Speaker 1: I never really thought much about the locks on Grandpa's
door that'd been there as long as I could remember.
Brass brackets fitted neatly into the door frame, old polished
skeleton keys resting on a small dish by dad spot
at the dinner table. To me, it was just part
of our house, like the faded wallpaper in the hallway
or the humming radiator that never quite stopped rattling in winter.
Every evening after dinner, Grandpa would fold his napkin carefully,
place it beside his plate, and stand with a soft sigh.
He always thanked Mom for the meal, patted Dad's shoulder
as he passed, then paused at my chair to give
a gentle nod and a small smile. His eyes crankled
at the corners when he smiled, and for a moment
he looked younger than his thin, spotted hands suggested. Then
he'd shuffle down the short hallway to his room, slippers
scuffing the hardwood with a rhythm I could hear even
over the ticking kitchen clock. Dad would stand and follow him,
keys jingling in his palm. Once Grandpa stepped inside, Dad
would close the door and turn the lock twice until
it clicks solid. Sometimes he'd test the handle after giving
it a quick shake to make sure it held firm.
Then he'd sigh, tuck the keys back into his pocket,
and we carry on cleaning up the plates and wiping
down the counters. No one talked about it. I never
thought to ask why Grandpa's door he did a lock
from the outside, and they never offered an explanation. As
a kid, I assumed it was a safety thing, like
those plastic outlet covers or cabinet locks to keep toddlers
away from bleach bottles. Grandpa was frail, after all, He'd
been old for as long as I'd been alive. In
the mornings, he sat by the sliding door with his
library books, reading with thick glasses perched half way down
his nose, one hand stroking the cat curled in his lap.
In the afternoons, he walked slow laps around the little
garden beds, pulling up weeds or patting tomato cages to
check their stability. At school, my friends asked why Grandpa
didn't live in a care home. I shrugged and said
he didn't need one. When they pushed further, asking about
the locks, heat rose in my cheeks and laughed off,
mumbling that it was just a family thing. Eventually they
stopped asking for me. It was normal. Grandpa had dinner
with us, Grandpa went to bed, Dad locked his door.
The world stayed simple because I never gave myself a
reason to question it. Dinner was chicken stew that night,
thick with potatoes and onions. Grandpa always ate slow, taking
tiny spoonfuls and chewing each bite carefully. He barely touched
his roll, tearing it into small pieces and piling them
neatly on the rim of his plate. Half Way through
the meal, he paused and press the napkin to his mouth.
His shoulders shook with a quiet cough, deeper than his
usual shallow clearing of the throat. When he pulled the
napkin away, I saw the dark red stain blooming across
the folded cotton. It was a much, just a faint splash,
but it sat heavy in my chest. He frowned down
at it for a moment, then folded the napkin over
again so only clean white showed. Mom and Dad both
saw it. I watched them exchange a glance across the table,
a silent conversation passing between them. In the tightening of
the rise and the set of their jaws, neither said
a word. Dad reached for the salt shaker, Mam, mast
if anyone wanted more bread. I kept eating, though my
stomach felt tight and hollow. Grandpa's hands trembled faintly as
he lifted his spoon. He still smiled at me when
her eyes met the corners of his mouth, pulling up
in that familiar, tired way. For a moment, I wondered
if he was scared, if he ever worried about getting old,
or if he'd lived so long that death just felt
like another room he'd eventually walk into. After dinner, he
stood carefully and pushed his chair back under the table.
He thanked Mam for the stew patted Dad's shoulder, and
gave me his usual small nod. There was an extra
pause before he turned away, a flicker of something clouding
his gaze. Then he shuffled down the hallway to his room.
Dad followed, keys jingling quietly in his pocket. I sat there,
staring at my half empty ball, listening for the click
of the lock. It echoed faintly through the house, followed
by Dad's slow footsteps. Returning to the kitchen, he started
running the tap, rinsing dishes as if nothing had happened
that night. Lying in bed, I couldn't sleep. The sound
of Grandpa's cough kept looping in my head. I'd always
thought of him as old but unbreakable, like a statue
weathered smooth by decades of rain. Now he seemed small,
frail in a way that scared me. What if he
needed help in the middle of the night, What if
he fell or couldn't breathe. The idea of him locked
alone behind that heavy door made my chest ache. For
the first time in my life, I realized I didn't
actually know why we locked him in. I never cared
enough to ask. But if something happened to him in
there and I did nothing, I wasn't sure I could
live with that. I lay awake long after the house
went quiet. The glow from my phone screen faded as
the battery died, leaving me in the faint orange wash
of the street light filtering through the blinds. I stared
at the ceiling, listening to the ticking of my alarm
clock and the gentle creaks of wood settling into the
cool air. My chest felt tight with worry, every shallow
breath scraping against it. I swung my legs over the
edge of the bed and stood, the carpet cool against
my feet. The hallway felt colder than my room. Shadows
lay in thick pools along the skirting boards, and the
faint hum of the fridge drifted down from the kitchen.
I walked slowly, placing each foot with care so the
floorboards wouldn't complain under my weight. Grandpa's door sat at
the end, painted the same pale yellow as the rest
of the walls, the heavy brass locks shining dully in
the low light. I pressed my ear against the wood.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence and my
own heart beating fast in my chest. Then I heard it,
a soft humming, quiet and tuneless. His voice sounded thin,
wavering at the ends of each note, but steady enough
to recognize as his. After a while, the humming faded
into whispers. I couldn't make out the words, only the
cadence of speech, rising and falling in the dark. It
almost sounded like a prayer, though the rhythm felt wrong,
unfamili My hand drifted to the doorknob. I wrapped my
fingers around the cold metal and turned it gently. It
rattled under my grip, locked firm. I held it there
for a moment, feeling the solid resistance between us. Something
heavy settled in my chest, a quiet certainty that I
needed to know what was behind this door. I let
go and stepped back, pressing my hand to the wall
to steady myself. Tomorrow, I told myself I would find
the spare key the next morning. I waited until Mom
left for the grocery store and Dad headed out to
mow the lawn. His footsteps crunched across the gravel drive,
and the whir of the mower drifted faintly through the
kitchen window. My hands trembled as I wiped down the
breakfast place, trying to keep busy while my thoughts spun
circles in my chest. When the mower engine roared to
life outside, I slipped down the hallway to my parents' room.
The door creaked when I pushed it open, and for
a moment I froze, listening for any sign Dad had heard,
but the steady drone of the mower continued. Their room
smeled faintly of old perfume and clean linen. Sunlight filtered
through the thin curtains, casting bright stripes across the carpet.
I moved quickly to Dad's dresser and pulled open the
top drawer. Socks and folded handkerchiefs lay stacked in neat rows.
I ran my fingers along the back until they hit
a thin wooden panel. Pressing down gently, I felt it
shift under my touch, a false bottom. My heart thudded
against my ribs as I lifted it away. There, resting
in the hollow space lay an old brass skeleton key.
Its edges were worn smooth, the teeth darkened with age.
I held it in my palm, feeling its cold weight.
The urge to put it back nearly overwhelmed me. My
chest felt tight with guilt, as if taking it would
snap some invisible thread holding the house together. But the
memory of Grandpa's cough pressed against my mind, the way
his shoulders shook with the force of it, the way
he smiled at me despite the blood on his napkin.
I thought about how he always paused at my chair
after dinner to give me that slight nod, as if
to say he saw me, even when no one else did.
I thought about how his hands trembled when he held
his spoon, and how his feet dragged a little more
each day as he walked down the hall. He was
getting weaker, and I couldn't stand the thought of him
trapped behind that door, sick or scared or in pain,
with no one there to help him. Even if there
was some reason he had to be locked in, he
still deserved someone who cared enough to check on him.
I tucked the key into my pocket, lowered the false
bottom back into place, and closed the drawer. The mower's
hum continued outside unbroken. I stepped into the hallway, the
feel of the key burning cold against my thigh through
the denim. That evening, at dinner, Grandpa barely touched his food.
He sat hunched in his chair, eyes shadowed and distant.
When Mom offered him a second helping, he shook his
head with a tired smile. The silence of the table
fell thick enough the choke on. Finally, Grandpa set down
his fork and looked around at each of us, his
gaze settling on me. Last. Thank you, he said, softly,
thank you for taking care of me all these years.
Mom reached over and placed a hand on his squeezing
it gently. Dad gave him a small nod, his mouth tight,
eyes fixed on his plate. Neither of them spoke, a
calm acceptance made my stomach twist with confusion and dread.
After dinner, Grandpa stood and excused himself. Dad followed him
down the hall, keys jingling in his hand. I sat frozen,
listening for the quiet click of the lock as Grandpa's
door closed for the night. When darkness fell and the
house settled into its nighttime hush, I lay awake. The
brass key lay under my pillow, its weight dragging at
my thoughts. My heart thought it so loud, I could
feel it pulsing against the mattress. Worry coiled tighter with
each passing hour. I couldn't shake the image of Grandpa's
trembling smile and dark, tired eyes. I told myself I
was doing this for him, because he deserved more than
to be left alone behind a locked door he couldn't open.
Near midnight, I slid out of bed, careful to avoid
the groaning floorboard beside the dresser. The house lay in
silent darkness, thick with the soft hum of appliances and
the occasional tick of cooling pipes. I held the brass
key tight in my fist as I crept down the hallway.
The carpet were off under my bare feet. Grandpa's door
loomed ahead, pale yellow in the dim light spilling from
the cracked bedroom behind me. My pulls hammered against my ribs,
each thud echoing louder in my ears. As I slipped
the key into the lock, the metal teeth caught and
resisted for a moment before turning with a soft click.
I paused, breath caught in my throat, listening for any
sound from inside. Nothing moved beyond the door. I eased
it open, just wide enough to slip through, press my
back against the wood. Once it closed behind me, the
room smiled of lavender powder and old mouthballs, a dry
sweetness undercout with something damp and metallic that set my
teeth on edge. Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting
pale silver bars across the carpet and the edge of
Grandpa's bed. He sat upright, propped against the headboard, hands
folded neatly in his lap, chin rested against his chest,
eyes closed. For a moment, I thought he might be asleep,
but his chest rose and fell in slow, labored breaths.
Each inhale rattled in his throat before shuddering out into
the quiet room. Grandpa, I whispered. My voice trembled in
the stale air, curling around the shadows clinging to the
corners of the room. His eyes opened. At first, I
thought the moonlight was playing tricks on me, But as
his eyes adjusted, I saw the pale, cloudy film covering
his pupils, a faint, milky sheen that caught in the
dim light. His gaze turned toward me, unfocused but aware.
He didn't blink. His mouth opened slightly, lips cracking at
the corners as he spoke. You shouldn't have come in,
he rasped. His voice scraped through the quiet, thin and
shaking with something deeper than weakness. I don't have much
time left to keep it down. A tremor ran through
his folded hands. The room felt smaller with each shallow breath.
I took the air, pressing in against my chest until
I couldn't draw it fully. Outside the window, the wind
rattled the warped glass, the sound sharp and sudden in
the thick silence. I wanted to speak, to ask what
he meant, but no words came out. Only the sound
of his ragged breathing filled the room, and the faint
quiver of moonlight trembling across the carpet between us. Grandpa's
breathing hitched, his chest expanded in shallow, ragged gasps, I
caught against something deeper inside him. His folded hands twitched
against his lap before curling into trembling fists. Slowly, his
head tipped back against the headboard, eyes rolling until only
the cloudy white showed beneath fluttering lids. Then his back arched.
At first, he looked as if he were stretching to
relieve a cramp, but his spine kept bending, vertebrae pushing
out under his thin cotton shirt until each bone jutted
sharply against the fabric. His jaw sagged open, trembling with effort.
A quiet pop echoed from his chin. Another crack deeper
in his throat followed, wet and sharp, and his mouth
dropped wider than it should have been able to the
skin of the corner split open in thin, tearing lines,
blood welling up, dark and quick. A wet, choking sound
poured from his chest, vibrating through the bed frame into
the stillness of the room. Then something slid out from
between his parted lips, forcing his mouth open even wider.
With a slick, sucking noise, pale flesh pushed forward in
twisting folds, slick with mucus and threaded with thin blue veins.
It uncurled across his chin and draped down his chest
before lifting into the air, writhing and pulsing as if
searching for something in the dark. My body jolted into
action before I could think. I turned and lunged for
the door, reaching for the knob with shaking hands. Something slapped,
wet and heavy around my ankles. The force pulled my
feet from under me, slamming my knees under the thin carpet.
Pain shot at my thighs as the fleshy tendrils tightened
its damp surface, clinging to my bare skin with a
sucking grip. The touch burned cold at first, then grew hot,
searing against my calves as he began to drag me
back across the room. Grandpa's head hung limp, mouth gaping
wide as more of the pale, vain flesh poured from
his throat coiling and pulsing in the moonlight. His eyes
fluttered open, tears mixing with blood as they streamed down
his cheeks. The ropes of flesh vibrated with each ragged
breath he took, making his voice tremble when he spoke,
I'm sorry, he whispered. The words came out wet and
garbled around the mass, forcing its jaw open. Each syllable
gurgled through the slick mess spilling from his mouth. I
tried to keep it fed quietly. I tried so hard.
His sobs shuddered through the pulsing tendrils as they dragged
me closer to the bed, the smell of blood and
rotting meat filling my nose. With each ragged breath, I drew.
The fleshy tendrils coiled tighter around my ankles, dragging me
inch by inch across the carpet. My finger nails tore
at the ruge's threads, leaving faint, bloody crescents behind. Grandpa's
mouth kept stretching, jaw trembling under the mass, forcing it wider.
Slick ropes of pale tissue pulsing and curling through the air.
The door slammed open behind me so hard it cracked
against the wall. Dad charged into the room, his face
pale with terror, eyes wide and wild. He gripped an
old iron crowbar in both hands, rust flaking off the
shaft where his fingers tightened around it. Without hesitation, he
swung the bar down into the nearest coil, wrapping my leg.
The impact made the tendril shudder, jerking away with a wet,
tearing sound that sprayed my calf with dark mucus. Grandpa's
mouth led out a strangled groan as the mass recoiled
into his throat for a moment before surging back out twice.
As thick more folds of vain flesh spilled down his
chest and coiled along the floor. Groping blindly across the carpet.
Dad swung again, this time striking one of the thicker
ropes still wrapped around my ankles. The four snugged my leg,
free pain, searing at my shins with a bar clipped bone.
I gasped and tried to crawl backward, tears blurring my vision.
The fleshy coils writhed and twisted towards me again, seeking
my bare skin with wet sucking sounds. Get back, Dad shouted,
voice cracking with panic. He raised the crowbar again, but paused.
I starting from me to Grandpa. His breath came in short,
ragged burst as he watched the thing pulsing from Grandpa's mouth.
For a moment, hope flashed in his eyes, as if
he believed he could still save him. Then Grandpa's eyes
rolled back, his chest convulsed, a deep rattle shaking through
his ribs. The tendrils doubled their frantic movements, whipping and
slapping against the walls and floor. One struck dead across
the cheek, leaving a smear of blood and mucus down
to his jawline. He stumbled back, chest heaving the crowbar
trembling in his grip. Dad, I sobbed, reaching out to him.
My voice felt thin and useless in the chaos. His
gaze flicked to me, eyes brimming with something worse than fear, grief, finality. Slowly,
he raised the crowbar higher, gripping it until his knuckle
was bleached. With a strangled cry, he brought it down
hard unt Grandpa's skull. The sound was wet and sharp,
a dull crack that echoed to the small room. Grandpa's
head snapped sideways against the headboard, his jaw still forced
wide around the pulsing mass. Another blow, another bone crunched
under iron. Blood splattered across the pillows and wall, mixing
with the dark mucus oozing from his mouth. The tendrils spazzened,
flailing in wild arcs, before collapsing into limp coils on
the bed. Dad stepped back, chest heaving crowbar dripping with
blood and mucus. Grandpa slumped forward, the thing in his throat,
retreating in quivering jerks until it vanished into his mouth.
His jaw sagged open one last time before closing with
a quiet, wet snap. Mom appeared in the doorway, her
silhouette framed by the dim hall light. She clutched the
heavy ceramic bowl against her chest, its rim caked with
dark herbs and strips of raw meat glistening in thick,
oily liquid. Her lips moved in a trembling whisper, chanting
words that sounded rough and broken in her throat. She
looked from Grandpa's body to Dad, then to me, crouched
on the floor, trembling and streaked with blood. Tears welled
in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks as she stepped closer,
the ball shaking in her hands. Dad lowered the crowbar,
staring at the broken body slumped against the head board.
His shoulders sagged with exhaustion and grief. Then he turned
to me. His eyes were red, rimmed with tears, empty
of anything except the hollow of defeet. Mom fell silent,
her chant dying in a throat. She set the ball
down at her feet, never taking her eyes off Grandpa.
There was a sadness there, deep and trembling, but something
about it felt wrong. The sorrow in a gaze seemed
to stretch beyond the grief for a lost father. There
was a tremor of fear behind the tears, and knowledge
of what came next that twisted her grief into something sharper.
Dad knelt beside me and pulled me into his chest,
his arms trembling around my shoulders. I pressed my face
into his shirt, breathing in sweat and iron and old
earth over his shoulder. Mom just stood there, staring at
the body on the bed, her tears stripping into the
bowl of blood and raw meat had her feet evening
settled over the kitchen, brushing the old lace curtains with
deep gold and violet. The sun dipped below the neighbor's rooftops,
leaving strips of fading light across the tile floors. I
sat at the table, fingers curled around a mug of
lukeworn tea. I hadn't touched. The chair to my right
sat empty, Grandpa's cushion, flattened where he used to sit
each night, with his chip ceramic bowl of stew humming
under his breath while he waited for Dad to pass
the bread. Dad sat across from me, elbows resting on
the table, face buried in his hands, his hair stuck
out in down clumps, still streaked with flecks of dried
blood he hadn't managed to wash away. Mom moved around
the kitchen in silence, rinsing dishes used and wiping down
spotless counters, again and again. Finally Dad raised his head.
His eyes were rimmed red, sunken with exhaustion. He tried
to smile, but the corners of his mouth only twitched
before sagging again. We should have told you, he said, softly,
This wasn't fair to you. I stared at him, words
quart behind the tightness in my throat. Tears burned at
the corners of my eyes, but didn't fall. I felt
scraped out inside, hollow and trembling. Your grandfather he was
host to something. Dad continued, voice were off long before
you were born, before I was born. Locking him in
at night was the only way to keep it contained.
Her feet while he sleeps. But it doesn't spread. That's
why weak. He paused mid sentence, frowning at the clock
above the sink. The number glowed seven fifty nine in
steady green digits. His shoulders slumped further as he pushed
back from the table chair, scraping across the faded final floor.
He stood and looked down at his hands, flexing his
fingers as if testing their strength. Mom moved to his side,
pressing a kiss to his temple. She picked up the
heavy brass key from the counter, holding it in both
hands as if it weighed more than its sighs aloud,
I'll bring you breakfast, she whispered. Dad didn't reply. He
walked down the hall, footsteps slow and dragging. Mom followed him,
pausing at the kitchen doorway to look back at me.
Her eyes were glassy with tears. That didn't spill over.
There was a grief there, deep and raw, but beneath
it flickered something colder, an old acceptance that made my
skin tighten with dread. She closed Grandpa's door behind him.
I heard the lock turned with a solid, final click.
I sat alone in the kitchen, staring at the empty
chair beside me. The cushions still held the faint indent
of Grandpa's shape, the scent of his lavender powder lingered
on the fabric, blending with the aroma of old wood
and the evening air. My chest ached with something I
couldn't name, fear loss, a knowledge that felt older than
my seventeen years. I realized I didn't need them to
explain the truth. Lay quiet and the pit of my
stomach heavy and certain. This thing, whatever it is, didn't
die with Grandpa. It passed along, settling itself into the
next willing body, the next family member. I wondered how
long I had until it was my turn. I was
finishing up my afternoon shift at the gas station when
the power flickered once twice, then died for good. The
store went silent except the hum of the old drink
fridge winding down and outside, the entire street had begun
melting into darkness. For a moment, I stood behind the
cashrit just staring at the dead monitors, thinking about how
I'd be leaving this place for college in two weeks,
thinking about how small and heavy it felt to still
be here. By the time I logged up and stepped
into the fading sunlight, candlelight was already blooming in windows
up and down Main Street. Tiny flames flickered behind lace
curtains and line porch railings, glowing against the dark like
cautious eyes. That was just what people did here. Whenever
the power failed, It didn't matter if it was a
two minute brown out on an overnight storm outage. Candles
came out fast. No one ever explained it to me
in words that made sense. I just grew up knowing
that when the lights went out, he lit a candle
for them. No one really said who they were, no
one wanted to. I've always gone along with it, habit mostly,
maybe a bit of fear too, if I'm honest, but
nothing deeper than that. Grandma was the believer. She would
hum under a breath, low and tuneless as she lit
each wick in the living room her hands would tremble
as she moved from candle to candle, whispering prayers. I
never fully understood the prayers meant to keep us safe,
she said. I used to watch her and wonder if
she really believed in what she was doing, or if
believing was just easier than asking questions. No one had
answers for All I knew was that every window in
our street would glow. By the time the first hour
of the black out passed, every porch would have a
candle burning, and every family would stay inside, quiet, waiting
for the power to come back on. I jogged the
short distance home, my trainers slapping the pavement in the hush.
There was just enough daylight left to make it home.
Without the street lights, the neighborhood felt swallowed by the sky,
leaving only small islands of flickering light in the windows.
Every porch had its candle lent and spurning. Some families
set out mason jars with tea lights lining their walkways,
flames bending and trembling in the spring wind. It was
beautiful in a way, if I didn't think too hard
about why we did it. No one was outside, not
even porch smokers or gossiping, neighbors leaning on rails. Windows
were curding tightly. The only movement came from the restless
flames themselves, stretching shadows across gardens and driveways. When I
was little, I used to think the candles made the
town look warm and alive. Grandma would tell me stories
about how her own mother lit them every blackout, whispering
that they kept the watch calm. At school, teachers never
spoke about it. My friends and I would joke that
the candles were just a hillbilly blackout tradition, something to
make us feel special when power companies ignored us. But
I still lit them. We all did. Even the new
families who moved here eventually fell in line. No one
wanted to be the only house dark during an outage.
Our house sat at the end of Sycamore Lane, as
sagging one story with pealing blue trim. It was smaller
than most, with two thin porch posts wrapped in chipped plastic.
Ivy Grandmarow said she liked being at the edge, away
from the busier parts of town. Few your eyes watching
at every move, she'd whisper with a smile. Though I
never understood what that meant. I pushed through the gate
and up the front steps, two at a time, the
wood creaking under my weight. My fingers shook as I
thumbed the keys from my pocket. I wanted to see
a silhouette in the window, rocking slowly in a chair,
candlelight pulling around a lined face as she mouthed prayers
into the quiet. That was how it always was, even
when the power returned. She lit the candles, burned down
to wax puddles before blowing them out, just to be sure.
Inside the living room smelled of lavender, wax and melted paraffin.
Dozens of tea lights flickered along the window sill, and
the old bugshelves crammed with worn cookbooks and yarn baskets.
But there was no humming to greet me, no whispered
psalms or half forgotten lullabies weaving through the candle lit shadows.
Grandma was slumped in a rocking chair, head leaning against
the shoulder. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. The
glow of the candles lit her face from below, deepening
every wrinkle into something hollow and waxen. Her chest rose
and fell in shadow. Uneven breath that rattled in a throat.
Grandma My voice cracked as I crossed the room, dropping
my bag by the door, I crouched beside her, gripping
her wrist. Her skin felt cold and damp. She didn't blink.
Her breathing fluttered like a candle about to go out.
For a long moment, I knelt there, listening to the
ticking of the wind up clock and the bugshelf, and
the soft hiss of candlewicks burning low outside. The street
was silent, holding its breath under the blackout sky. Emergency
surfaces never came out during a blackout. Whether it was
due to tradition or religistical reason, I never knew. But
what I did know was it was useless to try.
My chest tightened, I stood and moved to the candle shelf,
pulling down the box of fresh votives. If Grandma couldn't
finish them tonight, I would. I didn't know what else
to do. All I could think was keep them burning,
keep her safe, keep whatever weighted in the dark from
thinking our house was empty. I moved through the house
with a box of motives balanced against my hip, placing
candles in every room. The kitchen counters were already lined
with wax stained sauces from past blackouts, each ready to
cradle her flickering flame. I lit one beside the sink,
another on the breakfast table, near Grandma's half finished crossword.
Her pencil rested diagonally across the grid. It's a razor
worn down to metal in the I said. A stubby
pillar candle atop the shoe cabinet, its orange glows stretching
toward the bedrooms. Shadows danced across the peiling floral wallpaper,
blooming and shrinking in the shifting light. Each flicker made
me flinch. I kept listening for Grandma's voice, hoping she
would call out to me, ask what I was doing,
or tell me I missed the spot. But the house
stayed silent, apart from the quiet hiss of wicks catching
fire at the bathroom door. I paused the checker, breathing again.
From the hallway, I could see a chest rising and falling,
slow and uneven. Relief in the tightness in my throat.
For a moment, I whispered a quick prayer word she
used to say when I was scared of thunder. Keep
her safe, keep them away. Bring back the sun. The
last candle sat on the living room window ledge. I
knelt and held the match to the wick for a moment.
The flame flared bright, illuminating the frost wept glass. My
reflection clothed, their skin pale under the candle's bloom. I
moved to blow out the match, but something beyond the
window caught my eye. Her figure stood at the edge
of the yard, where the candlelight faded into darkness. She
wore her cotton house dress with a hem that brushed
her ankles, and her hair was pinned back neatly from
her face. The woman's shoulders were straight, her head tilted
slightly to one side. Even from where I knelt, I
could see her smile. My heart thumped so loud I
couldn't breathe. It was Grandma. She raised one hand and
curled her fingers in a gentle, beckoning motion, inviting me
out into the darkness beyond the candles. My hands fumbled
from my phone as I packed away from the window.
Emergency services were no help, but maybe someone from the
town knew what to do. The screen lit up blue
and empty, no bars, no emergency signal. I tried again,
pressing the numbers harder, as if force alone could push
the call through. Each veiled attempt made my chest tighten
until I felt I couldn't draw breath at all. Come on,
come on, my voice shot in the quiet room. The
only answer was the low hiss of the candles burning
along the shelf. I shoved the phone into my pocket
and turned to check on Grandma. For a moment, I
thought she was still there in a chair. The shadows
clung thick around the cushions, curling into shapes I almost recognized.
I stepped closer, hard, pounding so hard I could feel
it in my teeth. The chair was empty. The front
door stood open, letting in a chill breeze that carried
the faint scent of damp earth and blown out matches.
The candles by the entry had been extinguished, wax palling
around blackened wicks. The smoke coiled upward in thin gray
ribbons that faded into the dark. Grandma, My voice cracked.
I rushed through the doorway and peered outside. The street
stretched silent under the black out sky, only lit by
the flickering candles in windows and porches. I stepped on
to the porch boards, clutching the frame to keep my
knees from buckling. Grandma, I shouted again, louder time. My
voice echoed off quiet houses, then fell flat. At the
far end of the street, shadows flickered at the edge
of the driveway. They were tall, thin shapes, standing just
beyond the candle light's reach. They didn't move, they didn't speak,
but I could feel their attention pressing against my skin,
pricking cold and sharp. As sleet lights glowed behind curtained windows,
I saw a neighbor across the street pull back a
lace curtain with two fingers, her eyes wide and round
in the dimness, her gazes met. She shook her head
once in a quick, desperate motion, before letting the curtain
fall back into place. Another window brightened as someone flicked
on a flashlight, only to click it off immediately, leaving
candle flames to flutter alone. Please, I whispered, though I
didn't know who I was asking. I remembered Grandma's old warning,
the one she always made me repeat before bed during
storms when the lights flickered. Never go outside drawing a
blackout without a single lit candle. They can't see you
if you carry the light. My hands were empty. I
was standing barefoot in the dark, Nothing but silent watches
between me and the rest of the world. I stepped
off the porch, the chill grass flattening under my bare feet.
My eyes darted across the yard, scanning for any sign
of her. The shadows at the end of the street
still stood silent and watchful. I forced myself to look away,
focusing instead on the ground directly before me. Half way
to the garden beds, A faint glimmer caught my eye.
I moved closer, hard, thudding against my ribs so hard
it hurt. There nestled among the dandelion stalks and damp
earth lay Grandma's old brass candle holder. Its curved handle
rested on a patch of flattened grass, Wax puled and
solidifying around the wick. I crouched and touched it with
trembling fingers. The wax was still warm, the scent of
lavender clung to it, soft and sweet in the cold air.
Tears prickled in my eyes. She never let this candle
go out, not once in all my years living with her,
constantly replacing it when it got low. She kept it
by a chair every night, even when there was no blackout,
flame flickering against the dark until dawn came back. I
clutched the holder to my chest and stood, wiping my
eyes with my sleeve. The street felt wrong in its silence.
My gaze drifted past the fences and rooftops toward the
tree line at the far edge of town, beyond the
open fields. In the dense clutch of old pines and
bare boned oaks, hundreds of tiny lights flickered between the trunks,
pin bricks of gold, hovered in the dark, steady and silent.
They weren't fireflies. The lights didn't barble bounce. Each remained
fixed at a different height, some low to the ground,
others near the canopy, spread among the trees in careful,
unnatural patterns. My breath caught. I could almost see shapes
holding them, figures with edges blurred by shadow, each carrying
a pale, unwavering flame inside them. They stood in silent rows,
facing in my direction, though I couldn't see their eyes.
The sight made my skin tighten until I felt I
might crawl out of it just to escape the feeling.
I realized then why it never made sense before growing up,
I always thought The candles were for us. They kept
bad things away and kept our home safe until the
power returned. That's what everyone said, even if they never
explained how. But no one ever talked about the woods.
No one ever spoke about what the candles were keeping
lit for. It was a gap I never noticed because
I didn't want to, because the thought that the lights
weren't barriers but invitations felt too heavy to hold as
a child, so I never asked. None of us did.
A memory rose sharp and sudden. Grandma's voice low and
quivering as she cleaned and trimmed the old wicks. They
need light to find their way home. If we don't
give it to them, they'll look for another glow to follow.
I pressed the hand over my mouth, fighting the nausea
climbing up my throat. The candles weren't meant to keep
spirit away. They were to guide them back to wherever
they came from, to keep them moving past us. Without
the light showing them the path, they'd find another source,
another warmth, another living glow to carry them through the dark.
And tonight, the only other light left was me. My
breath grasped in my throat, shallow and quick, but I
forced myself to move slowly. Rushing we'd only make the
candle flicker harder with how close I was getting. If
it went out, I knew I would not be to
relight it in time. The closer I drew to the
tree line, the colder the air became. My bare arms
prickled with goose bumps, and sweat cooled against the back
of my neck. The pine trunks rose tall and silent
before me, their branches clawing at the dark sky between them.
The flickering lights spread deeper, forming rows and clusters among
the shadows. I paused at the edge of the woods,
the scent of damp needles and rotting leaves curling into
my nose. A candle trembled in the faint breeze, in
small flame, bending toward the trees. I moved forward in
a single step, then another, careful to keep the holder level.
My hands ached from gripping it so tightly, but I
didn't dare loosen my hold. As I crossed into the
tree line, the light shifted. They began to move, drifting
out from behind trunks and thickets. Figures emerged with them,
pale shapes that blurreded their DGEs, their faces were smooth
and empty, with thin white skins stretched over blank hollows.
Each one emitted a small light from their chest, maybe
a representation of their soul, made manifest, looking like a flame,
standing tall without so much as a tremor. Each only
had one light in them if I had come with
more candles for safety. They didn't make a sound, no footfalls,
no breaths, just the soft hiss of wax burning and
the faint crackle of my own candle as I passed them.
I had to walk slowly, measuring each step to keep
from stubbing over roots or fallen branches. The candle's flame
pulled my attention, forcing me to watch it more than
my path. The ground was littered with pine needles and wigs,
each threatening to shift under my weight. Every time the
wig guttered from a trembling step, my chest clinched so
hard I fell to my vomit from fear alone. The
pale figures pressed closer, creating a narrow corridor of flickering gold.
The heads turned to follow my movement, though they had
no eyes to see me with my scalp prickled with
constant sweat, as I felt their attention tighten around me,
the silent, suffocating curiosity. They parted her head, revealing a
small clearing deep among the trees. In the center stood
my grandmother. A thin cotton nightgown billowed faintly around her
ankles in the breeze, though her hair and arms remained
utterly still. She stared forward, eyes glazed and unblinking, mouth slack.
Her hands hung it aside empty. A shape moved behind her,
taller than the others, dark enough to drink in every
shred of candlelight nearby. Its forms shifted with each step,
thin and bony. Its hand emerged from the gloom, long
and skeletal, skin stretched taut over jotting knuckles. It extended
its hand toward mine, palm up waiting. The meaning pressed
into my chest with the weight of stone. It wanted
my candle, my light, in exchange for Grandma's return, A
soul for a soul, or at least what it thought
was a soul. I tied to my grip and to
my knuckles, burned, unable to breathe past the cold swell
in my throat. Even though I knew I wasn't giving
it my soul, I was still handing over my own light.
Without the flame, would I find my way back through
these trees? Without it would have become just another flickering
shape among the silent congregation. My grip loosened around the
brass holder. The flame wavered once before steadying again, bright
and calm against the dark. The skelettle hand remained outstretched,
fingers curling in silent invitation. My chest felt tight enough
to crack my ribs apart. Every instinct screamed to turn
and run, but I forced myself to take a trembling
step forward. I extended the candle. The figure's hand closed
around the holder, skin crackling with a sound like frozen
branches breaking. The instant my fingers let go, the darkness
surged inward. Shadows rushed past my face, cold and sharp,
scraping again my skin, as if testing its warmth. I
lunged for Grandma, my fingers wrapped around a thin wrist,
gripping bone under soft skin. She didn't move at first.
For a single crushing moment, I thought I had traded
a soul for nothing, that I had lost both of
us to the woods forever. Then her arm twitched in
my grasp, her chest rose in a sudden, ragged breath.
Her eyes flickered with awareness, confusion clouding her gaze. As
she turned her head to look at me. The shadow
shrieked without sound, rushing forward with a sudden, violent hunger.
Without a candle, I no longer blended in, and just
like an immune system, they went straight for me, as
if I were an invader. They clawed on my shoulders,
scraping across my back, ripping the thin fabric of my
shirt with ice cold fingers. I tightened my old Grandma
and pulled her forward, forcing her feet to move across
the pine littered ground. We stumbled between the pale watchers,
weaving through their silent ranks. Branches snagged to my hair
and whipped across my face, scratching skin. Roar roots rose
from fallen needles, catching my toes and send me staggering
with each step. Grandma gasped beside me, half dragged, her
thin legs, trembling with effort. The woods stretched on endlessly,
every tree the same twisted silhouette. In the wavering candlelight ahead,
the shadows closed in behind us. I could feel them
brushing against my back, pressing cold fingers to my spine.
My legs burned with each lunging step, muscles shaking so
hard I thought they might give out. Before we reached
the edge of the trees, we broke from the tree
line into the open. The house stood ahead, porch lights,
dark candles, flickering weakly in the windows. My legs gave
out for half a step, and Grandma stumbled beside me,
her feet scraping uselessly across the grass. The shadows poured
from the woods, stretching over the lawn and curling gasping streams.
She sagged in my arms, her head falling against my shoulder.
Her voice was thin, barely more than a breath. Leave me,
she whispered, You have to run, they're too close. No,
I gasped, tightening my grip round a waist. I'm not
leaving you, please, she breathed, tears spilling from her closed eyes.
Go they only need one. I tried to pull forward,
but her knees buckled. It was a miracle she made
it this far in her rage, and it didn't look
like we would be able to make the distance together.
The shadows searched reaching for her first, curling black fingers
around her ankles and calves. Creeping up a thin cotton nightgown.
Panic burned in my throat, hot and choking, the house
felt impossibly far away, its candle light too weak to
shield us from the cold tide crawling across the grass.
A door swung open across the street. Mister Harris, our
elderly neighbor, stood in his doorway, holding out a pair
of thick pillar candles, of flames, strong and steady in
the wind. His eyes were wide, shining with terror. Take it,
he shouted. I let go of Grandma's wrist for a
split second, grabbing the candles from his shaking hand, I
rushed the second into my Grandma's hand as she was
being dragged across the lawn. The instant the flame passed
into a grip, the shadows recoiled with a snapping hiss.
Their shapes crumbled backward, folding in on themselves until nothing
remained but the night breeze bending in the grass. I
clutched the candle to my chest, its warmth seeping into
my frozen fingers. Grandma sagged against my side, her breaths
ragged but strong. The porch boards creaked under our weight
as I half dragged her up the steps and into
the soft circle of flickering light. The first pale light
of dawn bled into the sky, turning the edges of
the woods to wash out gray. Street lights flickered back
to life, humming with a familiar low buzz. Power returned
with a quiet surge, clocks blinking twelve in every room.
The candles still burned, their flames small and stubborn against
the morning light. I sat beside Grandma's bed, dipping her
cloth in warm water to clean the scratches along her arms.
Her skin was thin and marked with bruises and cuts.
With the shadows that grabbed her, she winced once, then
fell silent again, staring at the ceiling with heavy eyes.
Almost done, I whispered, wrapping gauze around the deeper cut
near her elbow. My own hands trembled with exhaustion, wrist
blotched with purple where clawed fingers had scraped away skin.
The house felt empty, despite the quiet wear of appliances
coming back to life. The candles burned on every shelf
and table, the wicks curling black above trembling flames. Grandma's
gaze shifted toward me, unfocused at first, then her eyes cleared,
and she reached out her fingertips, brushing my wars. Thank you,
she whispered, her voice roar and hoarse, thank you for
bringing me home. I swallowed the tight ache in my
throat and pressed a hand between mine rest. Now, I said,
you're safe. When a breathing slowed into a gentler rhythm,
I stood and gathered the left over candles from the hallway.
The sun had risen beyond the fields, painting the window
glass gold. But I lit one last candle anyway and
set it on the sill. Its flame glowed against the daylight,
a thin orange tongue dancing in silence. I watched the
tree line beyond our yards, where the shadows still clung
low to the ground. The candle flicked once, its scent
of lavender curling warm into the room. Maybe this is
how it goes that when life ends here, we're taken
to be one with those things. There's a chance I've
disrupted the natural flow of this town. All I know
is I've bought some more time for my grandma for
when she inevitably joins them in the next blackout. I
run a demolition outfit based out of Fort Ridge three trucks,
five men, and a schedule so tight it squeaks. I've
made a living taking jobs other crews turned down, usually
because they're a mess of red tape, mold or thirty
years of asbestos behind every wall. Doesn't matter to me.
You pay me, I'll knock it down fast. That's what
made the asylum jobs so tempting. Ridgeway State Hospital had
been sitting on the outskirts of town since the nineteen thirties.
It shut down in eighty seven, and no one has
touched it since. Local kids stared each other to sneak in,
but most folks just steered clear. The town finally got
a grant to tear it down and turned the land
into a civic park or water treatment facility, depending on
which council member you asked. I didn't care. The contract
was city approved and a thirty thousand dollar bonus was
offered if we finished before the deadline. Thirty grand for
a month's work was enough to keep my crew paid
through winter. I'd already started cutting corners to make sure
we beat the clock. During our pre demma walkthrough, I
had the blueprints rolled under one arm and a flashlight
in the other Harris, the city rep walked ahead of me,
discussing asbestos maps and load bearing walls. Most of the
hospital was your standard early century build, red brick with
steel girders and slate floors. You could practically smell the
electroshock therapy in the walls. We reached the sub basement
through a narrow stairwell behind the boiler room. That's when
I noticed something off. At the far end of the corridor,
where the blueprint showed an old storageanex there was a wall,
not an original wall. This one was newer, with bricks
set unevenly and mortar that was sloppy. Someone had sealed
the hallway by hand. Blueprint says this leads the archive
b I told Harris, tapping the page, looks like it
was part of the original design. He didn't even slow down. Yeah,
that airy got sealed back in the early two thousands.
No injury records, no inspection forms. City says, we're not
touching it. Why, I asked, if it's part of the structure,
we're supposed to clear it. He shook his head. That's
the issue. It's not listed on the active plans. Legally,
it's unacknowledged. If we file to unceal it. That opens
a chain of delays, environmental inspections, historical society review, maybe
even a zoning appeal. I frowned, How long are we talking?
Four to six weeks minimon whole project freezes until it's cleared.
Your bonus goes up in smoke. We stood there for
a moment, both of us, looking at the brick wall.
The mortar looked old but brittle. Some one had done
it quickly, no signage, no permit tags, just the narrow hallway.
Someone wanted gone mark it inaccessible and move on, Harris said,
scribbling something on his clipboard. The city's covering its ass,
so should you. I nodded and we kept walking. But
I didn't stop thinking about that wall. If my crew
found it while cutting the substructure, they'd start asking questions.
That meant someone would call it in and the whole
damn timeline could collapse. I wasn't about to lose my
payday over one sealed room that some bureaucrat had forgotten
to add to the plans. I figured i'd handle it
quietly night after the crew clocked out. If there was
something worth seeing behind that wall, I'd see it myself,
no reports, no delays, and if it turned out to
be nothing, even better. We started demolition from the top down,
roof sheeting, tiles, plaster board, and load bearing elements. Anything
that was in stone got stripped and dumped. Within the
first few days, the upper floors were gutted clean. My
crew worked fast, we always did, but something about Ridgeway
State Hospital slowed them piece by piece. At first, it
was small things. Tools left in one room ended up
in another. Power flickered even with our generators running steadily.
One of the guys swore his ladder had shifted on
its own while he was on it. I choked it
up to nerves and caffeine. Rushing a job meant taking
less precaution and paying less attention. The trick is to
have just enough to not have accidents. Then came the sounds,
footsteps banging, always in the halls. We'd already cleared hollow
echoes that didn't match our movements. One afternoon, Carl radioed
me from East Wing, saying he heard someone whispering through
a vent. Swore he could hear his name. I checked
it out. The vent was clogged with thirty years of
dust and bird droppings. Whatever he'd heard, it wasn't a voice.
But the real shift came with Manny. He was one
of my best guys, ex military, didn't scare easily, but
that morning I found him standing in the sub basement,
staring at the bricked up corridor. He wasn't supposed to
be there. I called his name twice before he turned
to face me. His face was pale, eyes glassy, as
if he'd just come out of a fever dream. I'm done,
he said, you can mail my check. I frowned. What happened?
He silently stepped past me, grabbed his things, and walked
straight off sight. Before he left, he said one thing
it doesn't want to go. I didn't ask what it was.
I should have, but we were already behind schedule, and
I couldn't afford to lose another day. I covered many's
hours myself, hoping he'd come to his senses and returned
to work. All trash logged loads, didn't sleep more than
four hours a night, and still the sealed corridor sat
there in my head like a rotten tooth. I started
dreaming about it, always the same thing. One long room,
rows of chairs facing a white washed wall, no windows,
no doors, just me standing at the back watching them.
An empty chair, but it wasn't really empty. I could
feel something waiting on it, just behind the veil. Three
days later, a new city rep showed up, young guy,
sharp haircut shoes, too clean for the sight Hou's progress.
He asked, flipping through my reports smooth, I lied right
on target. He nodded, made a few notes, didn't ask
about the bricked corridor, probably didn't even know it was there.
I kept it that way. The crew clocked out around six.
I stayed behind, made up a story about reviewing reports.
The truth was I didn't want anyone around when I
opened the corridor. Too many eyes meant too many questions,
and I already had a good rhythm with the city rep.
If I could just clear the space and log it,
I could list it as it was in the blueprints
box checked no delays. I wheeled the concrete sword down
into the sub basement, every step echoing off the stone walls.
The temperature dropped the deeper I went. Humidity hung in
the air, thick and musty. The corridor stood waiting at
the end of the service hallway. It's in the block seal,
untouched since the day I first noticed it. I marked
the wall with chalk, fitted my respirator and started cutting.
It took longer than I expected. The mortar was thick
and industrial grade, sloppily applied but heavy set. Like whoever
sealed the space hadn't wanted it reopened, But thirty thousand
dollars was waiting on the other side of a completed demo,
and this wall in what lay beyond stood in the way.
The blocks gave way in chunks, dust billowed out in hot,
chemical tasting bursts. I smashed through the final layer with
a sledgehammer, grunting as stone clattered across the floor. My
flashlight pierced the darkness beyond. The hallway was pristine, no
water damage, no graffiti. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic.
The linonium tiles were uncracked, the paint a faded, institutional green.
My boots left prints in the dustless floor, which made
no sense. Everything else in this place had been eaten
by time. At the end of the hall stood a
single padded cell. The door creaked open under my hand,
revealing a narrow space, soft walled lined with yellow cushions.
An old hospital cart sat in the center, fitted with
leather restraints. The mattress was thin, sunken in the middle,
A cracked mirror was mounted crooked above a bolted desk.
I caught my reflection in the shattered glass, my face
broken into jagged angles. On the floor beneath the cut,
a circle had been carved into the tiles. The cuts
were deep and deliberate, each line etched with something sharp nails.
Maybe the etching was unfamiliar, but felt wrong, off balance,
like it pulled at something in the back of my
mind I didn't know I had. When I walked around,
I could feel myself leaned toward it, like it had
its own gravity, a vertigo of feeling that always gravitated
toward the strange markings. A rusted metal chair stood beside
the bed. A patient log book rested on the seat.
Its leather cover walked with age. I opened it with
cautious fingers. The entries were brief and clinical, typed on
a mechanical typewriter. Most were mundane dietary notes, behavior logs,
sedation levels. But the last page stopped me cold. It
was handwritten, do not remove her, do not observer, do
not allow her name to be spoken aloud. I flipped back.
Earlier entries had referred to her only as the subject.
But in the margins of the logbook's back cover, scratched
deep into the leather was a name. And then I
saw it again and again and again on the padded
wall beside the cart, on the mattress straps etched into
the foam in ragged fingernail grooves, the same name, over
and over. I didn't speak it, but I read it.
And in that moment, the temperature in the room dropped
so sharply I could see my breath. The cart creaked
behind me. I wasn't alone anymore. I backed out of
the cell without turning around. I didn't breathe until I
was back in the corridor. Then again, when I made
it up the basement stairs, I shut off the lights,
locked the exterior doors behind me, and didn't stop moving
until I was behind the wheel of my truck. My
hands trembled. On the drive home, I told myself I'd
leave it alone for now, figure out another way to
finish the job. The job had to stay on track.
That was all that mattered. Before first light, I came
back to the site and sealed the entrance. I dragged
old plywood sheets from a scrap pile, bolded them over
the fresh gap I'd cut the night before, screwed them
tight into the concrete frame, then tag the boards with
paint marker asbestos do not remove. Later that morning, I
told the crew I'd found some outdated insulation that needed
reporting before we continued demolition on that section. City doesn't
want the paperwork, I said, shaking my head. They're telling
us to wall it off and move on, so we're
moving on. Nobody questioned it. Most of them didn't know
about the odd situation anyway, so they believed what I
told them. But the next day everything went wrong. One
of the excavators clipped a gas line that shouldn't have
been there. Then the bacco idle seconds before lurged sideways
and crushed one of the old support beams. Nobody was hurt,
but it set us back by two days. Bewilder Nate
caught a flashback from his own torch equipment failure, second
or third degree burns. He didn't say a word on
the way to the ambulance, just stared at me, lips trembling.
Manny didn't come back either. I kept my mouth shut
told the others it was old wiring, rusted valves, and
bad luck. Every job this size had hiccops. I just
needed them to keep working. That night, I reviewed the
security from the demo yard. One of the perimeter sensors
had malfunctioned during the equipment failures. I scrubbed through the logs.
Around two o seven a m. The infrared sensor picked
up movement. Something moving the length of the fence, slow, steady,
never stopping. It passed beneath the floodlights. No body, heat signature,
no footprints left in the gravel. I didn't sleep that night.
At home, I heard the name the one scratched into
the mattress, the walls, the log cover whispered through heating vents.
The voice wasn't mine, wasn't male, wasn't human. The fifth
accident ended it Reggie, one of the oldest, and the
crew dropped a steel support bracket from a second story.
Scaffold said his hands seized up midswing. When I held
him down, I saw the swelling already forming around his
wrist bones, out of place. He was shaking. It wasn't me,
he muttered, something grabbed me. I swear to God that
was the last straw. They packed up and left before lunch.
I didn't try to stop them. By that point, the
job was nearly done. The southern wing was already leveled.
The rest of the upper floors had been gutted and
stripped a cod We just needed to bring down the
basement shell and clear the debris. Two days of work,
maybe three. That was all that stood between me and
the bonus. The inspection was scheduled for Monday morning. I
could already feel the city reps smug tone when he'd
tell me that penalty for delays. I wasn't going to
let that happen. The truth was simple. I needed the payout.
My own truck was three months behind on payments. My
wife had taken our daughter to assist us after the
last layoff. If this job fell through, I didn't have
a next one lined up. So I came back that
night with gloves, floodlights, and a crowbar. I just wanted
to finish what I'd started. The plywood barrier was still
in place over the sealed corridor. I pried off the
boards one by one and stagged them neatly against the wall,
telling myself it was just another hallway. I kept my
eyes down, focused on the floor, and walked slowly down
the slope into the untouched wing. The air shifted as
soon as I crossed the threshold, heavy no dust still
smelled of antiseptic and something sweeter underneath, like spoiled fruit.
The crying started while I was checking the junction pipes
near the boiler panel. It was faint at first, so soft,
I thought it might be water in the walls. But
then I heard the breath between sobs, a wet rasping
in hail, A woman's voice broken and rhythmic, repeating something
I couldn't quite understand, a lullaby with no tune. I
followed it. Each door I passed was opened just a crack.
I kept glancing in, expecting to find someone inside, but
every room was empty, old beds, restraints on the wall,
hugs and cabinets bolted shot. Then I reached the padded room,
the cry being stopped. I froze in the center of
the corridor, surrounded by doors that had quietly click shut
behind me. The padded room was just ahead. I tilted
toward it, careful not to make a sound. It looked
the same as before, empty cut, untouched restraints, neatly folded,
no visible change, but something in the air had thickened.
It pressed against my skin in a way that made
my pulse skip a beat. I stepped inside. The mirror
was cracked again, a fresh line through the glass, spider
webbing out from the center. Beneath it. The old circle
scratched into the floor, seemed more faded than I recalled,
like someone had been working at it. But there was
no one here, no body, no footprints in the dustless room,
no source of the crying. Still I could feel her,
not see, not here, but feel the room wasn't empty anymore.
Something stood just beyond my focus, behind the veil of
what my eyes could comprehend. I backed out of the doorway,
one step at a time, didn't turn around, didn't speak.
The crying didn't return, but the silence was worse. I
scoped out what needed to be done for demolition, but
as I left, the hallway was different, longer, narrower, The
angles had warped somehow. Every step felt wrong, like the
building had shifted when no one was looking. I found
the room again, but the door wasn't the same anymore, wider, open,
and just a crack waiting for me. The cot was empty,
restraints gone, The circle on the floor had been scraped
almost completely away. I could hear her now, not beside me,
but inside the space, breathing in rhythm with mine, close
enough that the yes stirred. When I moved. It hit
me suddenly and stupidly. Her name. It had been carved
everywhere for a reason, not to drawer out to bury her.
I remembered old stories, demon names, binding rights, exorcisms. Speak
the name, and the thing loses its power. I stood
at the edge of the circle and whispered it once,
then again. The silence pulled back from the corners of
the room, and she answered, not in words, not even sound,
but in pressure, in presence. Something stepped into the room
that hadn't fully existed before. The cot groaned under unseen weight,
The restraints snapped tight without hands. The mirror uncracked itself
with a low pop, and for a split second my
reflection wasn't alone. Her second face stood behind mine, pale incomplete.
I stumbled back, gasping. The silence didn't return, not fully.
The room didn't breathe the same way it had before.
A slow pressure thickened in my ears, then in my
chest until I couldn't tell if I was inhaling or
if something was pushing against my lungs from the inside.
A faint creak echoed behind me. I turned, heart hammering,
but the doorway was empty, still cracked open, still letting
in the same cold hallway air. But something was in
the room now, not invisible, not visible either, just present,
as though I'd stepped onto a stage where someone else
had been waiting for the cue, and now I'd spoken it.
The cap pulled tight against its bolts. The mattress sank
in the middle, pitched down by nothing I could see
In the mirror, I saw the shape again, clearer, this
time not fully formed, but tall, hollow eyed, and standing
so close behind me. I could feel heat on the
back of my neck. My own face was still, but
hers were moving, lips forming syllables. I couldn't hear mouthing
the same name I just said. I bagged out, slowly,
holding my breath. The air around the circle felt different, now,
less like a warning, more like a cracking concrete than
had just spread wide open. I thought I'd been clever.
I thought knowing her name gave me power. But as
I stepped out into the hallway, and the door clicked
softly shut behind me. I realized it had never been
about power, It was about permission. I woke on a stretcher,
strapped in sunlight bleeding through the clouds overhead. The sky
was too bright. Voices moved around me and snippered, dulled
and distant, warped as if underwater. Must have missed this
last checkout scan, dehydrated, maybe concussed. An e MT leaned
closer and said, you're lucky someone noticed if you'd stayed
in there much longer. I blinked, my throat dry. I
asked how long I had been inside. She frowned. Three days.
That didn't make sense. I told her it had only
been an hour, maybe two. She locked at the other
meddic and didn't answer. Later in the ambulance, some one
explained they found the sub basement corridor sealed shut. The
supports must have shifted behind me. No one had even
known I was there until the city reps saw the
sight empty and checked the logs and saw I hadn't
checked out. We tried to jack ammer through the wall.
The whole damn passage had folded in on itself. Freak
structural failure. I didn't argue I didn't have the energy.
They kept me overnight for observation. No injuries aside from
a shallow scrape on my wrist. I didn't remember getting it.
The next morning I was released, I turned my phone
on in the parking lot. Twenty seven mist calls. A
new voicemail was left from the city rep saying not
to worry about the bonus, that they'd extend the project deadline,
that I should take some time off. A new crew
would finish the remaining tear down at their expense as compensation.
I went home and slept for nearly two days, dreamless,
empty sleep. Then I got the update email clean up
successful side the cleared safe, no structural hazards or environmental
concerns voters of the clear corridor and cell attached. I
clicked through the images. The hallway was pictured there, long
and cracked, with a ceiling slouching from age. The bad
itsell hadn't changed, caught in the corner, cracked mirror, restraints
still bolted to the frame, leather dried and curling at
the edges. No name marked on any of the objects anymore.
The circle of markings was almost entirely erased from the floor.
No one had tried to make sense of it, and
yet nothing happened. The demolition crews had gone in, walked
through that space, demolished it, and moved on. They saw
old damage, remnants of a decaying building, and treated it
that way, just another strange wing in a place full
of bad history. The job was on schedule, according to
the updates. They'd hit the new deadline. No delays, no
reports of equipment failure or personnel incidents, nothing like what
happened to me and my crew. The email ended by
telling me the bonus was mine and I should expect
it within the coming days. I actually laughed, a short,
breathless sound I hadn't felt in weeks. It hadn't been real.
It couldn't have been stress, maybe sleep deprivation, the pressure
of the deadline, and too much time in a building
full of ghosts that weren't mine. They went inside, nothing happened,
and I was home safe, paid, job finished. That should
have been the end of it. But that night, sitting
at my kitchen table, I opened the photos again, scrawled
through slip stopped on one the cell shot from the hallway.
I zoomed in on the mirror. I expected to see something.
My brain unoverload and I was paranoid. Nothing was there.
Tension was building. I felt like I was in the
hallway again, the pressure of the room weighing on me
as I tried to solve something I didn't know needed solving.
I flicked through the pictures, zooming in and scanning pixel
by pixel for a clue, a hint toward an answer.
Yet nothing I saw could explain why I could feel
it again, the presence returning. I lifted my head, ready
to feel like I'm lifting my head out of a
barrel of water. Yet the relief never came, and finally
I realized why I could feel like everything was off.
My room was darker than I remembered, colder, chills trickled
through me in a stream. No one else was in
the room. Nothing moved, but the silence had changed, thick, now,
a waiting kind of quiet. I closed the laptop stared
at the wall for a long time. Maybe the new
crew didn't find her because she wasn't there. Maybe she
came with me. My work nights at a storage facility
on the edge of town began, a place nobody really
notices until they need it. It's a squat little compound
tugged between the back end of a shuttered strip mall
and a drainage canal that smells worse in summer. Most
of the fluorescent lights hum or flicker, a few don't
bother turning on at all. The venue machine in the
office takes your money, but won't give you a soda
unless you hit the right spot on the side with
the heel of your hand. The job isn't complicated. Lock
the gate at eleven, unlock it at six, walk the
rose once or twice during the night. Make sure no
tweakers are nesting inside an unlocked unit. The cameras are
mostly active the alarm's work and when they want to.
If anyone asks, the answer is always the same. Nobody's
supposed to be here after dark. I've had co workers
on and off. They don't stick around, Teenagers, burnouts, paroyees
working off court ordered employment. They come and go fast
enough that I don't remember their names. Management doesn't seem
to care who's on shift, so long as someone fills
out the log books and nobody burns the place down.
There's only one real rule here, and it's not in
the handbook. Don't mess with Unit one oh three. Old
padlock on the door, heavy enough to stop a crowbar.
The records flagittas, do not access, no one opens it,
no one rents it, not officially. Still, every month there's
a payment, always cash, always exact, no return address on
the envelope. Some months the envelope isn't there at all.
Doesn't matter. The ledger gets updated, paid in full. Far
as I can tell, Unit one O three's been here
longer than the company that runs this place, maybe longer
than the building itself. The email came in on a
Monday night, one of those generic corporate blasts from some
office far away. All units must be accounted for by
the end of the quarter. Vicial confirmation, inventory, checklist, photographic evidence,
the usual box ticking to satisfy someone's spreadsheet. I scrawled
through the list, already knowing the answer before I asked. Still,
I brought it up during our weekly call with the
site manager. What about one O three? There was a pause,
then my manager's tone shifted just enough for me to
catch it. Skip it, don't log it. You don't want
to mess with that paperwork, Just trust me. That was it.
End of discussion. Later, I brought it up in the
break room with one of my co workers, a guy
whose name I hadn't bothered to learn, just chatting between
rounds of walking the fence line. I mentioned something about
unit one O three, half jokingly. He stopped chewing his sandwich.
Don't even say the number out loud, he told me,
no laughter, no follow up. He packed up his lunch
and went back to sweeping out an empty unit without
another word. I started paying closer attention after that. Little
things caught my eye. Locks on units that hadn't been
opened in years looks as if they had been freshly handled.
Scratches on one O three's pad lock, new ones gouged
into the old metal. I knew nobody had the keys,
not even me. That's when curiosity started digging in. Not
a question of why anymore, just a question of when
I'd stop looking and start doing. On slow nights, I
started digging through old records. There was a much else
to do. A few battered filing cabinets sat in the
back office, stuffed with faded contracts and receipts going back decades.
Most of it was routine lay payments, auctions, and unit transfers,
but not one oh three Unit. One O three had
been enlisted in every set of records I could find,
including those pre dating the current building. I found paperwork
dating back far enough that the company name on the
letterhead no longer existed. Handwritten leases renewed over and over,
different names on the documents, but none of them sounding real.
Lcs dissolved fifty years ago. Banks that folded in the seventies.
Some of the signatures barely passed for handwriting at all,
jagged scrolls, symbols, loops. A few were signed in red
ink that had bled through the pages. Beneath one looked smeared,
as if the ink hadn't been allowed to dry properly. Still,
the payment never stopped. Every month, without fail the ledger
marked paid, no account overdue, no notices sent. The hallway
light started going out next, first thickering, then shorting entirely.
Maintenance came twice, replaced the bulbs and checked the wiring.
Both times the lights failed again within the week. The
rest of the building stayed fine. I started losing track
of time during my shifts, waking up from what felt
like less sleep and more like a trance, always standing
in the same place, half way down the hallway, facing
Unit one O three. I couldn't say how long I'd
been there, minutes, hours, just staring at that dented metal door,
with its rusted padlock hanging loose on the hatch. One night,
I knelt to check the gap beneath it found something
wedged there, dry cracked pieces of something curled in on themselves,
too small to be cloth, too fibrous to be bone,
not organic exactly, but not quite anything else either. I
flushed them down the breakroom toilet, thinking it was something
that needed disposing of, but later I couldn't shake the
feeling I should have kept them. Co workers started complaining
after that, scratching noises from inside one O three, shuffling sounds,
something knocking, slow and steady from within. Management's response was
flat rats. They said, don't ask again. Management stopped responding
to my questions. I stopped asking, not because I didn't
want answers anymore, but because I wanted proof something undeniable.
I started watching one O three more closely. Every night
of my rounds, I checked the dust patterns across the concrete.
The grime in this place settled thick, but around one
oh three. It moved fine layers, swept into spirals. Smears
stretched toward the door frame, as if something had dragged
itself forward on hands or elbows. Footprints showed up where
no one had walked, always leading to the door, never away.
The smell grew worse by the weak, not the sharp
stink of mold or decay, something colder, wet concrete left
too long in standing water, burnt metal, rust, blooming under
damp stone. It hung in the air even when the
wind cut through the rows of unit, heavier near one
O three than anywhere else. One night, in the back
of an old maintenance manual, I found a log book
I hadn't seen before, torn pages, scribble notes. Most of
it was routine bulbs replaced, doors, free hung, pest control visit.
The final entries stopped me. Called, written in shaky block
letters across the last page, it's not what's in there,
it's what it thinks it's keeping out. I waited for
someone to step in, a manager and inspector, even another
faceless corporate email reminding me not to ask questions, but
no one came. No one seemed to care. However, I
gained a new understanding or at least the theory to
work with. The rule wasn't about keeping us safe. It
was about keeping it undisturbed, about leaving it unobserved. Containment
through neglect, watching it gave its shape. Thinking about it
gave it weight. And now I'd been paying attention for
far too long, too late to go back to ignoring it.
So I went about trying to fix it. One night.
After locking the front gate and double checking the cameras,
I grabbed a pair of bolt cutters from the tall
locker walked the rose like I always did, except this
time I didn't stop at the end of the hallway.
I went straight to one oh three. The badlock looked
heavier than it was, old steel, scowped with rust. It
gave way on the second squeeze. The metal snapped clean through,
falling to the ground without a sound. I poured the
door open, slow, careful, expecting something worse than what I found.
No body, no monster waiting in the dark, not even
the expected black voids stretching off into nowhere. Just the
stowage unit. Concrete walls, metal shelves bolted to the sides,
coated in a thick layer of undisturbed dust. In the
center a chair, wooden plane set face in the back wall.
Nothing sat in it, nothing crouched behind it, no stains,
no scratches, no signs of violence or ritual or anything
else my imagination had been feeding me for weeks. I
felt disappointed, ashamed, almost all that paranoia for an empty room.
When I tried to close the door again, it didn't
fit the frame. The whole door frame had shifted, warped
slightly outward, bent to the edges, metal flicked out from
the concrete. Simply put, it no longer closed all the way.
I remember the door being air tight. This half inch
gap wasn't something I'd simply missed in my observations. Still,
I had to close it. I jammed on the old
lock and twisted it to look untouched, knowing others avoided
one O three on their shifts. It started slow. A
week after I opened one O three, other units began
unlocking themselves, not kicked open, not broken into just ajar,
barely noticeable unless you were paying attention. A door hanging
an inch off the latch, a padlock dangling loose, relready
been secure the night before. Inside, things didn't make sense.
TVs left behind were still warm. To the touch, their
standing lights blinking in dark rooms with no power connection,
fridges humming quietly, lights flickering behind cracked doors, Foods sitting
on tables, untouched but far too fresh. For how long
these units had been sealed, Each one felt paused, suspended
in the exact moment their owners stepped away. Time bent
around those thresholds. Minutes passed strangely when I stood in them.
Watches tick slowly, phones refused to keep signal. I reported it,
of course, logged everything, photos, serial numbers, detailed notes on
the oddities. Management responded with the same tone they used
for one O three, forced calm, thin smiles, tight voices.
The units shifts sometimes, they said, locks fail, these things happen.
When I pressed them, asking why none of this was
in the manuals and why there wasn't a protocol, they
only grew quieter. Reassurances fell flat. Stick to the rounds,
keep your head down. They sent a guy from maintenance
to re lock the doors. He worked, without comment, without hesitation,
locked everything up, and left with a nod, as though
this was routine. As of this was exactly what he
had been hired to do, although he never saw that
unit one O three was actually unlocked as he avoided it,
presumably by instruction from management. The message was clear, ignore it,
leave it alone and its days manageable. Poke it and
things get worse. That was the rule. Ignorance kept it docile.
Attention made it restless. But that was the problem. I
couldn't unsee what I had started. I couldn't unthink it.
I had let something stretch, and now it was pulling
at the seams of the whole place. I had been
curious I had gone too far. Still, I told myself
I could fix it. I could put it back the
way it was Seal one O three, relock the others,
return the building to its quiet, decaying routine. I thought
maybe if I moved fast enough and showed I understood
the job now, it would let me. That was the
only plan left. Fix it, put everything back in its place.
When alone, I went back to one O three with
a new lock in hand, heavier, this time in dustrial grade.
I drode fresh holds, set new brackets, and reinforced the
frame where it had walked. When I sinsed the lock shot,
it felt solid. Secure. By the next night it had
bent itself open again. The metal twisted outward at the edges,
straining against bolts. I knew I had driven clean. Nothing dramatic,
no noise, no spectacle, just quiet pressure until the steel
gave way. I tried again, different lock, a different bracket,
more reinforcement, the same result. The door refused to stay closed.
Management new I did not even need to tell them.
They called me into the office at the end of
my ship. No warning, no explanation, just the text from
the manager's personal phone. Come to the office, bring your keys.
The lights were already off when I got there. Only
the hallway bulb still burned, buzzing faintly against the silence.
I half expected the door to be locked, half expected
to find nobody waiting for me at all. But the
door swung open as I approached. Inside, the manager sat
behind the desk, hands folded over a manilla folder that
bore no label. He didn't gesture for me to sit,
didn't offer a drink, just watch me come in and
close the door behind me. For a long moment, neither
of us spoke. Do you know why you're here? He
asked at last, his voice quiet, measured. I shook my head.
I kept my hands on my keys part of me.
Wondered if this was the end of the line, if
I had looked too closely, pry too far, if they
were going to walk me down to one oh three,
unlock the door and shut it behind me. I imagine
you think you've been clever, he said, breaking into one
o three, trying to fix what you don't understand. He
opened the folder. Inside were papers I didn't recognize, my
employee file, maybe a list of incidents, security logs, photos
of me on my rounds, standing too long outside wrong doors,
opening the wrong locks. We warned people for a reason.
The manager said. That unit stays closed because ignoring it
keeps it quiet, like a dog that forgets the bark
if no one is around. Attention stirs it up, Curiosity
wakes it, Obsession makes it stretch. He closed the folder
with a soft tap of his fingers. Most people can't
help themselves. They believe eventually, or they're removed. You lasted longer,
You showed patience, You followed the pattern. You didn't just
break the rules, you tested them. I felt my throat
dry out. So what happens now, he smiled, not cruelly,
almost kindly. Think of it as a promotion, He pushed
a new set of keys across the desk toward me,
not just for the gates, not just for the office.
A ring of keys I didn't recognize, Keys that had
weight to them, keys that belonged to things I hadn't
seen yet. This place needs a caretaker, People who understand
the rhythm of things, People willing to watch the locks
and turn them when they stop holding. It's not an
easy job. It's not always clear what you're keeping out
or what you're keeping in. He leaned back in the chair,
still watching me with that calm, unreadable expression. The manager
slid the folder closer to me with one finger, nodding
for me to open it. Inside wasn't just my employee file.
There were other names, other dates, a list of people
who had come before me, some I recognized from the
old maintenance logs I'd found buried in storage. Each entry
ended the same way, reassigned containment oversight. No resignation dates,
no severance details, just that flat final note. You're not
just getting a promotion, the manager said. You're inheriting something,
a responsibility that doesn't end, not until it passes on again.
He stood stretched, slowly, tired, bones cracking in his shoulders.
In the dim light. He leaned towards me. I got
a better lock. At his face. He looked young, but
wore old features. Age eroded on him in layers. This
building doesn't exist the store furniture, or paperwork or people's junk.
It exists to hold things in One. O three isn't special.
It's just the oldest. The others are newer, less settled.
But they all need attention. They all need caretakers who
know which doors to leave alone and which one's the lock.
Twice I look down at the folder. Some units have
been reclassified over time. The numbers changed, the locations shifted,
but the patterns were there, always a handful, growing, restless
at once, always the same kind of person brought in
to notice, to intervene. If no one does the job,
the doors won't stay closed, he said. When one opens,
the others follow. You saw it yourself, You started the chain.
You're the only one who can put it back the
way it was. I asked the question hanging at the
back of my throat. What if I leave? He smiled small.
I couldn't tell if it was pity or amusement. People
don't leave. They either lock the doors, or join what's
behind them. He picked up the fall again, tapped it
twice against the desk, like closing the lid on a box.
You've lasted longer than most. That tells us you understand,
or you will soon enough. He showed me to the door.
The hallway stretched out ahead, quiet as ever, the keys
heavy in my hand, too late to pretend I hadn't
earned them. I walked the facility alone that night, the
new keys cold in my hand, the rows of units
stretched out under dead fluorescent light, the air hanging heavy
with a faint scent of dust and damp concrete. I
thought at first it was my imagination, the way my
breath fogged in the air, even though the night wasn't
cold enough for it. But the further I walked, the
colder it felt. The stillness wasn't right. Doors hung open
where they shouldn't, not wide, not broken, just ajar a
fraction of an inch ear a full handspan there, locks
dangling loose, some fall under the ground without a sound.
Lights flickered behind those doors, Televisions burst faintly in empty rooms.
Something inside breathed in time with my footsteps, slow and deliberate,
though nothing moved in the spaces beyond the thresholds. No
shapes waited in the dark, no faces pressed into the cracks,
just open doors waiting. I understood it wasn't about monsters
hiding inside. It was about the act itself. Doors opened
too long invited attention. Left unchecked, they invited worse if
I didn't close them, some one else should pay the
price for my hesitation. So I went to work. One
by one, I closed them, checked the seals, turn the
locks using the new keys until they clicked shut, locked
each one in the ledger with slow, steady handwriting. Lock ledger,
Lock Ledger. No answers waited for me, No final reveal
of what I'd been keeping in or what might one
day slip free, just the cold repetition of the task
I'd inherited, a rhythm as old as the building itself.
Lock ledger, Move on to the next. Years went by
without me noticing, or maybe noticing didn't matter anymore. As
soon as I was proficient at the job, my manager disappeared,
just stop showing up to work. I saw a letter
from upper management simply stating that I was the new
acting manager. The job never changed, but I did my
bones ached in ways they shouldn't. I slow to adjust,
joint stiff. Some mornings I sat too long in the
chair at the desk, staring at the log book, unsure
whether I'd finished the shift or was about to start one.
They told me he was stress or lack of sleep.
Maybe I believed that if I wasn't still young enough
to know better. I watched the new hires come and go.
Most treated this place as a pit stop, a few
months of easy nights, just enough money to bridge the
gap to something better. They talked about future plans, schools, promotions, travel,
anything else. Some lasted less than a week. The long
hallways got to them, the way sound carried when it shouldn't,
the way certain doors seemed to breathe if you stood
too close. They all left in the end, they always do.
Somewhere along the way, I started slipping missing things. Locks
were undone for longer than they should have been, units
shifting without my notice. I doubled back on rounds and
find doors opened behind me, though I just walked past.
I told myself it was age catching up that made
it easier to explain, Easier than admitting this place was
draining me, pulling something from me a little more each year.
Then came the new hire, young, quiet, observant in the
way that made me weary. I caught them lingering too
long in front of one O three, asking the wrong questions,
running their finger tips along the locks like they were
looking for something hidden beneath the rust. I recognized the lock.
I remembered wearing it. One night, as they clocked in.
I handed them the round sheet, casual as I could manage.
Don't bother with one O three. I told them, trust me,
just keep the doors locked. That's the job. They nodded,
said they understood, but I knew better. I'd said the
same thing once and still found myself standing with bolt
cutters in my hands, staring at a door that would
not stay shut. Now I wait, wait to see if
they'll listen, or if they'll open it, Wait to see
if they'll end up in this chair with my keys
on their belt, wondering when the ache started and why
the clock ticked so slowly here. Hopefully maybe someone else
can take this from me, that I can finally leave,
whatever leaving means. But I wonder what happens to me
when that day comes. Where I'll go, or if there's
a door somewhere waiting for me too. Dentists are the
worst patience. We all know the signs, but we also
know all the excuses. It started a week ago with
a deep ache in my jaw. At first it was
sharp and persistent, Then it settled into a low, pulsing
pressure that spread up to the side of my face.
For the past few days, I'd catch myself grinding against
it without knowing, biting down just to meet the resistance.
It got bad enough that I had to take an
X ray between appointments. I thought maybe I'd miss something obvious,
like a cracked cusp an inflame ligament, but everything came
up clean. I told myself it would ease up in
a day or two. Most things too. I work at
a small dental practice, which consists of three rooms in
a waiting area no larger than a living room. The
building had once been a bank long before my time,
and the old vault door still set bolted to the
rear hallway wall, a relic we couldn't afford to remove.
We used the volt as a supply room. Now. Stock
came in through the side entrance and got stored behind
that heavy door where the safety deposit boxes used to be.
I'd taken over the practice from my mentor nearly twenty
years ago, when the carpets were new and the NHS
still sent inspectors. Since then, I've had budgets slashed, suppliers
cutting corners, fewer staff, and fewer patients who could afford
regular care. But I kept going. The girl in the
chair today couldn't have been more than eight. She was nervous, fidgety,
her small hands tugging at the cuff of a school
jumper as we went through the usual questions like how
many times a day do you brush? And manual or electric,
all of which her mother answered. She chipped one of
the molars chewing on a hard sweet, and a small
cavity had opened up beneath the crack, just deep enough
to neat filling before it turned into something worse. She
looked terrified. It's just a small filling, that's all, I
reassured her, keeping my voice low and easy tone I'd
perfected over years to calm my patience. Nothing you'll even notice.
After a day. She gave me a look like she
wasn't so sure. I had one just last week myself,
I added, opening my mouth so she could get a
good view, and pointing towards her tooth with a gloved
finger didn't hurt at all, barely felt it really a lie. Technically,
the ache had been waking me up some nights now,
a deep throbbing thing under the back of my molar.
They'd patched with one of the new composite kits. That's
what I get for letting a student dental nurse practice
on me. But I assured this girl that she had
nothing to worry about. I had perfected this. She seems
to relax a little at that, enough to lean back
without gripping the chair arms so tightly. Kelly stood to
my left, ready with a suction watching the girl more
than the tools. She had been assisting in this practice
longer than I'd been running it. She had her good
instinct for nerves, knew when to speak and when not to.
I gave her a small nod of approval and adjusted
the light as I worked. A slow pulsing pressure pressed
in my jaw, which seemed to keep in time with
the drill. I ignored it. When the girl and her
mother left, I cleaned down the room and logged the
notes into the system. Another job done outside. The afternoon
had started the slide into gray, the sky thick with
a kind of clouds that promised rain. By evening, I
was halfway through preparing for my next patient when the
receptionist buzzed through. Mister Collins is here, early says, is
in quite a bit of discomfort. I checked the screen.
Colin had only been in two weeks ago, a standard cavity,
nothing remarkable, composite filling, same batch as the others. Just
as I was about to call him, I caught a
notification at the bottom of my screen. It was another
email from my daughter Claire. I didn't have time to
open it now. She was still abroad, enjoying her twenties,
moving from place to place. She mentioned before that she
didn't trust the dentists out there. Just a few weeks
ago I sent her some spare composite kits, adhesives, and
a new pack of itch and bond. They were extras
from the new supplier. They sent more than I ordered,
probably hoping to keep me on as a regular customer.
I sighed and robed at my jaw. Then I called
Collins through. He shuffled into the chair with a stiff weariness.
He was in his mid forties. Over the ten years
had been coming here, I'd learned that he was a
factory worker and the kinder man who didn't complain unless
something was really wrong. It's been aching like hell, he said,
keeps me up some nights. Feels like it's moving, if
that makes sense, I nodded, already pulling up the X
ray from last time. Any swelling fever, no fever, A
bit tender, hurts more at night. It is a dull
sort of pressure. I lined him up for a fresh
X ray, tilting the censer to catch the apex properly.
My jaw throbbed as I worked, as if he were
keeping pace with the hum of the machine. I tried
not to rub at it while he watched. When the
image loaded, I pulled up the last one beside it
for comparison. I'd taken it barely a fortnight ago. I
was expecting a slight shift, perhaps a faint halo at
the apex, something I could attribute to early Pubertis or
amisst microfracture, something familiar. Instead, the interior of the tooth
looked dramatically worse. There were voids and areas beneath the
enamel that had been solid a week ago now hollowed.
The density wasn't right, and on closer inspection there was
a neat round a hole. I leaned in closer to
the monitor. I've been staring at dental films for thirty years,
and I never seen voids like that, clean, deliberate, looking,
almost surgical, except no drill had done this. Still, I
kept my tone calm when I turned back to Collins.
No point worrying him unnecessarily. All right, that's a closer lock.
Sit back for me. He settled into the chair again, slower,
this time, rubbing his jaw the WinCE as he went.
I called through for one of the dental nurses to
come in and assist, and told her I'd be removing
the feeling to take a closer lock. Kelly came in,
composite failing already. She asked, pulling on gloves, maybe I
need a proper lock. I said, She didn't, ask to
see the X ray and set up the tray. Despite
her lack of questions, we both knew patients didn't usually
end up back in the chair this soon unless something
had gone wrong. Collins lay back and waited I had
just a delight, checked the anesthetic had taken hold, and
gave it another minute, just to be sure. No need
to rush. The drill felt heavier than usual in my hand,
and I worked carefully easing through the composite in slow,
deliberate passes. Kelly held the suction ready without a word.
Something about the way the filling lifted didn't sit right.
The material crumbled away too easily, coming loose in brittle
flakes instead of the solid, predictable chunks I'd placed beneath it.
The tooth wasn't solid. The structure had given up on
holding shape. Kelly noticed it too. I didn't need to
look to know she was watching. When I glanced up,
she met my eye with a silent, questioning look. I
gave a small nod. Carry on. I irrigated the cavity,
cleared what debris I could, suction, catching the fragments as
they floated free. The deeper I went, the more of
it seemed to fall apart under the bur It shouldn't
have looked like that, not this soon, not from a
simple filling. Kelly handed me the end of probe without asking.
I tapped gently at the exposed entin probing for stability,
the tips sank deeper than it should have. Catching an
avoid beneath the surface, I paused, leaning in closer, adjusting
the light for a better view. The walls of the
tooth flexed under pressure and gave way too easily beneath
it all beneath what should have been a solid structure
or space, I felt Kelly nervously watching me work. I
rensed again, dried the area, and leaned in with a mirror.
The void seemed to taper off, somewhere deeper than I
could reach, a narrow track, disappearing beneath what remained of
the root structure. It wasn't a crack, it wasn't decay.
It looked, for lack of a better word, eton technically
it was still repairable. The nerve looked untouched, and there
was just enough structure left to rebuild on. Nothing a
decent lining and fresh composite couldn't shore up for now.
Let's get the filling kit, I said, sitting back. Kelly
peeled off her gloves and went to the supply cupboard.
I heard the box tear as she opened it. They
make these things thinner every year, she said, frowning at
the mess. You so much as look at the strip
wrong and it bursts. The packaging was flimsy because the
supplier was cheap. I started ordering from abroad when the
budget shrank further. It was from somewhere eastern European, and
half the instructions were printed in a language I couldn't read.
We've been running lean for years. He cook corners, so
you had to. I worked quickly but carefully, lining the
cavity and rebuilding what I could. It wasn't perfect, but
he would hold for now. Colin sat up slowly once
I was done, stretching his numb jaw. Give that a
day or two to settle. I told him, if he
gives you any more trouble, you know where to find me.
He nodded, Thanks, Doc, we'll keep an eye on it.
Don't hesitate to reach out. Kelly stripped off her gloves
and started clearing the tray. She waited until Colin's had
gone before she spoke up, hovering by the sink with
a forehid brow. What was that, she asked? Quiet. Now,
I've never seen a tooth come apart like that, neither
of I, I said. She rinsed the instrument slower than usual,
like she was waiting for me to come up with
an answer. It looked, I don't know, like it had
rotted from the inside out. She said, the scaler down
a little harder than necessary. Not decay though, was it? No?
I said, not decay. She gave a short shake of
her head, almost to herself. Weird one. Kelly wasn't one
to push, but I could feel her watching as I
rolled my chair back to the computer, waiting for me
to tell her it was nothing, or that I'd seen worse,
or that I knew exactly what had caused it. When
she realized I didn't have an answer, she left to
go on a break. With a bit of downtime before
my next patient, I opened up my inbox. Claire's emails
were still sitting there, flagged in bold. I clicked open
the first one. Hey, Dad, I got around to using
the stuff you sent. Figured you'd find this funny. I
propped up a standing mirror on the kitchen table, wedged
the torch between two cookbooks, and angry everything just right
so I could see what I was doing looked ridiculous.
Crouched over my own reflection with a filling kit in
one hand and a dental probe in the other I
should have taken a picture. You'd either have died laughing
or disowned me on the spot, probably both. It's not perfect,
but it's holding. I'm pretty proud of it, if I'm honest.
Thought you'd be proud too, considering how he used to
cry any time I lost the milk tooth. When I
finally make it back home, you'd better have a job
waiting for me, Love, Claire. I leaned back in the
chair and let myself smile just for a moment. Then
I clicked open the next email she'd sent earlier. It
wasn't like her sending two so close together. Hey Dad,
hope you're all right. You've been in my mind lately.
I'm starting to think I didn't do the filling properly.
After all. My jaw's been aching for a few days now,
worse than I thought it would be. It's gotten to
the point I can't really chew on that side any more.
It feels like the whole tooth's about to fall apart
if I press on it too much. I'm pretty sure
that wasn't in the instructions, not that I could have
read them anyway. It's not just uncomfortable any more. It's painful.
It keeps me up at night sometimes. I know I
should get it looked at, but you know me too stubborn,
and if I'm honest, I don't really trust any one
over here to get it right. It makes me nervous
just thinking about it. Do you think this is normal?
Is this what happens if you mess it up? Or
is it something worse? Let me know when you can,
love Claire. It was in that moment that I became
aware of how hard my jaw was throbbing beneath a molar.
I breassed my tongue against it without thinking, and I
felt it shift. It frightened me to the point where
I froze, and I sat very still for a long time,
let the polls drag out, slow and thick through my jaw.
Then energy surged through me, and my fingers moved. Before
I thought about what they were doing, I pulled up records,
checking dates, dragging appointments onto the screen. One by one, Collins,
the girl, me, and then Missus Graham, the first received
one of the new fillings. All of us were patched
from the same shipment of cheaper supplies than not in
My stomach tightened as I scrolled through the invoices, the
dates lining up too neatly. Every name, every filling, every order.
It sat there in black and white, plain as anything,
every one of them. My jaw thropped harder, like something
was still working its way through bone, patient slow chewing
its way out. I thought of missus Graham and picked
up the phone, Pulling over details from the system, I
dialed a number and waited for the tone to connect. Hello,
Missus Graham, it's David from the surgery. Just a quick
call about your recent filling. Nothing to worry about, but
we started running a new patient care initiative that involves
follow up route means for anyone who's had recent work.
Just making sure everything's settling properly. Oh, she said, sounding
a little apprehensive. No charge, of course, We're just trying
to catch any small issues early before they turn into
anything bigger. That's thoughtful of you. I was actually going
to ring. It's been feeling a bit odd since I left.
I'd like to have another luck. If that's all right.
Could you come in later today. We've got a slot
up in this afternoon. Yes, that's fine, better to get
it checked isn't it exactly? We'll see you then. Missus
Graham arrived later that afternoon, right on time. We exchanged
the usual small talk while I settled her into the chair.
Nothing out of the ordinary on the surface. Doesn't quite
feel right, that one, she said, as I Just the light,
and that's what we're here to check, I said, giving
her the practiced reassuring smile. I called Kelly in from sterilization.
She slipped on gloves without question and took up a
place at my side. Composite failing again, she asked under
a breath. No, just the follow up, I said, and
the area waited until I was certain Missus Graham couldn't
feel a thing. Then I worked carefully, easing through the
surface of the filling. It crumbled under the bur in soft,
unexpected flakes. Beneath it, the dentin looked pale, almost pour
us hollow in places. Kelly shifted beside me, leaning in
to watch. Looks the same as Collins, she said, keeping
a voice level. I irrigated the cavity as she sug
and cleared the debris. As I leaned closer with the mirror,
something small and pale. It was moving, Kelly. I said, quietly,
pass me the explorer. She did without comment, though I
felt a breath hitch as she saw it too. I
nudged the lava free. It was tiny, embedded right where
the pulp should have been. Kelly's widened eyes flicked between
me and the thing writhing faintly on the tip of
my tool. She kept her composure barely. Missus Graham still
had her eyes closed, blissfully unaware. Get the container, I said,
steady as I could manage now. I've never seen anything
like that, she whispered as she passed it over, neither
of I, I said, placing the lava inside with careful precision,
snapping the lid shut before I could shift again. We
both sat there for a moment longer than necessary, watching
it curl and flecks against the plastic. Kelly's gloves creaked
faintly as she tightened the grip on the edge of
the tray, as if bracing herself against the reality of
what we just found. My tongue pressed instinctively against my
own molar. I felt it again, a faint shift beneath
the enamel. The realization settled hard in my chest. Collins,
the little girl, Missus Graham, Claire me. I swallowed hard,
tasting the metallic tang of fear crawling up from the
back of my throat. Kelly remained speechless, ignorant to the
real reason the lava was there. I need you to
head over to Marston's, I said, quietly, leaning in close
enough that Missus Graham wouldn't overhear. See if they'll sell
you a filling pack. Say it's for a rush case.
Do whatever you have to. Kelly blinked at me, confused.
We've got more in the vault plenty. I don't want
what's in the vault, I said, just trust me on this,
go beg if needed. Missus Graham shifted slightly in the chair,
but kept her eyes closed, still num still unaware. Kelly hesitated,
then gave a single nod, stripping off her gloves as
she left. She returned five minutes later with a fresh
kit in hand, looking relieved and a little flushed. They
didn't ask questions, just happy to take the money, she said,
didn't even check what I needed it for good, I said,
I'd to get a patch stop. We worked quickly and
cleanly with the new materials. The tooth was lined, filled
and polished to a shine. Missus Graham sat up, feeling
better than she had when she walked in, and thanked
us both politely. Feels loads better already. She said it
was worth coming back in. I smiled and sent her
on away. When the door shut behind her, Kelly turned
back to me. All right, she said, what the hell
is going on? I opened my mouth to answer, but
I struggled to find where to start. It was in
that moment that I felt a snap in my mouth.
It was sharp and sudden, like a tooth was splintering.
Kelly's expression shifted from confusion to horror. As I lurched
forward over the My hand climbed my jaw like I
could hold it in place. Stop it somehow, open your mouth,
Kelly demanded. I obeyed, prying my jaw apart through the pain.
Kelly angled the light, leaning closer, and then recoiled momentarily.
Her breath hitched sharply, gloves trembling as she adjusted the mirror.
Oh my god, she said, not calm anymore. It's moving.
I can see it. It's chewed through. It's bigger. I
let out a horrified groan, jaws straining open while her
hands were still in there. I couldn't speak. All I
could do was make that awful sound as the pain sharpened.
Hold still, she snapped. I felt the gnawing scrape inside
the tooth, the way the enamel fractured inward as something
for its way out. The pain bloomed hot and raw
beneath the gum. Before I could brace for it, I
felt it push and a crack as it forced its
way out through the enamel. Pain blared sharply and deep
through my jaw, worse than any abscess I'd ever treated.
Kelly grabbed the explorer, and, without waiting for me to flinch,
hooked it in and pulled. I felt the pressure ease
in a rush of warmth and blood. Something white, wet
and writhing slipped free under the tray with a soft,
awful sound. We both stared at it. It was another lava, bigger,
this time slick with blood and pulp. Kelly looked at me,
wide eyed, her face blanching beneath a harsh surgery light. Geez,
oh God, she said, breath catching sharply. What the hell
have we been putting into people's mouths? I couldn't answer.
I turned away, half stumbling to the sink and threw up.
When I finally came back for air, Kelly was still
staring at the tray, pale and silent. I wiped my mouth,
my hands shaking, and crossed back to the computer. I
bowled up the website where it placed the order Refresh,
Refresh again, nothing air, screen page not found. I checked
the invoice and grabbed the box from the bin. Her
phone number was printed in small, pale, tight beneath the logo.
I dialed it. The line rang once twice, then a
dull automated voice cut through. The number you have dialed
has not been recognized. Please check and try again. I
tried twice more, same message, same dead tone. I sat back,
staring at the box, the screen, the number, as if
something would change if I looked long enough. There was
no trail left to follow. How did they even get listed?
How did they pass themselves off as legitimate? The package
had looked cheap, yes, but not dangerous. There had been
no warnings, no red flags, no reason to question it
beyond the usual distrust that came with buying cheap. They
sent extras, They'd been polite, efficient, and now nothing. Half
the world away using the same kit I'd scent Clare's
straw hurt with one of those things inside of her teeth,
eating away at the enamel from the inside out. Press
my fingers hard against my temples and felt the pulse
through my jaw, and in that moment, I felt utterly helpless.
It's not glamorous work, but it pays well and offers
opportunities for over time. After the divorce and the foreclosure,
after most of my friends stopped calling, County Maintenance was
steady enough, quiet, predictable, and away from the noise from
my life I was trying to avoid. I was assigned
a new job to do. Take the truck, follow the checklist,
tear down the old signs, like the trails as cleared,
move on. I was sitting in the diner the morning
before the job started, staring into a mug of burnt coffee,
pretending not to hear the old men at the corner
table watching me. One of them finally spoke up, some
trails don't want to be forgotten. The others gave a
chuckle at that. Half serious, half sarcastic, small town men
with too many years behind them, too familiar with bad stories,
too many bad stories told over whiskey and boredom. I
gave them the polite nod you learn to use when
you're too tired to argue. They're just signs, I said,
just trees. They didn't argue, They just kept watching me
finish my coffee. Truth was, this route landed on my
lap because nobody else wanted it. Not the younger guys,
not the retirees pulling half shifts to pad their pensions.
Even my supervisor didn't look me in the eye when
he gave me the paperwork. A lot of bad breakouts.
He said, be careful where you step. I figured it
was the usual small town superstition. Faded trail markers, nail
to rotting trees weren't going to bite me. The bureucacy
doesn't scare me, not usually. The first few trails went
by without much to say for themselves, nothing unusual beyond
how quiet everything felt. No birds, no squirrels, not even
the hummer flies of a deadfall, just me and the trees,
the kind of silence you feel in your teeth. The
work itself stayed simple. Hike in, find the markers, pull
them down, lock the removal, move on. Every sign had
a name on it, stamped in wood and weather worn
to hell. Some of them I recognized from old missing
persons fliers, faces that used to hang by the register
and gas stations when I was a kid, memorials to
those lost and never found. Others dated further back than that,
Names passed down through town gossip, usually mentioned in the
same breath as bad luck or sad endings. It struck
me more than once, how strange it was the name
trails after people who'd gone missing on them. Stranger still,
how nobody ever bothered to mention that part when handing
me the job sheet. After a few days, things started
not lining up. I'd clear a path in the morning,
all the markers out, only to find some of them
back up by the afternoon, same trees, same bolts, sunk
into bark that should have been bare. Then there were
the footprints too narrow for my boots, moving across the
paths in places where no one should have been walking.
They never led anywhere, just stopped dead in the middle
of thick brush, or vanished outright on solid ground. The
radio gave me more static the deeper I went, Voices
sometimes faint and broken, beneath the white noise. I couldn't
make out much at first, but after a while it
got clearer. Stop, turn back, leave it alone, always urgent,
always on the edge of words. I told myself it
had to be locals playing games, teens tapping into my
radio frequency. Maybe those old boys at the diner still
had enough spite in them to plant a CB somewhere
and mess with me. I thought about packing up early,
taking the rite up, losing the overtime, but rent was due,
bills were stacked, and I couldn't stomach screwing up another job.
So I stayed, set up camp right in the of
it to finish quicker one more night. Then I'd tear
down the last of it and never looked back. Even
as I hammered in the last stake and zip my
tent shut beneath those dead trees, I couldn't shake the
feeling I should have left already that night. The woods
didn't pretend to sleep. I heard movement outside the tent
long before I unzipped it. Not footsteps exactly, not anything
that steady branches snapped, leaves shifted, and something mimicked the
short clipped beaps of my radio. Not words, just noise,
chopped and mechanical, trying to get the rhythm right without
understanding the purpose behind it. I sat in the dark, listening,
waiting for it to stop. When it didn't, I stepped
out with flashlight and swept the trees beyond the camp.
For a second, I thought I saw a figure. It
was tall, bigger than anyone living ought to be, standing
too still between the trunks. My light didn't catch it properly,
and when I blinked, it was gone. I told myself
it had been a tree, a shadow, or a grazing
animal I had spooked away. When I tried the radio again,
the static gave way to words, not sentences, nothing conversational,
just names, names of trails I hadn't reached yet, names
pulled straight from my paperwork. Some I didn't even recognize.
I didn't sleep after that. By morning, every marker I
had pulled the day before had been reinstalled, not where
I had found them originally, but deeper into the woods,
trees I hadn't walked past yet. Some even looked freshly
mounted bolts driven into the bark that wet, clean sap
beneath them. I packed up camp and made for the truck,
ready to leave this evolving nightmare behind, only to find
it wasn't where I left it. The tire tracks stretched
off into the brush and vanished without a sign of
turning around. I stood there for a long while, fighting
the urge to just walk back to town and leave
it all behind. But the job was halfway done, rent
wasn't going to pay itself, and I couldn't stomach another
mistake on my record. I just needed to finish off
the last of my assigned route, so I kept going.
I was going to finish clearing these trails. Nothing in
those woods connected the way it should. Paths I knew
for a fact, ran east to west began curving in
on themselves, leading me back to places I hadn't passed. Twice.
I checked my compass until the needle spun in slow,
lazy circles. No matter which way I turned the GPS,
my phone glitched between aero screens and coordinates that made
no sense. I started leaving fresh markers behind me, bright
tape scratches in the bark, small cairns of stone. Every
time I circled back, they were gone. The discarded pile
of signs I created the dispose of later that morning
vanished too, I kept walking until the trees opened into
a clearing I didn't remember from any map, and its
center stood a structure, not natural, not accidental, a totem
of old signs, rusted and rotted, deliberately bolted together in
twisting layers. Beneath the plaques hung scraps of fabric, torn
backpacks and empty shoes, bones which between them yellowed thin
with age. I recognized a few of the names on
those signs from the markers. I pulled names from my paperwork,
names from missing persons cases decades old. The trees around
the clearing weren't untouched either, deep grooves cut into the bark,
long slashes that pulled at the wood in crude shapes.
At first, they looked random, for the longer eyes stared,
the more they resembled the clean square fonts used on
County trail markers. Letters, half formed, sentences, left unfinished. This
wasn't some prank. This wasn't locals trying to scare me off,
or some bitter old men with a cebee radio in
the woods. The trails weren't just the band, and they
weren't meant to be touched. The woods were watching, or worse, waiting.
I tried to backtrack. I tried to follow the map,
my own markers, even the sun. None of it lined
up anymore. In the end, I went back to the clearing,
back to the totem. I thought, if I burned it,
maybe it would break whatever was holding me here. Maybe
fire would undo it, strip it down to something human again.
The flames caught easily enough, but they burned blue green
at the edges, curling smoke up in heavy spirals that
didn't rise, but hung low and thick over the ground.
That was when the woods reacted. The wind roared through
the trees and sharp burst, pulling at the branches until
they bowed and twisted. The ground trembled beneath my feet.
I heard something creak in the dark beyond the clearing,
timber straining, metal, grinding against itself. The totem didn't burn,
not really. The signs blackened, peeled, fell apart, only to
pull themselves together again, bent metal, reformed, plaques, twisting into
new shapes, names, rearranging themselves into words. I couldn't read.
The whole thing shifted taller now, branches splitting off its
core like limbs. Something stepped free of it. I couldn't
tell where the structure ended, and the thing began. Wood
for bones, rusted, signs for skin, nailed plaques, overlapping like scales,
Limbs too long, torso hollowed out a shape made of
all the pieces I thought I had removed. Signs hung
from its b body, clattering against each other. With every slow,
deliberate movement. Words I recognized, names I had touched, dates
I had logged. It didn't speak, It didn't need to.
The weight of its gaze pressed into me, pulling something
loose behind my eyes, Branches scraping against one another until
they sounded almost like laughter, dry and joyless. I turned
to run, but there was no air left to go.
Paths folded in on themselves. Roots broke through the dirt
in coils thick enough to trip me no matter which
way I turned. Daylight snapped the dusk without warning, Shadows
stretching long and thin until they swallowed the edges of
the clearing. The thing watched me until I couldn't hold
on to the moment any longer. The ground tilted, the
air split sideways, My thoughts scattered to static. I blacked out,
standing right where it wanted me. I woke up lying
in the dirt. But it wasn't the same dirt I'd
blacked out on the ground beneath me was clean, the
trail well maintained. Fresh gravel crunched under my hands. When
I pushed myself upright, the trees weren't dead and twisting anymore.
They stood tall and green, leaves shifting gently in a
breeze that actually smelled right. I could hear birds again,
wind in the branches. For a moment, I let myself
believe I'd made it out. Maybe i'd wandered too far,
passed out, and someone had dragged me back to a
safe route. But my truck was gone. No sign of
my tent, my tools, the clearing or twisted thing i'd
seen pullets off together from bones and metal. I turned
in a slow circle, trying to find any marker to
orient myself. Nothing. Only a trail running ahead in behind,
so neat and awdly. It might have been laid down yesterday.
I followed it backward, hoping it might lead to a road. Instead,
it brought me to a sign, new, freshly bolted, standing
proud at the trailhead. The words didn't make sense until
I read them twice. It was a new trail, one
I hadn't seen when I took inventory of the listed
trails for the area named after me. The established date
was the day I had blacked out. There was no
way someone could have made a whole trail in that
shorter time. It would have taken a whole team weeks.
Yet here it was freshly laid and ready for use.
I stood there, staring until my throat closed up. The
font matched every sign I'd removed over the past week.
Same materials, same bolts. Even the angle of the placement
was the same as the ones I'd pulled down with
my own hands. I remembered, clear as daylight, how every
one of those old trails bore the name of a
missing person. Names I thought were just bureaucratic leftovers from
decades past, memorials to those lost to nature, forgotten names.
I had thought I was helping a raise, but I
wasn't clearing them. I was making room. This was how
new trails got built, not laid by county workers, not
signed off with permits or blueprints. People didn't vanish here,
they got repurposed. I kept walking because I didn't know
what else to do. The trails stretched ahead, perfect and
clean beneath my feet. No rots, no traps, no wrong turns,
just a neat, little path inviting people in. Up ahead,
I saw them hikers, three of them, maybe four, bright jackets, backpacks,
chatting as they made their way down the trail like
nothing was wrong, laughing, relaxed, without a clue what waited
further in. I shouted for them to stop. I waved
my arms, stepped into their path, anything to get their attention.
They didn't react, they didn't even glance up. I screamed
at them, begged them to turn around, told them and
they had no idea what they were walking toward, that
this trail wasn't meant to exist, that it would swallow
them like it swallowed me. They walked through me, not around,
not past through cold sliced through my ribs and chest,
a chill deeper than winter, leaving nothing behind but air.
They didn't hesitate, didn't seem to notice at all. I
chased after them, still shouting, still trying to get between
them and the woods ahead. No matter what I did,
they didn't hear my words, didn't touch them. My hands
couldn't stop them. I stepped off the trail, hoping maybe
that would break whatever held me here. The world twisted,
trees folded inward, colors drained to ash and bone. I
blinked and found myself back on the path where I
had started. I tried again, same result. Every time, the
trail wouldn't let me leave. I could only watch as
the hikers moved ahead until they left the confines of
where my limits were, unaware that deeper in, something was
possibly waiting to fold them into the earth the same
way it folded me. I wanted to follow them, make
sure they were safe, but I couldn't even touch them.
All I could do was watch, helpless, voiceless, bound to
this path. Time stopped making sense after a while. I
didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't even get tired.
My body didn't ache, my feet never blistered. But I
couldn't leave the trail. I tried every direction, every hour
of what I could only guess was passing time. Off
the trail, the world broke apart and threw me back
onto the gravel. I couldn't rest. I just walked back
and forth from the trailhead bearing my name to the
furthest point before the woods bent the world in half again,
back and forth forever. People came, not often, but enough,
hikers and pears, or groups wandering in without a clue,
following my name printed on that clean, fresh sign. I
followed them at a distance, watched them finish the path,
heard them laugh about the beautiful scenery, the quiet woods.
They always made it through, at least the ones I saw.
They always left. I couldn't follow beyond the trailhead. I
wanted to think I was watching over them. Some part
of me still, I wanted to protect someone from this place.
I told myself, maybe that mattered, Maybe I still mattered.
Then came the ranger, a county man, clipboard in hand,
maintenance vest, same patch on his sleeve. I used to wear,
same paperwork. I filled out the checklist, the inventory, same job.
He stood beneath my sign for a long time, scowling
at it. Eventually he pulled out a crowbar and started
prying it loose. I wanted to scream at him to stop,
to leave it, to get back in his truck and
drive until he couldn't see trees anymore. I followed him
as he walked down the trail, dragging the sign under
one arm. I screamed as loud as I could, then
pushed harder to try to get through to him. Nothing
happened until his radio crackled at his hip. My voice
came through. It walked and broken, barely words at all,
a handful of syllables, a warning he couldn't hear, or
maybe he could, and simply dismissed it as the locals
driving him away. Ahead of him, between the trees, I
saw it, the thing from the clearing, the shape stitched
together from rusted signs and bones from wood and stolen names.
He moved ahead of him, slow but certain, always just
out of sight. It wasn't chasing him. He didn't have to.
It was leading him somewhere. He didn't see it. He
wouldn't have believed it if he did. He followed his paperwork,
his duty, not knowing what was waiting for him him.
Now that he had disturbed the trail, they stepped off
the trail together into the woods, beyond where I could go.
I stood there, watching the space where they vanished, listening
to the empty woods breathe. The sign would come back.
I knew, new name, new date, new path carved deeper,
another piece added to the forest's collection, another mile for
hikers to follow. Another man swallowed up, and I couldn't
do a damn thing to stop it. People always imagine
surveyors working in the mountains or along beautiful stretches of coastline,
standing nobly against the horizon with a tripod and scope.
The truth is most of the time was standing alone
in a field that doesn't deserve anyone's attention, empty, sun bleached,
littered with scrap metal, or half dead hedgerows choking in
plastic bags. Places waiting to become something else. That morning
was no different. A wide, flat stretch of land on
the outskirts of a dead ended town, the kind of
sight where the counsel had already approved development before anyone
bothered sending me to check for sub service problems. You'd
think if they were serious about health and safety, they'd
prioritize this step earlier. But half my work comes down
to ticking boxes after decisions have been made. I parked
my truck on the edge of the field, grabbed my
gear and hiked out into the waist high grass with
my boots soaking up yesterday's rain. Usual checklist, boundary confirmation,
soil composition, utilities, elevation consistency. My kit was standard, a
total station for accuracy, a handheld GNSS receiver, and the
ground penetrating radar to check beneath the surface. Expensive tools
treated better than my own health. I logged everything methodically.
That's how I worked. I followed process, keep my paperwork tight,
never cut corners, even when I know it won't matter
to anyone but me. The first couple of hours passed
like they always did, slow, methodical, solitary. I made my passes,
marking coordinates, noting anomalies. There were a few small inconsistencies
right off. My compass readings jitted by a few degrees
more than they should have, and the GNSS had a
tendency to flicker, struggling to keep a solid fix on
satellite locks. That happened sometimes near old landfill sites, or
when there's a high iron content in the soil. Though
the maps didn't show anything to suggest it here, still
it bothered me. I hate noise in my data. It
nags at me. Some surveyors fluted through and write it
off as margin of error. I'm not wired like that.
I don't like unresolved questions sitting in my reports. I
made another loop around the perimeter, double checking points I
had already marked. That's when I noticed it, something ahead
near the center of the field, something tall enough to
break through the monotony of the grass, something that hadn't
been there when I walked this stretch an hour ago.
At first glance, it appeared to be utility infrastructure, possibly
a temporary rig for which paperwork had been forgotten. I
moved closer, but my chest tightened with a low creeping
sense that this wasn't right. It wasn't a cabinet or
a drill rig, or any kind of construction I'd seen before.
It was an elevator, free standing, about eight feet tall,
twin doors, a control panel fixed beside them with a
single backlit button glowing steady green. No markings, no company logos,
no rust or grime. He logged brand new, modern powered.
I walked a slow circle around it, half expecting to
find scaffolding or a generator, or even loose cables snaking
out of the grass. Nothing. The thing was planted into
the earth, rooted like a permanent strugg cure for the
ground around it was undisturbed, no tire tracks, no footprints
except my own, no sign of heavy equipment having moved through.
If something had planted this year, they'd done it without
disturbing a single inch of soil, And that was impossible.
Things don't just appear fully installed without a trace. That
wasn't possible. I pulled out my phone, flipped through the
site reports again, just to be sure. Nothing listed. No
pride development, no underground facilities, nothing built or planned. Until
this survey was complete. The last formal record of this
land showed farmland subdivided and sold off decades ago, before
elevators like this even existed. Still there it was. I
circled the elevator, slowly, taking it in from every angle.
Up close, it looked even stranger than it had from
a distance. The surface was brushed steel, with the kind
you'd expect to see in an old office block or hospital,
clean enough to show a dull reflection of my boots
in the lower panels, no signs of age or weather damage,
despite the rain that had come the day before. The
seams between the doors were sharp and precise. The button
panel beside it hummed with quiet power, a single green
light steady beside the down arrow. There wasn't a scratch
on it. It made no sense. Modern elevator systems require power, maintenance, shafts,
connection to something. Yet here it was humming quietly in
the middle of nowhere. The more I thought about it,
the more I convinced myself there had to be a reason.
Maybe someone had started a legal development without permits. Maybe
there was a corporate project buried beneath me, one they'd
gone to a lot of trouble to hide. If so,
my job wasn't just to take soil samples and boundary
readings anymore. Part of surveying is reporting anomalies. Unauthorized construction
had to be documented. That thought settled the debate for me.
Curiosity played its part, sure, but this wasn't about curiosity anymore.
This was about liability, about making sure that people who
came after me didn't stumble into something dangerous because I
hadn't done my due diligence. I stepped up to the
doors and rested my finger on the call button again.
I pressed it. I don't really know what I expect
it to happen when I pressed the button. Maybe nothing,
maybe for the light to flicker out and remind me
that what I was looking at couldn't possibly be real.
What I didn't expect was for the elevator to answer
with a low hum and a faint tremor beneath my boots.
The machinery kicked into life somewhere below. Cables tightened, gears turned,
and the elevator rose smooth into place. The doors opened
without hesitation, revealing a clean, empty car waiting for me.
The interior smelled faintly metallic, the sterile scent of something
mechanical and unused. I stepped forward just far enough to
study the panel inside. The floor selection was simple, ground
level marked as G. Below that, floors labeled minus one
through minus seven. Only the first basement level was lit.
The button glowed steadily and palely, inviting me down. For
a moment, I stood there, weighing it in my mind.
This wasn't standard procedure. No one would expect me to
step into an elevator in the middle of a field,
and no one would question me if I flagged it
in the report and walked away. For what if there
was something down there, some illegal structure, a liability hidden
beneath the earth. Unauthorized builds aren't exactly well known for
their amazing structural integrity. If I left it unchecked and
something happened later, it would come back on me. Part
of this job is making sure the ground is safe
before others build on it. That responsibility doesn't just stop
because something feels wrong. One floor, that was all I
could take a quick look and confirm it was an
old maintenance space or something more recent. Just one level
to investigate standard due diligence. I stepped inside, pressed the
button for minus one, and felt the car lurched gently
as it began to sink into the earth. The car
shuttered as it reached its stop. The door slid open,
and for a moment I thought I stepped into a
time capsule. The floor stretched out a head in grim,
flickering light, lined with sagging cubicle walls and peeling lenonium tiles.
Exposed concrete framed the ceiling, where aging fluorescent strips hommed
without pattern, casting intimittent shadows across the space. It felt abandoned,
not ruined, not collapsed, just left, as though every one
had walked out at once and never returned. I moved
forward cautiously. The ear was thick with the smell of
old coffee and stale paper. My boots echoed against the floor,
drawing attention to the silence that pressed in from every side.
A small brake room sat off to my left, his
glass panel smeared with grease and handprints so faded that
they looked fossilized. Inside, chairs were pulled out as if
waiting for people to return. On one table sat a
styrophoning coup half full. The coffee inside had grown a
film of scum. The cigarette burned in an astray near by,
smoke still lifting in a lazy spiral. I stood there,
trying to make sense of what I was seeing. There
was no power to this place, no fee connected it
to the surface grid, and no generator. Noise hummed behind
the walls. My scanner confirmed it zero utilities, zero heat signatures,
and yet here it was lights on, smoke rising, something
half drunk sitting warm in a cup. I moved further in,
examining a row of desks. Paperwork littered them, yellowed with age,
but still legible. Maintenance logs, requisition orders for supplies, mundane
office debris from a company that didn't exist on any
records I'd been given. One memo caught my eye more
than the rest. It was staple to a corkboard in
the corner of the room. Strict protocol, no unauthorized personnel
permitted below level three under any circumstances. Maintenance team reports
must be signed off on prior to departure. Another sign,
more official, more permanent, showed a cartoon worker in a
hard hat giving a thumbs up under bold red text
always followed maintenance protocols below level three. I felt the
first twist of unknease in my chest. This wasn't some
abandoned structure forgotten by paperwork. This was built, deliberately, organized,
planned for depths the surface had no record of I
returned to the elevator faster than I intended. My finger
went straight to the ground floor button. I pressed it, waited,
pressed it again, harder. The button remained dark beneath my thumb.
No response. I tried holding it down, willing the doors
to close. Nothing happened. I stepped back hard, climbing in
my throat. I wasn't stuck, not yet. Maybe the elevator
system was wired to operate sequentially. That would make sense
if this was an old security protocol restricting access one
level at a time until clearance was confirmed. The only
button lit now was for minus two. I'd checked my
phone for a dash of hope, but of course no signal.
One floor at a time, no other path forward. That
was the logic I grabbed onto, the reasoning that kept
me from losing my nerve. If I wanted to get
back to the surface, I'd have to reach the bottom
and hope the controls reset. That was how these things worked,
wasn't it. If it wasn't, pretending made it easier to
calm down. The doors closed without my touch the button,
and for minus two glowed steadily, and the elevator began
to descend again. I braced myself. Whatever was down there,
i'd see it soon enough. When the doors opened again,
I thought for a moment that the elevator had broken entirely.
This couldn't be another floor beneath the corporate basement. This
couldn't be long underground at all. I stepped out into
what looked like a house, a complete, fully furnished suburban home,
the kind built in the nineties, with wood paneling and
patterned wallpaper that hadn't aged well. A lamp hum softly
in the corner. Yellowed blinds flitted pale light on the
carpet worn down to the threads. Somewhere a clock ticked steadily.
The air smelled faintly off burnt toast and old clicking products.
It was the smell of someone's daily routine, long since abandoned,
but somehow still hanging on. I walked forward, drawn through
a narrow hallway, into a living room that could have
belonged to any tired suburban family from thirty years ago.
Framed photographs line the mantle. I picked one up, turned
it toward me. My breath caught. It looked like an
inane family portrait, the posing of an idealistic nuclear family.
But the more I stared, the stranger it got. I
wasn't sure if it started normally. I was shifting so
slowly it was imperceptible, with the faces held uncanny features,
eyes slightly shifted smiles that didn't hold an ounce of happiness.
All of it culminated in my gun, but sinking each
second I sturdied it. I put it away, hoping it
was a one off, and looked through others, hoping one
would hold a clue as to where I was. But
each had the same effect. My stomach feeling acidic from
the stress. Nothing bad happened, but my body felt like
it had a near death experience simply from standing in
one spot. I couldn't help but move on. I checked
my phone, no surface, no time displayed on the log screen.
The battery igon remained frozen at eighty two percent. For
a moment, I stood in the middle of that room
and listened. Somewhere in the house, water dripped slowly, a
rhythmic pattern that echoed through unseen pipes. Beyond the windows.
Nothing but raw kung Greek pressed against the glass, No
hint of anything existing beyond the walls, just blank gray,
featureless and absolute. There were no doors leading out, no
stairs going up or down, only hallways that curved around
into the same rooms, again, looping quietly, as if this
space existed in fragments, repeating themselves over and over. I
found myself back where I started, without realizing how I
had gotten there. The elevator stood open, waiting in soft
interior light, the only thing breaking the dimness. The ground
floor buttons still remained dark. Only minus three now glowed,
as if daring me to press it. I hesitated. Nothing
here had threatened me, nothing had tried to keep me.
Yet the weight of something unseen pressed deeper into my chest.
This place wasn't dangerous, not yet, but it wasn't meant
to be found. I stepped back inside. The doors closed,
and I felt the drop begin again. The doors opened
onto a corridor tiled in an institutional pale blue meant
to calm nerves, but rarely succeeding. The walls were clean
in places, peeling in others. The lights overhead buzzed inconsistently,
casting uneven strips of cold fluorescent across the floor. I
recognized the smell immediately, antiseptic, old metal, something faintly chemical
beneath it. All a hospital, or something built to resemble one.
I move forward, slowly, stepping past abandoned gurneys and carts
of surgical t tools laid out in neat untouched rose.
Through a set of swinging doors, I found the operating theater.
A large observation window loomed above it, glass cracked in
several places below. The room held the chaos of an
interrupted procedure. A body rested on the table beneath a
circle of bright surgical lamps. Blood crossed the sheet beneath it,
though the edges glistened wet under the harsh light. Tubes
still fed clear liquid through hanging IV bags, the fluid
running with a slow, steady drip despite no one watching.
Metal trays held bone saws, scalpels, and rib spreaders, all
laid out with the precision of professionals who had no
intention of cleaning up after themselves. I approached the table.
The body was covered from the neck down, but even
under the sheet, I could see the wrongness of its shape,
too thin in some places, too bloated in others, limbs,
bented angles that didn't match how bone should move. Beside
the table, a clipboard hung from a rail. I flipped
through the patient files without thinking, scanning lines of text.
My brain struggled to process different dates, different injuries, gunshot wounds,
blunt force trauma, surgical extraction, organ failure, brain death. Some
of them couldn't be possible. One listed dissection was still alive.
Another marked the procedures completed, despite a date that hadn't
happened yet. Something shifted behind the far curtain. I froze.
The movement was slow, steady, A shadow pressed against the fabric,
a shape too tall to be human, too thin to
belong in this world. The curtain rippled as it moved
behind it, tracing a careful, deliberate path along the wall.
The surgical lamps flickered overhead. One by one, they blinked out,
plunging parts of the room into uneven darkness. Footsteps echoed
across the tile, soft at first, then louder, coming from
more than one direction. I couldn't see anything in the
corners of the room where the light had died, but
I could hear breath rasping from somewhere close, heavy and wet.
I didn't wait to see what would step through the curtain.
I backed toward the elevator, my hands shaking as I
reached for the button. The doors opened faster than I expected.
I stepped inside and slammed my palm against the panel.
Only minus four was lit. Now the doors closed before
the footsteps could reach me, and I felt the car
sink lower into the earth. Out of habit I reviewed
what had just happened. Each floor before had been empty,
unsettling but empty. I had grown complacent that this strange
structure were just glimpses into a maddened mind, that nothing
would manifest. But I was proven wrong, and I feared
what the rest of the floors held. When the doors
open again, the smell hit me first, stagnant water mixed
with mildew, and something acred beneath it all. The light
overhead flickered weakly, revealing tiled floors that were lost beneath
the lair of black water, which rippled with slow, unnatural motion.
I wanted to just stay in the elevator car and
wait for the next button to light up, but no
matter how long I stood there, frozen by mental exhaustion,
none of the buttons lit up. I was forced to
move forward. I stepped out and felt the chill soak
through my boots. The water reached my calves, thick and
oily enough to leave a sheen on my skin. I
stood in what once had been a shopping mall. Storefronts
lined the wide corridor. The neon signs burned out or
replaced with names that made my head ache to read.
Clothing displays featured rows of shirts and jackets I recognized
from my own closet, but the cuts were off and
the collars bled together where the seams met. Every logo
looked on most correct, but shifted when I tried to
focus on their details. Mannekins filled the stores and hallways,
half submerged, their blank faces aimed toward the water's surface.
Some bobbled gently, as if breathing beneath the black depths,
though it could have just been the ebb and flow
of the water. Others leaned against the glass walls, hands
breast flat, as if trying to force their way out.
I moved carefully between them, watching their stillness for any
sign of change. One blinked as I passed, Another turned
its head just enough for me to catch the movement
from the corner of my eye. The light above hummed louder,
casting the water in a dull, sickly glow. As I
glanced down, my reflection stared back, not just stared, moved.
It looked like a second version of me, beneath the water,
watching with calm indifference. When I stepped forward, it stayed
still until it shifted fast through the water, no longer
overlapping with my reflection, an off white blur moving through
the water. Another mannikin the water never settled from when
it moved. Something was happening. The water began to rise.
I could feel the pull against my legs, dragging me
down inch by inch shelves and sign It shifted with
groaning protests. Suked toward some unseen drain beneath the floor.
Beneath the noise, something moved faster, now circling me, unseen
but close enough to disturb the mannekins. As it passed,
they bobbed in its wake, heads dipping below the surface one.
I turned toward the elevator, forcing myself through the thickened current.
The water clawed on my legs. Every step felt heavier
than the last. The mannekin that had blinked now floated
face down in front of me, blocking my path. I
shoved past it without looking back. The elevator waited, doors open,
light spilling under the water's black surface. I pushed forward
with everything I had left. Something brushed against my ankle.
I didn't look down. I threw myself into the elevator
just as the water surged higher, slapping against the threshold
with enough force to splash across the floor. My hand
hid the panel and blind desperation, fingers smearing wet across
the buttons until one responded beneath my palm. I didn't
even see which one it was until the doors grown shut.
Ceiling the dark water outside with a hollow, metallic thud.
Something heavy struck the doors from the other side, not fists,
not hands, something deeper, something slower. The whole car trembled
beneath the impact. I pressed my back into the corner
as the water drained from the elevator car chest heaving,
soaked through and shivering. My eyes found the panel on
instinct minus six was lit, now steady and silent, waiting
to take me further down. I felt my stomach twist.
For a few seconds. I thought about the situation I
was in. Each time moving on threw me into more peril,
but staying was a death sentence. It felt like a
choice of a fast death or a death of a
thousand cuts. Each descent was closer to whatever weighted at
the bottom, but there wasn't a choice. The ground floor
wasn't coming back. This elevator only moved in one direction.
The elevator opened into darkness, not the kind of shadow
that comes from a par outage, but real, endless black,
stretching high above a canopy of silent trees. It wasn't
a room. It wasn't even an illusion of a room.
It was a forest. The air was cold, damp with
pine and rot. Dirt crunched under foot, damp leaves clung
to my boots. A full forest planted beneath the earth,
no walls, no horizon, no stars. I stepped out, slowly,
flashlights sweeping across tangled branches and leaning trunks. The beam
felt thinner than before, weaker. The darkness swallowed everything beyond
a few steps ahead. I knew this place, not exactly,
not the details, but the shape of it, the way
the trees leaned in too close, but where the trails
led nowhere or looped. I dreamed this place as a kid,
over and over again, always this forest, always this sky,
pitch black with no stars. Something had pulled it from
the back of my mind and made it real. Somewhere
far off, I heard something move, not a loud crash,
just the soft drag of something tall, rushing through the undergrowth.
I didn't call out, didn't even whisper. I just moved forward,
one step at a time, toward a trail barely wide
enough for me to pass. Branches clawed at my arms
and face. No wind, no birds, just that steady, distant shifting,
always behind the trees, always out of sight. I found
signs of others. A half buried compass with a case
and cracked open. A metal clipboard snapped in half. The
surveise pole leaning against the tree snapped at the base
across the water bottle, still sealed, still full. Whatever had
been here before me hadn't lasted long. The path narrowed,
the trees got thicker. My flash like court movement just
beyond reach, something thin, possibly tall, watching, never closer, never retreating,
always in the corner of my eye. Then it moved,
no sound, no warning. It blurred through the trees, straight
toward me. I ran. Branches whipped my face, roots snagged
my ankles. I didn't care. I sprinted through the black lungs,
burning flashlights, swinging wildly. Then something touched me, just for
a second. Cold fingers brushed the back of my neck.
I dropped the flashlight, dove forward, and rolled into a clearing.
No trees, no walls, just a pair of metal elevator doors,
standing upright in the dirt, with no shaft, no structure
to hold them. They opened. I didn't think, I didn't
look back. I ran through them and hit the panel.
As the doors began to close, I saw it again,
A figure impossibly tall, almost human, but stretched wrong, watching
from the tree line. Then the door sealed and the
button for minus seven lit up. I leaned back, trying
to catch my breath. My neck still burned where it
had touched me. Not a cut, not a bruise, but
something had left a part of itself there, and I
was taking it with me to the final floor. The
descent to minus seven felt longer than the others. The
elevator grown through the shaft each passing second, stretching my
nerves tighter. I closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing.
It wasn't working. My heart hammered against my ribs like
it wanted out, like it already knew I wasn't making
it back to the surface. I couldn't shake the thought
that I had already passed the point where people stopped
escaping places like this. Whatever rules I thought I understood
when I stepped into the elevator didn't matter anymore. Each
floor hadn't just been stranger than the last, they'd been
an escalating threat. By the time the doors opened again,
I was prepared to see hell itself waiting. What greeted
me instead was silence. Silence wrapped in dust and conquered.
I didn't step far from the elevator. At first, my
instinct told me to turn around, press whatever button would
bring me back up and never come down again. I
hadn't trusted this place from the start, but now it
felt worse than a mistake. It felt final. I turned
back and pressed the ground level button. Nothing happened. I
hit it again, this time harder. I judged every button
on the panel, one after the other. If I couldn't
get back to the surface, I felt the other floors
would be safer than this one, any of them. Gee
stayed dark. The numbers below minus one gave no reaction
at all. Only minus seven glowed steady and silent. I waited,
hoping the doors might shut on the own, that the
car might pull me out of here without asking permission.
The doors stayed open. The light inside the car flickered once,
then dimmed. I stepped back, breathing hard. My throat felt tight,
as if the air down here had thickened the longer
I stood in it. I knew, without needing to say
it out loud, that this elevator wasn't going to take
me anywhere, not any more, not until it wanted to.
If I wanted to leave, I wasn't going back the
way I came. The thought crawled under my skin and
settled in the pit of my stomach. My only way
forward meant stepping deeper into the floor that would surely
kill me. Into whatever waited. I stepped out into a
vast cavern of unfinished construction. Poured concrete stretched in every direction,
cracked and splintered. Way support beam stood half embedded into
the ceiling. Scaffolding loomed in twisted sections, Some bolted upright,
others collapsed in tangled heaps. Tower lights stood in clusters,
but none of them worked. Pale bulbs hung dead and cold.
The only illumination came from the elevator itself and a
few scattered work lamps running on a circuit. I couldn't see.
My boots crunched across grit and broken tile. Tools lay
abandoned across the floor. No brands, no markings, just shapes
worn smooth from use, a sledge hammer, bowl cutters, coils
of wire. None of it belonged to any company I'd
ever heard of. Blueprints littered a drafting table near the
center of the space, pinned beneath rusted clamps. I glanced
down and felt my stomach turn. The designs weren't possible.
Stairwells that curved into themselves, doors without hinges, rooms connected
in ways geometry shouldn't allow. One diagram showed a space
labeled habitation unit, but though no entrance is drawn, no
exits either. Another detail called the observation chamber Stage three,
with dozens of small circles crowded the corners, each labeled
as a camera. The space itself consisted of a single
chair bolted to the center. I flipped through more pages.
The plans grew worse. One room bore no markings except
the titles scrawled in handwriting that looked rush your replacement.
Another blueprint detailed a pit described only as depth unknown,
but showed bones layered through the black beneath it, spreading
outward impossible spirals. My throat tightened. I understood now I
had been moving towards something by design, not a mistake,
not an accident, a process. This wasn't a ruin or
a forgotten place. This was construction in progress, tailored, evolving,
unfinished only because whoever built it hadn't yet decided how
to finish me or whoever this place was designed for.
I moved carefully. Even half built, this place wasn't safe.
Gaps in the floor dropped into black voids that seemed
to have no end. Rebarred jutted from concrete at angles
sharp enough to impale, scaffolding leaned at unstable slants. One
wrong step and I would vanish into the dark beneath
more than once I thought I heard move above me,
something scraping across the girders. I refused to look up.
The sense of being watched grew heavier with every step.
Lights flickered when none should have worked, illuminating paths I
hadn't seen before, then vanishing. The second I turned away,
The labyrinth rearranged itself. I was sure of it always
ended where they shouldn't. All's appeared where gaps had been
moments earlier. Through it all, I kept moving, I had to.
Standing still felt worse than any danger I could see.
I found a service elevator tucked into a corner where
no structure should have allowed space for it, smaller than
the other, older manual controls, behind a grater door that
groaned as I pulled it open. One button labeled to
surface in worn metal letters. For a moment, I hesitated relief,
wared with dread. I understood where this place had been
built to become. If it had been finished, there wouldn't
have been a door waiting for me at all. There
would have been a pit, a chair, a box with
my name on it. And I couldn't help but wonder
if this tiny glimpse of hope was another test of fail.
But I had no other choice. I pulled the lever.
The elevator shuddered into motion, rising with agonizing slowness as
the construction site fell away beneath me. I didn't feel safe.
I felt lucky. Luck was thin protection, but for now
it would have to be enough. When the surface elevator
doors opened, I stepped out into silence. The air felt
colder than it had when I arrived. The wind moved
through the grass with a soft rustle empty of any
sound but nature and my breathing. No buildings, no elevator
shaft rising from the dirt, just the field, empty and ordinary,
stretching out under a sky too great to tell time by.
I stood there for a long time, unable to move.
My boots sank slightly into the soft earth, and I
let them. I let everything go slack, my hands, my thoughts,
my fear. It was drained out of me in waves,
leaving behind a numbness that felt worse in its own way.
The gear I had carried down was gone on the clipboard.
I clutched through every descent, hung limp at my side.
My paperwork was still blank. I could not write down
what had happened, because I did not know how to
explain it, even to myself. For a moment, I believed
I had imagined it all, that some exhaustion or sickness
had cracked open a space in my mind and let
this happen inside it, that I had never gone down,
never found those rooms waiting beneath me, that I would
walk back to the truck and drive home and forget.
Then I heard it ding. The sound cut through the silence,
clean and sharp. I turned toward where the elevator had been,
expecting to see nothing. A mechanical groan followed. Cable was
pulling tork beneath the soil that showed no sign of disturbance.
The car I had just emerged from was slowly descending
back down. The sound of weight moving downward pulled deeper
into something unseen. For a heartbeat, I told myself it
was automatic, a fail safe, returning the car to its
resting point. But another thought crawled into my chest and
rooted there. What if something had called it back down?
And if so, was it coming back up? I didn't
wait to find out. The spell broke, and my legs
moved before my mind caught up. I walked fast, then faster,
pushing through the grass until I saw my truck waiting
untouched at the edge of the field. I climbed inside,
slammed the door shut, and gripped the wheel until my
knuckles burned white. The clipboard lay in the pass and
just eat paperwork blank. It would stay that way. I
could not explain this, not to my boss, not to myself,
not to anyone out in the field. The wind kept blowing.
I sat behind the glass, staring at the empty place
where the elevator had been, waiting for the sound of
it returning to pull me under all over again. And
after a breath, I left