Speaker 1: The train pulled into Slangming station under a pale, graying sky,
snow lined the tracks, packed tight and dirty, with a
wind that pushed it against the platform. I stepped out first,
drawing a deep breath of air that felt sharper than
anything I was used to. Will was right next to me,
dragging his stuffel bag by his shoulder strap and grinning
despite his nose already turning pink. We took a shuttle
from Slanding upped Aramseau and d Eystein, which clung to
the edge of the alpine slope. Every building looked older
than it probably was, with sharply pitched roofs thick with snow,
wooden balconies stacked with chopped firewood, and narrow windows that
glowed faintly orange. As evening settled over the ridge, the
main street was quiet. A few bundled up figures walked
with purpose, but didn't linger. Every step we took echoed
between the buildings. The air smiled faintly of pine and smoke.
Albin and Marcus were already waiting at the guesthouse when
we arrived. They stood near the steps, both taller than
I expected. Albin wore a heavy black coat zipped to
his throat, a thick beanie pulled low. Marcus looked more relaxed,
leaning against the wooden railing, smoking a cigarette, his backpack
at his feet. Meeting them for the first time felt surreal.
We'd spoken for almost a year online, but there was
still something odd about standing face to face. You get
so used to that screen buffer that seeing your online
friends in real life is almost uncanny. Will went right
up to shake their hands, already launching some sort of
joke aft, though I could tell it was more polite
than genuine. We were the odd ones out, and it
showed they were the outdoor kids and we were the
indoor type. I kept my hands buried deep in my
coat pockets, trying not to look too obvious. We checked
into the guest house. I remember sitting down on the
bed and peeling off my gloves, the tip of my
fingers numb and slow to respond. I was in use
to this kind of cold. Marcus brought out the maps,
unfolded one across the table between us, and we all
crouched around it. The trail they picked out looped around
the base of Hue Dashstein, curving through steep sections of
alpine forest before veering off into more isolated ridge lines.
It would take several days, but nothing they claimed we
couldn't handle. We double checked our gear before dinner. Everyone
had the basics. Insulated jackets, thermal base layers, crampons that
we wouldn't actually need, ultra light sleeping bags, collapsible cookware,
freeze dried meals, snow goggles, and small fire starting kits.
Each of us carried a knife, nothing large, just those
small practical blades meant for wood shaving, rope cutting and
food prep. Mind fit in the side pocket of my pack,
half the handle wrapped in red tape to make it
easier to find by torch. That night, we walked through
the quiet village and stopped at a small restaurant tucked
between a bakery and a church. Inside it was warm,
a stark difference compared to the outside. The food was heavy,
rich with gravy, and the portions looked fit for men.
Twice sighs. The locals didn't speak much, and when they did,
their tone was clipped and curt They weren't rude, but
there was no welcome in their eyes either. You could
tell they'd forget about us as soon as their eyes
wandered somewhere else. Still, none of us cared. We could
tell they weren't being rude. That's just how it was
around here. We were set to head out the next day.
Everything was packed, charged, checked, and sorted. We were ready,
or at least we thought we were. Morning came with
a hard chill that clung to my neck even after
I layered up. The sky outside the guesthouse window looked
washed in pale blue, broken only by faint streaks of
serious clouds that barely moved. We ate quick loaded our
packs and met in the narrow gravel lot out front.
Marcus checked his watch and gave a nod as if
to formerly signal the beginning of something. I tightened the
straps of my pack, and glancing at Will, who looked
too pleased with himself for some one who hadn't hiked
more than a few city parks, We set out through
the village on foot, snow crunched beneath our boots, packed
just enough to give way with every step, but not
deep enough to slow us down. The trailhead sat just
past the line of spruce trees on the edge of town,
marked with a worn wooden post and a frost bitten
map encased in fogged plastic. Their poles clicked rhythmically against
the frozen path. Will and I trowled slightly behind, mostly
because we kept stopping to take pictures. He'd pause every
few minutes to make some stupid comment about posing against
the trees or pretending to fight off imaginary bears. I
told him to save the battery, but he kept doing
it anyway. The forest around us grew denser as we climbed,
The wind stayed still, branches drooped under the weight of
snow that looked older than the season. I began to
notice that the snow was getting deeper. It hadn't looked
that thick when we left the village, but up here
it gathered around our ankles and sometimes higher. Marcus called
back to make sure we were keeping pace, and I
gave him a thumbs up without saying much. I didn't
want to admit how quickly the cold was biting through
my gloves were how my calves had started their ache already.
Then we saw a rusted metal sign nailed to the
side of a pine tree. After the right of the trail,
snow had crusted around its edges, bending against the face
plate where the metal had bowed outward. It wasn't bright
enough to reflect anything, but it caught our attention because
it didn't match the wood markers we'd been following. Marcus
stepped off the trail first and cleared some of the
snow with his gloved hand. The red lettering emerged beneath it,
streaked with rust Geschlausen Vigan on Vetta geffar close due
to severe weather. We stood there for a moment. The
sky above remained crystal clear. Albin gave a short laugh
and said someone had forgotten to take it down after
the last tourist season. Will nodded along, already pulling his
phone from his pocket to take a photo of it,
saying it would make a great inside joke. Later, we'd
been delayed by nearly two weeks. Flights got canceled whether
elsewhere turned unpredictable. Marcus said most trails this high didn't
see real traffic this time of year anyway, so some
one forgetting to take this down wasn't too weird. The
trail beyond the sign dipped slightly before rising again toward
a distant line of trees. Snow covered rock jotted up
beyond the forest, and above that the pale crown of
the mountain sat framed against the sky. We stepped past
the sign and kept going. It just looked like a
short cut, and we wanted this trip to be memorable,
so why not do the stupid thing. We'd been walking
for nearly two hours when Will slowed down beside me
and pointed toward the ground ahead. I looked where he gestured,
squinting against the glare. There in the snow, just past
the sloped patch of trail, where the trees thinned, a
set of footprints curved gently off to the left. The
edges were sharp, the indentations clean, not yet softened by
wind or drifting snow. The pattern suggested boots, maybe slightly
smaller than Albin's but deeper than mine. They cut across
the slope and disappeared into a thicker patch of forest
that veered away from the main trail. Marcus was already
moving toward them before any of us spoke. He crouched down,
pressing two fingers into the nearest print, and nodded to himself.
Someone came through recently, he said, lifting his hand and
brushing off his glove. Probably this morning, Albin came up
beside him and followed the line of tracks with his eyes.
Looks like they were heading northwest. Might be going to
that outer ridge. Will and I exchanged the glance. We
were excited. Every step we took on the empty trail
gave the impression that we were moving through something abandoned.
I mean, we knew it wasn't, but given the fact
that we arrived here during the off season, we had
already kind of accepted that we wouldn't be seeing too
many hikers here. Seeing footprints, even from a stranger, meant
someone else was out here. We were excited to make friends,
meet new people, and hear new stories. Will gave a
grin and said we should tried to catch up. He
said it would be good to meet someone who actually
knew these paths. I agreed, though part of me suspected
he just wanted a break from trailing behind Marcus and Albin,
who barely seemed winded, while Will and I already felt
the ache in our legs. The path feared gradually up here,
but there were no trail markers in sight. The ground
was uneven and covered in layers of snow that looked
older than what we'd been hiking through earlier. Branches lay
half buried in the snow. Many snapped at their middles,
as if from weight rather than age. The trees grew
closer together here the light filtered through in a canopy
that seemed lower than before, despite the fact we were climbing.
Marcus stayed ahead, eyes down, occasionally checking the spacing of
the Prince. Albin troiled close behind him. Will and I
moved slower, watching our footing through the sections where the
snow dipped into holes beneath tangled roots. The air had
changed as well. I hadn't noticed it until then, but
the breeze had faded. There was no wind brushing across
my ears. Every now and then I looked up and
scanned the fire, expecting to see movement between the trunks
or hearing distant voices. Nothing. Whoever walked through here must
have been experienced, I thought to myself. Before princes showed
no signs of backtracking or double checking. Eventually, Will muttered
that we should have caught up by now. He wasn't wrong.
The prince had looked fresh when we found them. They
should have led us to someone really showed signs that
the person had stopped. There had been nothing. Still, none
of us said we should turn back. The idea of
meeting someone, anyone had become a silent goal, so we
kept walking, eyes locked on the tracks, boots pressing into
snow that had only been disturbed by one person before us.
The climb began to wear on us. After another hour,
the slope had steepened gradually enough, though it was barely noticeable,
the air had thinned, and each breath started to carry
a raw edge. Will was the first to speak up.
He stopped and lean forward, hands resting on his knees,
his breath fogging him burst as he looked over at Alban.
We need a break, he said, not quite out of breath,
but close. Albin didn't argue. He dropped his pack into
the snow and pulled off his gloves to flex his fingers,
red from cold. Marcus, who had been ahead by a
few meters, turned back and raised an eyebrow. I could
see from his expression that he didn't want to stop.
He looked back down at the trail, then at me,
as if asking for confirmation. The prince still looked fresh.
The snow around them hadn't softened or filled in whoever
we were following couldn't have been far. I told him
we'd keep going just for a few minutes. If we
didn't see anything soon, we'd turn around and meet back here.
Will looked up and gave a lazy wave. Already digging
in his pack for a protein bar, Albin muttered something
about starting a small fire. While they waited, The forest
grew denser with each step. The trees were spaced more tightly,
their branches reaching inward, creating a canopy that filtered the
light and gave everything a dull gray tint. Some of
the trunks had twisted and broken unnaturally, Bark peeled in strips,
and several trees sagged in the middle, as if something
heavy was on top of them. Heavier than snow. Branches
lay broken across the path, not snapped by storm or wind,
but fractured at clean angles. Many buried half way beneath
the snow, as though they had dropped vertically. If I
didn't know any better, I'd have assumed a monkey was
climbing around here. The branches dropping and snapping under the weight.
Then the prince stopped. We both saw it at the
same time. Marcus slowed, then came to a full stop.
I stepped forward to join him and stared at the
snow ahead. The trail had continued in a clear pattern
until this point, deep indentations in a single line. Heeled
to toe, spaced evenly, and then nothing. The track simply ended,
a clean line of prints that led into untouched snow.
I crouched down and brushed at the powder with my glove.
The surface resisted. There was no hidden depressions beneath. I
looked left and right. The snow in both directions stretched
out without disturbance. Marcus spoke up and gave a sturdy explanation.
Snow must have fallen in that section earlier. Maybe a
small drift had covered them up. It was plausible. Marcus
glanced behind us, then turned and started walking back. I
followed without speaking. The forest around us creaked slowly. Somewhere
far off, a branch cracked. When we got back, the
forest had started the dim The light no longer filted
cleanly through the trees, shadows had stretched across the clearing,
and the smoke from the fire drifted unevenly in the air.
Albin crouched beside the flames, turning something over in a
small steel pan, the handle wrapped in cloth to keep
it from freezing fingers. Will sat on a fallen tree trunk,
gloved hands copped around a plastic mug, steam rising from
whatever he had mixed inside. They had already pitched the tents.
They stood a few meters from the fire, staked into
the packed snow, with robes strung around buried stones. Will
looked up as we stepped into the light of the
fire and raised his eyebrows. No lock. Marcus shook his
head and dropped his pack next to a tent. Tracks
just stopped. He said, looked like snow covered them. That
explanation satisfied. Everyone handed us balls and divided the food.
Some dehydrated stew he had rehydrated with melted snow. It
tasted overly salty and the texture left something to be desired,
but none of us complained. The heat settled into my stomach,
pulled the tension I hadn't realized had built up. We
drank from metal cups filled with warm, powdered cider that
Marcus had packed for morale. The taste reminded me of
something from a childhood field trip, though I couldn't remember where.
Will tried to tell a story, but eventually started forgedin
where he was going with it, which made it funnier.
Alpin snorted through his nose, which nearly spilled his drink.
I caught myself smiling while we were conversing. It had
started the snow. It didn't fall heavy. The flakes drifted
down in slow spirals, catching the light of the fire
and tumbling through it before landing soundlessly around us. The
flames flickered orange and yellow, casting moving shadows into the trees,
then out of nowhere. Conversation was interrupted. Sh shut up,
The words cut through the laughter. We all stopped moving.
The only sound for a moment was the hiss of
the melting snow on the edge of the pan. Then
I heard it, faint but clear. Crunch, crunch, crunch. It
came in slow intervals, snow compacting underweight, not loud enough
to be something big, but still close enough to be dangerous.
They circled the sound, moved behind the trees, disappeared, then
returned again from another wrangle. Marcus stood, He looked toward
the direction of the sound, eyes narrowed, postured tight. Hey.
He shouted, something moved a thooding scramble pressed into the
snow and broke it apart four point rhythm heavy enough
to echo off the surrounding trees. I glimpsed the shadow
moving between trunks, long enough to scense mass. Then it
was gone. No one moved for several seconds. The forest
turned to stillness, its wolves. Albin said he didn't try
to dress it up. Will open his mouth, probably to joke,
but closed it again. He looked at me, then at
the tree line. We decided to sleep. Soon after that.
No one wanted to say it out loud, but a
presence like this was enough for us to want to
cut this specific hike short. We could go to a
different trail, and being in the presence of wolves while
off trail didn't seem like a fun time. When morning came,
I stepped out of the tent, boots crunching as I
shifted weight onto half frozen ground, and I saw them prints,
dozens of them, all around the tent. The snow had
recorded every step in perfect detail. Some had pressed so
close to the nylon that I could see whether paws
had shifted mid stride. They circled in low, looping arcs.
Some approached the tent directly, then turned away again. A
few branched off into the woods before rejoining the others.
Marcus walked up beside me and led out a low breath.
Albin came out next, squinting in the morning light, then
staring at the ground. Will followed and whistled through his teeth.
Let's move. We packed in silence. The tents came down quickly,
my hands moving with more speed than coordination. We started moving,
and after about two hours of walking, we finally admitted
what we didn't want to the original trail we had followed.
The prints we had chased were gone. The snowfall had
raised them. Not even a partial indentation remained. There was
no path to retrace. Marcus adjusted the strap across his
chest and looked north. We followed the sun we head low.
None of us had a better idea, so we walked.
We moved in silence for the rest of the day.
The snow had deepened again, and each step sank further
than the last. The slope dipped in places, then rose
without warning, forcing us to stop and catch our breath
more often than before. The sunlight filtered through the trees
in pale shafts, but none of it felt warm. Everyone
stopped speaking. At this point. Will had not said anything
for over an hour, which felt unnatural coming from him.
Albin occasionally looked behind us. Marcus walked ahead, his shoulders squared,
presumably in an attempt to fake confidence. I began to
notice movement. It started with a flicker just outside my
filter vision, something moving between the trees. I couldn't make
out exactly what it was, but I knew it was there.
The shape appeared again, further along a bulk, sliding from
one trunk to the next, then freezing. When I looked
at it, the others had seen it too, I could tell.
Will walked closer to me than before. His eyes fixed ahead,
though they twitched toward the sides. When he thought no
one was watching, he rubbed the back of his neck.
His mouth opened once, then closed again, without saying anything.
We continued on without speaking, our boots dragged. No one
looked behind us anymore. We knew we were being followed
by the wolves, but running was out of the question.
We were too afraid of them giving chase. It was
Albin who stopped first. His legs gave out on a
patch of uneven snow, and he dropped to one knee.
He didn't curse or complain. He just stayed there, shoulders
rising and falling. The rest of us gathered around him
without deciding to. We had reached our limit. The clearing
we stopped him was only a small gap between the trees,
with the slope leveled out for a few meters. It
wasn't much, but it was enough. Marcus set down his
pack and began unpacking the tent without waiting for agreement.
There was no discussion this time. We were all feeling
the pressure. We didn't split off into separate tents. We
needed to be in one place. We didn't cook. No
one gathered firewood. We opened vacuum sealed meal packs and
chewed through them without warming them up. The food was
dense and cold. My teeth ached with every bite. Will
passed around a canteen of melted snow mixed with sugar tablets.
Four bodies pressed into one space with barely enough room
to stretch out. Our bags lined the edges, our boots
remained on. Each of us kept a knife in our hand.
The fabric walls moved faintly whenever the wind pushed through
the trees, and I watched the seams, with a growing
certainty that something stood just beyond them. I woke up
sometime in the early hours. My body throbbed from the
awkward angle I'd been lying in in the air inside
the tent had cooled into something sharp. My breath turned
into mist and faded just above my face. I remained
still ears, straining. Something had woken me up. There was
movement outside. I heard the sound of paws pressing into snow,
one step, then another, slow, measured It moved in circles
around us. Once more I could hear it, or them sniffing.
I turned my head. Will was awake, so was everyone else.
Their eyes were wide, their faces expressionless. Marcus had his
knife in one hand, held just beneath the sleeping bag.
His knuckles had gone pale. We all turned our heads
in unison as a tearing of cloth rang out in
the tent. Cloth was pulled tight, threads separating. A line
opened along the corner, slow at first, then wider. The
cold surged inward. A shape pushed through the teir. The
wolf's head appeared. At first, its eyes caught what little
light came through the snow, reflecting a dull liquid yellow.
Its muzzle opened, I saw the teeth just before it lunged.
It clamped down on my shoulder with sudden weight, and
heat exploded across my collar bone. My scream rang out
in my own ears. The tent collapsed into chaos. Everyone
moved at once, arms flailed, blades flashing. I stepped through
the dark with my free hand, the knife barely penetrating
through thick fur and skin. The wolf snarled, its body jerking.
Albin hit it in the side. Marcus drove his knife
into its ribs. Will stabbed at the shoulder and trembling.
The cuts were shallow, but they came fast and wild.
The wolf twisted, trying to pull back its legs, kicked,
its jaw loosened. I kept stabbing until my arm gave out.
Blood covered the floor of the tent, soaking into my
shirt and pulling in the folds of the sleeping bag.
Then the animal fell. Its body went limp, its mouth
hung open. I couldn't tell if it was breathing. As
we waited for another one of them to enter the tent,
all of us shaking from adrenaline, we turned our attention
to a noise we hadn't noticed during the scuffle, but
was present all throughout, thrashing, thumping, then whining, then silence
again side the tent. We did not speak. We waited.
No one moved. For several seconds after the wolf went silent.
My breath came in short bursts, each one shorter than
the last. Blood soaked the left side of my jacket,
hot where it had spread cold in some places. The
knife in my hand felt heavy, slick, and unsteady. Albin's
arm trembled beside me, the blade in his fist still raised,
though his eyes were locked on the tent wall, waiting
for another sound, but nothing ever came. Will leaned forward first,
his fingers reached out hesitant and gently pulled at the
corner of the torn tent wall. The flap peeled open, slowly,
held together by threads that had not fully ripped. He
peeped through just a narrow glance at first, then widened
the opening with both hands. He did not speak. Marcus
leaned over and looked. Alban moved next. I stayed still,
pressing one hand into the bite of my shoulder, the
other gripping the tent pole for balance. When they stepped
out into the snow, I followed the ground surrounding our
camp had been torn apart. A single branch lay at
the ground at the edge of camp, one that wasn't
there when we got here. Wolves lay scattered across the
snow in every direction. Some had been thrown against trees,
Others were collapsed in contorted positions, limbs bent at angles
that suggested violent force. Fur was matted with blood and
patches of ice. One had its rib cage split open,
and another lay without a jaw. A third was missing its
front legs entirely. Their bodies stretched beyond the perimeter of
our camp. The snow around them had been trampled. Massive
prints stamped into the crust, some deeper than others, forming
erratic patterns. They were roughly human in shape, though the
spacing and depth made no sense. Some stood close together,
others stretched meters apart. Albin stood near the edge of
the clearing Markers paced in a slow circle around one
of the larger corpses. Will just stood with his arms
hanging at his sides, the knife still dangling from his hand.
I sat on the packed snow and pulled my jacket
off slowly. The wound throbbed beneath my shirt. The skin
had been punctured in three places where the teeth had
broken through. Albin knelt beside me and opened the medkit.
He poured water over the bite, wrapped goree around the arm,
and tied it in place with strips of clean fabric.
Marcus stood guard without speaking. We didn't even wonder about
the human footprints around. We had no more energy or
will power to ask questions. We just started moving solemnly again.
We left our tent there. We just walked without a
clear direction for what felt like ours. We saw something
familiar in the snow. Ahead of us. A narrow set
of footprints ran parallel to our path. Human, the edges sharp,
just as the last ones had been. Hope did not
need to be acknowledged. It passed between us at a
shared current, carried by the possibility of someone ahead, a
trail to follow, a direction to believe in. We stepped
into the line of print and followed them through the trees.
We didn't even ask one another what another human was
doing here, or how the footprints just appeared in the
middle of nowhere without any prior tracks. The trail curved
slightly ahead, then narrowed. We walked for fifteen minutes, maybe more.
The prince continued in a clear path. Then they stopped.
The ending came abruptly, just like before. We paused for
a moment, contemplating our next move. It was Marcus. We
saw it first. His arm rose slowly, fingers stiff, and
he pointed upward. We followed his gaze. There so spended
between the highest limbs of a pine several meters ahead.
Something watched us. Its forms stretched unnaturally broad through the chest,
its shoulders round it with thick cords of frozen muscle,
completely frostbitten. The surface of its body was torn and pitted.
Segments of skin looked burnt or blistered, with patches missing entirely.
Coarse fir clung to sections of its frame, but most
of it had been rubbed away or never grown at all.
Long antlers covered in moss, and what looked like veins
of black frost jotted from either side of its head.
Its eyes met mine. They were green, unmoving and wide.
Its legs hung beneath it, short and pale, but unmistakably human.
They swung slightly in the breeze, too small to support
something of that mass, as if borrowed from something else,
and crudely attached. The branches creaked beneath its weight. Then
they broke. The thing dropped. It struck the ground with
a blunt thud that sent snow upward in a ring
around it. The limbs absorbed the fall, then flexed. The
body shifted towards us. It reached out with both arms,
gripped Marcus by the waist, and lifted him into the air.
He didn't even have time to scream. The creature slammed
him into the snow once twice, then flung him against
the tree trunk. His body folded and broke at the base.
We ran in different directions, each of us, driven by
the instinct to survive, moved before my thoughts caught up.
The air tore past my face, thick with snow and
the sharp scent of blood. I did not call out
or checked to see where the others were. Branches tore
at my sleeves, The terrain blurred, trees passed in rapid succession.
I tripped once, fell into a bank of snow, then
scrambled out without feeling the pain. My shoulder burned from
the wound, every cholt, sending a wave of nausea up
to my neck. I could not stop, I could not
breathe without hearing the echo of that thing hid in
the ground. At some point, the slope began to descend.
The snow thickened underfoot, and the trees opened into a
familiar pattern. I recognized the broken trunk on the right,
a line of disturbed snow running through the clearing. I
knew the scorch marks and the tree the first fire
had been built. I had returned to the first camp.
The tent still stood in fragments. Blood had frozen in
streaks along the entrance. The bodies of the wolves had
begun to settle into the snow, their outlines softened by
frost and time. Nothing moved. I dropped to my knees
beside the tent and crawled inside. The sleeping bag remained
in a heap, twisted from the fight. I found the
one I had used and pulled it around me. The
zipper barely functioned, jammed from the torn lining. I shoved
myself deep into the fabric, got into the warmest shape
I could manage, and tried to slow my breathing. Outside
the forest remained silent. I waited in the shadows until
my muscles refused to respond. The first sound I heard
came with a crunch of packed snow and the low
hum of an engine. I remained still, at first, unsure
if I had imagined it. Then I heard voices, one male,
one female, speaking German, Moro Austrian. Then a second engine closer.
I pushed my head from the sleeping bag and looked
toward the torn edge of the tent. Two figures approached
on foot. The jackets bore patches mountain patrol. Behind them,
a snowmobile idle near the edge of the trees, its
tracks buried in a swirl of powder. One of them
knelt beside the tent, then leaned back and called over
a radio. The other moved toward me, Crouching low. He
spoke to me, calmly, asking my name, asking if I
was alone. I nodded. He asked if I was injured.
I pointed to my shoulder. I tried to speak, but
the words came out hoarse and correct. I started to explain.
I told him about my friends, about the creature and
what it had done. He listened, but his face did
not change. He placed the hand of my wrist, told
me to stay still, and wrapped a blanket over my back.
Later I would learn why they had come. The wolves
we had encountered belonged to a monitored pack. Each carried
an implant tracker used by conservation authorities to study movement
and behavior. According to the data, the signals all stopped
within the same thirty minute window. That kind of mass
failure had never occurred before. They assumed poachers. They dispatched patrols,
and they found me. I somehow ended up getting a
lawyer who spoke and clipped English, told me to cooperate
and say as little as possible. An article would come
out later. Taurus, accused of a legal wolf killing, faces
sentencing on Friday. They said trauma had distorted my memory
from what they theorized. Cold and blood loss created hallucinations.
My judgment was fractured after experiencing a traumatic event. The
conversation laws were strict. Wolves in this region were protected
under the national and EU policy. Killing even one carried
prison time, and I had been found in a camp
surrounded by corpses. My story was never considered. I served
twenty months. The job offer came as an email with
no company logo, no sender information beyond a string of
numbers and a subject line that just read conductor position,
private contract. I'd been out of work for months, barely
scraping by and scam emails for nothing new, But when
I opened it, the details made me pause. The pay
was astronomical, six times what I'd ever made running freight
trains for a single ride. The hours were vague, but
the message emphasized discretion, reliability, and the ability to work alone.
There was a number at the bottom. I called, half
expecting a disconnected line or a robotic scam message. Instead,
a man entered on the first ring. He introduced himself
only as a recruiter for a private client and asked
if I was available to meet the next day. No
company name, no office address, just a location, a roadside
diner off a highway. I went, of course. The diner
was nearly empty when I arrived. The man was waiting
for me, sitting at a booth near the back. He
wore a black suit, a crisp tie to match, and
a dull expression. He didn't even introduce himself properly, just
gestured for me to sit. There wasn't any small talk.
He slid a contract across the table. You'll receive a
list of instructions, he said, voice flat, read them on
your job site. They are non negotiable. Ah, all right,
what kind of instructions? A pause? Then I tried again.
I looked up at the recruiter. What kind of train
is this? His expression didn't change. Just follow the instructions.
Everything else is self explanatory. Then he pointed to something
in the middle of the contract, a single bolded line.
If you break any instructions, press the red button on
the center console immediately. Someone will tell you what to do.
I almost laughed. And if they don't, the recruiter didn't
blink or say a word, just stared. After a long silence,
he tapped the contract again. Sign The private station was
nothing like I expected. It was tucked away in a
dead end road beyond an industrial lot, surrounded by rusted
fences and half collapsed buildings, no signs or employees, just
the set of old but pristine tracks and a sleek,
immaculate train waiting for me in the dark. The train
looked like it belonged in a billionaire's collection, long streamlined,
gleaming under the dim platform lights. The exterior was spotless,
not a single scratch or sign of wear, boarded the
conductor's entrance and stepped into the control cabin. The cabin
smelled like fresh polish. Every dial, switch and lever was
perfectly placed, modern yet oddly unfamiliar. There was no dust,
not a single clue to indicate this train had ever
actually been used. The chair was stiff and the seat
belt untouched, and the passenger cars were almost completely empty.
No boarding crew or a bit of luggage here and there.
No clients were anywhere to be seen. I had no
idea where I was going, who owned this train, or
what I was transporting, if anything. I sat down on
the chair and picked up a laminated sheet sitting on
top of the control panel. The instructions the train must
never stop, no matter what happens. Keep moving. Do not
open any passenger doors. No one should be on board.
If you hear knocking from inside an empty car, ignore it.
If some one appears on the tracks, do not slow down.
Do not look at them in the rear view mirror.
At exactly two thirteen a m. Turn off all cabin
lights for three minutes. Do as instructed. Thereafter. If the
intercom comes on but no one speaks, respond by saying
we are on schedule. Then do not speak again for
exactly five minutes. One of the train cars will be
filled with passengers. Do not acknowledge them, do not look
at them. Do not enter the car. If you see
some one sitting on the conductor's seat. When you return
from a break, leave the train immediately. You will not
be able to board again. You may see another train
running parallel to yours. If this happens, do not look
at it for longer than ten seconds. If you break
an instruction, press the red button immediately. Someone will call
you with further instructions. I read them once, then again.
My first thought was, what kind of sick joke is this?
I glanced around the cabin, expecting cameras, some hidden speaker
system ready to blare out a voice laughing at my reaction,
But I was only met with ornate and beautiful decorations
that adorn the corners and walls of the control cabin.
I scoffed, shaking my head. I'd heard of companies testing
new hires to see how much crab they'd put up with,
but I wasn't sure. A scare tactic, maybe some over
the top to keep conductors focused on the job. But
why the hell, woere they need to? It's a train.
You follow the schedule, watch the tracks, and keep things moving.
What was all this about knocking doors and not looking
at passengers? I rubbed my temples. Whatever if they wanted
me to play along, and I'd play along as long
as the paycheck cleared, they could put all the weird
rules they wanted. The train pulled out of the station, smoothly,
gliding over the tracks with barely a tremor. The engine
was quieter than anything I'd operated before, smooth to the
point I couldn't even tell when I was moving when
I closed my eyes. I barely had to touch the
controls for the first hour, not much to not tappen,
and just endless stretches of empty fields and dense forests
rolling past under the dim glow of the moon. The
rails were calming. For a moment, I actually thought this
might be the easiest job I'd ever had. Then the
intercom crackled a burst of static, sharp and sudden, filled
the cabin. I turned instinctively, waiting for an announcement, for
some kind of instruction. I frowned, tapping the panel, flipping
a few switches to clear the channel. Still nothing. My
eyes wandered to the list of rules sitting next to me.
Number six. If the intercom comes on but no one speaks,
respond by saying we are on schedule, then do not
speak again for exactly five minutes. I almost hesitated. It
was stupid, right, just a dumb corporate rule, a test
to see if I would comply. I was sure of it.
I cleared my throat. We uh, we are on schedule.
Something had changed, but I couldn't tell what it was. Immediately,
some sort of pressure started rubbing against my skin. The
hum of the engine felt further away, like I was
sinking underwater while everything else drifted above me. I stared
straight ahead, forcing myself to focus on the tracks. Four minutes.
The longer I sat there, the worse it got. My
head started ringing and I couldn't keep my eyes focused.
Three minutes, the hairs and my arms stood up. The
air smelled different, now charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
Two minutes I was entirely hitched in place. One minute
the feeling past, just like that. The weight lifted, the
engine sounded normal again. I checked the clock. Five minutes exactly,
I exhaled slowly, what the hell was that. My mind
started wondering with ideas from conspiracy theory documentaries. I've been
watching brainwashing people into specific radio waves and such. But
I brushed it aside and kept moving. The train sped forward,
the night stretched out ahead of me. A blur of
my movement flashed just ahead, right as I was starting
to relax and put the strange feeling aside. I concentrated
as the shape moved out of the trees to the
left and right onto the tracks, fast enough that I
couldn't properly register it. The headlights cut across the rails,
and my stomach lurched. Someone was standing right on the tracks,
a man. His clothes were loose, billowing in the wind,
even though the night was clear. His outline was blurry,
but I was closing in on him quickly. He didn't move.
My fingers twitched toward the brakes. I had to stop.
I remembered number four. If someone appears in the tracks,
do not slow down. Do not look at them in
the rear view mirror. Every muscle in my body screamed
at me to hit the brakes, but I willed myself
to stop. I don't know what made me think hitting
a man with a train was going to be justified
by any instruction or rule. But I'd no time for
second thoughts. The train plowed through him, no impact or thud.
I looked around, panicking. I couldn't believe what I'd just done.
My heart hammered, and I snapped my gaze to the
rear view camera, then stopped myself. I couldn't look. I
forced my eyes back to the controls, gripping the levers tightly.
The train rattled slightly as it shot forward, speeding into
the black. I let go of the levers, pulse raising.
It was fine, just the trick of the light, astray
thor getting tangled with the night. If I had actually
hit something, the results would have been catastrophic. I was
going ninety five miles per hour. A train this size
going at that speed would make some sort of noise,
hitting even a leaf. I led out a slow breath,
trying to shake the tension off, reminding myself of the
money waiting for me at the end of it. These
rules were making me forget that I'd been doing this
exact job for years. This was going to be no different.
I was just nervous and overanalyzed everything, so I guess
the rules worked. My mind started to wonder. There wasn't
much to do while the train ran, just miles of dark,
empty landscape stretching out ahead. My mind drifted, skimming over
the rows of dials and switches, then settling almost absent mindedly,
and the passenger monitors. Someone was sitting in one of
the previously empty chairs, same loose, billowing clothes, same blurred,
indistinct face, the same man I'd seen on the tracks.
I blinked hard. What I had checked the entire train
before departing. Every car was empty. I would have seen him.
There was no way I missed someone had he been
here the whole time. There had to be a logical explanation.
Maybe I'd just been too focused on the startup sequence,
going through the motions without really seeing the empty cars.
It wouldn't have been the first time. Or maybe I'd
just spaced out long haul conductors to it all the time.
You get used to the routine, your mind drifts and
things blur together. Yeah that was It didn't matter. Chances
were this was some rich big shot I was transporting,
and he wanted a train all to himself, maybe even
hid from me somehow, on purpose. I shook the tension
from my hands and calmed down. The train was moving,
everything was running, and I even had a passenger. Now
I knew what I was transporting. As long as I
followed the schedule, I'd be fine. Outside the world slipped
by in streaks of dark green and silver, thick forest,
stretching endlessly into the night. The hum of the engine
filled the cabin, steady, and even a rhythmic pulse beneath
my finger tips miles of emptiness ahead, miles of emptiness behind.
Then out of nowhere, a slow, steady tap, tap tap
against one of the cabin doors. I straightened in my seat,
eyes flicking toward the control panel. The passenger cars were
still empty. Apart from the man. Nothing had changed, and
yet the knocking persisted. I reread the rules, rule three.
If you hear knocking from inside an empty car, ignore it.
I did my best, the focus forward, pretending it wasn't happening,
but the knocking grew louder, bam bam bam, like someone
was hammering their fists against the metal, trying to break through. Desperate,
I felt a sensation in my chest, a deep frustration,
I was tired, I was irritated, and I was done
playing along with these stupid rules. They had driven me
to such delusion that I thought I'd hit someone. I
stood up. My boots thudded against the floor as I
strode back into the passenger cabins, heart pounding as I followed.
The sound the knocking led me to cast six. I
hesitated the rules says to ignore it. I inhaled sharply,
my hand hovering over the latch. What was I expecting
a prank, a malfunctioning door. If it was any of those,
I was entirely ready for the consequences. These rules were
taking a toll on me, making me imagine things that
weren't even there. I just break this one rule, proved
myself right, and get on with my shift. I unlatched
the lock and swung the door open. The cabin was
completely empty. No people, no luggage, no sign of life
at all, except for the footprints. They stretched across the
floor in a perfect trail, starting right in front of
me and disappearing into the next car. The footprints were dirty, muddy,
like someone had just stepped inside. A shiver crawled up
my spine, A feeling deep inside me, screaming that I
had just made a mistake. Before that thought could fully manifest,
I was thrown off balance. The train started slowing down.
The air around me lurched, and I grabbed the doorframe
to steady myself. The train was losing speed, but I
hadn't touched anything. I spun, rushing back to the control cabin,
my breath coming faster now. My eyes flicked to the dashboard.
Every system was still active. The speed should have been constant,
but the train was steadily slowing down. The radio crackled again,
a burst of static, followed by a voice warped and distorted,
like it was dragging itself through the speakers. Why did
you stop, my palls hammered against my ribs. I I didn't.
The brakes when engaged. The emergency systems weren't triggered. The
train was stopping on its own. I grabbed the controls,
yanking the throat, trying to force it back to speed.
It wouldn't respond. Outside the front window, the landscape crawled by,
slower and slower, until the train finally completely halted silence.
Shortly after movement beyond the trees, just at the edge
of the dim platform lights. Figures were emerging from the darkness,
dozens of them, tall and thin, the limbs stretching at
unnatural angles as they moved toward the train in slow,
balanced steps, not rushing, just walking. A mechanical hiss cut
through everything. I snapped my head toward the monitors, a
cold pit forming in my stomach. The train doors were
opening once again. I hadn't touched the controls. My hands
were still clenched around the throttle, my knuckles white. The
system hadn't even indicated a stop. We weren't supposed to stop,
and yet the door slid open smoothly. Outside the figures
stepped forward. One by one. They emerged from the trees,
their shapes flickering against the dim glow of the train's lights.
They moved like they had all the time in the world.
The first one stepped inside, then another, and another, filling
the empty cars. I could see them on the monitors,
standing in the aisles, in the seats, occupying every available space,
yet never moving. I swore quietly, my finger flying over
the dashboard, searching for anything, some kind of override, an
emergency restart that failsafe. Nothing worked. I tried the radio.
I flipped the breakers. I jammed the throttle forward, no results.
Outside the figures had started boarding. The doors remained open
none how the figures did anything but stare blankly forward.
I felt panic rise up in my chest, real panic.
My pulse roared in my ears. Why is the train
not moving? My eyes darted to the red button. I
slammed my palm against it. The radio crackled a life instantly, Hello,
My voice came out sharp, panicked. I didn't do anything.
The train stopped on its own. You broke a rule.
My throat tightened, but before I could say anything, the
voice continued, Do not acknowledge them, they are the passengers.
Now keep driving until the last stop, and do not
break any more rules. Stay vigilant. A low clunk echoed
through the cabin. The door slid shut. I tried moving
the train again, and as smoothly as the first time,
it started moving forward. I press my lips together, keeping
my gaze locked forward. The intercom stayed silent, and the
train sped back into the night. The tension never left
my body. My fingers remained locked around the controls, stiff
and aching, my forearms hurting from the strain. I refused
to look back, not even a glance. There was an
overwhelming sense that if I did, if I so much
as acknowledged their existence again, I would not be in
for a good time. After a while of total stillness, monotony,
and paranoia from my end, something shifted at the very
edge of my vision. Moving alongside the train keeping perfect pace,
another flicker, a break in the darkness. A second train
was running parallel to mine. The sight of it made
no sense. There had been no crossings or signals that
another set of tracks even existed beside my own. Yet
there it was, keeping speed effortlessly, its steel body gleaming
under the faint moonlight, and through the windows I saw figures.
They appeared dark, the interiors shrouded in shadow. But as
I looked closer, I realized there were dozens of them,
maybe more, pressed harshly against the glass, each one wearing
the same wide grin. Their faces were frozen, their eyes
locked directly at mine. They looked just like the passengers
that had just joined my own train number nine. If
you see another train running parallel to yours, do not
look at it for longer than ten seconds. I wouldn't
make the same mistake again. The presence of the other
train lingered in my periphery, but I didn't acknowledge it again.
I just kept driving. The intercom shot to life with
sudden bursts of status, made my shoulders jump, the tension
in my body snapping tight. For a moment, there was
only empty noise, the same cold emptiness that had filled
the radio the last time I pressed the red button.
Look at the time. Slowly, I glanced at the digital
clock on the control panel, two twelve AM, number five.
At exactly two thirteen a m. Turn off all cabin
lights for three minutes. Do was instructed. Thereafter, I paused
and reached for the switch. My fingers trembled slightly as
I flipped it down. The cabin was plunged into absolute darkness.
I blinked, trying to adjust, but there wasn't anything to
adjust to. It was so dark that everything was swallowed whole.
No outlines, no faint glimmers of control lights, no reflection
of the window. Just avoid. The intercom came through again.
This time there was no prelude to it, just a clear,
short sentence, do not move. A new sound filled the air.
I heard it before, I felt it, A slow, painful
movement against the metal floor. Not footsteps, but something dragging
itself forward, joints popping, a strange, slithering scrape beneath the
clatter of the train. Whatever was making that noise, it
was in the cabin with me. Then came the wheezing.
It was deep, uneven like. Whatever it was had several
lungs that were inhaling, in staggered burst. Each breath pulled
at the air, filling the cabin with a thick, humid
heat that stuck to my skin like mucus. The smell
followed her second later. It wasn't like anything I'd ever
encountered before. It was sharp, medicinal hoemost, but undercut with
a sticky sour scent, like burnt plastic mixed with harsh chemicals.
The stench made me want to throw up, but I
kept perfectly motionless. It crawled closer, still shifting near the
control panel, sniffing its breath, rasping against the levers. A
single clawed scrape against the console made my entire body
lock up. It circled me, the warmth of its breath,
shifting from one side to the other, something brushing against
my shoulder, but not quite touching my chest burst, but
I didn't dare do so much as exhale. Three minutes
I counted in my head, trying not to let panic
take hold. I couldn't move, I couldn't react. I could
only sit there, locked in place, as whatever was inside
the cabin decided whether or not I was worth noticing.
In a split second, with no sound at all, it
was gone. The heat in the air lifted, the smell faded,
a low click, the cabin lights flickered back on. I
was still too terrified to move, unwilling to take any chances.
After a while, I was confident enough to adjust myself
and my chair. I shoved down the lingering nausea and
pressed my hands against my lap, trying to stop them
from shaking. The digital clock blinked two sixteen a m.
I saw the words appear in the main display final stop,
arrival imminent. The station lights emerged from the darkness ahead,
cold and unwelcoming, but still the most welcoming thing possible
to me. The train didn't slow as it approached. I
calmly pulled the brake, but it wouldn't budge. We were
getting closer. I pulled the lever until My arms felt
like they'd rip off my body. I fumbled with the controls,
smashing the red button into my palm. Throbbed, but nothing gave.
We rushed toward the platform at a great speed. I
didn't know what to do. Adrenaline searched through my body
as my legs started shaking, and before I could even
take precaution impact the first jolt sent me flying forward,
slamming my chest into the console. A crunch from inside
me followed. It hurts so badly, I thought I'd die
then and there. The windshields shattered as steel and concrete collided,
the deafening snap of metal ripping through the cabin. The
sound was unbearable, screeching, tearing, the agonized wail of the
train collapsing in on itself. Sparks exploded across my vision
as the front cars crumpled like a soda can, the
force of the impact buckling the walls inward. The entire
world turned sideways. I was thrown backward, hitting the wall
before rolling on to the floor. My ears rang, my
ribs ached. The air was thick with smoke and dust,
filling my lungs with every ragged breath. Somewhere beyond the
ringing in my skull, I could hear the train's last
desperate groans, the final shuddering lurch as it came to
a violent grinding hold. I lay there, stunned, my hands
trembling against the cold floor. I was still alive, somehow,
despite the crash, despite the sheer destruction I just experienced,
I was fine. Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up. The
cabin was intact, no shattered glass, no twisted wreckage, no
clapsed walls. The train sat perfectly parked at the station,
as if it never even moved at all. The console
was unscathed, the windshield unbroken. Even the faint hum of
the engine had returned steady, like it had been running
this whole time. But I knew what I felt. The
bruises falling on my arms. I had been in that crash.
My injuries weren't as fatal as I was sure they
were just moments ago. But the train had collided with
the station had collapsed around me, that I was sure of.
Yet here I was unharmed. I turned toward the passenger
monitors to see empty rows of seats, the train finally
rid of its impossible travelers, my stomach tightened the moment
my eyes landed on him, the figures from earlier had
all disappeared, but the man remained. His clothes waved around
as he walked. There was a fluid grace to him.
As he rose from his seat and began walking forward.
His movements were so smooth that they were hypnotizing. My
body tensed, my instincts screaming at me to move, to run,
to get out before something happened that I couldn't undo.
I staggered toward the door, but it was locked. No
matter how much I pulled or pushed, I couldn't open it.
The weight of the moment was suffocating, and for the
first time since this nightmare began, I finally had a
moment of clarity, and I realized just how wrong everything
had gone. I snapped out of my days and slammed
my hand against the red button. The radio remained silent,
and I headed again, harder, this time, my palms sweating
against the plastic. No response. The man kept walking. I
pressed the button again harder. Desperation crawled up my throat
like bile. The doors behind me opened. A deep mechanical
noise filled the cabin as the last remaining entrance slid
open with agonizing slowness, revealing an empty black voiead beyond it,
he stepped into the conductor's cabin. I was trapped, my
back pressed against the console, every muscle in my body
locked in place as he stopped just a few feet
from me. Up close, his shape was even more wrong,
his proportions slightly off, his arms too long, his posture
just a fraction to rigid. It was like someone had
built the idea of a man without ever having seen one,
a close approximation that almost fit, but missed something fundamental.
For the first time, he turned his head slightly, as
if acknowledging me directly, and in a voice there was
neither deep nor high, neither young nor old, neither kind
nor cruel. He spoke, thank you for the ride. He
looked at me a moment longer, his featureless face betraying
no emotion. Then, without another word, he turned and opened
the conductor room door, the one that I couldn't open
no matter how hard I tried. Then stepped out. A
new sound pulled my attention away. Footsteps I turned toward
the platform the recruiter was waiting. His hands were clasped
neatly in front of him. I practically jumped out of
my seat and straight toward the man. Who What the
hell was that? What the hell was I transporting? What
just happened? The recruiter didn't answer immediately. Instead, he glanced
past me toward the train, his gaze lingering on the
now empty cars. He exhaled and barely their sound before
finally speaking, what did you think of the job. There's
another Riote schedule for tomorrow night. You did a splendid job,
bringing the train all the way to the last stop.
I quit, I rasped my voice, raw. I don't care
about the money, I don't care about whatever this is.
I'm done. The recruiter smiled, not smuggly, though, just the
warm and welcoming smile. Then he gave me a slow nod.
You were transporting the dead. I didn't ask any more questions.
As absurd as what he had said just sounded. I
was too tired to care or rationalize anything else. I
walked away from the train, from the recruiter, from the
nightmare I had barely survived. I just knew one thing
for certain, I would never set foot on a train again.
I don't remember the first time I watched an urban
exploration video. I don't think it started as a lightning
bolt moment. It just sort of crept in little by
little until it was the only thing I watched. Most
kits around me were obsessed with gaming videos and things
like prank channels, But me, I ended up on channels
where people walked through empty malls and long forgotten tunnels,
with water dripping down the walls and silence stretching for miles.
It fascinated me. These were places people had once depended on,
places that held stories without ever telling them directly. I
wondered what had happened to them, why they had left,
why no one had come back. Even at ten, I
found comfort in those silences. Something about those forgotten corners
of the world felt honest to me, raw, untip by
the polished garbage the rest of the Internet churned out.
While my classmates were trading memes and game clips, I
was mapping out places I wanted to visit one day.
I'd dream about it at night, wondering endless concrete hallways,
no sound but my own breath and the scuff of
my shoes, flashlight beam jittering across crack tile. I wanted
to be there more than anywhere else. I didn't wait
long to try it for myself. There was a gas
station just off the interstate, a place that had shut
down five or six years earlier after a truck slammed
through its front windows. My friend Josh dared me to
go there after school one day. I told him I
had already planned to. That was a lie, but it worked.
We brought our bikes and ditched them behind the dumpsters.
The building looked small behind the road close it stretched deep.
The windows were covered in faded boards, and someone had
spray painted something unreadable in green across the siding. We
stepped behind the counter and found the freezer still half open.
Inside were candy bars that had sagged into themselves. The
labels were faded, their insides bloated. Being in one of
these places felt amazing, more so than I'd ever imagined.
It felt like I was stepping into a memory I
was never supposed to be a part of. It was
one thing to walk through a place and wonder who
used to be there. It was another to be a
piece of them. I remember Josh making a joke something
stupid about ghosts. But I wasn't really listening to what
he had to say, And that was the moment it clicked.
I wasn't just breaking into places. I was doing the
closest thing to time traveling as possible, stepping sideways into
someone else's story. We left after that, but I came
back alone a few times. Never told Josh I didn't
need his or anyone's company. A couple years later, I'd
find Grayson Vance. His videos were really simple. He'd start
with a quiet drone shot over a deserted property, then
ease in the narration. He felt more like a documentary
than a vlog. I'd never seen him try to do
that whole ghost story cliche that most content creators seemed
to try nowadays. His camera did the talking. I found
his channel late one night, while watching a video about
an abandoned power station in the Balkans. YouTube AutoPlay kicked
in and landed me on Grayson's tour of a sunken
hotel half the coast of Italy. The whole thing was
underwater at high tide, and he'd gone at dusk, wading
through flooded hallways with his camera above the waterline, narrating
it like it was a love letter. I binged watched
his entire catalog that week. He explored old prisons in Iceland,
war bunkers in Belgium, collaped schools in the deserts of Chile.
He never acted like it was braver than anyone else.
He moved through every place with respect. I wanted to
do that, too, wanted to be that. I started practicing
with a phone camera in empty parking garages, trying to
mimic his pacing. I studied his videos, replayed them over
and over, tried to figure out what he looked for.
I followed every platform he posted on, commented on everything,
hoping one day he'd notice. I didn't even feel like
a fan of his. If I'm being honest, he felt
more of a teacher to me, guiding me to a
future I was destined to reach. It was a Tuesday night.
If I remember correctly, I should have been working on
a labrite up for chemistry, but I had already convinced
myself it could wait. I had my phone propped against
a glass of water on my desk, headphones in my lamp,
the only thing keeping the room from going black. I
was scrolling through video suggestions in that half focused trance
I always seemed to fall into. That was when I
saw it. Grace and Vance abandoned a hospital as p usual,
a simple title and thumb nail. Grayson's voice came on
almost immediately. Who We started the same way with a
brief intro, a few quiet cuts of him walking the perimeter,
showing the outside before slipping inside. I felt my chest
tightened with excitement as I realized I recognized that place.
I knew those gates, the vines climbing the outer brick wall,
the sign half swallowed by overgrowth. I paused the video,
dragged the time bar back, and looked again. Then I
opened a tab and searched for images of old Florence
Hill Hospital. It matched. My mom would always drive past
it when I was younger. The place had been locked
up for decades, boardered tight and fenced off, though rumors
always floated around about kids getting in through a loose fence.
Mose said he was used as a psych word. Some
claimed it was a treatment scent of a violent offenders.
But regardless, Grayson was inside. He moved through it, slowly,
panning across doorways and peeling walls. The audio picked up
the creak of his boots on the tile, the quiet
drip of water hitting metals somewhere in the distance. I
couldn't believe it. He was only thirty minutes from where
I lived. Grayson reached the hallway. One of the walls
had collapsed inward, but he edged around it, ducking under
a reebarre and dry wall to step into a room
that looked like an old kitchen or freezer storage. A
row of broken industrial shelves leaned against the wall behind them,
half hidden by a stack of topple boxes with something
metallic embedded in the floor. He adjusted the focus, stepped closer,
and knelt beside it. A hatch bolted down on one side,
though the rust made it impossible to tell if it
was still sealed properly. The camerangle dipped as he brushed
dirt away with his sleeve. Then his voice came through again.
What do we have here, he said? Huh, goud be
some runoff tunnel or a different section of the hospital.
He tapped it once with a knuckle. Tell you what, guys,
If this video hits a thousand likes within twenty four hours,
I'll come back and go down there. He stood up.
The video cut a few seconds later, replaced by his
usual closing title card. I paused the screen, open the
common section, then scrolled back to the like counter one
point two K. I refreshed the page. No new video
had checked his Twitter new announcements. Where was the video?
I kept thinking about how close it was. How many
years I'd spent watching videos of buildings in countries I'd
never afford to visit, and now the biggest one of
all might be sitting right outside my town waiting for
someone to explore it. I was almost mad at myself
for not thinking to go there. But if Grayson was
taking his sweet time, maybe I could go first, maybe
even catch him there in the middle of filming. The
thoughts started as a fantasy, but it didn't stay one
for long. Just a few minutes later, I had dug
out my dad's old camcorder from the top of the closet.
The battery was swollen, but it had a backup pack
from a second store I used once for a film project.
I charged them both and tested the mic in my room.
The flashlight needed fresh batteries, too, so I biked to
the gas station near the highway and picked up a
six pack. I wrote a note and left it on
the fridge so my mum wouldn't be worried something about
group study. Every few minutes, I would imagine running into
Grayson down there. What I would say, How I'd play
it cool, maybe help him film, maybe even scare him
a little and record his reaction. He'd laugh, we'd talk gear,
He'd realize I was serious about this stuff, that I
wasn't just another fan trying to leach off of his name.
I packed everything into my school bag and zipped it tight.
Before I left the house, I stood in front of
my mirror, held the camera up to my eye, and
practiced an intro. The words felt weird in my mouth,
but I got through it. This could be the start
of everything I'd ever dreamed of. The sun was starting
to set when I got there. It hung behind a
screen of clouds, turning the sky into the color of
copper tarnish. I left my bike stashed beneath a clutter
of dog woods across the road and crossed the gravel
shoulder on foot. The outer gate had collapsed inward, its
posts bend and the chains slack enough to dug beneath
the hospital loomed ahead. The windows had been busted out,
while remained of the glass clung to the frames in
jagged patterns, catching the last light and reflecting it. I
pulled out the camcorder and switched it on the battery,
held steady. The light on the side blinked to life,
casting a small circle ahead of me. I hit record
and held it at chest level. All right, I said,
I'm standing just outside Florence Hill Hospital. I'm here to
see if I can find the spark Grace and Vance
filmed in his latest video. There's supposed to be a
hatch in the basement or storage wing. He said he'd
go down next time, Bun. I figured, I wait. The
intro came out stiff, but it felt good. I stepped
inside through a doorway where both doors had been torn off.
The floor inside had walked from years of neglect. Dust
and leaves had gathered into piles along the edges, and
most of the tiles had cracked. The air hit me
at once, wet, stagnant, and full of mildew. It clung
to the inside of my nose and sat heavy in
the back of my throat. Graffiti covered the walls in
bursts of neon and black marker. A lot of it
was nonsense tags, cartoonish faces, crude jokes, but a few
names repeated across different wings. I used those to orient
myself checking Grayson's video game following where the camera panneda
cross doorways or the way light had come in through
broken window panes. I stopped every few minutes to get
my bearings and film another few seconds of commentary, though
my voice kept slipping into whispers without meaning to. The
deeper removed the darker it got. Most of the corridors
were blocked by fall and ceiling panels or crossed furniture,
but the root from the video matched just enough for
me to follow it. After fifteen minutes, I started to
recognize the the pattern of damage from his footage, the
watermarks and the ceiling. I was close the hallway at
the end of the service wing, curved slightly to the
left and kept going until I hit a dead end.
I had to double back and rewatch part of the
video again. Grayson had veered off behind a broken freezer
unit next to a side door labeled Storage three C.
I retraced my steps and found it. This time, the
freezer door had rusted off its hinges and now leaned
sideways into the wall behind it, past the tangle of
old shelving and a disassembled mop SYNC sat the hatch.
It already stood open, which fuelled me with excitement. The
hatch itself was round, heavy looking, with a series of
bolts plunged into one side and scorch marks fanned out
across the floor. I angled the camera toward it and whispered,
this is it. This is the hatch from the video.
Grayson is probably down there as we speak. The hatch
is even still open. I reached forward and brushed my
fingers across the handle. It was worn from the heat
trapped in the room. Let's do this. I pointed my
flashlight down. The beams struggled to touch the floor. Only
part of it was visible through the narrow gap in
the concrete, just enough to show a ladder mounted to
the far wall, stretching into shadows. The rungs were metal
and bolted into place, though half of them looked eaten
by rust. Several bolts had sheered away from the surrounding concrete.
One side of the ladder swayed freely when I tapped
it with my foot. I stared at it for a while.
The camcorder was still recording. I brought it up and
whispered to the mic, this thing is barely holding on.
If it snaps, I'm screwed. I turned the flashlight between
my teeth and lowered myself down. The metal flakes beneath
my hands. Each rung felt slick and uncertain. The bolts
moaned with even the slightest shift of weight. A few
crumbled around the edges when I grabbed them. My fingers
burned from holding on so tightly. Half way down, I
paused to a just the camera angle, but I nearly
slipped doing it, so I just let it dangle on
its strap instead. I could hear my breath echoing off
the walls. When I reached the floor, my boots hit
uneven concrete. The walls on either side stretched into opposite directions.
The flashlight beam bounced off metal shelving and fragments of
painted wall. I took a slow breath and turned slowly.
I was in the room was enormous concrete stretched beneath
me in long, uneven slabs. Some sections had sunken, leaving
shallow dips filled with stagnant water. Rusted shelving units leaned
against the brick walls, their contents either collapsed or covered
in sheets of decomposing plastic. A gurney rested upside down
near the center, one of his wheels spinning slowly before
locking in place with a soft metallic click. I whispered
into the camera. Bigger than I expected. Definitely not a
storage closet. Let's see where Grayson is. My light followed
a long pipe overhead, thick with corrosion and patched with
what looked like duct tape and rubber fittings. Below it,
the moisture had pulled into a discolored stain, slick and
pulsing with slow drops. Each one landed with a clip
at the far wall. Something caught my attention. I walked
toward it slowly. My boots sent wet crunches into the dark,
echoing back against the walls. The beam of my light
lit up the last stretch of space with the concrete
gave way to older brick. The transition was uneven, almost
as though the building had been expanded downward after the
original structure had already been built. The wallpaper here peeled
away in thick, soft curls behind it, water stained plaster
gave way to a painted mural blue clouds, yellow suns,
animals drawn in past those shapes. A lion with cartoon
eyes stood next to a duck wearing a nurse's cap.
A giraffe was curled into a bed with a thermometer
in its mouth. I scanned across the floor in front
of it. The dust of the floor was scattered around,
revealing footprints and what looked to be drag marks. Grayson
was definitely here. I moved through the corridor as quietly
as I could. The walls here narrowed, there were fewer
open rooms. The hall turned left and then again to
the right, forming a horseshoe path around a closed off
surgery wing. At least that's what the faded lettering said
and the signs overhead. I kept imagining. I would turn
a corner and seemed crouched over a tripod. Eventually I'd
find his camera in a brake room. It sat on
a metal cart near a vending machine. The camera's glass
had been cracked, but it still functioned. The logo blinked once,
then faded. I could still navigate the video menu. I
leaned closer and whispered into my own camcorder, barely containing myself.
It's his, Let's see what I can find on it.
He probably got spooked by some rat and dropped it.
Poor guy. I smiled at the lens. My fingers hovered
over the playback button before I was able to hit play,
and alert popped up, letting me know the battery was low.
Navigating the menu was slow, the button stuck. A couple
of video philes sat in the memory. I selected the
most recent one and hit play. The footage opened with
Grayson already exploring the basement, but the screen was entirely black.
I thought maybe the file had corrupted, but the audio continued.
A wet, slithering sound dragged across the speakers, something heavy
scraping against concrete, then something else. Shallow breathing metal clattered
in the background, followed by a wet cough, then gurgling.
It sounded close to the mic. I leaned in. I
moved to rewind. I was curious as to what had happened,
but the display blinked once, then shut off. The battery
died in my hands. I could have left then and there,
maybe even should have, but I didn't. Grayson was down
here somewhere. Maybe something has spooked him into hiding. But
I just imagined myself doing something that scared even the
most popular urban explorers. I saw an opportunity. This was
my one and only chance to be a part of it.
So I walked. Dust turned to grime. Drawings on the
wall transitioned to a pale green beneath layers of peeling white.
I passed the rust wheelchair with two broken foot rests
and a dried smear along the cushion. Beyond that, a
row of cracked observation windows stared out into padded cells.
The batting had been torn open, foam exposed. Some of
it was darkened with rot. I stepped carefully, trying to
keep my breathing. Even the camera picked up everything. I
made sure of it. The hallway ahead sloped slightly to
the left, its walls warped from years of water damage.
I moved slow, careful. Where I stepped, my boots sank
into patches of soggy paper that had melted into the tile.
The beam of my flashlight shook across chipped paint and
empty door frames. I turned the corner. That was when
I saw him. A figure stood at the far end
of the corridor, motionless back to me, feet spread apart,
shoulders squared. He didn't move. I froze the light from
my flashlights sat on his back. He was too far
away to make out detail, but his silhouette was visible enough.
My first thought, without hesitation, was that it was Grayson.
I whispered into my camera. I think I just found him.
The figure remained completely still. I switched off the flashlight,
swallowed the tightness in my throat, and crouched behind an
overturned gurney. The glow from my camera screen cast a
dull blue over my hands. I angled it toward my face.
All right, I whispered, I'm getting the scaring camera. He
probably has no clue I'm even down here. I stood slowly,
careful not to let my shoes drag. I inched forward,
heart hammering in my ribs. The silence stretched, my mouth
had gone dry. I kept one hand steady on the camcorder,
the other clenched in my chest. I crept behind him,
close enough now to make out the seams on his jacket.
Then I jumped yo. The figure whipped around faster than
anything I had ever seen. I caught a glimpse of
the bandages, thick strips, yellowed with age and grime, wrapped
tightly across his head. Only his eyes were visible, red
and bursting from blood vessels that had ruptured beneath the lid.
Before I could step back, he slammed into me. His
forehead cracked against my cheek bone with a thud. I
hit the floor. My camera had tumbled across the tile,
pouncing into a pile of torn insulation. My flashlight clattered
near my hand. I gasped and rolled, grabbing for the light.
When I found it, I twisted the switch until it
clicked back on. He stood only a few feet away,
swaying slightly. The folds of his straight jacket heavy with
sweat and filth. The straps wound tight across his chest,
soaked through. His face was covered in bandages that had
melted away around the mouth, exposing jagged teeth and gums
coated in black rot. Dark puss clung to his lips
and dripped into the collar of his jacket. His breath
wheezed through clenched teeth. The sound reminded me of water
caught in a clogged drain. I launched myself upright and ran.
My boots slipped on the slick floor. I nearly lost
my footing At the first corner behind me, I heard
him or it scream, wet shrill, cracked in the middle,
and then the crash of his body slamming into metal.
He was chasing me. Gurney shattered as he ran through them.
I heard wheels spinning, furniture scraping across the floor, something
heavy hitting the wall. He made no effort to move
around anything, just slammed through them, tearing it and himself
apart in the process. Every corner turned, I expected him
to cut me off. I heard him gag, then cough,
then dragging an another breath through mucus and bile. His
body slammed against the corner I had just cleared, and
he recovered fast. Another screech, this one higher, almost animal.
I barrowed through a doorway and nearly tripped over a table,
flipped on its side, and vaulted it behind me. I
heard his body hit the edge and roll across it.
The screech of nails or teeth or something sharp dragging
over the surface, followed by a thump, then more footsteps.
I glanced over my shoulder just once bent forward. Face
slack drewel mixed with black fluid, trailing behind him in globs.
His shoulders rocked with each step, but his legs kept moving.
Foam lined his jaw. Now I ran harder. Upper head
lights spilled in from the shaft above the hatch the ladder.
I was almost there. It still dangled from its rusted bolts,
swaying slightly. The top half clung to the concrete wall,
the bottom half hung loose. The screws along the right
side bent nearly to the point of snapping. I jumped.
My hands caught a rung near my chest, and I
hauled myself upward, my boots slamming against the wall. As
I found a foothold, the metal rattled under my weight.
The rung shifted beneath my palms, slipping half an inch
before catching again below me. I heard him. His feet
slapped the tile. Then something heavier his full body, probably
thrown itself forward. A choking gargle echoed upward, long and strained.
When I glanced down, I saw him burn through the corridor,
head tangled across his face, the bandages flaring outward as
his jaws widened, his arms still bound in the jacket
thrashed at his sides. He shouldn't have been able to climb.
I thought I was safe, but he jumped. His head
snapped upward, mouth opening wide. He sank his teeth into
the rung just below my foot. His jaw clenched. Then
his legs kicked off the floor, and he began to swing.
He climbed on tight, using his molars and cracked in
sizes to hold himself steady. His feet scraped against the wall,
searching for traction. Somehow impossibly, he started to pull himself
higher by his mouth. The ladder shook hard, dreamed, and
climbed faster. My knees struck the rungs. My shoulders scraped
the edge of the hatch. I could hear the metal
wrenching below, one of the supports, snapping with a sharp twang.
I looked down once more. He was inches from my boots.
Lips peeled back, blood leaking from his gums where metal
had cut into his jaw. His eyes rolled upward, wide
and straining. I swung my foot out and kicked hard.
The ladder gave the top bolt snapped free. The structure
lurched to the side. He fell. I pulled myself through
the hatch as the ladder tore away, crashing down into
the dark. The impact echoed to the shaft, shaking the
walls beneath it. I heard a wet, snapping sound and
something low and guttural, a moan maybe, or a final breath.
I didn't stay to find out. I ran until I
couldn't feel my legs. The hospital doors passed in a blur.
The light outside had shifted to blue just before dawn.
The air stung my lungs as I pushed past the
crumbling fence, falling to my knees in the weeds before
crawling through the gap and stumbling onto the road. I
made it halfway down the road before my legs finally
gave out completely. I collapsed onto a patch of gravel
beside a rusted mar marker and lay there until my
heart stopped hammering. At some point I reached the bus
stop near the edge of town. I sat on the bench,
hand shaking, shirt soaked through with sweat. I thought about
calling someone, thought about telling the police, leading them to
the hatch. I even pulled out my phone and started
the dial. Then I stopped. They'd ask why I was there,
why I didn't call earlier, why I didn't stop when
I first heard something they'd touched the hospital. It would
all come back to me, whether that thing in the
strait jacket was human or not. I killed it, and
so I just went back home. Grayson never posted again.
His channel remained untouched. Comments slowed over time, then stopped completely.
People moved on. New explorers took his place, and I
never when urban exploring again. I'm serious this time, Cody said,
leaning across the cracked picnic table. His breath smeled like
sour candy, and his eyes looked huge behind his bent
up glasses. It's a real ritual, real real I didn't
just find it on Google or YouTube this time. I
had to go through this whole creepy website you can't
even find unless you do this thing with your computer.
It's called a hidden browser or something. I snorted and
picked at the peeling paint on the table. Yeah, just
like the real ritual where you made me eat a
crayon and told me my future would come true if
I pooped out the whole thing in one piece. Cody
shoved me with his elbow, but it barely counted as
a shove. He was skinny, always had been, with elbows
so pointy he could probably stab someone if he wanted.
That was a joke. This is different. I did research
this time, real research. Hows of it. I leaned back
and squinted at him, trying to keep a straight face.
Cody doing research usually meant he found some kid on
a forum who told him how to summon a ghost
with a spoon and a prayer. Thing was he was
my friend, always had been, ever since kindergarten, when he
wore a cape to school for three weeks straight and
told everyone he had wizard blood. Cody had this thing
about creepy stuff, monsters, spells, ghost stories, you name it.
He collected weird facts the same way normal kids collect
baseball cards. Every week he had a new ritual, or
a new monster, or a new story about a haunted
road he read about somewhere on a blode. Since I
had stuck with him through all of it, most kids
lumped me into the same weird bucket. We were the
spooky kids, the ones who made paper mache monsters in
art class instead of finger painting flowers. Teachers thought we
were harmless, but other kids mostly kept their distance. I
think They figured if they stood too close, they might
catch whatever weirdness we had. Cody could be annoying sometimes.
He always thought he knew more than everyone else. He
had this thing where he would keep secrets on purpose,
just to drive you crazy enough to beg him for answers.
But he was my best friend. So when he looked
at me with that dopey, excited face and said, come on,
it'll be awesome, I swear, I sighed and gave him
a fist bump across the table. Fine, I said, but
if I end up eating another crayon, I'm never speaking
to you again. Cody grinned so hard I could see
the spot. Whereas to the chip, last summer deal, and
if it does work, this is the last one. Swear
in your Pokemon cards. He agreed, and that's when I
knew he was serious. We met up after school and
got on our way. Cody beat me off the starting
line by a mile, his sneakers slamming against the pedals,
his bike rattling across the potholes so bad I thought
his front wheel was going to pop off. I pushed harder,
standing on my pedals and leaning into the race, but
Cody had that manic energy you only get when you
think you're about to do something historic through the neighborhood,
fast enough to make old ladies walking their dogs yell
at us. Lawns blurred past, and I could smell fresh
cut grass and someone grilling hot dog somewhere. Cody whooped
when we hit the downhill slope by the abandoned video store,
arms outstretched, coasting like he was flying. His house came
into view at the end of the block, squat and square,
a saggy basketball hoop clinging onto the garage by a
single bolt. The lights were off. They were always off.
His mom worked nights, sometimes entire weekends. His dad was
never in the picture. Cody never said why, and I
never asked whatever had happened. He left Cody half wild
and half grown up in a way no one else
our age really was. He pretty much raised himself on
serial and horror movies. We dumped up bikes in the
dirt patch by his porch. The kickstands so useless it
was a miracle they stayed up at all. Cody fumbled
with his keys for a second before he got the
door open. Then he turned and grinned at me. Prepare
to be amazed, he said, puffing his chest out. I
followed him. Inside. The house smelled a little dusty, a
little sweet, probably from the mountain of snack wrappers Cody
never got around to cleaning up. We headed straight for
the basement door. Cody threw it open with a dramatic
sweep of his arm, motioning me to go first. I
took one step down and froze. The whole basement had
been transformed. There were candles arranged in neat little circles
around a massive chalk pentagram drawn right into the concrete floor.
Bowls of salt sat at every point of the star.
We had chunk, broken mirrors, little bones. Stacks of torn
book pages sat all over the place. The air felt heavier,
almost sticky, and it smelled like burnt matches and something else.
Cody bounded past me and let down the last few
steps two at a time. He grabbed a crumpled bag
of chips from the arm of a ragged chair and
tossed it my face. Armor up, soldier, he said, ye
cannot battle age and evil and an empty stomach. The
bag hit me square between the eyes and dropped to
the floor. I bent down to pick it up, feeling
my heart thump a little harder. This was way beyond
anything Cody had ever done before. Again, usually his rituals
meant chanting into a bathroom mirror with the lights off,
or making me stack a bunch of river rocks in
a circle and whispered to them until we got bored.
One time, when he really tugged it up, he confessed
afterward that he had made the whole thing up because
he thought it would be funny to tell people we
thought a ghost by hitting it with plastic baseball bats.
But this looked real. I crinkled the bag chip in
my hands and gave him a look. He went full
psycho for this one. Hah. Cody just grinned wider, bouncing
on the balls of his feet, candles flickering behind him.
Only the best for my last ritual ever, he said,
swear it. Cody plopped down, cross legged at the edge
of the pentagram and motioned for me to do the same.
I settled into the spot across from him, cradling the
bag of chips he had thrown at me earlier. Crumbs
stuck to my fingers already, and I knew he would
yell at me if I touched anything important. So I
wiped my hands and my jeans first. Okay, Cody said,
pulling a rumpled piece of notebook paper from his hoody pocket.
The lines were crooked and written in his messy, tilted handwriting.
He smoothed it out on the floor, squinting at it
in the candlelight. You gotta read these lines together. You
gotta mean it too, or it won't work. I stuffed
a handful of chips into my mouth and gave him
a thumbs up. He cleared his throat, and together we
started mumbling through the words. It sounded like total nonsense.
Some of it was in Latin, or at least what
Cody thought Latin sounded like. Other parts were weird gibberish phrases,
things about opening doors and trading names. I mumbled along,
half hearted, crumbs falling into my lap, trying not to
crack up when Cody got super intense and threw his
whole chest into the weirder parts. Every now and then
he would stop and scurry around the circle, fixing a
candle that burned too low, or pushing the salt line
back into shape with the side of his shoe. His
forehead was shiny with sweat, and his face had that
scrunched up serious luck he got whenever he played board
games or made spaghetti by himself. I was halfway through
another handful of chips when it happened. The pentagram on
the floor pulsed. At first, I thought it was my
eyes playing tricks on me. Maybe the candles were flickering
weird because of the traft from the basement door. Then
I pulsed again. A faint red glow crawled along the
lines Cody had drawn. I blinked and leaned forward, wiping
my hands again, trying to make sure I was not
just seeing things. Cody sat back on his heels, mouth
hanging open, eyes huge. I told you, he whispered, bouncing
a little where he sat. I told you. The glow deepened,
steady and low, and the candles began to tilt, not flicker, tilt.
Every tiny flame bent inward toward the center of the pentagram,
like little soldiers getting pulled by invisible strings. The air
got thicker. It pressed against my skin, against my ears,
almost buzzing. I could smell something new, now sharp and metallic,
under the bar much smell. Cody clapped his hands once beaming.
It's happening. Finally, did you use glowing the dark chalk
or something? I quizzed. He jumped up, ignoring my question
and started pacing outside the circle, waving the crumpled notebook
paper around. Okay, okay, okay, So there's some rules, he said,
excitement pouring out of him. But trust me, it's worth it.
I mean, you have to follow the rules, duh. But
there's a reward at the end, and it's supposed to
be awesome, like life changing awesome. He darted back to
the edge of the circle, crouching low. His voice dropped
to a whisper. Even though we're alone and there's a
fail safe, I can end it whenever, so don't freak out,
all right, I'm not going to tell you what it
is yet, though I know you you're chicken out the
second you feel wreising your neck or something. I opened
my mouth to argue, but the words froze in my throat.
Something was moving behind Cody. I stared, heart hammering so
loud I could hear it in my ears. A shape black,
rising slow out of the glowing center of the pentagram,
arms unfurling like smoke, but heavier It towered over Cody
without making a sound, just this huge, awful silhouette, when
nothing had been a second ago. I tried to yell,
tried to say his name. My tongue fumbled around in
my mouth, pushing out broken pieces of words that did
not make sense. Cody frowned at me, confused, his eyebrows
scrunched together. Dude, what do you do? He never finished
the sentence. The thing behind him moved fast. There was
a sound, sharp and wet and cold. His head snapped
sideways and tumbled off his shoulders before his body even
knew what happened. His body wabbled for a second, knees
knocking together, and then it collapsed in a heap beside
the pentagram. Blood sprayed across the floor, across the chalk line,
across the toes of my shoes. I hit the basement
stairs so hard I barely touched the steps. My shoes
slipped against the wood, and I slammed my shoulder into
the wall. It scraped along the old, chipped paint, but
I barely noticed. I kept moving, grabbing for the hand
rail and yanking myself up faster. The second the basement
door came in to reach, I threw it opened so
hard it banged against the wall behind it. I tore
through Cody's living room, knocking over a lamp with a
crash that exploded behind me. My chest burned already, but
I could not stop. I skidded out the front door
and sprinted for my bike, yanking it upright so hard
the kickstand snapped off and skittered across the sidewalk. I
threw myself onto the seat, peddling before I had both
feet planted, knees wobbling, tires spitting gravel. As I took
off down the street, my lungs heaved against my ribs.
My legs screamed. My teeth were clenched so hard my
jaw ached. It's fake. It's fake. He's pranking me. The
words pounded against the inside of my skull with every
spin of the pedals. Cody had set it up. He
probably hired his older brother or some one from the
high school to wear a costume to pull some sick
horror movie trick on me. He'll be standing in his
driveway tomorrow morning with a video on his hand, laughing
so hard he could barely breathe. He would show everyone
at school The street lights buzzed overhead, casting puddles of
orange across the sidewalk. As I tore through them, I
blew past Missus Redfield's prize rose bush and clipped the
edge of mister Tanner's garbage cans, sending them rolling out
into the road behind me. I finally skidded into my driveway,
tires squealing against the crack cement. My legs gave out
halfway off the bike, and I stumbled to the front door,
fingers fumbling with the handle. Before I managed to shove
it open. The sound of my parents arguing hit me
before I even stepped inside. It was the same fight.
They always had money schedules who forgot to pay the
water bill? This time their voices tangled together into one long,
messy noise that filled the house and rattled the windows.
I bolted up the stairs two at a time. My
hands shook so bad I could barely grab the railing,
but I made it to my room and slammed the
door behind me. I crawled into bed, still wearing my shoes.
I yanked the blanket over my head and curled up
as small as I could get, pulling my knees to
my chest. The smell of sweat and dirt clung to
my clothes. My heart thudded against my ribs so hard
it hurt. He pranked me. That was all it was.
He scared me so bad. I thought it was real.
That stupid, stupid glowing the dark pentagram, that fake monster suit.
That blood was probably just catching up or something he
bored at the Halloween store. He was going to laugh
about this forever, he was going to tell everyone. I
was going to be the joke of the whole school.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing.
Tomorrow he would text me. Tomorrow, he would say gotcha
and send me the video, and I would hate him
for a week, and then we would be fine again.
Tomorrow this would all be over. My parents kept arguing
over groceries, just another part of the night I could
ignore if I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough. I
wanted to wait for them to quit arguing and then
ask about Cody. Maybe they go check just in case.
Then my dad's voice changed. It cracked, pitched higher, a
sound I'd never heard him make before. Something slammed downstairs hard.
Something else toppled over right after it. Glass shattered, thick
and ugly. My body went stiff under the blanket. I
gripped the fabric tight enough that my knuckles popped. Another slam, louder,
this time something heavy hitting the wall. Then nothing. Silence
pressed against my ears until I could hear my own breathing,
rough and shallow under the covers. I stayed frozen for
a bit. My parents never fought. I didn't really know
what to do, so I sat waiting for my mom's
voice to come cutting through the quiet, waiting for to
yell at my dad again, for the fight to pick
where it left off. Nothing came. I pulled the blanket
off my face, Moving slow, I slid off the bed,
feet hitting the floorboards so soft they barely made a sound.
I crept tow'ard the door and pressed my ear against it.
Still nothing. My fingers trembled against the doorknob. The hallway
outside stretched, shadows pooling at the edges, with the light
from my room did not reach. I took one step out,
then another. I leaned over the banister and looked down
into the living room. For a second, my brain could
not make sense of what I saw. The couch was
overturned cushions split open, stuffing spilling across the floor. The
coffee tape had been smashed into splinters, pieces of wood
sticking up in every direction. Blood soaked into the carpet,
a deep, dark stain that spread all the way to
the walls. My parents were in the middle of it,
twisted and broken, their faces stared up at the ceiling
with wide, glassy eyes, mouths frozen open like they had
been mid scream. Blood pulled under their bodies, seeping into
their clothes, their skin already pale. I stumbled back a step,
my hand clamping over my mouth before a scream could
tear loose. In the far corner of the room, crouched
low near the fireplace, something moved. It was hunched over,
folded in on itself, head cocked at an angle that
made my stomach turn. Its skin was stretched, almost black
against the shadows. Then it lifted its head, its eyes
locked onto mine. I knew without a doubt it was
the same thing from the basement, the thing that had
taken Cody's head clean off his shoulders without a sound.
It had followed me home. Cody had promised he could
end it whenever he wanted. He had said there was
a fail safe, a way to stop it. But Cody
was dead and I had no idea how to end it.
I turned started running again, slipping once on the wood
and smashing my shins so hard I almost fell. I
caught myself on the railing and stumbled forward, crashing through
the hallway, barreling down the stairs so fast my shoulders
slammed against the wall at the bottom. The creature had moved.
I could hear it behind me now, something scraping across
the broken floor. I hit the front door full speed,
shoulder first. Then it popped open so hard it bounced
off the outside wall. Cold air slapped against my face.
Pain shot up through my legs, but I kept going.
Tears blurred against my vision until the trees at the
edge of her backyard became one big smear of black.
I headed straight for them, gasping so hard my chest
felt like it would tear open. The old shack sat
half hidden in the woods. It had been there since
before I was born, left over from whoever owned the
land before our house was built. It smelled like wet
wood and mold and raccoons. Cody and I used to
play there when we were younger, before we got too
old for secret forts. I dove inside, tripping over the
broken threshold, landing hard on my hands and knees. I
scrambled o'er the darkest corner, curling up behind a pile
of rotten beams and torn up insulation. The air in
the shack was colder than outside. It scratched at my
throat with every breath, dust stuck to the sweat of
my face. I pressed my forehead against my knees, trying
to fold myself into a ball so small nothing could
find me. My heart beat against my ribs so hard
it made me feel sick, every thump louder than the last,
until it filled my ears and drowned out everything else.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe without
making a sound. I don't know what it is. I
don't know what it wants. I don't even know how
to stop it. I graduated college three months ago, and
it already felt like a lifetime. The ceremony had been
small and awkward. My parents hadn't flown in. I stood
there alone, clutching a piece of paper that had cost
me nearly seventy thousand dollars, wondering how it was supposed
to fix anything. The degree was useless communications, some vague,
frilly word that had sounded smart when I was nineteen
and sounded absolutely idiotic now. Every interview ended with a
half apology about experience requirements or budget freezes. I finally
landed something entry level in the city, but the pay
barely scratched the minimum wage. I had enough in my
checking account for a single tank of gas and maybe
two decent meals. My savings, what little I had hoarded
through part time jobs during college, disappeared faster than I
could even feel it. Leaving the car became my home.
I'd been sleeping in the back seat for the past week,
folded up awkwardly across cracked faux leather that stuck to
my skin. Every morning I showered at the gym, I
kept my interview clothes folded on the passenger seat to
keep them from wrinkling too badly. I told myself it
was temporary, but every night, staring up through the cracked
windshield made it harder to believe. The affordable apartments I
could reach were two hours away by bus from my job.
If the bus even arrived on time two hours each way,
four hours of my life every single day, wasted before
I even clocked in. My body already ached by the
time I finished my shifts, and the thought of sitting
stiff and sweaty in a plastic seat while the city
crawled past the windows crossed whatever energy I had left.
There was another option, a building ten minutes from work,
tucked between a broken laundromat and an abandoned Peter shop,
dirt cheap, less than half the rent of the units
across the river. The photos online made the place look rough,
but at that point I would have slept in a
closet if it meant a roof and a locked door.
I barely hesitated. Pride was for people who had choices.
I signed up for reviewing. The next morning. The landlord
met me out front, a thin man with nervous hands
and a sweat damp collar. He looked at me the
same way somebody might look at a problem they could
not avoid. His greeting was short, almost mumbled. I followed
him up the cracked front steps and through the main hallway,
which smelt sharply of bleach that had failed to mask
a deeper, more sour odor. Every doorway passed seemed slightly
off its hinges, and there were dark patches and the
ceiling that looked suspiciously fresh. The unit he showed me
was on the third floor. He fumbled with the keys
before getting the door open. The walls had been painted once,
maybe a decade ago, but the color had faded into
a sickly yellow green. Chunks of paint curled up near
the corners of the rooms. The floors were stained soft
in places where water must have gotten underneath. The living
room held a single ceiling van that sagged down onward,
spinning slowly and unevenly. The windows were cracked at the corners,
patched up poorly with clear tape. There was no furniture,
no appliances, beside a dented mini fridge shoved against the
far wall of the kitchen. I wanted to turn around
and leave, but there was nowhere else to go. Sleeping
in the car for another week meant risking parking tickets
I could not afford, or worse, I kept my mouth
shut as we tore the bedroom, which was just large
enough for a mattress and a pile of regrets. When
we reached the bathroom, the landlord hesitated. He touched the
door frame with his finger tips, then gave me a
stiff smile. You should take a look at this, he said.
I stepped past him and peered inside. The bathroom was small,
narrow enough that stretching both arms would have hit either wall.
The floor was lined with cheap linonium tiles and cracked
mirror hung over a rustained sink. The toilet looked usable,
but sat slightly uneven, as though the floor beneath it
had sunk inward. My eyes finely landed on the shower,
a small box in cabin with frosted tempered glass walls
that had gone cloudy with age at the bottom near
the drain. Near the drain, there was a jagged crack
stretching across one panel, sealed over sloppily with silicone colk.
The patch job was so obvious it almost drew the
eye before anything else. The landlord cleared his throat softly
behind me, but said nothing. I nodded stiffly, pretending to exact.
I meant the rest of the room, but I had
already made my mind up. It did not matter. I
had no other options. I signed the lease that afternoon.
The building was already humming with muffled voices and the
occasional slam of a distant door. When I unlocked the apartment,
the door scraped against the floor as I pushed it open.
I stepped inside and dropped my duffel bag onto the
cracked floorboards.
Speaker 2: Dust puffed up in.
Speaker 1: Little clouds where it hit. I did not even bother unpacking.
I kicked the door shut behind me and went straight
for the bathroom, tugging my shirt over my head as
I went. The floor of the bathroom was called against
my bare feet. I twisted the shower knob and waited,
half expecting the water to come out brown or not
at all. Instead, a weak but steady stream poured from
the shower head. It was lukewarm at best, but after
days of jim showers and cold gas station sinks, it
felt almost luxurious. The cracked patch near the drain caught
my eye again, but I forced myself to ignore it.
The water patted against my skin, washing away three days
worth of grime. In exhaustion, I leaned against the wall
and closed my eyes, letting the sound of the water
drown out everything else for the first time in days
may be longer. My muscles loosened. The worry, the fear,
the constant hum of hunger and anxiety that lived behind
my ribs eased just a little. I do not know
how long I stood there before it happened. At first
I thought it was the pipes, a faint noise buried
under the rush of the water. Then it sharpened, heavy
frantic shuffling sounds, as if someone were dragging themselves back
and forth across the bathroom floor. Behind that, rising up
in broken waves, came the unmistakable sound of screaming. Faint
were filled with a raw, ragged panic. My eyes snapped open.
I stumbled backward, slamming my shoulder into the wall of
the shower cabin. The sound stopped instantly, cut off mid scream.
All I could hear was the water splashing against the
plastic floor and the frantic pounding of my own heart.
There was nothing now, no shadow moving under the crack
of the door, no handle rattling, no shape looming in
the steamed up mirror across the room, as I'd feared.
It took a full minute before I managed to breathe
properly again. I wiped the water from my face and
gave a short, humorless laugh. It had to be stress,
sleep deprivation. Maybe something I had read online was playing
tricks on my brain. I remembered to read it thread
buried deep in a horror of bread it where people
talked about hearing strange noises if they closed their eyes
too long in the shower. Still, it made more sense
than anything else. I finished rinsing off as quickly as
I could. I dressed and crawled onto the bare mattress
I had dragged into the bedroom. The ceiling van creaked
and shuddered with every rotation. Sleep came slowly, weighed down
by a knot of her knees, and I could not
shake loose the next time. Day at work was worse
than anything that had come before. My boss, a red
faced man with a voice like a broken radio, found
new ways to humiliate me. Every mistake, every misst memo,
every delayed email was met with a fresh round of
public berating. I spent the whole day swallowing my words
and smiling through clenched teeth. By the time my shift ended,
I was barely upright, my feet ached, my spine felt
as if it had been compressed into half its size.
My head pounded with the dull pressure of a migraine
creeping in. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub
away the stink of the day before it soaked into
my skin. My body moved on autopilot. I peeled off
my work clothes, tossed them into a sad heap in
the corner, and stepped into the bathroom. The sh groaned
when I turned the knob, the lukewarm water drizzled out,
and I stepped in, letting the spray hit my face
and chest. I closed my eyes. The screaming hit almost immediately.
It clawed at my ears, shuffling heavy, dragging footsteps just
beyond the shower door. Before I could even react, a
loud thud echoed through the tiny bathroom. It was as
loud as what I'd imagine a grenade going off is like.
I jerked my head up, so burning into my eyes,
blinking against the sting, I saw my shampoo bottle lying
on the floor of the cabin, spinning slightly as it
leapt bright blue. My heart pounded. I wrenched the door
open and stepped out into the bathroom, dripping water everywhere,
Searching for something, anything. I stood there for a long moment,
breathing so hard my vision blurred around the edges. There
had to be an explanation, so I decided to check.
I started with the apartment upstairs. If someone was messing
around up there, making noise, it would explain everything. I
trudged up the narrow staircase, the carpet crunching. I knocked, waited,
knocked again. The hallway lights flickered weakly overhead. No answer.
I knocked louder, my hands stung with the effort. Still nothing.
A door downstairs creaked open. I headed back downstairs and
saw a woman poking her head out, white hair pulled
into a messy bun, glasses perched on her nose. She
looked at me with a curious tilt of her head.
You looking for someone, dear, she asked. I cleared my throat,
suddenly feeling foolish. Yeah, sorry to bother you. Just trying
to figure out if anyone lives right above me. I
thought maybe there was some noise coming from that unit.
She smiled, a soft, patient smile and made her look
even older. Nobody's been up there in months, empty. You
must have heard something else, I nodded, feeling heat rise
into my face. She introduced herself, said her name was
Missus Cartwright. She lived across the hall from me. She
mentioned her grandkids used to visit, but they had moved
away recently, and now it was just her. I think
to quickly said something about needing to get to work,
and retreated down the hall before the embarrassment could root
itself any deeper. Back inside my apartment, I locked the
door and leaned against it, breathing out slow. If the
place upstairs was empty, and if the place next to
mine housed an elderly woman who needed help caring her groceries,
then who had been making those noises? I chewed on
it for the rest of the day, even at work
the next day, while my boss barked orders and slammed drawers.
The thought gnawed at me from underneath. By the time
I got home, I decided to test it. It felt stupid, superstitious,
but there had been a pattern, and I had ignored it.
The noises only ever came when I closed my eyes.
Every single time it started. The moment my vision went dark,
that had to mean something. I stripped down, stepped into
the shower and twisted the knob. The water sputtered and
spat before settling into a weak stream. I let it
run over me and kept my eyes wide open, staring
straight ahead at the fogging walls. Nothing happened. The minutes
dragged on, the air grew heavy with steam. My arms
prickled from the temperature drop every time. The water pressure stuttered,
but the bathroom stayed silent. I let out a slow
breath and decided to push it. I closed my eyes instantly,
the bathroom exploded into chaos. Screaming, furious, desperate rattled the walls.
Heavy dragging footsteps stumped around the outside of the shower.
The shampoo bottle bounced off the floor with a sharp crack.
Once again, I yanked my eyes open. The sound vanished
so fast and left a hollow ringing in my ears.
I had proven something to myself, but it did not
feel like a victory. It felt worse, if I'm being honest.
But I was stubborn, and admittedly I was curious. I
decided to try again. This time, I would keep my
eyes closed longer. Maybe it would stop, maybe it would
burn itself out. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tighter
to brace against the expected noise. The screaming came fast,
roarer than before, as if whatever it belonged to who
had been waiting for me to test it. It built
into a frenzy. The temperature around me dropped sharply, cutting
through the steam with a damp, icy edge. I felt
something brush against my back, a cold, wet hand that
smeared water across my skin. I flinched, but kept my
eyes shut, muscles locked. Then came the pain, A sharp,
raking sensation tore across my upper back. It was deep
and hot, blooming into immediate agony that stole the breath
from my chest. I screamed and staggered forward, slamming into
the shower wall. My hand scrambled for the door handle.
I shoved it open and tumbled out, falling onto the
cold linonium of the bathroom floor. I gasped for air
every inch of my back, screaming at me. Water splattered
onto the floor beside me. My hands shook as I
pushed myself upright, moving straight for the mirror above the sink,
I turned, craning my neck. Three long scratches ran diagonally
across my back. The skin was torn in uneven lines,
angry and red, already starting to bead with a thin
trail of blood. I pressed the towel against the wound,
wincing as the fabric stuck to the blood. My mind
spun with explanations, each one weaker than the last. There
had to be a reason, There had to be a
way to understand. It was the shower haunted. I hated
using that word. I had already started feeling like a
lonesome reditor, screaming into a dead subbredded about ghosts. Yet
I couldn't deny what was going on, not when I'd
just been attacked physically. I did not sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, even for a second,
I felt the memory of the scratches burn across my skin.
Morning came slowly bleeding through the cracked blinds in sickly
strips of light. I got up, already dreading the day.
I sat at the kitchen counter. If the battered slab
of plywood could even be called that, and opened my
banking app, I knew it would be bad. I had
been ignoring the low balanced alerts for days, pretending that
if I did not see the number, it would not
be real. Thirteen dollars and seventy three cents. I stared
at the screen until the numbers blurred. Reent was come up.
Food was becoming a luxury. Gas for the car was
hanging on by a thread. There was no money for
anything else, not even small indulgences. Forget moving out. I
was trapped in a place that was clearly haunted. I
pulled up a search bar and typed in cost of exorcism.
The results made me laugh, short, brittle laughter that cracked
and died in my throat. Hundreds of dollars for consultations alone,
thousands for anything serious. Half the websites looked scammy. The
other half looked worse. I slammed the laptop, shot and
rested my forehead against the counter. I could not leave,
I could not fix this. I could barely afford to
stay alive. The next few days blurred into something heavier
than exhaustion. I went to work, I came home. I slept.
I avoided the bathroom unless it was absolutely necessary. I
stopped showering. At first, it was manageable, deodoran, wet wipes,
anything I could find to scrub away the worst of it.
But as the days stretched on, the smell clung to me.
It wrapped around my clothes, settled into my skin, buried
itself into every inch of fabric and hair. I caught
people at work wrinkling their noses when I passed. My
boss started mentioning personal hygiene standards during meetings, staring pointedly
at me when he spoke I no longer had a
gym membership. I thought I was going to be fine
now that I had a place, but clearly I was wrong,
and now with rent, I could no longer have forward one.
I felt it. I felt every minute. It a sickly,
oily grime that no amount of wiping could scrub away.
It made my skin crawl. Still, the thoughts of stepping
back into that shower have closed my eyes, even for
a second. While trapped in that narrow coffin rooted me
in place. I told myself I would figure something out.
Maybe find a cheap motel for a night, Maybe find
a public pool where I could sneak a rinse. One night,
after another shift, spent awake and fully miserable, I collapsed
onto my mattress and opened my phone without thinking. A
notification blinked at the top of the screen. Her friend
request her name, jolted something in my chest. Allison. We
had shared two classes during my second year of college.
We had laughed over terrible group projects and late night
coffee runs. We had made promises to keep in touch
after graduation. I hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Then
I accepted. The messages came fast, Hey, long time, no see.
How have you been? What are you up to these days?
I lied, said work was keeping me busy. I said
the city was treating me well. Before I could second
guess it, she asked if I wanted to grab a
drink sometime, catch up properly. She would be my part
of town over the weekend. I stared at the message,
heart hammering. I thought about the shirt tucked in the
back of my chair with dried sweat. I thought about
the sour, greasy smell that clung to me so stubbornly
I could barely smell anything else. I did not have
a choice. If I showed up like this, I would
be dead in the water before the night even started.
I kneaded a shower. I naded a step into that
cursed rotting shower. I tossed my phone on to the
mattress and stared up at the ceiling counting the slow,
uneven rotations of the ceiling van until I could convince
myself to stand. I peeled off my clothes, feeling my
stomach twist into knots. Every step toward the bathroom door
felt heavier. My hand trembled. When I reached for the knob,
I pushed it open. The air inside was thick and heavy,
still damp, even though I had not run the water
in days. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
I twisted the knob on the shower. The water came
spluttering out, colder than usual, but steady enough. I waited
and till the cabin filled with steam, before stepping in.
The door clicked shut behind me. I told myself I
would keep my eyes open the entire time. I would
not let them close, not even for a second. I
repeated the promise in my head as I reached for
the shampoo bottle, as I scrubbed the layers of filth
that coated my skin. As the water poured down steadily,
I tilted my head back to rinse out the SuDS,
careful to keep my eyes open. Soaps stung, the foam
slid down into my lashes. My eyes stung and my
body almost betrayed me, but my eyes stayed open. The
cabin shook slightly as I managed to keep my vision going.
That surprised me a little things would only happen when
I closed my eyes, never when I had them open.
Minutes crawled by, I washed, I scrubbed, I rinsed, and
through it all I kept my eyes wide open, fixed
on the walls. Reliefs started to creep in at the
edges of my mind, a dangerous feeling, but I could
not help it. I was almost done. I could towel off,
get dressed, leave this nightmare behind me. I reached for
the forrcet to shut the water off, and suddenly the
pressure in the shower changed. The steady stream faltered, stuttered,
then surged back stronger, Hammering down against the floor, something
shifted in the air. The temperature dropped hard enough to
suck the breath from my chest. A scream irrupted from
all around me. It sounded furious and almost sad. The
wall around the shower shuddered, vibrating so hard I thought
they would tear themselves apart. Was this thing mad that
I kept my eyes open the entire time. The floor
underneath my feet jumped and twisted. Bottles shot off the shelves,
slamming into walls and the floor with heavy, wet cracks.
Something dense and heavy banged against the outside of the
shower door, over and over again, loud enough that the
entire cabin shook under the force. Ice cold water was
getting into my eyes, blurring my vision. The drain beneath
me gurgled, heaving upward instead of pulling the water down.
Thick clumps of hair, long and matted with something black
and sticky, twisted free and floated up toward the surface.
Small jagged objects bobbed up alongside it, teeth tiny and cracked,
some still speckled with dry blood. Something red rose in thick,
slow bubbles, staining the water in white pink streaks that
swirled around my ankles. The cabin floor pitched under me,
and I nearly slipped. I forced my fingers against my
water filled eyes and rubbed them hard enough that bright
spots exploded across my vision. It hurt, but I managed
to keep them peeled open. The world came back into focus.
Pressed against the inside of the shower door, directly in
front of my face, a palm flattened itself against the
tempered glass. The skin pulsed faintly, as if breathing. There
was no arm connected to it, just the pale, bloated
hand flexing his fingers against the door. I fumbled backward
until my spine hid the opposite wall of the cabin.
The water kept pouring from the shower head above me,
colder than ice, now soaking through to the bone. It
stung across the half field, scratches on my back, and
made my teeth chatter so violently I could hear them clacking.
I reached for the knobs to shut the water off.
My fingers slipped once, twice, three times, but I finally
managed to twist them both shut. Nothing changed. The water
kept blasting at full force, roaring against the cracked floor,
splashing high enough that it sprayed over the door frame.
The drain only vomited more filth up into the small,
confined space. Hair wrapped itself around my ankles, tightening with
every shift of my weight. The water level was rising.
It climbed past my ankles up to my shins. The
cold bit deeper with every inch. I grabbed the door
handle and he yanked. It did not budge. I pushed harder,
using both hands, now throwing all my weight against it.
The shower door groaned under the strain, but held. I
slammed my shoulder against it once, twice, three times. Still nothing.
Another handprint bloomed beside the first one. The fingers splayed
wide across the surface, some longer than others, joints bent
at strange angles. The prince pressed in, dimpling the plastic,
as though something immense leaned on them from the other side.
Who was trying to trap me in here? I screamed
high and panicked, raw air tearing out of my throat.
I punched the door, paine, lancing up my arms as
my fists met the unforgiving glass. My knuckles split on
the rough edges. Blood smeared across the door and messy
broken arcs. I punched again again. The water rose past
my knees, swirling with hair and teeth and bits of
something too small to name. The hand prince did not
pull away. They pressed harder. I could barely fill my
fists anymore. My knuckles throbbed with every heartbeat, slick with
a mixture of blood and water. The shower filled up
highre lapping up toward my waist, the freezing water numbing
everything it touched. The hand Prince leaned in harder, the
plastic bowing inward under the pressure. I knew I could
not keep hitting the door. My arms were spent. I
needed to do something else. I braced against the wall
of the cabin sucking in a breath so cold it
burned the back of my throat. I lifted my knee
and slammed it against the crack section near the bottom
of the door. The impact sent a sholt through my bones,
rattling my teeth together. The crack widened, spider webbing across
the surface and jagged, uneven lines. I pulled back and
did it again, putting every shred of strength I had
into it. The third hit split the tempered glass completely.
The pressure of the water burst the door outward with
a violent pop, sending a tidal wave crashing across the
bathroom floor. I was carried with it, thrown against the
base of the sink. My head cracked hard against the cabinet,
and for a second the world spun into dizzying, colorless shapes.
I crawled backward and shaking, hands and knees, slipping across
the flooded lenonium. Gasping for air, my body shuddered, uncontrollably,
soaked through to the bone, every muscle twisted up tight
with fear and cold. The bathroom lights flickered overhead. Somewhere
behind me, the water sputed to a stop from a
broken shower, the last of the water pouring across the
floor in steady, unstoppable waves. I pressed myself into the corner, panting,
watching the shattered door swing uselessly on its broken hinge.
When I finally stood, my knees buckled. I grabbed the
doorframe for support and staggered into the main room, leaving
a trail of wet footprints behind me. I did not
step back into that bathroom again. The next morning. I
made a decision. It was not a proud one, it
was not a brave one. It was what I had
to do. I knocked on missus Cartwright's door or standing
awkwardly in clothes that smiled faintly off panic. She answered
quickly and knitted shawl wrapped around a narrow shoulders. Her
face softened when she saw me. I asked if she
needed any help around the house. Grocy runs heavy lifting
anything at all I told her I'd be happy to
do it. I told her it was no trouble. She
smiled a real smile, the sort of smile that lit
up a whole face, and said she could use her
hand now. And then I mentioned, as casually as I could,
that my shower was broken. I asked if she would
mind letting me use hers once or twice a week
until I could get it fixed. She agreed without hesitation.
From then on, I spend as little time in my
own bathroom as possible. I brush my teeth the kitchen sink.
I used the bathroom only when I absolutely had to. Luckily,
the date went well. Alison did not seem to notice
the faint stiffness in my posture. I returned home and
decided to hang up curtains just past the kitchen sink
so I wouldn't have to look at the shower anymore.
I don't know what to tell my landlord about the damage,
but he'd have to deal with it. I'm sure he
knew the place was like this, and he never decided
to tell me, so I won't tell him either. I've
been surrounded by conspiracy theories my whole life. I don't
mean that I believe in them. Most of them are ridiculous,
some of them dangerous. I only ever got into that
stuff because of my uncle. When you grew up visiting
a man who owns more black and white photocopies of
underground based schematics than he does shirts, it starts to
rub off on you. I never cared much about bigfoot,
but more people and pigeon robots. It was interesting to
listen to my uncle. Warren was that relative, the one
everyone keeps at arm's length during the holidays, the one
people warn their kids about before they visit. He didn't
do anything wrong, not ever, but there was always something
about him that made others uncomfortable. He had a disorder.
It had walked his jaw since birth. His teeth jotted
out at an angle, like a row of warped fence posts.
He had to wear these weird rubber mouthguards at night
just to stop them from cutting into his cheeks. He
also had diabetes, and that was a constant battle for him.
He kept sugar tabs in his shirt pocket and always
smelled of insulin and peanut butter crackers. He wore shirts
that had been washed until the graphics faded into pale ghosts,
jeans with cracked belt loops, and a windbreaker that had
probably been navy blue twenty years ago. His glasses were
too large for his face. His hair had receded before
I was even born. Most people didn't give him a
second chance. The ones who did usually looked away. But
to me, he was great. He wasn't just a family weirdo.
He was brilliant. He knew how to fix things, build things,
explain things. He could talk about sub sonic weapons and
hollow earth theories in the same breath he walked me
through fixing a blown capacitor. He was patient, He had
time for me. I didn't get that from many people.
Growing up. His house felt like some kind of time capsule.
Old wallpaper, flickering fluorescent lights, carpet that had gone stiff
at the edges. But what always pulled me in was
the back room. He called it his workshop. No one
else ever went back there. I think my mom saw
it once and refused the step inside again. It was
cramped and packed wall to wall with shells full of
scrap parts, tools, plastic tubs, and print outs that had
yellowed into brittle curls. It had cathoed monitors stacked on
top of a filing cabinets, each one hooked into something different.
One of them looped footage from a cave in Turkey.
Another displayed seismic readouts. I'd sit at his work bench
while he soldered or rewired something. The smell of burned
plastic and machine oil always stucked my clothes after I left.
He had this Motorola flip phone with a thick black antennor.
He clipped it to his belt like it was a badge.
I once asked him why he didn't just get a smartphone,
and he looked at me like I had asked him
to put a tracking device in his skull. The only
thing about him that I found strange was his obsession
with mole people. He didn't picture them as cartoonish or
green or wearing goggles. He imagined them as pale, sightless things,
humanoid but not entirely human, adapted to a place where
light never touched. Here, theories about how their society worked,
what tools they used, how they might hear our movement
from beneath the crust and respond with coded vibrations. He
rarely even wanted to use light outside of his home,
and that really shined through the time I went camping
with him. I tried to set up a fire. I
had gathered kindling, stacked it carefully, even brought a fire
start to cube because I was proud of thinking ahead.
He stopped me the moment I could light it. He
didn't yell, He just stared at the pile for a
long moment, then told me gently to leave it alone.
He said fire draws attention. He said some things can't
handle sudden brightness, that it confuses them, hurts them. That
when you're near their domain, you should respect their rules.
I didn't understand at all, but I just let it go.
Months pasted. After that, we fell out of touch for
a while. I got busy. Life crept in as it
does slowly at first, then all at once when you
start working full time. Checking in on your eccentric uncle
doesn't always top the list, but I still thought about him,
especially when I saw something odd on TV or read
a weird headline online. I always think Warren would have
something to say about that. Then one day I heard
from my mom that he was gone. She said it offhand,
like it wasn't worth more than a sentence. Oh, By
the way, your uncle hasn't been home in weeks. Your
cousin Todd went to check. He wasn't there. That was it.
No missing person fliers or searches, just the call to
the authorities and a casual shrug passed around the family
group chat. Everyone had an explanation ready. He'd probably gone
off chasing one of those rabbit holes. He did that
once years ago, spent three weeks in New Mexico because
he thought the government was digging under old reservations. Turned
out he just wanted to try desert photography. But even
then he'd told me before he went. Todd had apparently
driven over, walked round the house, once, tried the door,
peered through the blinds, then left said everything looked fine.
That was enough for them, but something about it sat
wrong with me. I couldn't explain it. I hadn't seen
him in months, and I had no reason to assume
the worst. But I knew him. He wouldn't vanish for
weeks without at least leaving a note taped to the
door or a voicemail filled with static and obscure hints.
He was weird, not careless, So I went. I didn't
tell anyone. I got in my car early one morning
and drove out to his place. The further I got,
the heavier it felt. When I pulled up to the house,
it looked the same as always. I went up to
the mailbox to retrieve the spare key. Uncle had told
me about where he kept it in case I need
to grab something from his workshop when he's sleeping or away.
His car was parked in the driveway, right where it
always sat, but the porch light bulb had burned out.
I noticed that as I climbed the steps, a tiny
bulb dead and cold in its fixture. I un locked
the door and stepped inside. I moved through the living
room slowly. My shoes made no sound on the old carpet.
Something in me didn't want to break whatever spell was
holding the place since suspension. I stepped into the kitchen.
That's when I saw his medication. It sat in its
organizer on the counter, color coded labeled by day Sunday
through Saturday, each compartment still full. His blood sugar monitor
was next to it, turned off. The testing strips were
still sealed. I stared at it for a while. My
uncle had never missed the dose in his life, He
treated his condition with an almost ritualistic precision. It had
been drilled into him. Skipping intolin wasn't just irresponsible, It
could kill him. I followed the faint electric buzz toward
the back of the house, A sound I knew well.
It was always there when I visited. The workshop ran
in its own circuit, something he wired himself. Even when
he wasn't home, he left certain things running. The world
doesn't pause just because I step out, he used to say.
Across the threshold and stepped inside. The air inside was
heavy with solder and paper. The whir of a low
powered van came from the corner. Dust hung in shafts
of afternoon light filtering through the narrow window. My eyes
moved across the space, automatically, picking up old landmarks, the
metal rack of spools and wires, the blinking VHS converter,
and the shelf above the filing cabinet. The digital thermometer
which between two brakes and the floor. But something was
different this time, the sound a beeping. I moved toward it,
but I didn't reach for it yet. My eyes caught
something else first. The chalkboard covered almost the entire wall.
He had bolted it directly into the studs. Years ago,
I remember watching him do it, sweating through his shirt,
mumbling about how dry wall was the enemy of permanence.
Now it was covered in layers of overlapping diagrams, notes, sketches,
and pin photographs. The usual chaos was there, but this
time it was all focused. Everything pointed to one subject,
more people. There were diagrams of hand structures, claw curvature,
and comparative models against known borrowing mammals. There were skeletal
projections showing how a human spine would have to evolve
to function primarily in a crouched lateral motion. Heat mapping
charts had been overlaid with seismographs, readings with annotations in
read ink, he'd written detailed estimates on hearing ranges, potential
hive networks, and low frequency signal behavior. Pinned to the
center of the board was a photo black and white,
grainy taken from above a depression in the earth. The
soil looked compressed inward with unnatural symmetry. Below it, he'd
written a date, a coordinate set a single phrase too
consistent to be weather. I scanned the rest of the wall.
A long timeline stretched across the upper edge. All of
it converged. He had found something. I realized he had
gone to find proof. The beeping grew louder as I
moved toward the bench. It was coming from a hand
held GPS receiver. The screen was small and monochrome. A
single blinking dot pulsed on the display. Next to it
was a folded piece of paper torn at the edge,
written in sharp block letters. I recognized this handwriting immediately.
I'll assume you'll be the one to find this, nephew.
I knew it'd be you. I finally found something, and
I want you to see it. Follow the signal. I'll
finally prove myself right to you. I picked up the GPS.
The signal was holding steady, still transmitting. I took a breath.
My throat felt dry. I took the medicine into my bag,
pocketed the GPS unit, and walked out the front door.
The GPS coordinates pointed somewhere deep in the northern Range,
far beyond cell towers or road markings. I had to
stop twice to recheck the route, and once to talk
myself into continuing. I packed carefully, water, flashlight, the insulin,
extra batteries, snacks. I stared at the receiver for ten
minutes before I even turned the ignition. There was no deadline,
but it felt like I was already running behind. I
couldn't tell if it was guilt or something heavier. Maybe
I'd waited too long, Maybe I had already missed him.
But if he was alive, if he was just stranded
or hurt, or waiting for someone to show up, then
I couldn't waste any more time. The last stretch of
road turned to gravel, then gravel gave out entirely. I
parked beneath a canopy of thin, brittle trees, the leaves
scorched from a summer that had lasted too long. The
signal still blinked on the hand held. I walked for
over an hour, boots crunching through rock and shale, the
sky dimming above me. When I finally reached the destination,
I thought at first I had gone the wrong way.
There was nothing there, just a low ridge of broken
stone and a slope that dropped off into a dry gulch.
The quarry was just beyond it, old and half reclaimed
by moss and brush. I almost turned back to double
check the coordinates, but something caught my eye, a seam
in the cliff side. It was in a cave mouth.
It was more of a split between two walls of stone,
vertical and narrow. Some one could walk past it and
never notice. I stepped closer, shining the light into the space.
The beam hit nothing just there that meant depth. The
crack was just wide enough to squeeze through. I just
died the strap of my bag and stepped forward. The
walls pressed close around my shoulders, rough and uneven. Bits
of stone scraped at my sleeves. I kept one hand
on the rock and the other around the flashlight, angling
it downward to avoid blinding myself. I could get through
without too much issue, but a small laugh bottled out
of me as I thought about Uncle squeezing through here.
My chest tightened as the gap narrowed further, But then
after about twenty paces, it opened, not completely, but enough
to stand comfortably. The space beyond the crack was colder still.
The sound of my boots echoed softly, bouncing from surface
to surface, dust coat to the floor in a thin layer,
disturbed only where my footprints had cut through. I saw
the first one just ahead of me, a boot print,
then another, the heel worn unevenly, the flashlight being trembled
in my hand. I steadied my breath, tried to listen. Nothing,
just the hum of air deep underground. A breast on
following the prince. They curved inward, deeper into the passage.
The air grew heavier. The light from the entrance had
disappeared entirely. My flashlight was now the only thing keeping
the dark from swallowing me. The tunnel widened slightly, then
narrowed again. The ceiling dropped just enough to make the duck.
I moved slowly, scanning every inch with the light. Something
crunched beneath my boot. I crouched, brushing away dust. A
plastic wrapper, torn open, corners folded inward, dust clinging to
the sugar residue. I picked it up, one of those
glucose shoes. He always carried strawberry flavor. He used to
say they tasted worse than cardboard, but they worked fast.
A few steps later I saw the glove, fingers stiff
with dirt. The wrist strap was still cinched. I turned
it over. A tear had opened across the palm, the
kind that comes from bracing a fall. The ground here
was uneven and covered in loose stones. His phone was
much further from there. It sat balanced on a ledge
of rock, screen glowing faintly in the dark. The plastic
casing was scuffed, and the rubber and tenor leaned slightly
to one side. The signal bar pulse gently, battery at
twenty three percent. I reached for it and stared at
the home screen. I held the phone for a moment
longer before slipping it into my pocket. Now I know
for sure he was here. I stood still and called
his name once, then again louder. I saw it just
past the bend in the tunnel, tugged against a stone
wall where the cave curved. The sleeping bag looked old,
almost sunken into the ground, but I recognized it immediately,
faded green canvas with a broken zipper. He had owned
it for decades. I remember him using it in the
woods when I was still too young to carry my
own pack. He used to say that newer ones trapped
too much moisture. I moved fast, boots scraping against loose grit.
My chest tightened with something close to hope. My voice
came before I even reached him, Uncle Warren, I heard
myself say, it's me. I brought your meds. What the
hell are you doing down here? The beam of the
flashlight wavered slightly as I knelt beside him. He hadn't moved.
The top half of the bag was pulled up to
his shoulders, his arms resting across his chest, hands tucked
beneath the flap. His head leaned against the cave wall
at a slight angle. His glasses were still perched on
his forehead, pushed up the way he always wore them
when working on something close range. I reached out and
touched his shoulder. The fabric was damp, My throat closed.
Before I could call his name again, I shifted the
light downward, trying to get a better look. That was
when I saw the color of the fabric change from
green to black, stained through the canvas. Wasn't folded in
at his stomach. It had collapsed. I gripped a zipper
and pulled it back. His chest had carved in where
the sleeping bag had dipped. Flesh and bone had been
torn apart. His torso was still whole. Above his ribs,
skin pale and drawn, but everything below that had been opened,
not by a blade. There was no clean line. The
wounds looked jagged, pulled apart. His adomen had been torn
open and wide. Uneven ridges, muscles, and viscera were exposed
beneath the shredded fabric of his shirt. The blood had
soaked into the bag long enough to turn it thick
at the seams. The skin along his side had deep
indentations when something had clamped down or hooked in. I
saw striations in the torn flesh, shallow grooves, shaped and
arcs too round to be teeth. His hands were still
crossed at his chest, but the onand to his left
was missing its pinky. The stump had gone gray. The
air around me changed. Then the smell reached me rot,
first sharp and acidic, then iron, thick enough to taste
behind it something else, a damp sweetness, the scent of
compost that had been turned too late in the season.
I climbed a hand over My mouth turned and doubled over.
My stomach clenched, and bile forced its way up. Before
I could stop it. It hit the rock floor in
a splash. I stayed bent over, gasping a flashlight shaking.
Speaker 2: In my hand. I couldn't look back at him, not yet.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my nose.
I tried to hold on to something else, anything else,
but all of it was drowning under the smell and
the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears.
And forced myself to step back from the body. My
legs moved, but my eyes didn't want to leave him.
I had to blink a few times to break whatever
spell I had fallen under. The flashlight trembled in my hand.
I wiped the back of my wrist against.
Speaker 1: My mouth and breathed through my teeth. Then I heard
it faint, scrape something against the rock. The sound came again,
then another higher, pitched from a different direction. I froze,
my grip on the flashlight tightened. I turned slowly, shining
the beam toward the sound. Nothing. I took one step back.
The beam shifted. I was when something darted across the
far wall, just outside the edge of the light. I
blur gray and low. I turned the light quickly, but
it was already gone. Another shape followed, cutting across the
dust ahead of me. My eyes couldn't track it fast enough.
There was more than one I kept my feet planted,
trying to count the echoes of movement, maybe four. None
of them made a sound I could identify, just the
soft scrape of nails and the drag of their limbs
brushing loose gravel. With these the things that had done
this to Uncle, I couldn't know for sure. I crouched
slightly and angled the light across the walls. They weren't climbing,
but they were getting closer, hugging the edges of the chamber,
staying just outside the illumination. Wherever they were, they didn't
want to be seen. I thought of something Warren once
told me. Most animals don't want to fight. If you
scare them, they wait, but if you run, they chase.
It had been drawing a story about a coyote that
followed him for two miles. I remember the way he
had spoken, then, calm, like it was more important to
think than to react. I could hear scuttling again, louder now,
so I stayed calm and tested my theory. I flicked
the flashlight off. The darkness was instant, complete, just pressure
and sound. The scratching grew sharper, closer. I could feel
them now, small, displacements in the air, loose pebbles shifting
near my boots. Clenched my jaw, counted silently to four,
and snapped the beam back on. The light cut through
the dark like a blade. One of them froze mid movement.
For a split second I saw it. It had crept
within six feet of me, crouched low, body compressed in
a tense arch. It skided it off when the light
hit it. Its limbs locked in place for a fraction of
a second. Muscles coiled but frozen. The skin on his
back was patchy and raw, hairless, pink and gray. The
skin across the skull had been stretched. It looked almost
human from the silhouette, but it had no eyebrows or cheekbones.
The flesh sat low, sagging slightly under its weight. It
reminded me of moles we used to see in the garden,
but wrong in proportions. The head was too large, the
jaw too wide. The eyes were small, swollen and dark
with the sclarer had a watery gleam. They didn't reflect
the light. They resisted it. I watched as the pupils
constricted into pinholes. It shrieked, not loud, but high and shaking.
Then it turned and vanished into the rock behind it,
slipping through a narrow gap I hadn't seen before. A
moment later, another shape followed it, then another. My hands
were soaked in sweat, even through the fabric of my sleeves.
My heart hammered so loud I almost missed the next sound.
I turned and ran. All those quiet lessons about staying
calm and holding your ground evaporated. Every animal documentary, an
educational video i'd ever watched, crumbled under the sound of
claws skittering against stone. I ran hard, light, swinging in
frantic arcs across the tunnel walls. The beam flickered against
rock and dust and things I could not name. My
bag clipped the side of the cave. I stumbled, caught myself,
and kept moving. I heard them hiss behind me. A
sharp click followed close to my left, then another above.
One of them was moving across the ceiling. I heard
the scrape of its limbs and the dull thood of
its body repositioning overhead. I couldn't look. I didn't want
to see how close it was. My lungs burned, my
throat felt raw. The air was heavy and damp and thick,
with the scent of something. I could see the narrow
path ahead, the one I had come through the tunnel.
I never felt so long. The beam of my flashlight
hit the rock just ahead. That was when one lunged.
It came from the dark on my right, a blur
of pale limbs and teeth. I turned just enough to
avoid it. Its claws raked the cave wall and sent
a cascade of dust across my shoulder. I threw my
weight forward, pushed off the ground, and ran harder. Then
another dropped from above. I screamed. It missed barely. It
hit the floor behind me and skidded, claws dragging. I
didn't stop. I knew they were closing in. I felt
the weight of them behind me, pressing the air forward,
shrinking the distance between us. Then claws wrapped around my leg.
My body slammed into the ground. The impact drove the
air from my lungs. The flashlight bounced out to my
grip and rolled across the stone. The beams swung wildly,
strobing through the cave in broken fragments. I kicked my
heel caught something the grip and my leg tightened, pulling
I clawed at the ground. My fingers found nothing but
dust and sharp gravel. Another shape moved in from the left, crawling,
low eyes leaking, its jaw clicked open, saliva dripping from
the mouth of a mole. A distorted melody warped by
decades of overuse, blasted through the cave. Mechanical static layered
over digital tones. The motor roller it had slid from
my jacket pocket when I hit the floor. The antenna
stuck at an angle. The screen glowed. We were close
enough to the surface. Now it had found a signal.
Everything it had missed, calls, voicemails, alert had come through
at once, dozens, maybe hundreds. The speaker vibrated against the stone.
Every sound echoed through the tunnel, magnified tenfold. I'd always
marked the ring tone, a broken remix of old midiphiles,
layered with sirens and overlapping voice prompts. It sounded awful.
The thing on my legs shrieked and let go. Its
arms snapped up to shield its head. The one crawling
towards me recoiled, clawing at its skull. Both of them
backed away from the phone, their bodies twisting against the walls,
trying to escape the sound. One slammed into the rock
so hard dust exploded from the ceiling. Another scraped at
its own ears, tearing shallow furrows into the sides of
its head. The ring tone kept playing. The cave vibrated
with it. Loops of distorted melody collided with incoming alert
and static grid and voicemails. I pushed myself up and
grabbed the flashlight. The beam caught one of the creature's
mid turn. It screamed and scrambled back into the dark.
The crack of the cliff side was ahead. I threw
myself through it, shoulders, slamming into the stone on either side.
The cold air outside hit my face and chest like
a tide. I dropped to my knees on the gravel
slope just beyond the entrance, but above me sunlight. I
looked up and saw the sky. I never found the
courage to go back. I wish I could say I
went back in there retrieved my uncle's body, but I
was scared. I gave an anonymous tip to the police.
They found the body, and later the cave was sealed
off because it was deemed too dangerous. The official story
was a lonely hermit, losing his life in a cave.
But I knew better.