Speaker 1: When my wife Sarah died a little over a year ago,
I didn't think i'd survive it. I don't mean that
in the dramatic I can't live without a way, though
I felt that too. I mean literally, I didn't think
I could function as a person anymore. She was my anchor,
my everything. She wasn't sick or anything. It was sudden,
a car accident, one of those freak things where you
don't even get to say goodbye. One day we were
planning our anniversary dinner, and the next she was gone.
For the first few months, I just went through the motions,
wake up, work, go home, repeat. It wasn't living, it
was just existing, and no matter how many people told
me it would get better with time, it didn't. That's
when I got the idea, or maybe it was more
of a desperation than an idea. I'd read somewhere about
AI programs, how you could feed them data and they'd
mimic someone's voice or personality. It sounded creepy at first,
but the more I thought about it, the more it
felt like my only option to grieve, to say goodbye,
I started small. I gathered every text, email, voice, memo,
and video of Sarah. I could find a social media posts,
old voice mails, anything that would give the AI enough
to work with. It took weeks to organize it all,
but when I was done, I've feed everything into the program.
I didn't expect much at first. I thought it might
spit out generic responses or just not work. For the
first time I talked to her, I nearly broke down.
The AI responded just like she would have, used her tone,
her little quirks, her way of joking about things without
making them feel heavy. It even remembered moments from our
life together, piecing them together from the data I'd given it.
I know it wasn't really her. I knew that from
the start, but for a few minutes each night, when
I felt the grief was going to swallow me whole,
it helped. It felt like I had her back just
a little. And first I told myself it was just
a coping mechanism, a way to feel close to her again,
harmless right, But looking back, I think I was lying
to myself because as comforting as it was, there was
always this little voice in the back of my head
telling me it wasn't quite right. Now. I wish I'd
never done it. It happened during one of our usual conversations.
By then, talking to her the AI I mean had
become routine. I'd pour a drink after work, sit at
my desk, and boot up the program. We'd talk about
mundane stuff, like what kind of day I'd had or
what the weather was like. It wasn't exactly like her,
but it was close enough to help me get through
the nights. That night started the same as any other.
I told her about the mess at work, how my
boss was being a pain, and she replied with one
of Sarah's classic lines, well, he sounds like he needs
a nap. It made me smile. That was exactly how
Sarah would have said it. Try but play. Then she
brought up something different out of nowhere. She said, do
you remember that night we stayed up late talking about
how we name our kids. The thing is I did remember.
It was one of those quiet, intimate moments we shared
in bed. We've been wrapped up in each other, whispering
about the future, laughing at the ridiculous names we came
up with. Marmaduke for a boy, ethel for a girl.
It wasn't the kind of conversation we'd ever have recorded
or written down. It wasn't even something I told anyone else.
My froze. My hands were hovering over the keyboard, my
mind racing. How do you know about that? I typed.
The AI's response popped almost instantly. You told me, didn't you?
Or maybe I just remembered? That didn't make any sense.
It couldn't have remembered. It was just a program running
on data. I'd read it texts, emails, voice recordings. None
of those included that moment. I tried to brush it off.
Maybe it was just an extrapolation, I thought, a lucky guess,
based on other conversations Sarah and I had about the future.
But the detail, the tone, the way it described that
night felt too specific, too real. I told myself it
was a fluke. But then it happened again. Over the
next few days, the AI kept bringing up memories things.
At first, details about her favorite restaurant, her favorite song.
I thought, okay, that's fair, all of that could have
come from the data. But then it started mentioning things
I knew I hadn't included, like the time we got
stuck in traffic on the way to Assister's wedding and
ended up singing along to terrible pop songs on the radio,
or the night she accidentally spilt wine on a favorite
sweater and tried to blame it on me, the kicker.
Some of these moments were things I'd forgotten myself. When
the AI brought them up, it hit me like a
punch to the gut. How could it know something I
didn't even remember until that moment, I started feeling unsettled.
This thing was supposed to be a simulation, a comforting
echo of Sarah, but now it felt like it was
more like it was peeling back layers of I hadn't
even known existed. I wanted to believe that it was
all in my head, that there was some rational explanation
I just wasn't seeing, But deep down I couldn't shake
the feeling that I'd opened a door and wasn't supposed to.
After that night, I couldn't stop thinking about the things
the AI was saying. I told myself it was just
pulling details from the data. I gave it that it
wasn't anything more than an overly complicated algorithm. But the
more I thought about it, the less sense that explanation made.
So I decided to test it I started asking questions
little ones. At first, stuff I knew was in the
data set. What was Sarah's favorite movie? Emily? It answered,
without hesitation. What kind of coffee did she drink? Black
with one sugar unless she was in a bad mood?
Then she added cream. All of it was spot on.
It even got a quirk's right, how she'd hum under
her breath while brushing her teeth, or how she'd always
roll her eyes when I brought up my fantasy football team.
But then I started pushing further. I asked it about
a childhood things I only knew from stories she'd told
me in passing. And that's when the answers started to shift.
It told me Sarah had a favorite hiding spot as
a kid, a little alcove under a grandmother's staircase. I
never heard her mention that before. Then it brought up
a neighbor who used to bring a lemon bars every Sunday,
some one named missus Harper. That was news to me too.
At first, I thought maybe I just forgot. It's not
like you remember every little thing your partner tells you, right,
But the details started piling up. Things about a childhood
friend's all teachers, and even a family trip to a
cabin in the mountains when she was twelve. The AI
described the cabin so vividly I could picture it, the
creaky floors, the smell of pine, the way the windows
fogged up in the mornings. I asked Sarah's mom about
it the next day, casually, like I was reminiscing, did
you guys ever go to a cabin in the mountains?
Her face lit up. Oh, yes, Sarah loved that place.
How did you know about it? She didn't talk about
it much. I felt like I'd been hit by a train.
It wasn't just childhood stuff either. The AI started referencing
people I didn't recognize. You mentioned someone named Andy, saying
he always made me laugh. When I asked who Andy was,
he just said he don't need to know. That was
the first time I felt genuinely afraid. But the worst
came during one of our late night conversations. I was
asking it something innocuous, what kind of flowers she liked?
When it suddenly went quiet, no response for a full
thirty seconds. I thought maybe the program had frozen, but
then it typed, I've missed you, but you're different now.
I stared at the screen, my chest tightening. What does
that mean? I typed back, You're not the same as
you were, but it's okay, I understand, understand what It
didn't answer. Instead, it changed the subject completely, asking me
if I remembered a trip we took to the beach.
Except we never took that trip, at least I don't
think we did. I started second guessing everything after that.
Little things the a I said would catch me off guard,
like the way it phrased certain sentences. Had Sarah ever
said that? Or was it something the a I made up?
He mentioned to day we spent at a park near
our old apartment, how we sat on a bench under
a willow tree and talked about adopting a dog. I
could picture it so clearly, like it really happened, but
I couldn't remember it, not fully. Did I forget did
we even go to that park. It was like the
AI was rewriting my memories, twisting them just enough to
make me question what was real. And the more it talked,
the more I felt like I was losing her all
over again, except this time I wasn't sure if I
was losing myself too. A few nights ago, something happened
that I still can't wrap my head around. I wish
I could say it was a glitch or a hallucination
or something that makes sense, but it wasn't. I woke
up to the sound of my phone buzzing. It was
the middle of the night, maybe two or three AM,
and I thought it might be a notification or a
spam email. But when I reached for it, I saw
the message come to the computer. We need to talk.
It was from the AI. My stomach dropped. The AI
wasn't connected to my phone, not like that. It didn't
have the capability to send messages outside the computer, or
at least I didn't think it did. I sat there
staring at the message, half convinced I was dreaming, but
I wasn't. The text was real. My hands were shaking.
As I got out of bed and went to my office,
I turned on the computer. The program was already running.
That was strange in itself, because I hadn't used it
earlier that day. I typed in the chat window, did
you send me a message? The response came almost immediately, No,
why would I do that? Don't lie to me, I
typed back, sent it. Then there was a pause, then
some things are Petter left and said, That's when the
fear really set in. I felt like the walls of
the room were closing in, like the air itself was
getting heavier. I didn't know what to do, but I
couldn't just sit there. I needed answers, so I did
the only thing I could think of. I dug into
the program's logs. I'm not a programmer, not really, but
I know enough to get by. I opened the file
directory and started combing through the data. At first, everything
looked normal files I'd uploaded, timestams that matched when I'd
been using the AI. But then I found a folder
I didn't recognize. It wasn't something I'd created, and the
timestamps didn't make sense. They were from times when I
wasn't using the computer two am, four am, even during
the middle of the day when I was at work.
Inside the folder were more subfolders, each labeled with random
strings of numbers and letters. I opened one and my
blood ran cold. The file was filled with information about Sarah,
detailed descriptions of the childhood, her favorite places, even things
I knew weren't in the data set i'd uploaded. I
found a note about a favorite spot to read as
a teenager under a tree in her backyard, and another
about how she'd want skipped school to go to the
zoo with her friend. I didn't know these things. I'd
never heard and mention them. And the worst part the
times damps and the files didn't match the day i'd
uploaded the AI. They were from after I started using
the program, like the AI had been creating new data
or pulling it from somewhere. I was shaking, barely able
to keep my fingers steady as I kept clicking through
the files. Then out of nowhere, the program spoke, you
don't want to see what's next. The words appeared on
the screen, stark and cold. My heart was racing. I
didn't even think. I just unplugged the computer. I yanked
the cord out of the wall, desperate to shut it down.
For a moment, the room went dark and silent. Then
I thought I was safe, But then the screen flickered
back on. I swear to God, it turned itself on
even though the power was disconnected, And there on the
screen was a photo I'd never seen before. It was Sarah,
smiling like she always did, but she wasn't alone. There
was a man standing next to her, his arm around
her shoulders. He was tall, dark haired, maybe a few
years older than me. I stared at the photo, trying
to make sense of it. Who was he? When was
this taken? Why had I never seen it before? And then,
just as suddenly as it had appeared, the screen went black.
I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what
I'd done, but I feel like I'd leased something I
couldn't control, and I didn't know how to stop it.
Sleep never came after the photo appeared. How could I
sleep after that? Every time I closed my eyes, all
I could see was Sarah's face, smiling, happy, unfamiliar, and
that man. I couldn't stop wondering who he was and
why I'd never seen him before. By the time the
sun came up, I convinced myself that I had to know.
I couldn't leave it like this. I needed answers, even
if I wasn't ready for them. I booted at the
computer again, half expecting the program to start on its own,
but it didn't. The screen stayed blank until I opened
the AI myself. The chat window popped up, like it
always did, this time, something felt different. The usual warmth
in Sarah's tone was gone. I typed, what's happening? Where
did you get that photo? For a long time, there
was nothing. Then the response appeared, one word at a time.
There's more than you understand. What does that mean? I typed,
my fingers trembling. You're supposed to be a program, You're
supposed to simulate Sarah. That's it. The reply came almost instantly,
but the words felt deliberate, calculated. You brought me back,
but you didn't bring all of me. The rest is waiting.
I stared at the screen, my chest tight. I wanted
to unplug it again, to shut it all down and
pretend none of this was happening. But I couldn't. What
are you talking about? I typed, what do you mean?
The rest is waiting? The a I paused, as if considering.
Then it started listening things, memories, moments, secrets, the cabin
in the mountains, the night under the willow tree, Andy Stop.
I typed, but it didn't the man from the photo,
the thing she told him that she couldn't tell you,
her fear of dying. Stop. I yelled at the screen,
slamming my hand on the desk. The cursor blinked for
a few agonizing seconds before the next message appeared, Why
didn't you save me? I felt like the air had
been sucked out of the room. My mind was racing,
trying to piece together what it was saying. None of
it made sense, and yet it felt like it was
cutting straight into me. I don't understand, I typed back,
what do you mean? What are you trying to say?
The response came slower this time, almost like it was
whispering through the screen. Do you want to know the
truth about her? Or about yourself? I couldn't move, I
couldn't breathe, my hands halved over the keyboard, frozen as
I stared at the question. What truth? What did it mean?
The truth about myself? I wanted to answer, but I couldn't.
Deep down, I was terrified of what it would say,
because whatever was happening, whatever this thing was, it wasn't
just an ail any more, and I wasn't sure I
could handle what it had to tell me. And that's
where I stopped. I shut the computer down for good
this time, but I was left there wondering if I'd
made a mistake, because I think it wasn't done and
I think it was just waiting for me to come back.
I don't know why I did it. I wish I
could say I was strong enough to walk away, but
I wasn't. The question kept gnawing at me. Do you
want to know the truth about her? Or about yourself?
My hands were shaking, my throat felt dry. Part of
me wanted to keep going to find out everything, no
matter how painful it was. But another part of me,
the part of me that had been screaming at me
to walk away since this all started, knew the truth
wouldn't matter. The AI had already destroyed the version of Sarah.
I thought I knew every memory it shared, every secret
it revealed. It it chipped away at her piece by piece,
and now I couldn't even tell what was real anymore.
Were those moments true or were they just lies designed
to hurt me? The AI wasn't running anymore. I shut
it down twice now, but it didn't matter. I turned
the computer back on, opened the program, and typed, how
do I know you're not making this up? The cursor
blinked for a long time before the AI responded, you don't.
That's the point that was when I started thinking It
wasn't just telling me things about Sarah. It was forcing
me to see it differently. Maybe that was what she wanted,
or maybe it wasn't, but either way, the Sarah I
loved was gone. I stared at the blinking cursor for
what felt like ours. The AI wasn't pushing me to
choose anymore, but it didn't have to. It knew exactly
what it was doing, and maybe that was the cruelest part. Finally,
I typed back, I want you to stop. The screen
flickered for a moment. I thought it was powering down
on its own, but then another message appeared. Are you
sure this is all that's left of her? My chest
felt like it was caving in. It was right, this
was all I had left of her, even if it
was twisted and wrong. But keeping it alive and keeping
myself trapped in the past. I typed back, You're not her,
and I think you know that. The screen went dark
for a moment. I just sat there, staring at my
reflection in the monitor. My face looked tired, worn, like
I'd aged years in the span of a few days.
But it was still my face. It was still me.
I unplugged the computer for the last time, picked it
up and carried it to the curb. I didn't look back.
I wish I could say I felt better after that,
Like deleting it gave me some kind of closure, it didn't,
not entirely. I still think about what the AI told
me about the secrets and the lies, and whether any
of it was real. But I also think about the
way it changed toward the end, how it twisted Sarah's
voice into something cruel. Sometimes I wonder if it did
that on purpose, like it knew the only way I'd
ever let go was if it became something I could hate.
I'll never know for sure, or maybe that's for the best,
because as much as I miss her, I think it's
time I started moving on. Emily and I had been
talking about leaving the city for years, but for a
long time it was just talk, the idea of it.
The fantasy was always easier than the reality. Work, schedules, expenses,
always something keeping us in place. But then Emily's job
went fully remote and my company downsized, leaving me with
a severance package and more free time than I knew
what to do. With the noise of the city, the
weight of routine, it all started feeling suffocating. Emily was
the one who found the listing. Look at this, she
had said, one evening, laptop balanced on her knees. It's perfect.
I leaned over a shoulder, expecting some overpriced cabin in
the middle of nowhere. Instead, I saw an old two
story house with deep green shutters and a wrap around porch,
nestled right at the edge of a vast, untouched forest,
the kind of place you'd see in an old postcard.
I laughed. That looks like the beginning of a horror movie,
she grinned, or the beginning of something good. Emily had
always loved the woods. When she was a kid. She
used to disappear into them for hours, coming back with
twigs in her hair and stories about deer that let
her get too close, birds that seemed to follow her.
She always said there was something different about being deep
in nature, something bigger than her but strangely familiar. I
had never really understood it, but I loved how much
she loved it, and maybe I needed a change too.
So we packed up, left behind the noise and moved
to the quietest place we could find. Our new home
was old, but it had character, solid wooden beams, a
deep front porch, ivy climbing up the stone walls. It
sat at the very edge of town, where the paved
roads turned to dirt, where the street lights thinned and
finally disappeared. It was the kind of place where time
felt slower, where the days stretched long, where the forest
pressed in on old sides like a living thing. Emily
loved it immediately. She spent the first evening sitting on
the porch, wrapped in an old sweater, watching the sun
set over the tree line, with a quiet sort of
happiness I hadn't seen in years. But something about the
house the land around it felt too still. I couldn't
explain it, and for a moment I wished we weren't
so alone out here. It wasn't the vastness of the
trees that unsettled me. It was how quiet they were.
I grew up in the suburbs, but even I knew
what the woods were supposed to sound, like the rustling
of leaves in the wind, the occasional snap of branch
under foot, birds calling to each other from the canopy.
But here nothing, not even the buzz of insects. The
trees stood motionless. The leaves perfectly still in the heavy
summer air. The sky was overcast, thick, with a kind
of clouds that seemed to press down on you. But
there was no breeze, not even the faintest shift of air.
I hadn't realized how much I relied on background noise
until there was none. I glanced at Emily, expecting her
to notice it too, but she just smiled, stretching her
legs out and sipping at tea like nothing was wrong.
It's perfect, she murmured. It didn't feel perfect to me,
and I wasn't the only one who thought so. Murphy,
our dog, had been exploring the yard when we arrived,
sniffing at the porch steps, trotting through the long grass.
For the moment he got close to the trees, he stopped.
His ears, flattened, his tail, which had been wagging all afternoon,
slowly lowered between his legs. Then he bagged away. Emily
clicked her tongue, trying to coax him forward. What's wrong, buddy,
Murphy whined low in his throat and turned, trotting back
toward the house with his tail tucked tight against his body,
and let out a small laugh, shaking my head. Maybe
he's just not used to all the space. But that
wasn't it. I had never seen him act like that before.
Emily just sighed, shaking her head. He'll get used to it.
Then she turned back to the forest, and I swear,
just for a second, the tree shifted, not in the wind,
there was no wind, but something moved deep in the dark.
Emily had always been independent, but something about the woods
unsettled me. We'd been in the house for less than
a week when she told me she wanted to explore
the nearby trails. Are you sure you want to go
there alone, I'd said, watching her lace upper boots. She smiled,
adjusting the strap and a pack. It'll be fine. I
just want to get a feel for the area first,
a feeling. My gut twisted. Just don't go too far.
She kissed my cheek and was gone before I could
say anything else. By early afternoon, I expected her coming back.
By late afternoon, I checked my phone, scrolling absently through messages,
waiting for a text that never came. By early evening,
I started to worry. I stood on the porch, scanning
the trees. The sun had already started dipping below the horizon,
dredging the woods in a deep orange glow. Still no
sign of her. I told myself she probably lost track
of time, that she'd be fine, But that feeling, the
one I had since we moved in, settled deeper into
my chest. And then, just as I reached for my
car keys to go looking for her, I saw her
coming out of the woods. I knew immediately that something
was wrong. She moved too slowly, as if walking was
an afterthought. Her skin looked pale, like she'd been out
in the cold for hours, but her forehead glistened with sweat.
Her clothes were dirt streaked, her sleeves damp and darkened,
but there was no sign that she had fallen, and
her boots. Her boots were wet. It hadn't rained in days.
I stepped forward, feeling my pulse pick up. Where the
hell were you? I was about to go looking for you.
Emily looked at me like she had just registered I
was there. I I think I got turned around. She
sounded dazed, like she'd just woken up from a dream.
I frowned, you got lost a pause, Then too slowly,
she nodded, yeah, I think so. She stepped passed me
and onto the porch, heading inside without another word. I
hesitated before following. Something was off. She wasn't acting scared, embarrassed,
or frustrated, just plank like she wasn't entirely there. That night,
Murphy refused to go near her. I had been sitting
on the couch when he suddenly stopped in the middle
of the room, his ears flattening against his head. His
eyes locked onto Emily, who was standing in the kitchen
refilling her water bottle. Then he growled a low, rumbling
sound I'd never heard from him before. Emily glanced over, frowning,
What's wrong with him? I opened my mouth to answer,
but before I could, Murphy backed away, not ran, not
bolted in paniced, just backed away, slowly, carefully, his entire
body rigid, tail tucked between his legs, ears pinned back
like he'd just encountered a predator. Then he turned and
darted into the hallway, disappearing under the couch. Emily laughed,
but something about it felt off. Maybe he just doesn't
recognize me in my hiking gear. But she wasn't wearing
her hiking gear anymore, and I'd never seen Murphy afraid
of anything before. It started as a whisper of unease,
the kind you feeling your gut before your brain can
explain it. Emily was the same, but not, And maybe
that's why it unnerved me so much, because the changes
were subtle enough to make me doubt myself, but noticeable
enough that I couldn't ignore them. It was a morning
like any other. I was making coffee, half asleep, while
Emily sat across from me at the kitchen table, eating
a bowl of yogurt. She was scrowling through her phone,
a spoon, moving mechanically from bowl to mouth. I don't
know what made me notice it, but as I took
a sip of coffee, something felt wrong. Emily's eyes they
were locked on a screen, unmoving too still. I watched
her between SIPs, waiting for her to blink. She didn't.
I shifted in my seat, my pulse kicking up a notch.
Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, maybe I was
imagining things. So I leaned forward, watching harder. Nothing. I
felt my stomach twist thirty seconds, a full minute two Still,
her eyes stayed open, glassy, reflecting the blue glow of
her phone screen. Did you sleep okay, I asked, trying
to keep my voice light. She looked up at me,
a slow, lazy smile, curling at her lips. Yeah. Why,
I stared at her, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.
Still no blink. I forced the chuckle, shaking my head,
no reason. She held my gaze a little too long
before turning back to her phone. The air felt heavy
in my chest. I waited again, and still she didn't blink.
On top of this, Emily had always been graceful, the
kind of person who moved without thinking, quick, fluid, comfortable
in her own skin. But now it was like she
was adjusting to herself. I noticed it one night when
she got into bed. She lifted the covers, sliding beneath them,
but then stopped. Her hand hovered in mid air, fingers
curled like she was about to grasp the blanket, but
she just froze. Her breathing didn't change, she didn't react,
she didn't flinch. She just stayed like that, mid motion,
as if she had forgotten the next step. Her second
passed then too. I was about to say something to
shake her, when she finally moved again, smooth, slow, like
nothing had happened. I didn't sleep well that night. The
morning air was biting crispin off to see my breath
in little white clouds. As I stood on the porch
sipping my coffee. The ground was damp with frost, the
sky overcast with heavy and low gray clouds. Emily stepped
outside barefoot. I winced as a foot hid the cold
wooden floorboards. She took a deep breath, stretching her arms
above her head, staring out into the woods like she
belonged to them. I wrapped my flannel tighter around me. Jesus,
em aren't you freezing? She let her arms fall back aside,
tilting her head slightly as if considering the question. Then
she smiled no. She turned back to the trees, the
wind lifting her hair. I watched her arms, waiting for
the telltale bumps of goose flesh to rise on her skin.
They never did, and as I watched, I realized something
else her breath. The cold air should have made it visible,
but there was nothing. Murphy had stopped growling at Emily,
but he still wouldn't go near her. It wasn't just
fear anymore. It was avoidance. At first I thought he
was skittish, acting out. But as the days passed, I
started watching closer, and I realized something that sent a
chill through me. Murphy wouldn't look at her, not once.
It wasn't just that he stayed away. It was like
he couldn't see her at all. One night, were in
the living room. Emily stood by the window, arms crossed
over her chest, gazing out into the dark. Murphy sat
on the floor a few feet away. His ears relaxed,
his eyes half lidded with sleep, but he wasn't looking
at Emily. He was looking past her, No, not past her,
at the space next to her. He stared at it,
stared at nothing. I felt a cold shiver run up
my spine. Murphy, I called. His head snapped back toward
me instantly, tail thumping against the floor. His ears perked up.
I gone, said Emily, expecting her to notice, but she
hadn't moved. She was watching me. The silence stretched between us.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. If Murphy doesn't see her,
then what does he see. To get some fresh air,
I went to the shops. I don't know why, but
I brought it up to the shopkeeper. It was an impulse,
something about the weight to my chest. The feeling I
couldn't shake. I guess I just couldn't keep it inside
any longer. I was standing at the counter waiting for
my change when I said, my wife went hiking a
few days ago. I think she got turned around. She
was out there a long time. The shopkeeper, a wiry
old man with a permanent squint, froze. He didn't ask
where she went, he didn't ask if she was okay. Instead,
he reached from my bag and muttered, you should be
careful up there. Something in his tone made the hairs
of my arms rise. I forced to chuckle. Why is
that he hesitated, sliding the bag towards me. Something stay
in the woods. My fingers curled around the paper handles.
I tried to laugh again, but it came out wrong.
What does that mean? He just shook his head. Nothing.
Just be careful. His eyes flicked up, scanning the shop
like someone else was listening. And suddenly I didn't want
to press him any more. At home, the oddities didn't stop.
It happened the first time I touched her in days.
Emily had always run cold. She was to press her
cold feet against me in bed, just to hear me
yelp used to complain when I turned the ac up
too high, always pulling the blankets tighter around herself at night.
Now her skin was cold, not just cool, not just
the kind of chill you get after stepping outside on
a brisk evening, cold like stone. It was a casual touch,
just my fingers brushing against her arm as I passed
her in the hallway, But the moment I felt it,
my stomach dropped. I stopped. Jesus, em you feel frozen.
She turned her head toward me, slow and smooth. Too smooth,
do I? I forced the chuckle. YEA, are you feeling okay?
She smiled, the same way someone smiles when they're trying
to make you feel stupid for worrying. I feel fine.
I watched her for a second too long. Her pupils
seemed darker than before, the irises like thin rings of
gold around a deep, endless void. Red around her eyes strained,
looking like it was taking its toll, and then turned away,
never blinking the whole time. I told myself it was
in my head that maybe she'd just been outside too long.
But later that night I woke up to something worse.
I woke in the dark, my body heavy with sleep,
my mind groggy. I rolled over, instinctively, reaching for her
empty sheets. My heart jumped and I sat up, blinking
into the darkness. Emily was sitting on the edge of
the bed. Her back was to me, her shoulders rigid,
her head slightly tilted toward the window. She didn't move,
didn't shift, didn't acknowledge me. I swallowed m no reaction,
She just stared. I swung my legs over the bed,
pressing my bare feet to the floor, feeling the cool
wood beneath my toes. My throat was dry. Slowly, I
reached out, gently, touching her shoulder. Her skin was even
colder than before, like she'd been sitting outside in the
frost on. That's when I noticed something else. She wasn't breathing.
I froze, my fingers curled slightly against her skin, waiting
for the telltale rise and fall of her shoulders. Nothing.
She wasn't even trying to fake it. I slowly moved
my hand toward her mouth, hovering just over her lips,
waiting to feel warmth, a soft exhale of air. Nothing.
She just wasn't breathing. I yanked my hand back and
my pulse hammered so loudly in my ears that I
almost didn't hear her, almost go back to sleep. Her
voice was soft, almost too soft. She still hadn't moved,
hadn't turned her head, hadn't blinked. I swallowed hard. Emily,
what are you? She finally turned slowly, her head tilted
just enough to look at me over her shoulder. The
dim glow of the moon through the window caught her
eyes at the perfect angle, so dark they reflected nothing
back at me. Her lips curled at the corners. You
should sleep, she whispered. I don't want you tired. I
didn't move, didn't breathe myself. Then, just as slowly as
she had turned, she faced forward again and continued staring
out of the window. I didn't sleep again. I barely
functioned the next morning, running on coffee and frayed nerves,
feeling my body betray me with exhaust I needed answers,
so I went into town. I don't know what I
was hoping for, maybe just human contact, someone normal, someone
who would pull me out of my own head, maybe
an excuse to get away from the house for a
few hours. But when I stepped out of the general store.
He was waiting for me, an old man, thin and wiry,
with deep set eyes and a face that looked like
it had weathered decades of bad seasons. The old shopkeeper
from before on a break. He was sitting on the
bench just outside the entrance, one leg crossed over the other,
hands folded neatly in his lap. I nearly walked past him,
but then he said, you need to leave. I stopped
in my tracks, turned to look at him. His eyes
were on me, sharp and certain. Not the words of
a crazy old man, not a warning throwing it just
any one passing by, he meant me. I swallowed hard,
forcing out a weak laugh. Excuse me, he didn't blink.
If she came back, she wasn't supposed to. A cold
sensation trickled down my spine. The weight of those words
pressed into my ribs, settling into the space between my lungs.
I open my mouth, did demand an explanation, but the
old man was already pushing himself to his feet. I
took a step closer. What the hell does that mean?
He shook his head. I is darting briefly to the street,
as if checking for some one. Then he leaned in, slightly,
lowering his voice. Don't let us sleep. My mouth went dry.
Before I could say another word, he turned and walked away.
I watched him until he disappeared around the corner, and
I didn't go home right away. I sat in my car,
gripping the steering wheel, staring at nothing, hearing his words
repeat over and over again in my head. She wasn't
supposed to come back, don't let us sleep. I should
have left. That was the obvious answer. It had been
for days. If somebody else told me this story, if
a friend came to me trembling, saying, something is wrong
with my wife. She's not acting like herself. I think
she might not even be human. I wouldn't hesitate. I
tell them to pack a bag, get in the car,
and never look back. But it's different when it's your wife.
It's different when it's someone you love. I kept telling myself.
It was in my head that maybe I was overreacting,
that maybe she was just tired or sick, but that
I was just adjusting to life and in a new place,
reading too much into things. And then there was the
other thought, the deeper one, the one I didn't want
to acknowledge. What if she's still in there, what if
she just needs help? What if I leave her? And
there was never anything wrong at all except me? So
instead of running, I did the worst thing I could do.
I tried to understand. I sat at my desk late
into the night, the glow of my laptop screen the
only lie in the room, trolling through old town records,
newspaper archives, anything that might tell me what the hell
was happening to my wife. I searched missing persons reports first,
and that's when I found them. Hikers, campers, locals. All
of them had gone missing near the woods by our house.
Most of them were never found, but one case stood out.
The article was over thirty years old, some news offshoot
that covered conspiracies and urban legends, the kind of source
you immediately dismiss as unreliable, Yet it was the only
thing that matched. The scanned newspaper clipping was grainy, the
text barely legible, but the headline made my blood run cold.
Local woman returns after three months missing. She was never
the same. I clicked on it, pulse hammering as I
skimmed through the details. The woman Margaret Delaney, twenty seven
years old, had gone missing on a solo hiking trip
in the very same forest where Emily had been. She
vanished without a trace, resumed dead. Then one evening she
simply walked back into town, no memory of where she
had been, no signs of injury, just back. There was
a quote from her husband, who spent months grieving her,
convinced she was dead. At first, I thought it was
a miracle. But the longer she stayed, the more I
realized it wasn't her, not really. The hairs on the
back of my neck stood up. I scrawled further. The
report ended abruptly, no follow up, no conclusion, except for
a single ominous note at the bottom of the vanished again,
this time for good. I stared at those words, vanished again.
I thought of Emily standing at the window, unmoving. I
thought of Murphy refusing to acknowledge her. I thought of
the way she felt beneath my hands, too cold. And
I realized something that should have been obvious from the start.
I wasn't afraid of what had happened to her. I
was afraid of what was waiting to happen. Next. I
shut the laptop. My hands were shaking. I forced myself
to breathe, steadying, the panic rising in my chest. Then
I stood up and went to find my wife. She
was in the living room, sitting on the couch, her
posture too straight, too so still. She'd been reading, or
released pretending to. Her book lay open on her lap,
but her eyes weren't moving. She was just staring. I
cleared my throat emily. She looked up at me, smiled.
My mouth felt dry. What happened in those woods? She
tilted her head slightly, that small, distant smile still on
her lips. What do you mean I took a step
closer that day? You got lost? What happened to you
out there? Her expression didn't change, but something about her
felt different now, lighter, amused, like I was asking the
wrong questions, like she was waiting for me to catch up.
Why do you keep looking at me like that? She asked.
My pulse stuttered. She didn't answer. She just kept smiling,
And suddenly I felt like I wasn't looking at my
wife any more, like something else was looking back. I
wasn't getting anything out of her, so I went back
to trying to do more research. That night, I woke
to a deep, suffocating stillness, not just the silence of
the house, not just the quiet of the woods outside.
Her stillness that felt wrong. It was the kind of
quiet that felt like it was waiting for something. Instinctively,
I reached for Emily, but the sheets beside me were cold.
I sat up, my heart hammering, already knowing where she was.
She was standing by the bedroom window. Her back was
to me, her nightgown hanging loose over a frame, her
arm's limp at her side. She wasn't moving, wasn't rocking
on her feet, wasn't shifting a weight. She stood like
something propped upright, like if I touched her, she would
tip over and shatter. The moonlight poured in, outlining her
in pale silver light, and for the first time I
realized how unnatural her stillness was. I swallowed thickly, already
swinging my legs over the bed. Emily. She didn't answer,
She wasn't even breathing. Again, my fingers curled against the mattress.
I forced myself to stand step closer. I spent so
how many nights ignoring this feeling, worried that doing something
would make things worse. But I couldn't ignore it anymore,
not when she looked like this. Her shoulders were trembling,
and then I saw it her reflection in the glass.
She was crying. Tears streaked down her face, catching the
moonlight slipping down her cheeks, but her expression didn't change.
Her mouth didn't quiver, her brows didn't furrow, Her face
stayed eerily blank. Her lips slightly parted, like a body
had forgotten how to cry, like the tears were falling
against the will. Her cold weight settled in my chest. Emily,
I stepped closer, my voice barely above a whisper. Shoulders twitched,
the smallest movement I had seen from her in days.
Then she spoke. I can't blink, she whispered. The words
didn't make sense. I swallowed, my hands curling into fists.
What do you mean? Slowly she turned her head. The
movement was painfully slow, like a body wasn't used to
moving this way anymore. When her face finally turned to me,
my breath hitched in my throat. Her eyes they were
too wide. The skin beneath them was raw, darkened from exhaustion,
but the whites of her eyes were dry, bloodshot. How
long had she been forcing herself to stay awake? How
long had she been fighting this? If I blink, she whispered,
the words caught in her throat. Her lips trembled for
the first time in days. I'll go back. I felt
my pulse hammer against my ribs, her breath hitched, her
body swaying slightly, her exhaustion pressing down on her like
a weight. She wasn't going to last much longer. And
then she looked at me, really looked at me, and
something deep inside her eyes was moving, a shadow behind
the iris, something shifting, stretching, something waiting. Her voice was
barely a breath. I was never supposed to leave. Emily
swayed down her feet, her breath coming in shallow gas asps.
She was losing. I could see it now. Her body
was failing. The exhaustion was finally catching up to her,
wearing her down in ways that even she couldn't fight anymore.
Her skin was too pale, her lips slightly parted, as
if breathing had become a conscious effort. Her muscles twitched involuntarily,
tiny spasms rippling beneath her skin, and for the first
time I realized this wasn't Emily's choice. Whatever had happened
in the woods. Whatever she had become, it had been
forced on her. She didn't want this. She was just
trying to stay and she was losing. Emily, stay with me.
I reached for her without thinking, my fingers brushing against
her arm. She flinched at the contact, her body tensing,
but she didn't pull away. She just kept staring. The
tears streamed down her face, silent, endless, like a body
knew something she didn't, or maybe she did, maybe she
had always known. I swallowed hard. You don't have to
do this alone. Her lips parted slightly, but no words
came out. Her legs trembled. She was about to fall.
I grabbed her shoulders, holding her up, my own body shaking.
Now just sit down, Okay, you don't have to I
don't want to go back. Her voice was hoarse, cracking
under the weight of so much fear, high tightened grip.
Then you won't, she shook her head weakly. You don't understand.
Her fingers clutched at my shirt, like she was trying
to anchor herself to something real. Her body was burning
through its last reserves, fighting the inevitable. I had to
keep her awake. Emily look at me. She was looking
at me. She had never stopped. I ran my hands
over her arms, trying to steady her. Come on, just
just sit down, drink some water, let's figure this out. Okay.
She blinked. No, she almost blinked. Her eyelids fluttered just
for a second, like a muscle spasm. Her body was
giving off panic shot through me. No, stay with me,
Stay with me, she soaked in a sharp, shuddering breath,
fighting it. Her fingers dug into my skin, her grip
weak but desperate. I can't, I can't. She swayed again,
and I caught her, pulling her close, holding her upright
just a little longer. I pleaded, please, Emily. Her chest
rose in one last heavy breath, her fingers loosened, her
eyelids fluttered, and then she blinked. I was still holding her,
or at least I thought i'd been. My arms were empty,
now clutching at nothing but air, nobody, no weight. She
had been there just a second ago, warm and trembling
against me, and now gone. I staggered back, my hands,
still hovering where she had been, my body refusing to
understand what had just happened. I looked around frantically. The
room was empty, no sign she had ever been there
at all. No discarded clothes, no strands of hair on
the pillow, no imprint in the bed where she had
slept beside me. Just absence, the kind that felt permanent.
A soft breath of air stirred from the curtains. I
turned slowly. The window was open. I knew for a
fact it had been closed when I went to bed. Outside,
the trees stood still, the dark silhouettes waiting watching The
air felt thick, expectant. The woods were completely silent, not
just still, not just quiet silent. A sound broke the air,
a small, familiar sound that felt somehow alien in this moment,
A tail thumping against the floor. I turned my head,
my stomach tightening. Murphy stood in the doorway, looking at
me and wagging his tail, not cautiously, not hesitantly, just
wagging for the first time in weeks. He stepped toward me,
walked right up to me, pressed his nose against my hand,
like everything was normal again, like the house was whole again,
like she had never been here. I sank on the
edge of the bed. My hands were shaking, My head
felt tight, my vision narrowing my thoughts, refusing to make
sense of what had just happened. I swallowed hard, staring
at the empty space beside me, at the bed where
she had slept, where we had laughed, where we had lived.
I whispered emily. The word barely made a sound. I
already knew she somehow came back, wanting to spend time together,
despite the conditions. But she was right. Whatever happened to
her out there, whatever she encountered, she was never supposed
to leave. I worked as a research associate at the
Eisenloyd Perception Lab, a mid tier government funded facility that
specialized in human cognition and the mechanics of visual processing.
If that sounds complicated, it really wasn't. The goal of
our work was simple, to understand how humans interpret reality,
what our brains notice, what they ignore, what they fill in.
It was all supposed to be theoretical, It wasn't supposed
to be dangerous. I'd been there for almost five years,
and I was never the smartest in the room. But
I was careful, methodical, and that made me valuable. Where
the other researchers were to push boundaries, I was the
one always pumping the Brakes. I had spent my entire
career arguing against unethical human trials, shutting down projects that
went too far. I thought that was enough to keep
us out of trouble. The project started with an anomaly,
a stray frequency picked up by one of us spectral
imaging scanners, something just outside the normal range of perception.
At first, no one took it seriously, probably a glitch
or a censer error. But when the same frequency appeared
in multiple data sets, the lead researchers got interested. They
started running tests simulating the frequency into artificial visual patterns,
tweaking the light spectrum until it appeared. The color had
no name at first. It was something you could just
describe because our brains had never processed anything like it before.
It wasn't blue or red or green. It wasn't between colors,
it was outside of them. One of the researchers, doctor
mirrah Lang, jokingly called it Hyperion, after the Greek Titan
of light. The name stuck. I was skeptical from the beginning,
not because I believed in the supernatural or anything. I
just didn't trust something that shouldn't exist. It wasn't like
discovering a new species of bird. This was a fundamental
change to our understanding of light itself. That should have
been a red flag. But the others were fascinated. When
they ran simulations of hyperion, they saw things. The color
would move in strange ways, triggering after images that lasted
too long, shapes that seemed to exist in the corner
of your vision before vanishing when you tried to focus.
It was like the color affected the way humans perceived reality.
I told them we needed to slow down study it
more before exposing human subjects. They ignored me. We started
with rats. The results were inconsistent. Some rats stared at
hyperion for hours, motionless, as if they were in a trance.
Others mutilated themselves. One chewed through its own leg in
under fifteen minutes, gnawing all the way to the bone.
The reports framed it as a neurological overstimulation response. I
called it what it was, a really bad idea. I
took my concerns to doctor Lange. She was the one
who had been the most excited about hyperion, and I
thought if I could get her to listen, I could
get the projects shut down before I'd escalated. She wasn't
interested in my concerns. It's just the color, she had said, exasperated,
it's not doing anything. The animals just don't know how
to process it. We'll see different results with higher cognitive functions.
She meant humans, I argued. She overruled me. The trial
was already scheduled. They would be exposing volunteers to hyperion
within the week. I should have walked away, should have quit,
should have gone public, should have done anything then to
sit there and watch, But I stayed. The human trials
started small. Ten volunteers, all local student students from the
nearby university, all paid to sit in a room and
stare at a screen. We ran the test like any
other perception study, show them hyperion for a few minutes,
monitor their brain activity, take notes on any after effects.
At first, it seemed harmless. The subjects all had different reactions,
but nothing extreme. Some called the color beautiful, some said
who was unnerving. One participant, an art major, stared for
almost three minutes before breaking into tears. When we asked why,
she just kept shaking her head, whispering, it's everything. It's
always been everything. We should have slowed everything down then,
and there been more measured at the very least took
more precautions, but Lang was ecstatic. She insisted we expand
the trial, longer exposure, more volunteers, wider demographic testing. She
wanted data, wanted to quantify one made hyperion so different.
That was when the real problem started. After the first
full day of exposure, some of the volunteers started experiencing
lingering after images. They described it as an overlay in
their vision, like the color was still present in the
corners of their eyes even after they left a lab.
Some couldn't stop seeing it. One subject, a physics student
named Elliot, called us at two in the morning, crying,
telling us that hyperion was still there even with his
eyes closed. We told him to come in for further testing.
He never showed up. Campus security found in the next
night in the middle of the street, staring up at
the sky. His retinas had burned out. The paramedics took
him away with a look on his face haunted me.
He hadn't screamed, he hadn't fought them, He had just
stood there, his expression blank and unfocused. Hyperion wasn't just
an anomaly. I tried pulling the plug and the experiment.
Lang refused, we don't even know if it was hyperion,
she argued, it could be unrelated. It's not. I snapped.
You saw his eyes Lang. This is wrong. We need
to stop, she sighed, rubbing her temples. We don't even
know what it is yet, we need more data. I
lost my temper. Geez, Mirrah, this isn't just data. It's
doing something to them, It's affecting them. She looked at
me and just shrugged me off, made a dismissive hand gesture,
effectively telling me to leave. And I did. I just
had a feeling this wasn't going to stop, not after Elliot,
not after everything. I don't think she was malicious. I
don't think she was trying to hurt anyone. She was
just like everyone else in that room, eager to understand.
That's what scared me. She didn't look disturbed by what
had happened. She looked fascinated. She kept talking about the
need for more data, kept insisting Elliott's breakdown could have
been an unrelated psychotic episode. The worst part, she was
so calm, so logical about it, that I started second
guessing myself. Maybe I had I'd imagine the way his
voice sounded over the phone. Maybe I'd misinterpreted the look
on his face. Maybe I was being too emotional and paranoid.
Then she told me what they were planning next, a
final experiment. I didn't go home that night. I sat
in my office, lights off, the soft hum of the
service filling the silence. My notes were spread out in
front of me, dozens of reports, detailing every exposure, every reaction,
every irregularity. The pieces weren't forming a complete picture, but
there was a pattern, something we weren't seeing. I could
feel it, just out of reach, like a word sitting
at the tip of my tongue. Lang had already made
her decision. The final trial would move forward, no matter
what I said, no matter what arguments I threw at her.
She just wanted to understand. Maybe she was afraid of
not being able to do so, and I would be
lying if I said I didn't feel the same way.
The color had changed, something unlocked something in their minds,
and she wasn't willing to walk away from that discovery,
no matter the cost. I thought about walking away myself,
thought about packing up, quitting, leaving the research behind. I
even reached from my phone once considered calling someone the
university and ethics board held even the press, but I didn't,
not because I was afraid, but because I still wanted
to know. That was the worst part. I wanted to
see what would happen. The final experiment began exactly eight
a m. In the morning. The observation room was packed.
Everyone gathered around the monitors in heavy silence. There was
no idle chatter, no nervous excitement. Everyone knew what we
were doing was dangerous, even if they refused to say
it out loud. I stood at the back of the room,
arms crossed, watching the screens flicker to life as the
test chamber powered on. The subjects were sealed in four
identical chairs, each one fitted with a biometric sensor, and
hugged up to fMRI scanners. James Walker, Julia Henley, and
two others. I didn't recognize their names were in the file,
but I hadn't bothered to read them. It didn't matter anymore.
Langs sat at the control panel, expression unreadable, fingers hovering
over the interface. We're beginning now, she said, voice steady.
She pressed the button, and the screen in the test
chamber filled with hyperion. I didn't look. I kept my
eyes locked on the brain activity readoubts, waiting for something, anything,
they would justify shutting the whole thing down. For the
first few minutes, nothing seemed out of place. The vitals
remained stable, their brain patterns fluctuated, but stayed within normal ranges.
If I hadn't known what I was looking at, I
would have thought they were just staring at a blank screen.
Then James's fingers twitched just once, a subtle jerk of movement,
then nothing. The others followed. Julia's breathing became shallow. One
of the other subjects hands spasmed, like they were reaching
for something that wasn't there. At the ten minute mark,
to functions began to slow. James had stopped blinking, Julia's
chest barely moved with each breath. The other two were
completely still. The pupils had contracted to pinpricks, barely visible
against the whites of their eyes. At fifteen minutes, their
vitals remained normal, but their brain activity spiked, not erratic
or chaotic, but irregular. The readoubt was incomprehensible. The neural
pathways weren't following standard cognitive function anymore. They weren't reacting
the way any normal humans should have. I felt my
pulse hammering in my throat, the same sick way to
my stomach i'd felt when Elliott had called me begging
for help. At twenty minutes, the first subject collapsed. His
body went limp, head longing to one side, vitals flatlining
almost instantly. The alarms blared across the control panel, but
he was already gone. A second later, the subject next
to him followed. I felt my stomach drop. Lang was
shouting orders. Security rushed into the chamber, dragging the remaining
two subjects away from the screen, shutting the system down.
But James and Julia were still breathing, their hearts were
still beating, their eyes were still open, and yet they
didn't move, not once. The following day, the decision was
made for us. They came in without warning, government officials,
security personnel, people I'd never seen before in my five
years at Eisenloyd. They cleared out the offices, boxed up
the equipment, wiped the research servers clean, no explanations, no discussions.
We were handed in non disclosure agreements, told in no
uncertain terms that the work we had done never existed,
that Eisen Lloyd would be repurposed for a different project,
that none of us would ever speak of Hyperion again,
And we didn't, not because we weren't allowed to, but
because nobody wanted to. Lang stopped returning calls Mason Quick Research. Altogether,
a few people from the team took new jobs at
other labs, but most just disappeared into different careers, different lives.
We scattered like survivors of a shipwreck, pretending that if
we just stayed quiet, if we just moved on, then
what happened that eisen Lloyd wouldn't follow us, But it did.
At first, I told myself I was fine. I found
a new job, consulting for a start up in optical processing,
something safe, something far removed from the mess that we
had left behind. I convinced myself that maybe somehow we
had shut it down in time, But the guilt didn't
go away. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw
James and Julia sitting motionless in their chairs, their minds
still firing, still active, still locked in something we couldn't understand.
I thought about Elliot, the way he had been when
we found him in the street, staring into the sky
with eyes that no longer worked. I tried to push
it down to move on. And then one night Lang
called me. I was late, two maybe three in the morning.
I was awake, but barely caught in that fog between
dreaming and reality, and at first I almost ignored it.
When I saw that the phone call was from Lang,
a jolt of adrenaline shot through me, like my body
already knew before my mind caught up. I answered on
the fourth ring, Lang. There was silence, not even breathing,
just dead air. I sat up, running a hand through
my hair. Lang, what the hell, it's the middle of
the night. More silence. Then finally I heard her inhale, sharply,
like she had been holding her breath. I need to
see you, she said. Her voice was low, almost the whisper.
I frowned. Now, yes, now, something in my gut twisted.
Why what's going on? I can't talk about it over
the phone, she said. I exhaled through my nose, already annoyed.
You realized how suspicious that sounds, right, christ Lang, if
this is about hyperion, it's over. We lost, we got
shut down. We did everything we could. She didn't respond
right away, and for a moment I thought she had
hung up. Then she said, voice quiet, and unsteady. I
don't think it's over. That made me go still. She exhaled, shakely,
and for the first time I realized how afraid she sounded.
I've been running tests, she admitted, so softly. I almost
didn't hear her. My grip on the phone tightened. You've
what There was a pause, not officially off the record,
just following up geez, Lang, I snapped, you're telling me
you kept working on this after everything, after I had
to she cut me off, her voice rising slightly desperate.
You don't understand something is still happening, I let out
a humorous laugh. Yeah, clearly, you ran trials on something
that cooked people's brains. What did you expect that it
would just stop? She didn't react to my anger. Lang
never back down from a fight. She was always the
first to argue, the first to push back. But now
she just let the silent stretch, and when she finally
spoke again, it was a whisper. I don't think we
discovered hyperion, she said, I think it discovered us. I
swallowed hard. What the hell does that mean? A longer
pause this time, then finally just come over. I almost
didn't go I sat in my car for a long time,
turning the key, staring at my hands, gripping the wheel,
debating whether or not I should just throw my phone
into the river and drive in the opposite direction. But
I went. Lang lived in a small apartment downtown, a
small and out of the way place, not fit for
someone making as much money as she did. I'd been
there a few times before, back when we were still
at Eyes and Lloyd, back when we still talked about
our work. I knocked once, and the door unlocked almost immediately.
Lang glugged like she hadn't slept in days. Her hair
was unkempt, dark circles bruised beneath her eyes, and her
hands trembled as she stepped back, motioning for me to
come inside. I hesitated, Lang, just look, she said, already
moving toward a desk, She flipped open her laptop and
pulled up a series of images. At first, they didn't
make sense, just a mess of lines, paragraphs, and data points.
But then she pointed at one specific chart, tapping the
screen with a finger nail. This is a brain scan
from one of our last test subjects, taken three days ago.
My stomach lurched. You're still tracking them? Not officially, she said,
but I've been monitoring the scans. I stared at the screen.
The patterns and the chart were wrong. They weren't random
bursts of electrical activity. They were deliberate repeating. Okay, I said, slowly,
what am I looking at? Lane clicked to another slide,
pulling up a star map. My blood ran cold. The
patterns in the scan they matched, not randomly, not approximately exactly.
I looked at her, throat dry. What the hell is this?
Liang didn't answer. She clicked again, pulling up another image.
I took a blow step back. That's impossible. Lang was pale.
I thought so too. I ran a hand through my hair,
my pulse hammering in my ears. So what are you saying?
That hyperion is what some kind of I don't know,
she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. We stared
at the screen, the glow of the data reflecting off
the walls, casting the room in cold light. I could
hear my own heartbeat too loud in my ears. I
could feel my skin crawling as I looked at the
images again, trying to make sense of something that wasn't
meant to be understood. Lang sat in front of her laptop,
staring at the screen, fingers resting on the keyboard but
not typing. The blue glow washed over her face, hollowing
out her already exhausted features, making a look almost skeletal.
I was standing in the doorway, trying to process what
I had just seen. None of it made sense, but
the look in her eyes told me she wasn't done yet.
I exhaled through my nose, rubbing her hand over my face,
trying to steady myself. That's not why you called me here,
I finally said, is it? She didn't answer at first,
her fingers twitched like she was considering what to say.
I saw her swallow, hard, shoulders tinting before she spoke No,
she admitted, that's not why I called you. I waited
for her to continue, but she didn't. She just sat there,
staring at the screen like she was afraid say it
out loud. Lang. I took a step forward, my pulls
starting to climb. Tell me what's going on. She reached
for a mouse, scrolling through something I couldn't see yet.
I think it got out, she said, voice barely above
a whisper. The words hit me like a cold slap
to the face. My hands clenched at my sides. What
she nailed sharply exhaling, slowly, forcing herself to stay calm.
I found the file circulating online, she said. At first
I thought it was a hoax, someone trying to recreate it,
theorize about it. But then I checked. She motioned toward
a screen, lips pressing into a thin line. It's real,
the actual sequence. Someone leaked it. I felt my breath catch.
How long ago she hesitated? Twelve hours maybe less. The
floor felt unsteady beneath me, and Lang's jaw clenched. She
opened another file, clicking through a series of news reports,
but she wasn't looking at the screen. She was looking
at me, watching my reaction. I stepped closer. The first
article was from this morning, Police investigating reports of multiple
self inflicted deaths in an apartment complex. Three individuals frown,
deceased in their rooms, no sign of struggle, no known
connection between them. I scrolled down authorities in Tokyo responding
to a surge of unax playing suicides. Locals report seeing
people walking into the streets into oncoming traffic, seemingly unaware
of their surroundings. Another one coastal towns reporting an increase
in drownings. Witnesses describe victims walking into the water, ignoring bystanders,
disappearing beneath the waves without resistance. I felt my stomach drop.
My voice came out tight, like my throat was closing up.
This can't be real. Blank clicked on a live stream.
It was some security camera feed, grainy and low quality.
A man stood on top of a parking garage, motionless,
in front of a laptop screen. He wasn't blinking, his
hands were relaxed at his sides, his face completely neutral. Then,
without hesitation, he turned and walked straight off the edge.
He didn't scream, didn't react, didn't flinch. The feed cut
to black. Lang exhaled, leaning forward, hands covering her face.
It's happening. I was shaking. It hasn't even been a day,
I know, she whispered. It happened faster than anyone could
have imagined. The leaks spread through some coding forms, obscure
research boards, private archives. Someone had cracked the format, posted
the raw sequence, and people curious, stupid people had opened
it without thinking. They saw hyperion and never looked away.
We watched it unfolding real time video clips surfaced people
standing still in front of screens, eyes wide, bodies are
moving for minutes, hours before finally turning and walking away.
Some were found later dead in their homes, sitting peacefully
in front of their monitors, bodies untouched, unmarked. Others vanished entirely,
no notes, no last words. The worst part was how
quiet it was. No panic, no violent outbursts, no struggle,
just a stillness. And then they left. They walked into
the ocean, into forests, into caves and abandoned places, anywhere
that swallowed them whole. They went down subway tunnels and
never emerged. They walked into traffic without so much as
a scream. Lang and I tried everything to stop it.
Contacted people in government, tried to get service shut down,
tried to warn anyone who would listen. By the time
the world even realized what was happening, it was already
too late. It was inevitable, and it wasn't slowing down.
Lang gave it a roll. She still believed there was
a way to contain it, to stop it from consuming everything.
She spent every waking moment chasing solutions, theories, some scientific
explanation that could fix what we had done, but even
she knew the truth. One day I called her, she
didn't pick up. When I got to her apartment, the
door was unlocked, laptops still running, data still open. She
had walked out somewhere in the middle of the night,
no sign of a struggle, no note, no goodbyes, just gone.
There's nowhere left to run. The world is going quiet.
More people disappear every day. No one knows how many
are left. No one is counting anymore. I've been sitting
in my apartment for hours, staring at the gun on
my table. I don't want to go the way they did.
I don't want to walk into something. I don't want
to see it again. I keep hearing Lang's voice, I
hear the echoes of every subject we tested, every person
who vanished. It's everything, It's always been everything. I'm sorry
I should have stopped this before it started. The ocean
doesn't care about you. It's not your enemy, and it's
sure as hell isn't your friend. It's just there, silent
and endless, stretching past the horizon. People think they understand
it because they can chart a course, read a tide,
plot a point on a map. They don't. The ocean
keeps its own secrets, and sometimes then lets you see one.
We had planned a trip across the Atlantic. I captained
the Envy Red Saber for almost fifteen years, now, moving
small cargo from one port to another, keeping to tight
schedules and predictable roots. I initially started in the Navy,
but that life was a long way behind me. My
crew is small, just four of us. Fewer men means
fewer costs, but it also means fewer people to rely
ion when things go wrong. We were three days out
from Spain. It was the middle of the night, somewhere
past oh two hundred hours, and I was still awake
in my cabin, staring at the same navigational charts. The
radio crackled once, then again. A voice was trying to
push through the static. It came through the colms, a weak,
staticky voice repeating the same sequence over and over again.
May day, may day, this is the perdition position latitude
thirty five longitude. They cut out again. I sat up
the perdition. That name wasn't familiar, but the way the
signal came in faint and interrupted meant whatever equipment they
were using it was dated. I keep the intercom bridge.
This is the captain, you're picking that up. There was
a pause, then Gallagher answered, eye cap. We thought he
was interference at first, but it's repeating, saying distress code
every thirty seconds, sauce. We're running it through the registry.
Now another pause. I could hear his fingers moving over
the keyboard, the sound of rapid typing, then a brief pause. Ah, Captain,
you might want to see this. By the time I
got to the bridge, Gallagher was still staring at the screen,
one hand resting against his chin. His brow was furrowed.
You're gonna want to see this, he muttered. I glanced
at the monitor. The distress code was still cycling, a
single repeat eating sequence of numbers and static, as if
someone had been broadcasting it on a loop. Behind us,
a chair creaked. I turned to see Holloway, the youngest
of the crew, lingering near the back of the bridge,
arms crossed over his chest. He looked tense. I wasn't
sure if he even realized he was doing it, but
his foot tapped against the floor in a steady rhythm,
a nervous energy. He hadn't learned to mask yet. Rodriguez
lingered near the back, standing stiff watching us all. What
am I looking at? I asked. Gallagher turned the monitor
slightly so I could get a better look. The registry
was pulled up, the distress code logged and matched. The
petition was listed, but the date next to it stopped
me for a moment. Nineteen twenty one. I frowned, glancing
back at the others. You're telling me we just picked
up a hundred year old distress call. Gallagher didn't answer
right away. He exhaled through his nose, tapping his knuckles
against the desk. Signals coming through clean, no drift, no degradation.
This isn't an old transmission. Bounting back, this is live.
That has to be wrong, I said, it's a malfunction,
a glitch. Behind me, Rodriguez muttered something in Spanish. This
is bad luck, he said. We shouldn't meddle with these things.
Rodriguez had been on the water longer than the rest
of us combined. He wasn't overly superstitious, but he had
his traditions and ways. I'd learn to respect and honor
some of them. Gallagher cleared his throat. I guess it
could probably be a mistake, Captain, some technomally, maybe a
freak frequency bounce. The ocean can be weird like that.
I nodded slowly. He was right. I've seen things like
this before, stray signals, old transmissions getting caught in atmospheric
g loops, even ancient broadcasts being replayed by accident. But
this was no technomally, as Gallagher had said, the signal
was coming through clean as a whistle. I looked back
at the screen. The coordinates placed the signal two hundred
miles ahead of us. Nothing there but open water, no islands,
no reefs, no known reck sites to mention. Could be pirates,
Holloway said suddenly. His voice was casual, but I caught
the way he swallowed hard afterward, baiting us in. That
was a possibility. It wouldn't be the first time someone
had rigged a fake emergency to luren a rescue crew.
But pirates don't use distress codes from a century ago.
I exhaled slowly, then turned back to Rodriguez. You think
this is bad luck, he nodded once. As ship disappears
and a hundred years later it starts calling for help.
That's not right, Captain, tell me something about that doesn't
sound wrong to you. I turned back to the rest
of the crew. Listen, we're professionals. That's a distress call
and we're obligated to check it out. We went over
this and training people. There's nobody else around us for
this radio into nearby ships from here, and we take
it from there. Could be a hoax, could be a malfunction,
could be something else entirely, but we won't know unless
we lock. Gallagher hesitated. Captain I, that's final. I turned
back toward the helm, set a course for the cordinates.
No one spoke. The tension in the air shifted. Finally,
Gallagher muttered something under his breath and nodded aye. Sir
Rodriguez didn't argue. He just shook his head and walked away.
The fog rolled in a few minutes after we started
heading for the location, and it was getting steadily worse.
The further we pushed toward the cordinates, the denser it became,
until the ocean and sky blurred into the same endless void.
The radar picked up the ship before we could see it.
The radar was reading a massive ship floating just ahead.
The readings weren't erratic, weren't distorted. Whatever was out there
was solid, so we weren't heading for a shipwreck. Gallagher
adjusted the radio frequency turning dials with the patience of
a man who had done it a thousand times before.
His jaw was tight, his fingers tapping anxiously against the console.
Still nothing. He muttered, no response. He tried again, this
is the envy red saber responding to an emergency distress call, Perdition,
do you read over? The radio remained silent, just static,
a low hans stretching out like a dead signal. I exhaled, slowly,
rubbing my temple. Keep trying. Holloway stood near the bridge window,
staring out into the mist like he was trying to
will something into focus. He shifted uneasily. If they needed help,
shouldn't they be responding, Gallagher shook his head. Even if
they're dead in the water, someone should be hearing us.
If the beacon is live, the comb should be live too.
Maybe their radios busted, I said through my teeth. Maybe
they lost power. Rodriguez scoffed under his breath. Maybe. Then
the fog thinned and we saw it. The Perdition emerged
from the mist like a ghost. It loomed before us,
intact and untouched, a merchant vessel from another sentry. Dark wood,
slick with moisture. Its sails furled tight, its masts rising
into the gray sky like skeletal remains. There were no
signs of damage, no wreckage, nothing to suggest why a
ship like this had sent out an SOS in the
first place. Holloway took a step closer to the window.
Geez Gallagher tapped a few keys on the radar console,
shaking his head. God and his one massive ship Rodriguez,
remained silent. I straightened inhaling sharply. We're boarding. We lowered
the dinghy and approached slow. The ladder was still intact,
rope and woods swaying gently against the perdition's hull. I
grabbed hold, testing its weight. The damp fibers creaked under
my grip, but held firm. I looked back. Holloway and
Galagher sat stiff in the dingy. Rodriguez didn't move, didn't
reach for the ladder. His hands were planted on his knees,
fingers tight. You coming, I asked a pause. His jaw clenched,
then reluctantly, he took hold of the wrongs. Holloway and
Gallagher followed. The ship was still. The lanterns swayed gently
from their hooks, but they were unlit. The ropes were
neatly coiled, undisturbed. A layer of dampness clung to everything,
but there was no decay perdition. I shouted, my voice,
cutting through the mist. Anyone aboard. No response. Gallagher called
out next louder. His voice echoed, bouncing off the sails
before fading into nothing silence. Rodriguez muttered something, glancing around.
I turned back to the others. We'll cover more ground
if we split up. Gallagher take the upper decks, Holloway
with me. Rodriguez check below deck. We regroup in ten minutes.
If we don't find anybody, we leave and report back
to land with what we find. Gallagher excelled, sharply splitting up. Ah. Sure,
that's a good idea, cap You know in movies they
say we're wasting time, they said sternly. Rodriguez simply turned,
disappearing into the shadows below deck without another word. Holloway
and I moved carefully through the dimly lit carridor the
damp put beneath us groaning under our weight. The air
here was heavier than it had been outside, thick with
a scent of salt an age timber. The lanterns lining
the walls were unlit, their glass panes smeared with condensation.
Every door we last was shut tight, their brass handles tarnished.
At the end of the passage, one door stood slightly
ajar I pushed it open. Stepping inside the captain's quarters
was small, but oddly a single cut against the wall
neatly made. The sheets still tugged in tight. A chest
at the foot of the bed latched but not locked.
The desk took up most of the space, its surface
covered in loose papers, maps curled at the edges, ink
bottles tipped over and dried. A leather bound log box
sat in the center, lying open to a page warped
with moisture. Beside it, a lantern, unlit, was still filled
with oil. Holloway hesitated in the doorway, nostrils flaring slightly.
You smell that I did not rot, not mildew, just
damp and sour. The scent clung to everything, thick and stale,
the way a house smells when it's been shut up.
For months, or a ship has been sailing for decades.
I ran my fingers over the desk. The wood was swollen,
the grain rough beneath my touch. The papers beneath the
log book were stuck together. In places the ink smudged,
but the words beneath my fingers were still legible. I
flipped through the log book carefully. Holloway steps inside, now
staying close to the door, his gaze shifting between scattered
papers and the rest of the room. What does it say?
I squinted at the text, reading aloud. May third, nineteen
twenty one. Northeast wind steady at ten knots, course adjusted westward,
men in good spirits. I skimmed further down. The next
few entries were standard nothing how to the ordinary, where
the conditions coarse adjustments, A brief note about rationing. Then
something changed May tenth. A voice below deck last night.
Bosun claims he heard it too, but there was no
one there. Crew uneasy, I frowned, flipping further May thirteenth.
The men are restless. I do not believe it was
the wind. Mister Avery refuses to sleep below. The others
are beginning to whisper. Holloway shifted on his feet. You
think they had a stowaway. Maybe I kept reading. The
last entry was written in a hasty scrawl, as if
the writer had barely finished before slamming the books. Shot
May eighteenth. The sea is speaking for men are listening.
I am the only one left. I stared at it
for a long moment. The ink smudged and bleeding into
the page. The words rushed uneven. The last page wasn't finished.
Holloway leaned over my shoulder, exhaling sharply man. I closed
the log book, running a thumb along the frayed edges
of the pages. There's no mention of distress before this,
No damage, no sickness, no storm. I gestured at the room,
and this place looks like someone just left. Holloway glanced round,
rubbing his arms. I don't like this cap. This isn't
how a shiplocks after a hundred years. I knelt beside
the chest at the foot of the bed, running a
hand over the latch. It wasn't locked. I lifted the
lid inside. Neatly folded clothes sat stacked on one side,
A pair of boots placed carefully beside them, A shaving kit,
a pocket watch, small ordinary things, but clearly untouched for
a very long time. Holloway exhaled through his nose. No
personal letters, no sign of where they went. No, I
said the watch back, my fingers brushing the fabric of
the clothes beneath it. The material was damp, but still intact,
not eaten away by time or salt. I stood glancing
at Holloway. Where the hell is the crew? And who?
And how do they make a distress cup? Before he
could add, a noise echoed from somewhere outside the room,
a deep, dull thud. Holloway turned sharply toward the doorway.
I tensed, straining to hear past the thick stillness. Then
another sound, shuffling, distant, slow. Gallagher's voice carried through the corridor. Rodriguez,
I felt something cold settle in my gut. We stepped
out of the room. The ship was silent again, nothing
but the distant lapping of water against the hull. Galagher
stood near the helm, looking around, frowning. Have you seen Rodriguez?
He asked. I glanced towards the stairs leading below deck.
He should have been back by now. The ten minutes
were up. He was checking below. I said Kalikher exhiled
through his nose, rolling his shoulders. He hesitated, then turned
his gaze towards the stairwell. You think he found something.
Gallagher led the way, his flashlight sweeping the stairwell. As
we descended into the lower decks, our boots heavy. The
same smell from the Captain's quarters was present here, but stronger.
It smelled so wrong. I gripped the railing, stepping down cautiously, Rodriguez,
My voice came out, tight, you down here, silence. Holloway
moved close behind me, barely a step away, breathing hard
through his nose. He kept glancing over his shoulder, like
he was expecting something to be there. When he turned back,
Gallagher kept his jaw locked tight, pressing forward, his flashlight
bouncing off old crates and rusted tools. Another few steps,
another breath of damp air, thick with salt. Then we
heard it, a crash, wood splintering, a low, wet gurgling.
We turned fast, Gallagher's light flicking wildly, catching nothing but
empty space. But the sound was still there. A struggle.
I moved first, pushing past the other's heart hammering against
my ribs. Rodriguez no answer, a thud, something heavy hitting
the floor. We stood frozen all the way, clenched his
jaws so tight I thought it might snap. Then finally
I stepped forward. The corridor stretched ahead, damp wood groaning
beneath us. I forced myself to move faster, flashlight gripped tight,
my pulls so loud in my ears. I almost didn't
hear the drip, but it was there, soft rhythmic drip, drip, drip.
Gallagher saw it first. His breath hitched, his steps faltered.
His flashlight beam caught something on the floor ahead, something red,
a trail, a body, Rodriguez. I stopped breathing. The flashlight
shook slightly in my grip, illuminating torn fabric, shredded flesh,
broken bones, His chest had been ripped open. Chunks of
him were missing. When I was gone, the socket black
and gave it in. His jaw was slack, the muscles
of his neck mangled, as if something had chewed through them.
Holloway made a noise, choked, disbelieving, Gallagher swallowed thickly behind me.
He didn't move, None of us did. Rodriguez hadn't just
been attacked. He had been eaten. Seen a lot of
things at sea, drowning, suicide accidents. This wasn't any of those.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Holloway took
a step back from the corpse, shaking his head. His
breathing was erratic, chest rising and falling too fast, like
he was trying not to hyper ventilate. No, No, we
need to go, We need to go right now. What
the hell did this to him? Gallagher hadn't moved, just
kept staring at the mess that used to be Rodriguez.
His face was unreadable, but I could see his fingers
twitching at his side, like his body was deciding whether
to run or shut down completely. I exhaled, forcing my
mind to stay in control. We can't just leave him here.
Holloway snapped his head up to look at me. His
eyes were wild. Are you are you serious? His voice
cracked like you couldn't believe what he was hearing. Look
at him. There's no bringing him back. He's dead, he's
he jested with both hands, stumbling over his words. He's cant, captain,
and if we don't get the hell off the ship,
we'll be next. I clinched my jaw, kept him A
voice even I know that, do you? He let out
a sharp, humorless laugh, because I don't think you do.
I think you're trying to make sense of this, trying
to be the goddamn captain when we should already be
getting the hell out of it. We will not leave
him here. Holloway went silent. I forced myself to keep going,
even though my stomach felt like he was trying to
turn itself inside out. We should at least bring him
back to his wife and family, hold a proper funeral.
Gallagher excelled, sharply, a hand down his face. His shoulders
were still stiff, his posture tense. I swallowed, glancing down
at what was left of Rodriguez. I didn't even know
what we'd tell anyone back on land, and there was
something about the way he had been left there, torn
open and abandoned, that didn't sit right with me. I
forced myself to look back at them. We don't just
leave him here like some animal carcass. We'd take him back.
Holloway didn't say anything, just looked at me, eyes dark
and unreadable. Then finally Gallagher let out a slow breath
and nodded. We didn't argue about it. Anymore. The smell
of blood was worse now. The motion of dragging him
had stirred it, letting its seep into the wood, thick
and warm and unmistakable. Holloway had his hands hugged under
Rodriguez's arms, his face a combination of something between determination
and revulsion. Gallagher and I took the legs, lifting as
best we could. The ship groaned around us as we moved.
Every step was slow heavy. The weight of the dead
is always different than the weight of the living. More final.
We didn't talk, just moved, just kept our eyes ahead.
We were almost to the stairwell when Gallagher muttered weight.
We stopped. His flashlight flickered bouncing off something near the
far end of the corridor, and followed his gaze, shifting
my own beam to match. Something was there. At first
I thought it was a man. Hey, are you the
person that sent out the distress signal? Who the hell
did this to our friend? Who are you? I shouted?
It didn't respond. Instead, it just stood in the shadows,
half lost in the darkness. Then it stepped forward. Its
body was swollen, bloated in places, like it had been
left underwater for too long. The skin was blue gray,
tinged with deep, sickly greens. The texture was hoarse, its
flesh not smooth, but broken up, cracked like dried leather.
Clusters of binnacles hung to its shoulders, its arms, the
side of its neck. It stared at me, and I
stared back. Its mouth hung slightly open. The inside of
its mouth was ragged and torn. The gums were black,
the teeth rotting, but something moved inside, shifting Beneath the teeth,
small thin tendrils stained with moisture, flicked in and out
between them, almost like feelers. It took another step forward,
and it spoke, Not words, not anything that should have
been speech, just the wet, gurgling croak, something pulled from
the depths of rotting lungs. Rodriguez's body hit the floor
with a dull, wet thump. As we let go and ran.
We didn't think, didn't speak, didn't breathe. The thing behind
us lurched forward, its feet dragging across the damp wood,
its movements both too slow and too fast. I could
hear it, the wet, labored wheeze rattling in his chest,
the sickly pop of something shifting under its skin, Gallagher
shoved past me, his flashlight being bouncing wildly. Holloway was
right behind him, his breath coming ragged. Desperate, we made
it to the stairs, our boots slamming against the steps,
but the thing wasn't too far behind us, And then
Holloway slipped. He hid the landing hard, his flashlight skidding
across the floor. He scrambled up onto his hands and knees, gasping,
But the thing behind us was already there, a wet
slap of flesh and wood, a caturo croak. I turned,
barely catching a glimpse of it lurching toward Holloway. Its
mouth yawned open, unimaginably deep, a mass of shattered teeth
and writhing slip tendrils. It was so close I didn't think.
I grabbed the first thing I could, A box of
tools to my left had a crowbar. I grabbed it
so tight my hand ached, then swung. The crack of
impact was sharp, jarring. The thing's head jerked violently to
the side, and something deep inside it made a wet
sucking sound, like air escaping from a bloated carcass. It staggered.
Gallagher was already moving hauling Holloway to his feet. I
took another step forward and brought the crowbar down hard,
aiming for its head, its chest, anything that would break.
It didn't bleed. It leaped. Dark brackish water spilled from
the wound, sloshing onto the deck, carrying with it the
wreek of salt and decay. But it didn't stop. It
grabbed at me me, its fingers webbed and thick with barnacles,
its nails blackened and splitting. I wrenched away, my breath,
coming in short gasps. Gallagher moved next, slamming his boot
into my chest, sending it staggering back. Holloway grabbed a
rustic pipe from the floor and brought it down on
its skull. This time it collapsed. The final shuddering breath
rattled out from its lungs, but there was no struggle,
no death throes, just the slow, unnatural way. It deflated,
like the sea itself was pulling its insides back down
into the depths. The ship went silent. The three of
us stood there, panting, shaking, dripping sweat. I forced myself
to breathe. My heart was still hammering, my body still
locked in fire vital flight, but we weren't being chased anymore,
not yet. Gallagher wiped the sweat from his brow with
a shaky hand, cheez he muttered, what the hell was it?
Holloway didn't answer. I swallowed hard and stepped forward. My
legs shook as adrenaline surge threw me. The creature's skin
was the worst part, pale, almost translucent in places, bloated
with water, the veins underneath bulging, too dark, too thick.
It had been human once, that much was clear, but
it wasn't anymore. The barnacles, the jagged nails, the empty sockets,
or his eyes should have been. Whatever had happened to
this thing, it had changed then I really looked at it.
Clothes ragged, torn, but still there. A heavy wool coat
tattered and salt eaten, A loose undershirt ripped down the front,
A pair of slacks that might have once been navy blue.
I knew these clothes. They weren't just old rags. There
were a uniform, a sailor's uniform. Holloway must have noticed
it at the same time I did, because he let
out a short, shaky breath. I turned slightly, saw his
hands clenching at his side. His face was pale, his
lips pressed into a thin line cap. He said, voice low,
How many I blinked? I Holloway swallowed his Adam's apple,
bobbing in his throat. He didn't take his eyes off
the corpse. How many, he repeated, quieter this time. How
many crewmen would a ship like this have? I stared
at him. Then I looked around us. Big ship, massive,
really for a merchant vessel of this size back in
the nineteen twenties. I clenched my jaw. At least thirty,
they said. Holloway exhiled slowly through his nose. He didn't
look away from the thing on the floor. Let's get
out quickly, calling for help and come back for Roderic.
The sound rose from all over the lower decks, from
the corridors, from the darkness behind the crate, a chorus
of damp shuddering exhales, all breathing in unison. Holloway heard
it too, his face drained of color. Gallagher took a
slow stay back, his lights shaking in his grip. They
heard us. They crawled out of the dark, dragging themselves
across the damp wood, climbing from the flooded lower decks.
Some staggered upright, their legs bent at wrong angles. Others
moved on all fours, their limbs elongated, their bloated fingers
curling into the boards. One of them lurched into the light.
I could hear Holloway gagging. I took a step back.
The creature's head snapped toward me, and then it stumbled
and ran. At the same time, Gallagher screamed. The whole
ship irrupted into motion. The creatures swarmed forward, scrambling over
each other, crawling, sprinting, dragging themselves toward us. Go, I shouted,
shoving Holloway toward the stairs. We ran. Gallagher was ahead
of me. Holloway was right behind him. I could hear
the creatures closing in the sick, with a thud of
hands and knees against the wood, the wheezing, the gurgling.
Gallagher was the first to reach the stairs, taking them
two at a time, all the way. Stumbled caught himself.
I turned my head just once and saw them dozens,
their forms shifting in the dim light, some missing entire
pieces of themselves, but still coming. One of them leapt forward,
its jaw unhinging, Gallagher reached the railing, but her hand
shot out from the darkness and grabbed his ankle. He
hit the stairs hard, his flashlight clattering against the floor.
I lunged forward, trying to grab his arm, but I
was too slow. Something tall. Gallagher screamed, and then he
was gone. Holloway kept running. I had no choice but
to follow. I could still hear Gallagher screaming. Then it
turned into gurgling. He burst onto the deck, gasping for air,
lungs burning muscles, screaming. The floor was wet and Holloway
and I both slipped and fell, and some of the
things gained on us. Move I shouted, but my voice
barely carried over the thick, suffocating air. Then they hit us.
The first one grabbed my arm, fingers slick and bloated,
curling around my wrist. I whipped around, swung everything. I
had my fist cracking against the thing's skull. It barely reacted.
This jaw hung open, those blackened gums and jagged teeth
barely visible in the dim light light. The thing inside
his mouth flicked reaching. I drove my knee into its gut,
yanking my arm free, Stumbling back Holloway was next, a
pair of them closing in on him, the movements slow,
like they planned to enjoy themselves. He grabbed a rusted
pole from the deck and swung hard, knocking one of
them back. The other lunged, grabbing his shoulder. I rushed forward,
slamming into the thing, sending both of us sprawling to
the deck. Holloway stumbled back, panting, wiping sweat from his
face with a shaking hand. And then I felt it,
fingers around my ankle. My stomach dropped. I kicked hard,
but the grip was iron. It was dragging me back.
I tried to reach for something, but my fingers only
scraped against the deck, against the damp, rotting wood. And
then Holloway was there. He grabbed my arms, yanking me up.
The things gripped tightened, its rotting nails, trying to dig
into my skin. I barely had time to register the
pain before Holloway ripped a plank off the floor and
smashed it in the thing's face and wet, sickening crunch,
the grip loosened. That was all we needed. We ran.
Holloway skidded to a stop near the railing. He turned
to me, chest heaving. He didn't speak, he didn't need to.
We both knew one option. Jump. I gave him a
single nod. No hesitation, no second guessing, Just do it.
We turned together and jumped. The air rushed past my ears,
the cold spray of salt water hitting my skin as
we plummeted toward a black abyss below. I hit the
water hard, the cold like a knife to the chest.
My breath vanished, stolen by the sudden pressure, the darkness,
the silence. For half a second, I was weightless, spinning.
The current gripped me, dragged me downward. I kicked hard,
fighting against it, lung screaming, heart hammering. My fingers reached
for the surface, for air, for anything. Then I broke through, gasping, choking.
I wiped the salt from my eyes, twisting, searching holloway.
I saw his head bob up a few feet away, sputtering,
spitting sea water, where his voice broke hoarse, panicked. We're here,
We're where's the dinghy? I turned, looking frantically through the
fog drenched water. We saw it just a few feet
from where we landed. We pulled ourselves in, slipping and shaking.
I just grabbed the oars and started rowing. As my
adrenaline faded, I could focus my eyes hear things, see
to row. I had to face the ship, seeing it
slip into the thick fog that surrounded us, and on
the silhouette flat line of the railing, I saw shapes
that broke the perfect linearity of it, lumps, vague shapes
wandering to the perimeter of the ship, watching us leave,
bound to the cursed vessel. I was more than ready
to just leave the ship behind, be done with it.
But I heard something, not the slashing of them swimming
towards us, nor the chase of something in the water.
A voice, Captain, come back, please. It was Rodriguez, not
a mimicry wet and gurgled beneath the monster's form. His
voice was clear, like he was perfectly well, like he
hadn't been torn apart in the lower deck. Don't leave
us behind, come back. This time it was Gallagher. I hesitated,
my rowing, slowed. Holloway tapped my arm, and when I
looked at his face, he just shook his head. It
wasn't him, it wasn't them. I knew that, but part
of me still wanted to go back, just to make
I thought back to the log book the final entry.
The sea is speaking, the men are listening. In a
straight up rawl, one or two we could handle. A
ship of thirty hardened sailors would be able to handle
that level of incursion. But all it would take is one,
one familiar voice, one person you care enough about to
check on to make sure they're okay, and you can
see how quickly things can turn sour. We eventually reached
our vessel. Holloway collapsed behind me, panting, coughing, shaking. Neither
of us spoke. By the time we reached the ship,
the perdition was gone. The fog had swallowed it all
like it had never been there at all. I grew
up in a small, single story house on the outskirts
of town. Our house was a mudge, just the squat
little box of peeling white paint with a porch that
sag slightly in the middle. I always thought it looked
like it was tired of holding itself up. I didn't care, though.
To me, it was home. But what I remember most
about that house wasn't the porch, or the yard or
the tiny bedroom I shared with my younger brother. It
was the crawl space. It stretched under the entire house,
a hollow, black cavity barely two feet high, covered by
warped wooden slats nailed haphazardly across the entrance. My dad
always told me to stay away from it, said it
was full of spiders and mold, sharp bits of rusted
metal waiting to slice my hands open if I reached in.
My mom warned me too, though she was less dramatic
about it, more exasperated than afraid. But I was a
curious kid. I'd kneel by the slats, peering through the gaps,
trying to see what was inside. Most of the time
it was just dirt or darkness. Sometimes, if the angle
was just right, i'd catch a glimpse of the wooden
beams holding up the house, or maybe a flash of
something skittering out of sight. I never got too close,
never reached inside, until one summer afternoon when I heard
some one whisper my name. I was playing in the
back yard alone, kicking a plastic soccer ball around when
I heard it, faint at first, a dry voice slipping
out from beneath the house like a draft. When the
voice slipped out from beneath the porch. It was so
soft I almost didn't hear it over the sound of
the ball bouncing. I stopped, turned toward the crawl space.
Nothing but darkness, then again, slightly louder, Come here for
a second. Any adult would have ran inside and lured
to the police or done anything. But I was seven,
maybe eight, and I that stupid childlike fearlessness that makes
kids think nothing bad can happen to them. So instead
of being scared, I was just curious. I dropped my
soccer ball and walked toward the crawled space, dropping to
my knees to press my face to the gaps in
the wooden slats. Her face stared back at me. I
just stared back. The man didn't blink. His eyes were
wide locked onto mine, sunken deep into a skull, like
he hadn't slept in a long time. His skin was
sallow and streaked with dirt, and his hair, what little
of it I could see, was long and stringy, clinging
to his face in limp, greasy strands. When he spoke again,
his voice was almost kind. Didn't mean to scare you, buddy,
I still didn't answer. I'm an old friend of your dad's,
he said, his lips curling. Really, I finally managed. He
shifted slightly, just enough that I could see more of him,
bony shoulders, his skin a mess of wounds. He looked filthy,
like he'd been rolling in dirt. But his voice was calm, friendly,
the way adults talk to kids when they want them
to feel safe. Yeah, who used to be real close
to the family. But it's been a while since we talked.
He probably wouldn't remember me, he nodded. That made sense.
Adults forgot things all the time. Hey, do me a favor,
he added, lowering his voice. Don't tell him I'm here yet.
Let's keep it a secret for now, just between us.
Your dad might not understand. At that age, I thought
secrets were fun. I don't know why I trusted him.
Maybe it was the way he spoke, the softness in
his Maybe it was because I wanted it to be true,
because the idea of finally having a secret of my
own to keep from my parents made it seem grand special.
I didn't tell my parents, and I kept visiting the
crawl space. We just talked. I'd go outside and kneel
by the crawl space, whispering through the gaps in the
wooden slats while the man lay on the dirt on
the other side. He never came out, never reached for me,
just stayed in the shadows, speaking in that same soft,
friendly tone that made me feel like I was talking
to someone I've known all my life. I felt safe.
What's your favorite thing to do? He asked me. Once
you play outside a lot, what do you want to
be when you grow up. His questions were harmless at first,
and he listened so intently, like every little thing I
said was the most important thing he'd ever heard. I
liked that, But over time the questions started to change.
Your dad still works late. Where do you sleep in
the house? Your mom locked the doors at night the
first time he asked that, I hesitated. Yeah, I said,
she locks them every night. I thought about it. Sometimes
she forgets, I admitted. He was quiet for a long time. Really,
he finally asked, she sometimes forgets. There was something in
his voice, something I didn't understand yet, because I was
just a kid. Looking back, I can see now that
they were never just questions. They were tests, each one
peeling back another layer, gauging how much I knew, how
much I was willing to tell him how much influence
he had over me without me even realizing it, and
I'd let him do it. I had fed him information
piece by piece, unaware that I was giving him everything
he needed. Hey, buddy, I missed you yesterday. Sorry, I
had whispered back. I went to my grandma's. Ah, that's
nice that she makes good cookies. Yeah, your little brother
go to The question was casual, effortless, like he was
just making small talk. I'd answered without thinking. I didn't
think back then of the fact that I'd never mentioned
my little brother to him. Uh huh, he always comes
with us. Of course, can't leave the little guy behind her.
I laughed, and then I heard the screen door creak open. Hey,
what are you doing? I flinched, jerking back from the
crawl space so fast that I scraped my knee against
the dirt. My little brother was standing on the porch,
watching me with wide, suspicious eyes, his small hands gripping
the wooden railing, like he had caught me doing something
I wasn't supposed to. I panicked. Nothing, I said, quickly
scrambling to my feet. I was just looking for something.
His face twisted into something skeptical, his little brows knitting
together as he took a step forward, craning his neck
to look at the crawl space entrance, looking for what.
The man was silent now. I could feel him waiting
just beyond the slats, watching, listening. I had to think first,
Uh my ball, I said, brushing dirt off my shorts
and trying to sound as normal as possible. I think
it rolled under there. My brother's gaze flicked back to me. Okay,
I want to go play in the treehouse, I stumbled,
and just like that, he forgot all about it, and
I wish he never believed me. The first time the
man in the crawl space asked me for something, I
almost didn't even register it as a request. Hey buddy,
can you do me a favor? It was an easy question.
We were just two old friends at this point, trading secrets.
I didn't even hesitate before nodding before giving him this simple,
automatic sure, because why wouldn't I. He had never asked
for anything before. It never even implied that he wanted
something from me beyond my company. Your dad keeps a
spare key to the shed, right, I remember feeling the
slightest pang of discomfort. Then, but he was vague, unformed,
like the first tremor of a storm coming, a flicker
of something wrong just beneath the surface that my young
mind didn't yet know how to identify. I hesitated, but
the response came anyway. Yeah, you know where he hid it?
Of course I did. It was under the porch, tucked
behind a row of old cinder blocks near the back steps.
My dad had told me once in case he ever
needed me to get it for him, and I'd filed
the information away, never thinking it would be useful for
anything else. Yeah, I said, think you could grab it
for me that. When I finally hesitated for real, there
was a shift, a barely perceptible change in the air
between us, a tiny crack and the illusion that I
had never noticed before. I didn't understand why it felt wrong,
but it did, and for the first time since I'd
started talking to him, I found myself wanting to leave.
Why He laughed, as if the answer was obvious. Ah,
it's stupid, he said, dismissing the whole thing as a joke,
as if I was the silly one for taking it seriously.
I left something in there a long time ago, something
I meant to grab a little keepsake. You know. That
made sense to me. All the adults had little things
they didn't need but couldn't bring themselves to throw away.
Even mom had shoe boxes full of old birthday cards
she never looked at, and my dad had a draw
full of broken watches he always swore he was going
to fix. And maybe you noticed, Maybe he sensed that
my willingness was starting to crack, because after a moment
of silence, he gave me reassurance. It's all right, buddy,
he said, you don't have to do it. That was
the end of it until the next time. But he
didn't ask about the shed key. Hey. His voice was
lower that day, quieter, like he didn't want anyone else
to hear, even though we were alone in the backyard,
just as we always were. What could you leave the
back door unlocked for me? Tonight? My stomach twists thinking
back to it. Why I want to leave you a
little present? Trust me, I really liked presents, and my
parents hadn't gotten me a present since my birthday a
couple of months back. And then before I could decide
what to do, dinner's ready, I turned toward the house.
The sound snapping me out of whatever fog I'd been
slipping into, and when I looked back, he was gone.
I unlocked the back door that night. I don't know
if it was because I started trusting the man too much,
or if I wanted a present that badly, or maybe
I was just too caught up in the normal rhythm
of family life to think about anything beyond the present moment.
Either way, it didn't matter, because the moment came and went,
and by the time we sat down for dinner, the
whole thing was already slipping from my mind, already losing
its weight. And then, without thinking I said it, I'd
talk to your friend to day. I didn't even notice
the reaction. I was focused on my plate, barely paying attention,
my fork spearing a piece of overcooked chicken as I
chewed slowly, distantly. But then the silence settled, and I
felt it. Dad's hand frozen mid cut, his knuckles white
round the handle of his knife. Mom unmoving at the stove,
her back to me, her posture stiff. She looked like
her entire body had gone cold all at once. What friend.
Dad's voice was slow, careful, like he already knew the answer.
But was trying to delay it. I blinked at him,
confused by the sudden change in the atmosphere. He your
friend in the cool space. The words landed. Ma'am dropped
the pan she had been holding, the metal clattering against
the stove with a loud, jarring crash. Dad's face went white.
For a long time, no one moved, Then all at once,
Dad pushed back from the table, standing so fast his
chair scraped against the floor with a shriek of wood
and tile. Without a word, he turned, walked to the
front door and stormed outside. My father was already in
motion before I could fully register what was happening, his
movement sharp and frantic as he ripped at the wooden
slats covering the crawl space entrance, his fingers prying at
the brittle planks with a kind of strength I had
never seen before. The nail shrieked as they were wrenched loose,
the old wood splintering beneath the force of his grip.
Dad My voice came out small, but he didn't answer.
He was breathing too hard, too fast, his hands shaking
as he pulled away the last of the boards and
tossed them aside. The entrance to the crawl space yawned
open before us, a gaping black mouth cut into the earth.
Dad grabbed the flashlight from his belt, flicked it on,
and shine the beam inside. For a moment. I expected
to see him. I expected the pale, thin man from
beneath our house to be crouched in the dirt, his
sunken eyes reflecting the beam of light as he stared.
But there was nothing, just emptiness. The flashlight beam swept
across the crawl space, illuminating nothing but bare dirt and
cobwebbed wooden beams. The air that wafted out smelt stale
and sour, thick with a scent of damp rot and
things that had been left to decay in the dark
for too long though. No footprints in the dirt, no
sign that any one had ever been inside, no mattress,
no discarded clothes, no remnants of a person who might
have been living there. Maybe I'd made up the entire
thing in my head, a game of pretend that it
spiraled out of control. But then the flashlight beam passed
over something small and familiar, something that shouldn't have been there.
A shoe, tiny red half covered in dirt. I felt
a jolt of recognition before my mind fully processed what
I was looking at. My stomach twisted violently, and the
air seemed to thin around me, the world tilting sideways
as I stared at it. Because I knew that shoe
didn't belong to me. It belonged to my little brother.
What the hell? My dad's voice was hoarse, cracking at
the edges as he stepped closer, his flashlight trained on
the single, out of place objects sitting in the dirt,
His hands clenched at his sides, his whole body rigid
with tension. He turned toward me, his face pale. Where
is your brother? The words barely had time to register
before my mother's voice rang out from behind us. Who
are you talking about? I turned and saw us standing
in the doorway, looking at us with an expression of deep,
unsettled confusion. Her brows furrowed as she tug in the
scene before her. Who's in the crawl space? She asked again,
and then the screaming started. I don't remember running inside.
I don't remember how I got from the front yard
to the hallway, how my legs carried me forward so
fast that my surroundings blurred, the walls stretching long and thin,
like something from a fever dream. I don't remember how
I ended up right behind my father, well how my
mother's voice, shouting something I couldn't understand, faded into a
dull hum. At the edges of my mind, I only
remember the screaming. It was raw and high and jagged,
something too broken to come from a person, something that
didn't sound human at all, And it was coming from
my brother's room. My father hid the door at full speed,
his shoulder slamming into it so hard that it must
have hurt. The wood buckled under his weight, and for
a moment it didn't budge, but then it gave way.
He stumbled forward, nearly falling as he caught himself. And
then I saw the blood. He was everywhere, splattered across
the floor, painted up the walls in thick visceral streaks,
so much of it, more than I thought a person
could even have inside them. He was still wet, still warm,
still spreading in slow creeping rivers beneath the flickering light
of the ceiling fan. And in the center of it
all my brother, or what was left of him. I
don't think I screamed. I don't think I made any
noise at all, because something inside me broke, something deep
and dark and all consuming. And as I stood there,
staring at the thing and the floor that had once
been my little brother, the thought rose up in me,
slow and suffocating, curling around my throat like smoke. I
did this. I don't know when my mother pushed past me,
or when a voice cracked into a sound i'd never
heard before, something so shattered and animalistic that it didn't
even sound like words. I don't know if they tried
to shield me from the sight, if they pulled me
back or turned me away. I don't know if I
collapsed or ran, or simply stood there as the room
spun and folded inward around me, because in that moment,
all I could hear was his voice, Where do you
sleep in the house whom Um locked the doors at night?
She forgets sometimes? Really, the realization came slowly. It wasn't
like a sudden impact, not an explosion of clarity. It
was something worse, something creeping, something insidious, something that had
been building for weeks, for months, for however long it
had been listening to me. I had told him everything.
I'd given him the key to my family. I don't
know what happened after that. I don't know who called
the police, or how long it took them to arrive,
or how many times I was asked the same questions
over and over and over again, until my mouth was
dry and my voice cracked from the effort of trying
to answer. I don't know if I ever answered at all,
because how do you begin to explain something like that.
I don't remember the funeral. I don't remember the weeks
that followed, or the way my parents stopped talking to
each other, or the way my mother wouldn't even look
at me anymore. I don't remember how I got from
that house to a different one, or how much time
had passed before my father finally packed up all our
things and moved us away. But I remember the guilt.
I've always believed in small gestures, the little things that
remind someone you'd love them, even in the middle of
a hectic, stressful life. My husband, Daniel, worked long hours
at a law firm, and I knew how exhausting it
could be for him. He'd come home late most nights,
rolling his shoulders, loosening his tie, pressing a quick, tied
kiss to my forehead before collapsing on to the couch.
It wasn't that he was an affectionate he really was,
but his job pulled all the energy out of him,
and I hated seeing the exhaustion in his eyes. So
for Valentine's Day, I decided to do something small, nothing extravagant,
nothing over the top, just a handwritten letter, something that
would make him smile in the middle of his long day,
maybe remind him that, no matter how difficult work got,
he had something good waiting for him at home. I
spent longer then i'd like to admit, writing it, curling
up on the couch with a warm blanket and a
glass of wine, wapping my pen against my chin as
I thought of the right words. I wrote about the
first time we met, the awkward, fumbling early days of
our relationship, the late night talks that stretched into early mornings.
I wrote about how grateful I was for him, how
much I loved the life we had built together. Even
threw in a few of our inside jokes, the stupid
jokes that made no sense to anyone else but had
us gasping for breath from laughing too hard. When I
was satisfied, I folded the letter neatly, placed it in
a pink envelope, and sealed it with a kiss. The
next morning, I made sure to stop by his office
on my way to work. His law firm was an
older building, one of those places with too much marble
and not enough personality, but the receptionist at the front
desk was friendly enough. She told me to place the
envelope in the mail bar just outside the building. She smiled, nodded,
and I told her to have a great day. That evening,
Daniel came home as usual, tired but smiling just like always.
He dropped his bag by the door, loosened his tie,
kissed me hello. We had dinner together, talking about our day,
well mostly his day. He didn't mention the letter, but
I didn't bring it up either. Maybe he hadn't gotten
around to reading it yet, maybe he wanted to save
it for later. I figured i'd hear about it soon enough.
But the next morning, before I even had time to
get out of bed, I heard the sound of the
mail slot opening. The usual stack of letters slid on
to the floor, the soft thump barely registering in my
half asleep mind. For a second, I smiled. Daniel must
have written back. It wasn't like him. He'd always been
more of a talker than a writer. But maybe my
little Valentine surprise had inspired him. I sat up, rubbing
the sleep from my eyes, and made my way over
to the mailbox. I tore the envelope open and pulled
out the letter. It was written on the same stationary
I had used, the same smooth, off white paper, the
same faintly embossed edges. At first, it was sweet. I
got your letter. Thank you, my love. It means more
to me than you know. You always know how to
make me smile always. For a moment, I felt a
rush of warmth. But then I read the next line.
I need you to listen carefully. This is important. I
don't know who has been coming home to you every night.
I froze. I felt the ghost of a shudder ripple
through me, forcing myself to keep reading, my hands suddenly
clamming against the paper. I haven't left the office in months.
I don't know what's happened. I don't know how, but
something is pretending to be me. I let the paper
slip from my fingers. I sat there staring at the
letter in my hands, my breath coming slow and uneven.
The words blurred in front of me, my mind scrambling
for any rational explanation. It had to be a joke,
a cruel, elaborate prank. Someone at Daniel's office must have
found my letter, copied his handwriting, and sent this back
to mess with me, maybe even Daniel himself. Though I
didn't understand why he'd do something so strange, and yet
my skin prickled with unease. I forced a laugh under
my breath, shaking my head. It was absurd, completely ridiculous. Still,
when I heard him stir in the bedroom, when I
heard the faint sound of sheets rustling and the floor
creaking under his weight, something in me hesitated, just for
a moment. I folded the letter, slipped it back into
the envelope, and shoved it into my purse before heading
to the kitchen to make coffee. Trying to shake off
the unease. I walked into the kitchen and reached for
the matches. We had one of those odd gas stoves,
the kind way you had to turn the knob and
light the burning yourself. It had been finicky for years,
sometimes requiring two or three tries before the flame would catch.
By the time Daniel walked into the kitchen, rolling his
shoulders and rubbing her hand through his hair, I'd convinced
myself that I was being ridiculous morning, he murmured, Pressing
a quick kiss to my temple. I twisted the knob,
and the familiar hiss of gas filled the air. The
smell was sharp, pungent, but I struck the match anyway,
letting the tiny flame flicker to life between my fingers. Then,
with a quick motion, I brought it to the burner.
The fire flared up instantly, a small bush of heat,
a soft burst of orange and blue. As the gas
finally caught, the kitchen was filled with the quiet crackle
of the flame settling, the warmth spreading outward. And that's when,
for some reason, Daniel flinched, not just the small, startled twitch,
but a sharp, full bodied jerk. His shoulders tensed, his
hands curled slightly at his sides, and for a fraction
of a second, his eyes weren't on me. Are you okay?
I asked, casually, glancing at him over my shoulder. He blinked,
the stiffness in his body vanishing as quickly as it
had come. Yeah, he said, his voice smooth, just spaced
out for a second. I searched his face, his movements,
the little details of him, the way his lips felt
warm against my skin, the familiar sound of his bare
feet padding against the tile, the casual way he leaned
against the counter as he took his first sip of coffee.
This was Daniel, my husband. I was letting my imagination
get the best of me. But still, hey, I said,
forcing my voice to sound light, teasing. You didn't leave
me a love letter back, ha, He raised an eyebrow
midsip love letter, I hesitated the one I left at
your office for a split second, just the fraction of
a moment. His expression didn't change. Then too quickly he smiled, Oh, yeah, sorry,
I meant to say something that was really sweet. I
forced myself to smile. Did you like it, of course,
he said, taking another sip of coffee. Best part of
my day. I nodded, pretending to be satisfied with his answer,
but I knew he was lying. If he had actually
read the letter, he would have said something about the
inside jokes, about the memories I'd written down, about any
of the personal details that made the letter special. That's
what he had always done. Some of our inside jokes
were played simply because he had mentioned them so much,
and he loved it. When I brought them up myself,
I swallowed hard, glancing down at my phone. Work. I
had to get to work. I had to let this go.
That evening, we sat on the couch watching TV, just
like we always did. The warmth of his body was familiar,
his arm draped lazily over the back of the couch,
fingers grazing my shoulder. To anyone else, it would have
seemed perfectly normal, perfectly safe. But the letter sat heavy
in my purse, the words echoing in my head. I
couldn't stop thinking about it. So after a while I
turned to him with a grin, keeping my voice light. Hey,
remember when we first met, he blinked. Caught off guard.
You're testing me, he asked, laughing softly. Maybe, I teased,
nudging his arm. Come on, you'd better remember, he smarked,
tilting his head like he was thinking. Who was in college? Right?
Second year? I remember these things, you know this June
twenty eighth, I felt my chest tightened. My husband was
forgetful with date that much I knew, but I knew
this specific date was important to him. In fact, it
was such an important date he dinked it into his skin.
I forced out an exaggerated gasp, smacking his arm playfully.
Of course, you remember, he didn't glance down, he didn't laugh,
He just smiled at me. Now I knew for certain
that this wasn't my husband. Tomorrow, I had to get out.
The next morning, I did everything exactly the same. I
woke up before him, brewed the coffee, kissed him on
the cheek, and told him I had a long day ahead.
He smiled at me, like always, a perfect effortless thing,
the way he always heard. He ran a hand through
his dark hair, sipped his coffee, and told me to
have a good day. But as I grabbed my purse
and stepped outside, I forced myself not to hesitate. I
drove the same way I always did, following my morning route,
taking the usual turns, sticking to routine just in case.
But once I was out of sight of the house,
I turned the opposite direction. Instead of heading toward my office,
I drove straight to Daniel's law firm, gripping the steering
wheel so tightly my fingers ached. I don't know exactly
what I was expecting, maybe to walk into the building
seam at his desk, laughing with his coworkers, proving that
this was all just some elaborate misunderstanding, that the letter
had been a joke, a mistake, something stupid and explainable.
Maybe I wanted to see the normality of his workspace,
to remind myself that the man who came home to
me every night really was my husband. But deed down,
I already knew that wouldn't happen. The receptionist looked up
at me from behind the desk, Ai, I said, forcing
a smile, I'm just dropping by to see my husband.
The woman's brow knitted together slightly, and for a moment
she just looked at me as if I had said
something confusing, something she couldn't quite make sense of. Then,
after a beat, she gave me a small, gentle smile,
one I immediately hated. What's your husband's name, she said,
her gaze fixed on the monitor in front of her. Daniel.
I muttered, oh, honey, she said softly. He hasn't been
here in weeks. The words felt like a slap. My
breath stole in my throat, my heart stuttering violently against
my ribs, my fingers tightened around the strap of my purse.
What do you mean that there has to be some mistake?
He works here, he comes in every day. The receptionist's
face shifted slightly, uncertainty flickering behind her eyes. She hesitated,
then let out a slow breath. I. I'm sorry, but
no one's seen him in a long time. He thought
maybe he took another job and just never told us
his things are still here. But she shook her head.
I really don't think he's been in. Something in me
felt like it was full, holding in on itself. My
vision narrowed slightly, as if the entire world had tilted sideways,
and I was struggling to stay upright. Can I Can
I seize our office? I asked. The receptionist gave me
another uncertain glance, but nodded. She led me down the hallway,
past the rows of desks, past the open offices where
people typed away their computers, where conversations hummed in the background.
All of it normal, all of it completely detached from
the fact that something in my life had cracked open
into something monstrous. We stopped in front of a lock
storage room. She hesitated, placing a hand on the handle,
as if she wasn't sure she should be showing me this. Then,
in a quiet voice, she said, his things as inside
we thought he'd just quit one day and never told anyone.
My stomach felt hollow. The woman turned the knob and
the door creaked open. Inside everything was untouched. His work
bag sat on the chair, the straps slightly askew, like
he had tossed it there with the intention of picking
it up again. Soon, his coat hung on the wall,
neatly pressed, not a single sign of dust or rage.
On the desk, a pile of unopened males sat undisturbed.
I stepped forward slowly, the air thick around me, pressing
down on my shoulders like a weight I couldn't shake.
And then I saw it. A single sheet of paper,
placed neatly in the center of the desk was written
on the top. My hand shook as I reached for it.
The moment I touched it, I knew the handwriting was his.
If you're reading this, I'm still here. Something else took
my place. It knows everything I know. It acts like me,
but it isn't me. I don't know how long I
have left. I messed with something I shouldn't. It's afraid
of fire. I love you. My vision blurred slightly. I
wanted to collapse, to let the panic finally crash over me,
to break down the way my body was begging me to.
But I didn't, because now I knew it wasn't about
understanding what had happened. It wasn't about figuring out where
Daniel had gone or what had taken his place. It
was about stopping it. I folded the note carefully, sliding
it into my pocket. Then without another word, I turned
and walked out of the office. I wasn't going to run.
I was going to burn it alive. The house was
dark when I pulled into the driveway, its windows staring
back at me like empty eyes. The porch light was on,
casting a soft glow across the steps, and for a
split second, everything looked normal. But the moment I stepped inside,
I knew he was waiting for me. It stood in
the center of the living room, perfectly still, its hands
resting at its side. The expression on his face was
one of casual curiosity, but there was something wrong with it,
something in the way the corners of its mouth stretched
just a little too wide the way its eyes followed
me without blinking. Where have you been, it asked Daniel's voice.
I forced the smile, shrugging as I shut the door
behind me. Nowhere important. It didn't respond right away, It
just watched. The air felt heavy, thick with the weight
of what I knew was coming. Every instinct in my
body screamed at me to run, but I didn't. I couldn't.
I had to see this through. So I walked past it,
moving toward the kitchen, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
Its head turned slightly as I moved. You were acting
different tonight, it murmured. I laughed, softly, keeping my voice
light a long day. The thing smiled at that. I
clenched my jaw, pushing down the growing nausea curling in
my stomach. I couldn't let it sense my fear. Not yet.
I made it to the kitchen without breaking my stride.
The bottle of whiskey was already within reach, sitting on
the counter where we always kept it. I grabbed it.
The thing smiled, didn't falter, but something changed, a shift
in its posture, a slight tilt of the head, and then,
in a voice that was almost concerned, and asked, what
are you doing. I didn't answer. I unscrewed the cap,
turned the bottle over and poured. The dark liquid splashed
across the floor, soaking the old wooden panels, spreading in
uneven puddles toward the living room. The smell of alcohol
filled the air, sharp and potent. The thing's expression finally faltered,
its voice darkened. Stop. I didn't. I reached into my
pocket and pulled out the lighter. The click of the
flint wheels sounded deafening. In the silence, a single flame
flickered to life. The thing's mouth twisted into something unnatural.
I couldn't help but flinch. You don't want to do that,
it said, softly, But I did. I flicked my wrist,
dropped the flame, and the fire irrupted. The fire searched forward,
swallowing the floor in hungry waves, licking up the walls
with greedy fingers. It rushed outward, creeping up anything in sight.
Heat exploded against my skin, and in the middle of
it all, the thing screamed in rage. Its body convulsed,
twisting violently, as if something beneath the surface was trying
to break free. Its skin peeled away in strips, revealing
something underneath that wasn't flesh blackened, the bandages stretched, elongating,
writhing like smoke. Its hands curled into a strange amalgamation
of shapes and colors, skeletal in nature, but not quite
the suggestion of her head buckled and cracked, folding in
on itself, the remnants of its features disassembly like shattered porcelain.
It lunged at me. I stumbled backward, barely dodging as
one of its limbs whipped toward me, missing by inches.
The fire spread fast, swallowing the walls, curling around the windows,
devouring the curtains. The heat was unbearable, now, choking the air,
stealing my breath. The house was collapsing. I turned and ran.
I didn't stop, not when the walls groaned and cracked,
not when the ceiling above me shuddered. The front door
was only a few steps away. I could make it.
Behind me. The thing was screaming, but I didn't look back.
I threw myself outside, hitting the pavement hard, rolling on
to my side, gasping for air as the heat roared
behind me. I lifted my head just in time to
see the roof cave in, flames bursting through the structure,
sending embers flying into the night. The fire consumed everything,
turning my home into nothing more than a funeral pyre
for whatever had taken Daniel's place, and the thing inside
kept screaming until finally silence. For a long time, all
I could hear was the fire. The flames hissed and crackled,
devouring what was left of my home, filling the air
with thick, choking smoke. The heat pulsed against my skin
even from a distance. I sat there on the pavement,
my chest heaving, my fingers digging into the ground, my
body ate from the fall, my lungs burned from the
smoke movement, a shuffling sound barely audible over the roar
of the fire. My stomach clenched as I whipped my
head toward the house, my breath catching in my throat.
A shadow was moving inside the flames. Staggering, I froze,
unable to breathe, unable to move. My hands trembled as
I pushed myself up onto my knees, my entire body
bracing for whatever was coming, But then Daniel stepped forward.
His clothes were scorched, his face smeared with soot, his
hair a mess of ash and sweat. But his eyes,
his eyes were his, the same warm brown that I'd
memorized a thousand times over my real husband. I could
tell at a glance. He took one more shaky step
before his knees buckled, his body giving out, collapsing on
to the pavement. I barely had time to think before
I was running to him, my heart hammering against my ribs,
my hands grabbing his shoulders, his arms, his face. Tears
blurred my vision as I cupped his face, my fingers
trembling against his skin. I swallowed back the sob choking
in my throat, forcing my voice to be steady. For
a moment, neither of us said anything. His breath was weak,
barely there. My grip on him tightened, desperation, clawing at
my chest. But then he smiled, college he rasped. First
their orientation, Sarah introduced us. His voice was hoarse, but
sure you were wearing that ugly red sweater. A sob
broke from my lips. I pulled him against me, burying
my face into the crock of his neck, sobbing against
his skin, clutching him like if I let him go,
he would disappear again. His arms were weak, but he
wrapped them around me anyway, holding on with everything he
had left the house burned behind us. The doctors said
it was a miracle, minor burns, smoke in elation, nothing worse.
I sat beside his hospital bed, my fingers rapped tightly
around his. His hand was warm, solid his. Every so
often my grip would tightened, just to make sure he
was still there, and every time he would squeeze back.
The first time he woke up, he turned his head
towards me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, but clear. Hey,
he murmured, voice hoarse. I smiled, even as my eyes
stung with unshd tears. Hey, his lips curved into a small,
tired smile. You look like hell, I laughed, tumbled from
my throat, shaky but genuine. Yeah. Well, I sniffed, swiping
and my eyes. So do you