
it was from their heads. There when all hopes I
could reverse this, she could read minds. As if this
couldn't get any more terrifying. I wanted to ask so much.
My mind jumbled with so many questions. I couldn't even
stutter the first lines of a question. However, she picked
up on this. Of course she did. She could hear
everything I was thinking and answered before I could say anything.
Don't worry, I don't mind it, she said, with a
hint of glee. I coughed to clear my throat. What
do you mean, I asked. I needed confirmation, this town,
this life. I don't mind it. My parents are here,
my family are here. They love me. I know that
for a fact. That's the one thing that isn't a lie.
They're doing this for my safety, so I don't mind it,
she said, matter of factly. I eased up at this,
just accepted the situation. With everything in the open. We
ended up just chatting the whole time, talking like real humans,
something she probably liked and hadn't had in a long time.
Just before the parents came back in, she told me
to keep a new developments a secret, something which I
agreed to. Besides, she'd know if I lied with absolute certainty.
Since then, I've been the first recurring volunteer for playtime Duty.
The story evolved that I've reconnected with my mother and
live in a split custody between them. My actor mother
is now family friends with Emily's parents, and so we
have a reason to see them when I come to
town to visit, and Emily and I have developed a
bond which is valuable to the prison. Playtime gives me
a much needed reprieve from the hectic nature of the prison,
but I'm always kept busy. Lately I've been put on
feeding duty. The prisoner is the man in the hole.
His cell is simple. Nothing extraists fitted to hold him,
at least what we can see. Despite his strange quirk.
He never leaves his cell, though it's sometimes hard to tell.
No one in my team has ever fully seen him.
Every time we visit his cell, there's always a new
hole somewhere on the floor, wall, even ceiling. The location
is always random. This is despite whatever is logically on
the other side. Beside his cell is another unoccupied room.
Under and above are other levels of the complex, yet
the adjoining rooms are never disturbed. The holes look almost cartoonish,
rubble piled up around the hole or the edges frayed
up in an exaggerated manner, but the hole itself is
unnatural dark, regardless of how a light source is pointed
at it. When he speaks, it echoes like is far
deeper than what should be possible. They're closer to dimensional hole,
and when a new one appears, the previous one is gone,
not even a single scratch to indicate any wrongdoings. We
only know he's in there because he will chatter to
us when we bring him his food, though we're always
just instructed to leave it on the floor and leave.
Studies have been done to figure out what the holes
truly are. Items, cameras and people have been sent in
to investigate, but whatever enters never leaves. If connected to
a tether, it is severed upon entry and swiftly lost.
So for the time being it is just a management
and observation job. One time we thought he escaped, a
routine inspection was sent with catering to deliver. However, no
hole was found. It was reported, and as the backup
team was dispatched, the guard found where he was. Giggling
was heard from behind, and when he turned he saw
the edges of the keyhole frayed out. Little giggles could
be heard from the tiny void. God knows how they
do it, but the external team have an uncannyability to
detain these wild individuals. They are either hyper elite individuals
formed to make a god squad, or piled up with
enough tech to take down civilization as we know it.
Either way, they get results. However, there's one prisoner which
is an exception, Frank, because rather than being detained, he
simply turned himself in. We still don't know where he's
truly from. When asked, he gives a different answer each time,
always in a sarcastic tone. But there are theories. Some
are basic, like some form of extraterrestrial origin, something, he's
some sort of genetic freak given god likabilities through the
genetic lottery. The most interesting to me is that he's
from a higher dimension, fourth or fifth maybe either way.
It's incomprehensible what he can do. Teleportation, flight, spontaneous combustion,
if you can name it, he can probably do it.
Because of this, he isn't detained in a cell. Nothing
can hold him, trust me, We've tried. So he just
wandered the facility looking for things to do. A guard
tug the last doughnut, and unbeknownst to him, Frank suddenly
decided that he wanted it now. If Frank had asked,
the guard probably would have given it to him. However,
Frank skipped the altercation entirely and went straight for retribution.
Frank turned the guard's head into a rose. From this
we discover that having a rose for a head is
guaranteed death, though it's technically unconfirmed since we only have
a sample size of one. When medical had a look,
it was intricate. It wasn't just the simple swap. The
roots of the rose had blended seamlessly with the veins
and arteries of the neck, extending down throughout the body.
Now why did Frank turn himself in? Well, that question
has another tangent to really put things into perspective. See,
this facility is hidden, hidden, hidden, so many layers of
secrecy on top of more secrets, along with people eliminated
along the way, just to make sure this place isn't
known about, isn't able to be found, and isn't able
to be tracked. It would take generations of descendants to
follow all the trails in order to find this place,
sifting through so many dead ends and false leads. So
when Frank strolled up to the front door, it was
a big deal. Frank's reason for doing all this is
the only thing he said that I believe he was
bored and what sounds more fun than to mess around
in the most secret, advanced place on earth. To him,
this was a playground, and we were his new playthings.
At first, he was an issue. His mischief often got
people killed. When curious about a prisoner, he'd released them
just to see what they could do. When we were
doing important procedures, he'd disrupt them just to get a
rise out of the staff. He once flipped gravity in
the whole facility just to see what would happen. God
knows who decided on the solution, but whoever did deserves
only the best in life. See. What got him to
fall in line was to hire him as a guard. Now,
he's not really a guard, not in the structural hierarchy sense.
He was given a special title, a uniform, and a
list of duties. However, the duties are a placebo replacing
the blinker fluid in a car kind of thing. But
whenever he finished the task, grand praise is given. We
found that making him feel important and blowing up his
ego keeps him too preoccupied to cause chaos. He's always
awarded employee of the month, despite that not really being
a thing. Here He's given an office with a fancy
door plaque, which I'm pretty sure he does nothing with,
and at the end of every month he's given a
large paycheck with a bonus if he does well, which
he gets every time. We're not even paid for this job.
The past ups is given are just printed pieces of
paper with some made up letterhead and lots of numbers,
but he eats it up, acting grateful, talking about how
he'll treat his family when he gets some time off.
He doesn't have a family here, By the way, I'm
pretty sure that with a thought he could turn the
entire complex into a block of solid gold. He has
no use for money. There aren't even shops here, but
the whole charade just works. So we never put a
pin to his happiness balloon, and it's came in handy
a few times. There are a few guards he's taken
a liking to. He had a stint where he acted
like a sitcom character and chose a few guards at
random to I assume be side characters. The friendship was
entirely one sided, but with enough improv he was satiated. However,
one of the side character guards was having an issue
while detailing a prisoner. They slipped their bonds and was
about to cause mayhem, usually a death sentence in here,
when suddenly Frank came in and swift put a stop
to the situation. Right now, he's not an issue. However,
I fear that one day he'll tire of this role
and he'll switch back to causing mischief or worse. A
lot of prisoners scare me. In fact, that could be
an understatement. Every day our lives are put on the
line during the most meanial of tasks. However, one prisoner
simply worries me. If a prisoner loses a life here,
all that is lost is potential discoveries. They are both
held captive for the safety of the world and studied
for the betterment of progress. But there's one prisoner here which,
if incapacitated or worse, could spell the end of the
world as we know it, the first prisoner. I've not
been entirely truthful. More of a live omission. I speak
of this building, call it a facility and such, But
in reality, the building itself was an anomaly that made
this whole project possible, a building semi sentient and fully
self sufficient. It was a smaller building at first, but
its unnatural properties were soon discovered. When built upon, each
room tethers itself to all others in a conscious way.
If we want a room to be a cell, we
have to build it as such. Even when we use
the simplest of materials, its function is enhanced to what
the room is desired to be. It's difficult to grasp.
I don't fully get it myself. I'm paraphrasing from what
I pieced together from the technical jargon. I was fared,
but it's how I've come to understand things. It's heart,
if you could call it. That powers the whole facility,
producing more than enough power for all the containment cells,
along with the many experiments running within the structure. This
was all kept under wraps. We didn't know any of
this until issues started coming up lately. Concrete has been
crumbling in the far reaches of the building. Cell doors
aren't locking as tightly as before. Fortunately, the prisoners haven't
fully grasped how strained the building is, but with enough
force escapes are possible. We have set up measures to
keep things in check through staff, and this introduces a
lot of elements of human failure. When observing the degradation myself.
It's always in the lowest levels of the compound, or
the furthest reaches of a floor. I have a theory
that the building is strained, bloated beyond its limits. We
are constantly adding more flaws, more rooms, more functions, and
whatever this anomalous building is is finally struggling to keep up,
but we cannot stop. Every day there is an influx
of new prisoners, fresh from the external team, threats that
cannot be left unchecked in the outside world. They need
to be put in containment, and this is the only
place that can hold them. The prison started as the
first anomaly, the plus prisoner, but when its term has ended,
it could spell danger when everything we've collected gets out.
I was stretched out on my couch, half watching some
reality show I didn't care about, scrolling through my phone,
debating whether I should bother making dinner or just eat
a bowl of dry cereal again. Outside, the street lights
cast a familiar yellow glow over the empty road, and
the occasional car passed by, his tires humming softly against
the pavement. Everything was still the kind of quiet you
only get in a small town late at night. Then
at nine seventeen pm. My phone buzzed violently in my hand,
the jarring blare of an emergency alert making me flinch.
The TV screen flashed red, cutting off mid scene. A
robotic voice crackled over the speakers of my radio, which
I hadn't even realized was still plugged in. The same
message was everywhere, we are sorry. That was it. No
warning about a storm or some evacuation instructions, just a vague,
meaningless phrase that sent a strange chill up my spine.
I sat up, phoned still in my hand, staring at
the words as they glowed on my screen. We are sorry,
sorry for what. I flicked to my messages and texted Ryan,
my friend who lives across town. Did you get that?
The message sent instantly, and the typing bubbles appeared almost immediately. Yeah,
what the hell does we are sorry mean? It's probably
a test or something. I had no answer. I looked outside,
expecting to see people standing in the streets a fire
in the distance, but everything looked normal. The street was
still empty, the houses around mine were dark, the residents
either asleep or unconcerned. I turned the TV volume up,
flipping through channels, I saw nothing. But reruns, talk shows,
commercials like nothing had happened, no breaking news or explanations.
I considered calling someone nine one one, the non emergency line,
anyone who might have more information, And that was when
I heard a distant rumble. I couldn't tell what it
was at first, then I realized it sounded like aviation machinery.
The hum of distant engines grew louder, deep and low,
like thunder rolling over the horizon. Then the sound became unmistakable,
the rhythmic chop of helicopter blades cutting through the night sky.
I stood up and walked to my window, pushing aside
the curtain just enough to peer outside. Two helicopters, black, unmarked,
swept low over the rooftops, moving with efficiency. The searchlights
scanned the streets, gliding across houses, yards and parked cars.
I watched as the beams passed over my neighbor's house
in my own, making the living room flicker in bright
white light before plunging back into shadow. What the hell
was happening? My phone screen lit up as I received
a message from Ryan. You've seeing this now, I responded fast, Yeah,
helicopters are hovering above my street right now, anything weighed
on your end. Soldiers everywhere, well, I can't tell if
they're actual normal soldiers. They're dressed in all black and
wearing gas masks. Soldiers. I looked back out the window
and saw them military vehicles, several of them, rolling through
the neighborhood like a slow moving parade. They weren't police
cruisers or National Guard trugs. They were heavier, bigger, armored.
Their matt black services looked unnatural under the street lights,
as if they were sucking the glow into them rather
than reflecting it and walking beside them rifles in hand
with dozens of soldiers in full tactical gear. They moved quickly,
splitting off into groups and heading toward different houses. They
weren't storming in. They weren't kicking down doors or yelling commands.
They were knocking, almost politely, but something about it felt off.
I watched as two soldiers approached my neighbor's house. They
knocked mister Dawson, the old man who lived there answered.
I couldn't hear what was said, but I saw the
way his head tilted in confusion. He started shaking his
head as if he didn't like what he was hearing.
Then one of the soldiers put a hand on his shoulder,
a firm grip. Dawson hesitated, then nodded, stepping aside to
let them in another bus. From my phone, power just
went out, as if on cue. The lights of my
house flickered once twice, then everything went dark. Street lights, houses,
even the military vehicles outside, all dead. In an instant,
I stood there in the dark, my heart pounding in
my ears. Through the window, I could see the soldiers
didn't seem surprised. They kept moving, the night vision goggles
glowing faint green as they worked their way down the block.
This wasn't a power outage, This was planned. A cold
realization settled in my stomach. They didn't want us to
see something. And that's when I felt it, not heard,
felt a vibration in the ground, not like the vehicles
on the streets. It was heavier. I pressed myself closer
to the window, squinting into the shadows. The helicopters were
circling above the spotlight, scanning, but they weren't looking at
the houses anymore. My phone buzzed again, bro I think
were in serious trouble. Then, at nine forty five, pm.
The silence was shattered. A deep, gutural roar tore through
the air. It wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before.
It wasn't a siren, wasn't a storm, wasn't even the
kind of growl you'd expect from an animal. It was
low and violent, the kind of sound that vibrated in
your chest, clawing at something deep in your bones. I
stumbled back, gripping the windowsill for balance. Then the gunfire started.
First a few single shuts, then a barrage of arsenal
rained down from outside. I saw flashes of muzzle fire
lighting up the darkness, soldiers shouting commands. The helicopter's overhead
dropped flares, bathing the streets in red orange light. Something
huge was out there. I didn't wait to see what
happened next. My instincts took over, screaming at me to
move now. I grabbed my backpack, flashlight, and a knife
from the kitchen, gripping the handle so tightly my knuckles ached.
My hands were shaking, but I forced myself to focus.
My breathing quick and uneven. I pulled out my phone
and texted Ryan, we need to meet up. Where are you?
Seconds past then gas station. Hurry, I slung my backpack
over my shoulder and moved to the door, my pulse hammering.
I hesitated for a second, one hand on the knob.
A new sound made the decision for me. Screaming, human
screaming from somewhere in the distance. I threw the door
open and stepped into the night. The second I was outside,
I could tell how wrong everything had become. The air
smelt burnt and metallic gunpowder mixed with blood. The streets,
normally lit with warm street lights were now drenched, them
pulsing red from the flares overhead. Some people ran barefoot,
some still in their pajamas, sprinting down the sidewalks, cutting
through yards, shoving past each other in blind panic. I
dugged low, sticking close to the houses as I made
my way toward the gas station. I knew the layout
of the town well enough to take back streets, avoiding
the main roads with the military was still engaging whatever
they were fighting or doing. A few blocks down, I
turned a corner and stopped dead. The street was flattened.
It looked like a tornado had torn through. Everything was
just leveled, cars, crumpled, ashfalt cracked, street lights snapped in half.
The street was covered in the bodies of soldiers and
civilians alike. Some were torn apart, their limbs scattered like
discarded dolls. Others were smashed flattened into the pavement like
something impossibly heavy had rolled over them. Their weapons bent
and crushed. There were no shellcasings, no sign that they
even had time to fire back before they were annihilated.
Something unstoppable had come through here. My phone buzzed in
my pocket, Where are you? I forced my legs to move,
stepping carefully around the destruction, and then from the distance
that roar again, followed by a massive explosion. Right after
the explosion, I lost service. I tried tending another message
anyway almost there, but it didn't go through. I quickened
my pace, keeping low, my breath coming in short gasps
every few steps. I'd glanced over my shoulder, expecting to
see something there, But all I saw were the ruins
of my town, bathed in eerie red light from the
still glowing flares. When I finally reached the gas station,
my stomach sank. It was destroyed, the roof had partially collapsed,
glass littered the parking lot, and a gas pump had
been ripped from its foundation, cables and metal jotting out
like snapped bones. The place looked like it had been
hit by a wrecking ball. I hesitated, scanning the ruins
for any sign of movement. My chest tightened. What if
Ryan was buried under there? Ryan? I called out, voice Horse.
For a moment, there was nothing, the distant sound of
helicopter's gunfire and my own pulse hammering in my ears.
Then over here Ryan's voice, faint but close, vaulting over
fallen shelves and broken glass behind the counter, Crouched low
and shaking was Ryan. I barely had time to register
my relief before the ground shook beneath us. A vibration,
deep and unnatural, rolled through the earth, wrappling the debris
around us. The air thickened, charged with something heavy, and
then the roar. Right outside. Ryan grabbed my wrist and
yanked me down behind the counter. Don't move. We pressed
ourselves against the cold tile, heartbeats thundering and sync. The
gas station trembled, dust and broken glass trickling from the
fractured ceiling. The vibrations grew stronger, heavier. It was here
I didn't want to look. Every instinct screamed, don't look.
But Ryan did, and I felt his body stiffened beside me.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to peek over the counter,
and that was when I saw it. Massive. Its body
looked like it had been stitched together from different things, muscles, fur, scales,
bone melded into a single, horrifying form. Insect like legs,
too many of them jointed the wrong way, bristling with
thick curved claws. Its torso was broad, pulsating, as if
breathing through unseen slit in its flesh. Parts of it
looked wet, glistening in the red glow of the flares,
while other sections were dry and cracked like withered skin.
And its face a mouth that split open, the inside
of its mouth revealing a second jaw. Mismatched eyes, some glowing,
some empty sockets, some that weren't even facing the same direction.
I couldn't breathe For something its size. It should have lurched,
should have been heavy, lumbering, but instead it darted between buildings,
its massive legs, making little sound compared to the destruction
left in its wake. The soldiers opened fire. A squad
on the street below unleashed hell machine gun fire, high
caliber rounds, grenades exploding against the tide. The air filled
with a deafening symphony of war, and I felt it
deep in my chest, like my rib cage was being
hammered from the inside. The gunfire was nothing like in movies.
It was chaotic. Each bullet crack punched through the air
like a whip, making my ears ring. The grenades sent
shock waves through the station, rattling my teeth and making
the air thick with dust and smoke. For a second,
I thought they might be hurting it, but it just
ripped through the soldiers like paper. Its claws slashed through
body armor like it was slicing butter. One soldier tried
to run, it grabbed him with one of its sickly
elongated arms and crushed him instantly. The sound was like
someone stepping on a wet bag of leaves. A missile
streaked through the air, fired from a nearby armored vehicle.
It hit direct impact. Then the wind shifted and the
smoke cleared. The monster was still standing. Its skin had cracked,
revealing something black underneath, something writhing, almost shifting beneath its flesh.
Its eyes flickered, seeming to adjust it had learned. Ryan
grabbed my arm. His face was pale, mouth slightly open.
We need to get out of here, he whispered, his
voice barely carried over the carnage outside. He turned to
look at me, eyes filled with something worse than terror, hopelessness.
Right now, the gunfire had stopped. The monster was gone.
For now, the gas was still standing, but barely. The
windows were shattered, the walls riddled with bullet holes, and
the air reeked of burnt fuel and blood. My legs
ached from crouching behind the counter, my ears still ringing
from the firefight. And then it hit me, this was
our chance. I peered over the counter, scanning the carnage.
In the streets, Soldiers lay scattered like discarded mannikins, Some
slumped against destroyed vehicles, others in twisted, unnatural positions. Their
weapons were still clutched in lifeless hands. I turned to Ryan.
He was shaking, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. His
pupils were wide, darting between me and the wreckage outside.
He was still in shock. We have to move, I whispered.
We won't get another chance. He looked at me, like
I was insane. Move where we're trapped that thing. I
grabbed his arm, shaking him. If we stay here, we're dead.
But if we look like one of them, I gestured
toward the fallen soldiers, maybe we can get out. Maybe
they'll take us with them. Ryan swallowed hard. He understood, removed, quickly,
crawling over the broken glass and stepping onto the street.
Keeping low. The flashing emergency lights from abandoned military vehicles
cast eerie shadows over the bodies. I knelt beside a
soldier lying face down, his gas masks still intact, his
rifle half buried under debris. His chest wasn't rising. He
was gone. I reached for his gear. Ryan hesitated, looking
at the bodies. He wasn't moving. Ryan, I hissed, grabbed something.
His hands trembled as he reached toward another soldier's vest.
He stopped, stared, his breath hitched. He was panicking, and
then gunfire erupted nearby. We both flinched as a fresh
burst of automatic fire tore through the night. Then came
the screams. The monster was back. Ryan froze. I saw
the moment his brain short circuited. The moment his fightal
flight kicked in hard. He dropped, Everything turned bolted ryan.
I shouted, but he was already gone. His footstepped pounded
against the pavement, disappearing into the smoke and shadows. I
had two seconds to decide run after him and die
or survive. The air shuddered. A massive thud shook the
ground as the monster landed nearby, having leaped over buildings
with impossible speed. Soldiers scrambled, opening fire again, their shouts
drowning in the chaos. I sprinted the opposite way. I
didn't look back. I dove behind an overturned envy, heart,
pounding lungs burning. The smell of oil, blood and gunpowder
clung to the air. I waited. Another explosion went off
so close I felt the heat against my face. The
soldiers were engaging the monster again. It hadn't gone in
my direction, which meant I squeezed my eyes shut, guilt
threatening to choke me. I couldn't think about that right now.
I needed to get out. I glanced down at myself.
I still had the soldier's uniform, but no helmet, no mask.
The military barricades, convoys. If there was a way out
of this hell hole, it would be through them. I
took one last look at the burning wreckage behind me
and the flashes of gunfire in the distance. I ran
until my legs nearly gave out. The world around me
blurred into smears of fire and darkness, my breath coming
in ragged, uneven gasps. Every few seconds, I heard another explosion,
a distant burst of gunfire, a roar so loud I
could feel it in my teeth. By the time I
reached the main road leading out of town, I could
see the military barricade in the distance, a makeshift checkpoint
built from sand bags, barbed wire, and armored vehicles. Footlights
bathed the area in harsh artificial glow. There were soldiers everywhere.
Some were positioned behind mounted machine guns, scanning the tree line.
Others hurried between vehicles, barking orders, dragging crates of supplies.
I slowed down, forcing myself to breathe evenly. If I
came in looking like a panic civilian, they turned me
away or detain me. If I looked like a soldier
trying to return to his unit, I adjested the rifle
slung over my shoulder, wiped the sweat from my forehead,
and started walking toward the checkpoint. The closer I got,
the clearer their faces became exhausted, tins covered in grime.
Some soldiers were bandaged up. Their uniforms were ripped, stained
with blood. Others had vacant stairs like they had already
checked out. I could use there. As I approached, a
soldier spotted me and raised his rifle. You stop right there,
I froze, raised my hands slightly, making sure not to
move too fast. And with the ground unit near Lincoln Avenue,
we got separated when that thing hit us. I was
trying to get to the checkpoint. The soldier's face hardened.
I d my stomach twisted into a knot. I I
lost it in the fight. I held my side winting,
faking an injury, got thrown when that thing knocked the
truck over. I blacked out for a bit. When I
came to my unit was gone. I had to make
my way here alone. A second soldier stepped forward, older,
more seasoned. He looked me up and down, eyes narrowing slightly.
What's your call sign, he asked. My mind raised. The
ground shook violently, sending loose gravels skittering across the pavement.
The floodlights flickered. The young soldier's radio crackled a life,
it's moving on the checkpoint. All units prepared to engage.
The two soldiers turned sharply, their eyes widening in horror.
The older ones spun toward me. Get in the goddamn truck. Now.
I didn't hesitate. I jumped onto the back of the transport,
squeezing in between ground faced soldiers. Their weapons locked and loaded,
The truck lurched forward, tires screeching against the pavement. As
the convoy sped out of town, I looked back, and
I saw hell. The entire skyline was on fire. Buildings
collapsed like cardboard, their skeletal frames glowing with flames. Helicopters
hovered above, dropping missiles in quick succession. Each explosion ripped
through the streets, sending shock waves through the air, all
of it followed by a deafening, animalistic screech. The monster
emerged from the smoke. Its massive, insect like limbs propelled
it forward at an impossible speed, its body still shifting,
pulsating with unnatural movement beneath its stitch together hide. Gunfire
irerupted from every direction. Soldiers fired everything They had mounted
turrets rocket launches in sundi I rounds, but it didn't
slow down. It was speeding up. One of the helicopters
swooped in, launching two precision missiles. The explosion engulfed the creature, fire, smoke, debris.
The truck jerked violently as the shockwave ripped through the street.
I shilded my face, the heat almost unbearable even from
this distance. Then through the thin smoke it was still moving.
All my surroundings exploded in a noise, the same robotic
voice from earlier. We regret to inform you containment has failed.
If you are still in the area, May God help you.
The moment the alert came through, the convoys radio flared
to life. All units cleared their own code black is
in effect. The soldiers in the truck went dead silent.
Then one of them whispered voice hollow jeez, then nuking it.
I turned back towards the town, my breath catching in
my throat. A blinding white light engulfed the skyline. The
shock wave came first, a concussive force so strong it
felt like my lungs had been punched inward. The ground
beneath A convoy rumbled violently, cracks spider webbing across the bavement.
A towering, unnatural mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The
town was consumed in an instant, everything gone. I couldn't move,
I could only watch as the place I had lived
my entire life was turned to dust. The truck sped forward,
leaving the destruction behind. None of the soldiers spoke. There
was nothing left to say.