Speaker 1: I'm an old man nowadays, and the events described within
this text took place a long time ago. Still I
haven't been able to move forward, not really. Fragmented memories
pop up from time to time, images of that awful
night sporadically haunting me. Seeing as I'm not long for
this earth now, the grim reaper impatiently waiting. I figured
putting it all into writing would make my last couple
of months more comfortable in some way. Growing up yet
a house like any other. It was red, the pigment
of the paint originating from the iron mines further up north.
The corners of the casing of the windows were white.
A big plot of land surrounded our home, and it
included a barn constructed in the same traditional style as
the main residence. Miles of part bordered the property to
the north, and fields of wheat and ride to the east.
A small gravel path no wider than an l connected
us to the outside world. If you haven't figured it
out yet, we led a quaint and isolated life, but
it was good. It was a good life. I apologize,
I'm forgetting myself. It becomes less rare with age. I
suppose you're wondering what I mean when I say we
a family of four? What's change that who we were?
My younger sister, Ingrid, was a gifted artist. She would
start a creative journey by making dolls at a straw
and drawing on the walls, much to the dismay of
our parents. In many ways, the spirit was unbound by
the realities of life, which I've always admired. My father
was your typical farmer, seemingly always armed of the sickle.
Most days he wore a hat made out of straw
and gene suspenders, so much so that some folk came
to call him Kufusa, a direct translation of cowboy with
ironic under tones. He was strong willed and cared for
his family, despite the complex relationship we had. I realized
with time that he had to shoulder the burden heavier
than any man should have to carry. Then you have
my mother, who was a kind and gentle woman, but
she was never afraid to bring out her fierceness when
haggling during intense negotiations. I remember one time at the
local market and she even managed to convince our nearest
neighbor that the cow were selling had magical powers. Needless
to say, we ate well that week. That may sound strange,
but such was rural life back then. Phase elves and
trolls weren't merely folklore. People gave gifts to these supposed
forest dwellers and asked them to bless the crops. When
the harvest turned out bountiful, they would think the beings
and they didn't. They would ask what angered them? I reckon.
Most of it boiled down to superstition, bored ways of
explaining the unexplained. The lone exception was that of our
last couple family members. When father spoke of them around us,
he called them help us, because that's what they were
most of the time. Whenever he thought we weren't around,
when the late hour struck and darkness would creep into
our house, he would quietly call them but tara, a
more fitting denomination. The word itself translates to the goblin,
but it doesn't feel right to call them that. Whites.
They were the whites of the land. It was easy
to understand as a child. In essence, they assisted us
with menial tasks around the property in exchange for porridge,
fruits and pretty trinkets, which my dear sister gladly crafted.
Or rather, that's the story our mother told us when
we were too young to know about the darker side
of the arrangement. One day, Ingrid and I found ourselves
deep in the forest. Tall trees older than our country
rose towards the sky from mossy beginnings. Even though the
sun shone bright, its rays couldn't pierce those ancient giants.
We had been playing something. We came up with helpers
and herders. It was silly, there's any game conjured in
the mind of a child. One of us started as
a cow and the other as a helper. The cow
would run bock wild due to a particularly bad case
of mad cow disease. Of course, the distraught herder would
be left with no other option than to seek assistance
from the famous helpers. A gift to the imaginary helpers later,
usually a pine cone fashioned into an animal, the cow
would be cured. My sister mood empathetically. More so, I
thought that was incredible. Do it again, I said, I
don't think that was me, she replied. Turns out we
had heard a real cow, which prompted an explostion. We
moved through thick shrubbery never minding the tiny scrapes from
thorns unseen, the cow made another sound, for this time
who was far closer. However, it was less of a
humble move and more of a piercing shriek. Poor thing
was in pain. We huddled together on the ground and
crawled into a bush. Through it we saw the source
of the sound. The cow lay blooded in the center
of a circle made out of separate stones. If memory
serves me right, it was five or six. I won't
go into much further detail about the state of the cow,
but it was bad. My younger sister had never seen
such brutality and led out a gasp. The gasp turned
to sniffling, and sniffling turned to crying. I tried to
hush her, but some one had already heard us. What
followed was the berating of the sentry. Father had never
been as angry with us as he was then, Since
I was the elder sibling. Most of it was directed
my way. He dragged me by the arm all the
way back home, while muttering furious nothings. My sister walked
by his side, still in shock from the grisly sight.
I didn't listen to a word he said more shouted.
For that matter, all I could think about was my
father standing over the cow, crimson draped sickle in hand,
dancing a terrible dance. The blood and the white shimmer
of the blade reminded me of our house. I never
saw my father in the same way again. Later that night,
when the initial emotion had simmered down, I tried asking
some questions. Both and my parents are on the defensive,
but I soon wore them down. Apparently I was finally
old enough to know the secret of the white. Mother
took ingrid upstairs. Father sat me down at the kitchen table,
candlelight flickering in his face. What you saw was a sacrifice,
Father said, a sacrifice, yes, like the porridge we put
on the window sill, or the dolls your sister makes.
But sometimes they demand more. Why, I do not know.
There are many things we don't know about them. We
know that they are intrinsically linked to this land, because
they have lingered here longer than any man. We know
that they tolerate us, even help us, because we bring
them gifts. We know that they respect us as long
as we respect them and the land we borrow. He
went on for a while, detailing the many tenets of
living with whites. You weren't supposed to disturb their paths,
for example, a rule made more difficult by the fact
that their roads were invisible and ever changing. You can
never deny why to wish outright, But thankfully they weren't
very demanding usually, and it always came with the reward
of a plowed field or milked cows. As he continued explaining,
I started connecting the dots. It was not possible for
my aging father to run the farm all by himself.
It was almost a miracle our family had prospered the
way we did. Except it wasn't a miracle after all.
He thanked me for listening and told me that I
now was in the know, which meant more responsibility from
now on. I was content with his answers and started
walking up the stairs when a thought hit me, Father,
what did they look like? He turned to face me quickly.
His face looked almost drained of color. The flickering of
the light highlighted his wrinkles in a way that made
him seem much older than he was. Go to bed son. Awhile,
after that faithful conversation, my mother fell ill tuberculosis, the
doctor said the white death. She spent much of a
time in the hospital. We visited her, often bringing small
trinkets for her. My sister was inconsolable, and she entered
into a deep sadness, spending many a day locked away
in a room. This meant that my father and I
had to do most of the work around the farm
by ourselves, early mornings and late nights for months. It
was taxing work, especially for a growing teenager and his elder.
There were positives, though, I would say I turned into
a man around this time, and I got closer to
my usually distant father. Also, we weren't completely alone. The
Whites were a godsend during this period, and much of
my work focused on keeping them happy. Father eased me in,
initiated me slowly. Sometimes I missed the mark, which would
lead to tools or even cattle going missing. They could
be mischievous, he had told me. Whenever my sins got
too egregious, I would hear the pit, a patter of
small feet on the roof in the dead of night,
windows being opened, whispers in a language I didn't recognize,
from the woods, and always just outside my field of vision.
I would sense dark figures hiding these unspoken threats felt
drenched in hatred and spite, far removed from the benevolent
beings my father had described. But I suspected they were
capable of more than harmless pranks, and by the way
my father had reacted when I asked about their appearance,
he did too. Eventually I got the hang of things.
The farm ran smoothly on the shoulders of two men
in their army of hidden benefactors. Calculations were made included
that the annual harvest would cover almost all of her
expenses for two years. At the same time, my mother
finally came home from the hospital, Ingrid was overjoyed. I
never told anyone that I often snuck out at night,
bringing lavish gifts to the white or nate silver brooches.
I had stolen, golden earrings and bracelets. All of it
went to the stone circle in the forest. I did
not ask them for riches or a pretty girl to
fall in love with. I just wanted my mother to survive.
During all my trips to the sacrificial altar, I never
once did see them, but they provided Nonetheless, I always
imagined them the way tradition had painted them for me,
the small, quite chubby, happy fella with a little hat on.
Then again, as sinister energy had befallen the farm. Despite
the many good things happening, I didn't dare imagine them anymore.
Our luck would sooner run out. The first horror to
rear its ugly head was the disappearance of mother. It
was an ordinary day. My father and I woke up
at the first crow of the rooster. A fresh layer
of snow covered the path to the barn yonder, which
made the track difficult and miserable. I had recently gotten
a new pair of boots, two layers of leather, and
a thick layer of wall inside, but the cold still
bit my feet. Father grimaced as we struggled against wind
and snow. Today you become a man, he said, What
do you mean, I replied, do you remember the cow?
I shuddered hopefully not noticeably. Of course I remembered the cow.
Turns out it was my turn to sacrifice a living
being at first. Up until then, it was always smaller things,
dead things. Now I would have to take a life.
He chose an audible. He was sick and most likely
would not last the winter. Either way, as far as
we knew, he didn't eat them, so the disease wouldn't
matter towards The quality of the gift made it easier,
but not by much. I made my way through the
forest with a leash connected in one end to my
hand and the other to Gunner. It was a weird feeling.
Gunner had been alive longer than I. It had seemed
so much, from the humble beginnings of our family to
the discovery of the white I remember wondering if he
understood what was about to happen. When I logged into
his eyes, I decided that he didn't. The ritual had
to be performed in a certain way. I began by
tying the leash to a tree near by the circle,
and started covering the bull with ox tallow. I removed
a small pouch from my waist and dipped my fingers
in its contents, red ochre. I painted a kind of
sign which my father had taught me on the forehead
of Gunner. If it was a letter, it was from
a language I didn't know or even had heard of,
not Latin, which would have been my go to guess
as far as sacrificial languages go. Not Swedish not sap
me the mystery. The knife quickly moved across the throat
of the ball. Before I had time to contemplate the
morality of the situation. Gunnar, laid in front of me
with red in the snow, was too pronounced the biocre lord.
I had decided to perform the kill quickly, not only
for Gunnar's sake, but also for the white. The most
important step of sacrificing a living thing was the dance.
We had been up late many nights practicing the moves.
Father had stressed the importance of doing it correctly. My
movements were jerky, just as he had shown me. It
felt as if I relived the moment bush watching myself.
The dance was reminiscent of the final few seconds of
life in an animal before death came. Or sometimes it
even looked like the rig and mortis after death. The
dance was death in some sense, or at least closely
connected to it. I breathed a sigh of relief. The
deed was done. But just as I turned around to
start walking home, I caught a glimpse of a figure
halfway hiding behind a tree. Whispers in both my ears.
A headache grew in my right temple. The White stepped
out into the moonlight and I saw them for the
first time. Short, no taller than a meter, Its body
was a shimmering mess of shapes that looked to me
morphing constantly. The shape looked roughly humanoid, but it was
clear to me I wasn't supposed to understand their form
ferro fluid. That's what it looked like. They were made
out of opalescent, glassy, active ferro fluid. I could have
mistaken it for beauty if it wasn't for the mask
it war. At the top of the shape sat a
white mask with black rings around the holes for the eyes.
The eyes were rather pale, glowing yellow, and they observed
me closely. There was a hole in the mouth as well,
positioned in such a manner that it looked like it
was frowning, and in the mouth were rows and rows
of deathly thin teeth. The white pointed at me, its
arms starting to stretch. Sick, it simply said or screeched,
without moving its mouth. I ran home, terrified. When I
finally got home, the house was in shambles, furniture thrown around,
shouts of glass, draping the wooden floor planks ripped straight
out from the wall, and my mother was missing. I
found Ingrid catatonic at the base of the stairs, and
my father was comforting her. He gripped an axe tightly.
Apparently Ingrid had heard scratches on the door. She had
run to tell my mother. He told her to hide.
She ran up to a room, crawled under the bed
and held her breath. She heard a loud noise and
the sound of twenty feet tapping, a scream, and then
silent silence for two minutes, she estimated, then a maniacalor cackle.
The Whites crept around the house looking for Ingrid. They
turned every stone in the house and came an inch
away from getting her too. They had entered the room
she was hiding in at least three, making a sound
as if they were trying to smell her. A long
arm started feeling the underside of the bed and finally
gripped my sister's foot. As luck would have it, my
father had heard the screams and into the house, swinging
a torch and axe, just as the creature had found Ingrid.
They scattered, some jumping out through the open windows, some
seemingly disappearing into thin air, but no sign of our mother.
This was new. They had never encroached on her home before,
or sure they would make their presence known through knocking
on the windows and crawling around the edge of the forest,
but never like this. Maybe safety was no longer. Father
God sloppy. After that dreadful morning, I never said anything,
but deep down I felt like he gave up, and
I was angry at him for that. He still had
two children to take care of. Even though I know
he blamed me for it all, I do not know
what I did wrong. Still, to this day, we would
last six more months on that farm. It was dark out,
but not in the normal sense. Some nights are darker
than others that I now know in hindsight. Maybe it
was a sign, had your bag now get the hell
out of these god forsaken lands. Alas I cannot change
the past. Father and I were eating a silent supper,
some sort of stew with the side of potatoes. Before
me sat a broken man, the marks of time chipping
away at the marble Ingrid had, after a mother's presumed death,
gotten into the habit of late night walks. Father had
protested but she was relentless. The determination reminded me of Mom.
This particular July night, she burst through the door, giving
my heart some trouble with keeping up. She looked distraught, horrified,
but worst of all, sad I disturbed the path. She
simply stated, there were no questions. No, how did you
know you stepped on one of their roads? If they're invisible, No,
you'll just wait and see what happens. We all knew
better than to think rationally about the whites. If Ingrid
knew she had walked over one of their roads, she
had done. So Father stood up, Getty things only essentials.
I need to release the animals from the barn. I
do not want to give them anything for free. He
said that was a bad idea. He could just leave
with us. Now, why did he have to be so stubborn? However,
there was no stopping him. Oh how I wish I
could have stopped him. He grabbed his jacket and Sickle
slurped down the last of the stew in motion and
ran out of the door. Grid and I started packing.
I helped her with what constituted essentials only while trying
to pack mine and also my father's bag. Simultaneously, some
clothes and more knife my father had given me, and
one of the necklaces I had stolen. That was it.
The rest would be forever left behind. There was an
invisible ticking clock hanging in the air. The dread in
the air started getting thick, you could almost touch it.
Where was he? Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty five minutes.
Something had gone wrong and I had to go help him.
I asked Ingrid to start the truck. She said she
knew how. Then I was off to the races. I
don't think I ever had, or would ever again, run
that fast. I clenched my fist round my knife and
started preparing myself for what I would face. Funnily enough,
I could have spent my whole youth preparing for that sight,
and it wouldn't be enough. I entered the barn silently,
and the barn seemed to respond with its own silence.
No animals to speak of. He had managed to free them.
But where was he now? I crouched and made my
way through the buildings slowly. There were scattered hay and
mock on the floor, but this was no time to
be fancy. A weird smell emanated from the furthest corner.
It was subtle at first, then stronger, and finally nauseating
rot death. I turned the corner and I almost threw
off against the wall. Two meters up was my father,
his torso separated from his head and limbs. All of
his parts were nailed towards the wood in a Jesus
esque manner. But the cross wasn't connected. When I got
a little bit closer, I saw that it was in
fact connected by thin strips of flesh, a cowboy crucified.
In my shock, I could only think about two things.
How did the rot advance so quickly? And where were they?
The answer to my second question appeared instantly. They materialized
from nothing. Some were hanging and my father, digging claw
like extremities into him, or covering him in oxtallow. Some
were dancing beneath staring at me with empty yellow eyes.
Tens of crystaline horrors descended upon my location. In desperation.
They stepped on each other, pushed each other to get
to me. It was the most ancient of instincts that
told me to run, so I did. They were always
just a step behind. He felt like they would grab
me at any second doing god knows what with me.
I imagine the sharpness of their teeth. I imagine what they
hid beneath that mask. In that moment, I felt certain
that if a man ever gazed upon their unmasked face,
he would go mad. I barely managed to get out
of the barn before one of them tackled me. He'd
pinned me to the ground, and I slashed my knife
at its body. The material of its body rapidly changed
from solid to liquid form in the area I hit it.
It floated in the air, not affected by gravity. Then
it remterialized. The solid attached to the white. Yet again
it had no effect, but it gave me a split
second of slither out of its grip. I saw the
headlights of our truck. I ran, where is he? My
sister desperately asked, He's dead. Go in the car. I
noticed that much of what used him in my calf
was missing. The whole muscle writ almost clean off. Someone
must have been looking out for me. I don't know
how I possibly ran that distance in that condition. Otherwise,
after a couple of minutes, I passed out from the pane.
So there is that I could never quite sleep well.
After that night, I could swear I started hearing their
whispers everywhere, the sound of their feet sneaking around, barely
out of sight. But I never saw them again. He
must have been tied to the land. Thank everything that
is holy, both INGERD and I carved out good lives
for ourselves, but we carry this with us wherever we go.
I do not know who moved up there after us.
I pray they're still alive. I pray they figured out
the whites and what they mean. Otherwise, God rest their souls.
My father was not an open book. Those that knew
him would call him a reserved man, or a man
of few words. But to me, he was like a
man who had retreated into his own universe, a world
that seemed filled with shadows in every corner, awaking nightmare.
I would catch him sometimes at night, just staring out
the window, gripping the arms of his chair so tight
I thought his hands would start bleeding. He would lean forward,
almost falling out of his chair, as if expecting something
terrible and incomprehensible to show up at our door at
any moment. My father was a man clothed in dread.
It's only something I came to realize as I got
older he hid it well, especially from my mother, not
nearly well enough. Nothing terrified my father more than piano music,
whether it was heard in an elevator or on the TV,
or being played in a shopping mall by a hobby
pianist who wanted to impress onlookers, whether it was classical
or jazz, whether it was happy or sad, simple or complex.
When he heard the sound of a piano, his eyes
would bulge out of their sockets, his skin would go
pale white. He would look around wildly, whipping his head
back and forth, like a dog wrangling with a bone.
I never had the courage to ask him why he
was so afraid of it. Why didn't I just ask him?
But it wasn't the thing to be acknowledged in our home.
Fear is contagious, and the easiest way to come down
with it is to talk about it. So my father's
fear lingered throughout our lives, untouched, like a piano that
was never sold, it in the air, playing its own
silent music for years. My father passed away a year
ago due to heart complications. I thought his secret died
with him, but two weeks ago, I was visiting my
mom and decided to go through my father's old belongings.
I guess I was feeling nostalgic. After some time, I
was about to head out when I saw it, at
the bottom of a cardboard box that had been hidden
in the corner of the attic. It was an unmarked envelope.
Inside was a letter comprised of several sheets of paper.
The writing and the letter was rushed and scratchy, but
it was my father's handwriting. There was no mistaking it.
What I read in that letter has haunted me for
the past fourteen days. I've decided to share that letter
right here and now because I feel that in some
way it may help me better understand it. Or maybe
the truth is I just want someone to share my
father's dread with. My mother would not listen to me
when I told her about the letter. She told me
to burn it and to forget whatever it said. She
scolded me like I was still a child. What you're
about to hear from this point on are my father's
words exactly. I have not changed, not altered any of it.
I am transcribing it word for word. This is my
father's story. In his own words. I wonder how many
times I've attempted to write this letter, how many pieces
of paper I've torn up throughout the years, how many
pens have gone dry, how many pencils snapped? Too many,
far too many. If I do have the courage to
finish it, I wonder who will even read it. Maybe
it'll be my dear Elizabeth. Maybe you're even reading it
right now. I'm sorry for keeping this from you. I
haven't been a good husband. You don't know all of me,
not nearly all of me. That's a horrible thing to
do to your wife. I hope you can forgive me, Liz.
Or maybe it'll be you, Jack, my boy, you saw
me better than I saw myself. How many times did
you catch me staring? I used to tell you I
was daydreaming. If you are reading this now, you'll know
what I really saw those nights, what I heard. It's
neither Elizabeth or Jack. Maybe it's you, Jonathan or your mother.
God help me. If it is, have you finally found
me I've seen you out of the corner of my
eyes for the last forty years. Or maybe if you're
reading this, you're a complete stranger to me. Regardless, it's
time I told this story once and for all, even
if the pen and paper I'm writing with end up
being the only ones who ever know it. In December
of nineteen seventy six, I was on my way home
for the holidays. I was attending the University of Wisconsin Madison.
My parents lived in Lacrosse. It's only about a two
and a half hour drive. But on my way I
got caught in a snowstorm, a storm that came out
of nowhere. I mean really came out of nowhere. Somehow
I got turned around. I've never been good at driving
in snow. If you're reading this this, you know how
true that is. Remember the station wagon, God, I nearly
crashed it a hundred times. Those were good days. And
days like those I barely ever heard the piano, or
at least convince myself I couldn't hear it. But I'm
getting ahead of myself. This was not a bad storm.
It was one hell of a bad storm. I've rolled
back the clock in my head numerous times, wondering if
there was anything I could have done differently, what if
I'd driven slower or turned into the slide. But I
think in some ways no matter what I did, that
car was destined to crash that day, and crash it
I did straight into a ditch. All my attempts to
get the car out of the ditch, a futile snow
was coming down hard. This was no soft powder but
a cocoff and your flakes and harsh sleet. Through the
white storm, I saw a house in the distance. It
was the only building nearby, and I hadn't seen any
cars on the road in what felt like forever. I
got out of my car and walked towards the home.
I was shocked by how deep the snow had become already,
how unrecognizable the landscape seemed. I took one last look
of my car, already being devoured by the snow, turning
it into a sad, frozen white monolith in the middle
of nowhere. I drew closer and closer to the home.
Each step I took more tiresome than the last. Then
I heard something that stopped me right in my tracks.
It was the sound of music coming from the home.
It was the delicate sound of a piano. The music
cut right through the harsh, cold winds of the storm
and went straight to my ears. The music was coming
from the upper part of the house. There was a
window to a room on the upper floor, but a
curtain obstructed the view. Still, there was no question that
the piano music was coming from the room. My eyes
went from the top window to a window on the
first floor. There was a woman standing in the window.
She was staring right at me with a amused expression
on her face. I waved to her nervously, and then
pointed back at my car. When I looked back, the
woman was gone from the window. Moments later, the front
door to the house opened and I made my way
up the porch steps. Can I help you, the woman asked,
standing in the doorway. She still had that amused look
on her face. It's a little embarrassing, I said, but
I crashed my car into that ditch down the road
and I can't get out. Oh my, how awful, the
woman said, Please come in and get yourself warm. I
stepped inside, and the woman shut the door behind me.
All at once, the noise from outside was cut off.
The only noise now was the piano music coming from upstairs.
That and my chill breathing that music, I said, rubbing
my arms to get warm. It's really lovely. Oh that's
my son Jonathan. He's a wonderful pianist. Please do make
yourself comfortable. I'll fix you some tea. Absolutely dreadful, weather,
simply dread. I sat down in the living room. It
was a warm and cozy house, but there was something
underneath that made me uncomfortable. I did not understand it
fully at the time. We're looking back on it, I
believe some part of me noticed all the little things
that were off about the home. For one, there was
no family photos anywhere to be seen, and despite the
warmth of the home, it had a bizarre sterile smell,
like that of an appliance store. The house looked lived in,
but didn't feel lived in. Could I use your phone,
I asked. The phones are out, the woman said, bringing
back two cups of tea. They won't be back up
until morning, most likely as soon as they are our phone. Harvey,
my neighbor. He lives the closest. I'll have him bring
his tractor and we'll get your car out of the
Is there any way to get hold of him? Now?
I hate to be a bother, but how's on my
way to Lacrosse to see my folks? For the holidays.
I was hoping to get there by tonight. Upstairs, the
piano music stopped. The woman took a large sip of
a tea, looking at me over the cop with her
faded green eyes, then putting the cop down gently, she said, Lacrosse. Goodness, gracious,
how on earth did you end up here in Dutchville County?
I got turned around Dutchville County. I've never been through
here before. Well, there's no helping it now. Harvey lives
a spell away. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until morning. Dear,
I'm terribly sorry. Your son Jonathan? How old is he?
Twenty next month? She said finally, Oh, well, could he
then again? I hate to be a bother. Could he
help me try to push my car out? No, she
said flatly, and there was no kind of amusement in
a voice now, her eyes narrowed. Jonathan cannot move all
that well, even if he could, and even if you
did get your car out, the roads are terrible. You'll
just be in another ditch in no time. You're perfectly
fine to sleep on the couch tonight. Come tomorrow, Harvey
will have you out and you'll be on your way
to see your parents. I realized, I guess it has
to be that way. Then I realized I'd not taken
a drink off my tea. Were looking at the cop
I lost all thirst. The tea looked like gross mud
water that had been pulled from a gutter. For some time,
we just sat there in the quiet living room with
no music, a dreary sigh, and stuck over the home.
Where are you coming from anyhow, the woman said, putting
down an empty teacup. It felt as if an eternity
had just passed. I go to school in Madison. Oh,
how lovely. What are you studying? Engineering? How wonderful? You know?
Jonathan used to love engineering as a boy, even more
than playing the piano. He would always build things, little
trinkets and gadgets and gizmos. But his condition made it
impossible for him to pursue a higher education. He's been
a homebody for years now. All he does is play
piano day and night. He's really great at it. Now,
where are my manners? I should introduce you both? At that,
she led me out of the living room. We began
to climb the stairs. Did a horrible feeling came over me,
the one you might have when you're walking by a
dark alley at night, the kind of primitive instinct that
screams in the back of your head, screams, run, you idiot. Run.
We reached the top of the stairs. The hallway was
dark and lit only by a small lamp. We passed
several rooms until we reached the door at the end
of the hallway. The woman, and I realized at this
point I didn't even know her name, gently pushed the
door open and said, Jonathan, there's someone here i'd like
you to meet. The first thing I noticed when stepping
into the room was a large piano that sat in
the corner. It was a beautiful looking piano, and it
looked out of place in the small room. A piano
like that should have been front and center had a
concert hall. The fading light outside filtered to the bedroom curtain,
giving the room a soft, ethereal look. I felt I
was stepping into some kind of dream world. And then
I saw Jonathan sitting on his bed. I froze. I
wouldn't call Jonathan a doll exactly. He was too big
to be a doll, but he was like a rag
doll in a way, a human sized rag doll. Jonathan
was not a living, breathing person. He was just an
inanimate object dressed up to look human. He wore sky
blue pajamas and had a mop of red hair. His
cloth skin looked like it had been white once but
now had faded to a sickly beige color. He had
two black buttons for eyes, though there were different sizes,
the right eye being much smaller than the left. It
gave him the appearance that he was always winking. I
did what I could only do in that moment. I laughed.
It was a hoarse, nervous laugh. Don't you dare laugh?
The woman said sharply. She wasn't looking at me now.
She was staring out the window, one hand rubbing Jonathan's
inanimate leg in a soothing gesture. Oh how they loved
to laugh. Once Jonathan was sitting on the porch, just
minding his own business, when these horrible boys from town
came in and began to harass him. I'll never forget
the sound of their laughter as I chased them off
on their bikes. Oh but I go the last laugh
there was. Boys loved to bike around a certain part
of town, and one day one of them went over
some nasty gravel and hit his head. He's still in
the hospital. Oh, yes, I got the last laugh. I'm sorry,
I said in a dry, panicked voice. Apology accepted, the
woman said, turning to me, she had a shocked look
on her face. Then she gave me a shark's grin.
A thought then hit me like an arrow striking the
center of a target. So chilling was the thought that
I felt I might faint at any moment. My body
felt ten times heavier. When the woman and I had
been downstairs, some one had been playing piano music. Some
one else had to be up here. Obviously, Jonathan playing
was out of the question, had to be out of
the question. The thought of this grotesque rag doll being
alive went against everything I believed in. I looked around
the room for a radio or record player, anything that
might have been playing the music earlier, but there was
nothing of the sort. There was only the piano. Is
there any one else in the house? I asked. The
woman gave me a knowing smile and said, of course not,
It's just Jonathan and I. Jonathan continued to stare into
the distance with his misshapen buttoned eyes for a split second,
maybe even less than that, I thought I saw his
head move, ever slightly. I blinked and rubbed my eyes.
When I opened Jonathan was as still as he had been,
and the woman was walking past me. I'll go fix
your bed downstairs, she said, walking out of the room.
You'll need your rest for to morrow. Then she was gone.
Only Jonathan and I were left in the room that
began to fill with an awful silence. So pervasive and
relentless was the silence that it felt as if it
seeped into every pore in my body. None of this
could be real, I told myself. The woman was playing
a trick on me, had to be playing a nasty
trick on me, and once again looked over the room, hoping,
nearly begging God to show me a radio or a
record player, But there was nothing. I thought about approaching
Jonathan give him a real look over. For one look
at that horrible, winking eye was enough to convince me otherwise.
I quickly turned and began to walk out of the room.
Then I heard what sounded like something shifting in the
bed behind me, and I ran. Within seconds, I was
down the stairs and out the front door. I knew
it was suicide running out into that storm. But I
couldn't stay in that house a second longer. The snow
was so deep it slowed my running, and for a
horrible moment I imagine Jonathan chasing after me, gaining on
me with terrible inhuman speed, his ragged old limbs moving
in strange, unnatural motions. I heard the woman yelling after me,
yelling for me to come back. Then I heard two
horrible sounds. The first was that the woman was laughing,
even in the roar of the winds. Her laugh was unmistakable,
piercing even I turned and saw her on the front porch.
She did, in fact have a horrible grin on her face,
which now looked so much longer and paler than it
had before. A laugh was an awful cackle, like thin
eyes breaking. The second horrible thing I heard was the
sound of a piano being played. It was coming from
Jonathan's room. My car was nowhere in sight, but it
was no use to me now anyway. I ran down
the road, and eventually the woman's laugh faded, but not
the piano music. No matter how far I went, I
could still hear it. It followed me the way A
bad memory follows you. I don't know how long I
waded through the snow, but at some point I collapsed
and thought for sure I was going to die. Then
I saw a light coming towards me. That light eventually
turned into a tractor with a plow. There was a
man driving it and began to say something, but I
couldn't hear him. I was fading in and out of consciousness.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was
the man standing over me, a horrible, concerned look on
his face. The last thing I heard was piano music.
I woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar bed.
For a horrifying second, I thought I was back in
that woman's house, maybe sleeping in the very same bed
as Jonathan. But that wasn't the case. I was in
an unfamiliar room alone. Sunlight was shining through the window,
and I could see that the storm had stopped. I
heard the floorboards creaking outside the room, and again, for
a horrifying second, I thought the woman would appear in
the doorway, smiling cackling. Instead, he was the man I
had seen driving the tractor. Good you're awake, the man said, warmly,
How are you feeling. Where am I? I asked, ignoring
his question, You're in my house. I found you running
down the road last night. What were you thinking? My
car broke down? Are you with that woman? What woman?
That one that lives down the road from where you've
found me? The man said nothing. At first, he just
stared at me. Then he said, in a pensive voice,
the woman that lives down the road from where I
found you. Are you with her? I said, I gripped
the bed sheets, as if my life depended on it. No,
I'm not with anyone, the man said, putting up his hands.
I live here on my own. I relaxed my hands.
I need to call my parents. I was on my
way to visit them when my car broke down. Phones
in the kitchen, You're welcome to use it. When you
were out and I was plowing the roads, I saw
a car, your car, I gather. We can go there
when you're ready and get it out. I've already got
most of it plowed out. Truthfully, if you saw my car,
then you must have seen the house nearby. That's the
house where the woman lives with a son, Jonathan. He's
not a house where the woman lives the man said again,
in that deep, pensive voice, Yeah, you must have seen it.
If you saw my car, Why don't you call your
parents and if you're up for it, I'll take you
to your car. He gave me a reassuring smile. Then
god up to leave. It's your name, Harvey, I asked him.
He turned around and the smile on his face dipped
into a questioning vrow Is it it is? He said?
How do you know that the woman she told me
about you and your tractor? Is that right? For a moment,
Harvey said nothing, his frown deepened. Call your parents and
then we'll get going. He left me in the room
with the sunlight as my only company. My parents were
relieved to hear my voice. I didn't tell them about
what I saw in the woman's house, that already was
starting to feel like a bad nightmare. I told them
that my car went into a ditch, and that I
spent that night at a kind stranger's house, and that
I would be in Madison later that day, hopefully. I
got into the tractor with Harvey, and as we drove
down the road, I was shocked to see how much
of the road had already been cleared. The storm had
been so awful the night before, and the snow had
been so deep. Now it barely looked as if it
had snowed. Eventually we came upon my car. Harvey had
told the truth. He had gotten most of it out
of the snow already. He killed the engine to his tractor,
and both her eyes went in the same direction. We
were looking at where the house was, or where it
should have been. There was no house there now, at
least not what I had seen last night. Instead, there
were the remains of a house. The roof was gone,
and part of the floor was completely carved in. Some
pieces of the home shotted out, like the jagged teeth
or some ancient monster. Is this the house you were
speaking of? Harvey asked. His voice was soft and empathetic.
I don't understand, I said. I was here last night.
I was in there. It wasn't like this, son. That
house has been abandoned for years now. There was a
woman who lived there, but that was a long time ago.
What happened to her, it was a long time ago.
You couldn't have met what happened. She took her own life,
Harvey said. As he spoke. We both stared at the
wreckage of the home after her son died. It was
a terrible accident involving some of the boys from town.
I don't know too much about the details. I was
young myself back then. I just know that it was
ugly business, and that she blamed one of the boys
for a son's death. The boy ended up in the
hospital some time later. I don't know much else. Like
I said, it was ugly business. But that house has
been abandoned for years. No one lives there, no one
could live there. Just look at the state of it.
So you were just pulling my leg. Right, you couldn't
have been in there last night. Tell me you were
just pulling my leg. I stared into Harvey's eyes, which
were now threatening to spell over with tears, and saw
that the old man was in fact terrified. Yeah, I
was just pulling your leg, I said, flatly. Someone from
town told you my name, his voice thin, pleading. Someone
from town put you up to it. Someone in town
told me your name. Someone from town put me up
to it. Harvey led out a sigh. Well you got me,
good son, Oh boy, yeah you did. Now let's get
your car out. It did not take long for Harvey
and I to get my car out and running. We
shook hands and I thanked him for his help. As
I was getting in my car and Harvey was getting
in his tractor, we both stopped at the sound of
something horrifying. It was coming from the abandoned home. It
was piano music, delicate, melancholic piano music. He stood there
and just listened. Neither of us acknowledged it. Then, after
a moment, we got in our vehicles and went our
separate ways. I never saw or spoke with Harvey again,
but I've heard the piano music every night since. I'm
hearing it now as I write this letter. God help me,
I'm hearing it now. That's the end of my father's letter.
I still can't quite believe what I've read that my
father really wrote these words. At least now I understand
why my father spent his life looking over his shoulder,
what he saw in the shadows. Since reading his letter,
I've had this idea in my head of driving up
to Dutchville County and tried to find the house that
haunted my father every step of his life. But I'm
terrified of what I'll see and what I'll hear. Whoever
had carved The door relished in the Anatomy of Suffering.
It was a two story tall slab of copper, set
directly next to a cavern wall, Its surface carved with
a vast and complex bas relief that worried the eye.
A cloying, confusing mix of human bodies sprawling upwards in
a mound of flesh, many glancing horrified over their shoulders
or fleeing something out of frame and out of sight.
Thousands of them, starved and wretched, with gaunt faces and
sunken eyes, jutting ribs and distended bellies. There were rumors
that they moved, but only when you weren't looking. Less
than a week after its discovery, they brought it down
with explosives. We didn't really know what we'd found at
that point, although I'm sure a few of us, particularly
the religious, their suspicions the door was wrong, all wrong.
It just shouldn't have been there. Natural caverns don't go
that deep in Britain, not a thousand meters. As scientists,
we should have been excited, but we all agreed the
door was repulsive. Staring at it too long induced a
powerful urge to flee. An ancestral memory, maybe the same
way our bodies know to avoid things that crawl and slither,
things that rot and buzz and stink of death and decay.
They never told us how or why they found it,
nor why the project was classified, only that we had
to figure out what was on the other side. When
the charges finally blew, they went off like giant fire crackers,
a string of them that ran down the gateway one
by one, deafening booms that shook the entire cavern. I
was left blinking dust out of my eyes as great
machines lowered the door, now free of its couplings, to
the ground. Looking back, some details come easier than others.
The air that wafted out was hot and dry, and
I was not surprised. That seemed intuitively correct, whether I'd
admitted to myself or not. The fact was, I'd been
thinking of the door as a gateway to Hell pretty
much since I'd first laid eyes on it, and my
mental image of hell was oddly medieval. I expected some great,
big stones, something reminiscent of an ancient castle, rattling chains,
the wailing of the damned, the stench of sulfur god,
even little red devils with horns and pointy tails. But
I hadn't expected shelves and books. That was the first
real thing we saw. Shelves lining the walls that had
been dug directly into the same rock as the cavern,
Shelves that rose far above our lights, so that when
we looked up there was only darkness and dust, but
no limits to the endless row and row of shelving,
every last inch covered in books. There were no gaps,
just dust and tattered spines of random sizes, leather fabric, paperback,
faded past elle, and gold leaf letters in alphabets both
familiar and strange. And it wasn't just the walls. The
floor was littered with random, head high piles of books,
all stacked up like some tired librarian had gotten fed
up of finding room for them. They made a labyrinth
of the place, obscuring corners and doors, and the forward team,
myself included, progressed carefully along the stone passageway, listening and
looking carefully for some signs that would make sense of
the place. There must have been thousands of books, and
that was just in the first hallway we explored. Whenever
we took one out, we found paper so thin it
was nearly translucent, and often inked with strange shapes and
letters I couldn't recognize otherwise it was gibberish. Not that
we studied them too longer that first day. Whenever I
took one, I returned it quickly, lifting them up. I
always had the strangest sensation that I was doing something wrong,
something inappropriate. And I didn't like the space they left
behind on the shelves, a gap like a missing tooth,
the darkness within swirling like deep waters. Safety in that
place felt like an illusion, and touching the books was
at risk of shattering it. I don't know how else
to put it, except I didn't want to do anything
that might draw attention to me. It was as if
we were extremely conspicuous. There were no sounds but those
we made, our own breath, our own footfalls, the shuffle
and scuffle of out every movement. We could even hear
each other's heart beats, the discordant but bump of several
people's chests being beaten like a broken drum set, and
every now and again a racing, a steady increase in
the beats cadence as we turned a blind corner or
lifted a book just to see what it contained, or
looked up at the shadows above us. Each of us
kept having false starts, because there was always this expectation
that you were going to see something soon any second now.
Squeezed between two books or dangling overhead. It took more
than six hours before that corridor opened up, and when
it did, we were dumbfounded. We emerged into a vast
and terrifying mezzanine made of ancient rock, overlooking a chasm
with no visible bottom, just floor after floor filled with
shelves filled with books, billions, and all along those distant
walls and stories were little openings that led to more
corridors like the one we'd just emerged from, so many
that it was like staring at a rough shod beehive.
To look up, or down or anywhere was to be
faced with more books than anyone could read in their
entire lifetime. We took our first break on that mezzanine.
While radios didn't go very far in that place, we'd
had the sense to carry enough wire to allow for
a hard connection, and while using that we contacted the
main research site and updated them on the situation we
were to keep going for another six hours and turn
around a day. No more was the plan. Even that
felt like too long. I wanted to leave. I wanted
to confirm that somewhere was a doorway that would lead
back to reality, because ever since I'd entered that place,
it felt like I'd entered a nightmare, a place where
reality was plastic. I told myself it was simply the
scale of it, all the weirdness, But it was more
than that. The very air down there felt thin. There
were six of us, three scientists and three soldiers. The
soldiers responded to the situation with silence and an alertness
that bordered on paranoia, constantly scanning the dark with their
rifle mounted lights, flicking the beam from one high up
shelf to another, fidgeting, exchanging dark looks. In a way,
I was thankful, but it put me on edge too,
and I couldn't relax at all for the first half
of our little break. I guess it was natural that
the scientists got talking. This was partly to fill the quiet,
but also partly to try and convince ourselves we were
excited about the implications of this find, whatever those may be.
Rewriting history, archaeology, on a new level that kind of thing.
It didn't take long before we convinced ourselves to take
a closer look at those books. I'll admit it didn't
come easy, but we did a pretty good job of
convincing ourselves that we weren't really afraid. We started slowly
taking one book down, opening and then quickly replacing it,
but then with false bravery, we took more and more
came down, until each of us were sat cross legged
with several books stacked up on either side, waiting to
be read. I remember some point I must have grown
tired and looked up from my own pile, because I
noticed Doctor Ashling muttering quietly as she traced some words
with her fingers. What if you found it's Latin alphabet,
she said? First one, I actually recognized the letters for German.
Maybe none of us were linguists, so we were simply
doing our best. But upon hearing Bay mentioned German, one
of the soldiers came over and looked at the open page.
Germanic but not German. He said, you speak it? He nodded.
My father is German, and I don't know what that is.
But it isn't German. Is any of it familiar, Beer asked,
while handing the book to him. After a brief nod
from his CEO, Lieutenant Michael, he took it and became
and flicking through the pages. I think this is the
word for death, a sort of rough misspelling. Maybe this
one is. I guess it's a bit like wanting desire.
I don't know. Not all the words seem like they're
in the right context either. So there are a variety
of languages in alphabets, but as of yet, nothing we
can make sense of. What about you any luck? Beyer
asked me, and I looked down at the book currently
open in my hands. Some kind of sybelic, maybe, I shrugged.
I'm no linguist. We definitely need doctor Sellers on the
next expedition. I'm sure he could offer some insight. What
about you, doctor Rosenstein? The third doctor in our group,
a little bald man, had been sitting quietly the entire
time we spoke. The third scientist in our group, a
little bald man, had been sitting quietly the entire time
we spoke, frowning and one of several books that lay
open before him. I assume he was just curious like
Bear and I grant I said, trying to get his attention. Hey, Grant,
have you found anything? His silence unnerved me. He wasn't
just captivated. Sweat was prickling his forehead, and veins bulged
alongest temple. He had gone pale, and his eyes were
wide and his lips cracked and dry. The soldiers picking
up on the same strange signals I had stood a
little more upright, Dr Rosenstein, one of them asked, nervously, doctor,
can you hear us? The nearest soldier reached out and
placed a hand on Grant's shoulder, and the little man
looked up at us like he hadn't even realized we
existed until that moment. At first, I thought he was relieved,
the way he was staring at each of us with
a dumb grin on his face. But I soon realized
something wasn't quite right. Oh, he said, with an anxious laugh.
Oh right, of course, his eyes darted between us. Of course, Sorry,
I didn't mean to alarm you, right, I said, Well,
we were just talking about the books Bathing's hers might
be in a kind of German or Germanic language. He
nodded like this made perfect sense. Yes, I you imagine,
so he replied, while looking round the shelves that towered
over us. Lots of languages, I'd say, And then, without
really missing a beat, he added, they are sins. The
group fell into silence as each of us tried to
make sense of what he just said. In the meantime,
he stood up and stretched like it was the most
natural thing in the world. What are you want about,
I said, once it became clear he wasn't going to elaborate.
It's fairly obvious where we are, he said, while leaning
forward and eyeing us darkly. And these books are a
list of all our sins, one for each of us.
So there will be books in German, both contemporary and
historic German, like the one you found, doctor Ashling. But
there will also be books in Russian and French, and
Arabic and Chinese, not just contemporary tongues, either ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian, Aramaic, Latin,
and of course lost languages, ones that we never found
but existed anyway, All of them, all the transgressions of
the world, are right here, recorded in the sinner's original tongue.
By now the soldiers had stepped a little closer and
Bierre and I were sharing deeply worried looks. Grant seemed
to be in the middle of breaking down, speaking frantically
and anxiously, convinced of his own meaning. We're not really
saying anything of sense. Grant, I think we need to
go back. The real fun thing is that I think
you'll find books in languages that don't exist yet, he blurted.
This isn't just a record of sins in the past,
but all of them, every last one, even the ones
we haven't committed yet. Grant, I'm going to have one
of the men go back with you. If that's okay,
I think you might not. These are mine, he said,
or gesture to a book in his hand, All of them,
he laughed. Not just the things I did petty transgressions,
all recorded with names and places and even little diagrams.
But there are even sins I only ever thought things
I wanted to do, and he added, while giggling hysterically,
since I've yet to commit. He flicked through the pages
at random and giggled moniacally at something only he could see,
Although there aren't many, He cackled as he turned to
the final page, tears welling in his eyes. Just one, actually,
the last one, the last sin I'll ever commit. Grant,
I said, I think you. Before any of us could react,
he dropped the book and took a running leap over
the nearest edge. This is the way we came, right,
Beer stood at the threshold of a corridor, a light
tracking wire that sneaked into the darkness. That's the cable
we carried in here with us, one of the soldiers said.
But the young man looked over to his CEO, Lieutenant Michael,
who had a compass in hand and didn't look happy.
It's not the direction we came, the older man said.
We came south, so we need to head north. That
would be this doorway. He nodded at a second corridor
embedded in the rock wall. This has to be the way,
Beer said, I trust this cable a hell of a
lot more than I do a compass. Anything could be
interfering with that thing. Besides, we know the cable leads
the HQ because it's working. We spoke to them only
a few minutes ago. By this wire, it has to
lead out of here, and that makes sense, I added,
But I'm He marked the way we left with a
piece of chalk and that mark is over here. I
pointed to a third doorway. Damn, Michael muttered, regardless, I
vote wire, Bear said, I trust it the most. It's
a physical connection. I guess I vote wire too. Michael
added me too. But what do we do if we're wrong?
I asked? What does that even mean? Did something move
the wire or the door? We all went silent for
a few moments as we contemplated this. When nobody offered
up an answer, I eventually grabbed my backpack and hauled
it up. I guess we don't have much of a
choice either way, I said, Do you really think there's
a book in here for everyone? He asked, and it
was the first any of us had spoken in a
few hours. So far. We had all been walking, fixated
on the gloom ahead and behind us, watching carefully for
some sign that our fevered imaginations were right to suspect
something lurking in the dark. Grant seemed to think so,
I said, then, what are the odds he picked out
his own book? I mean, if he's right that there
are what a hundred billion bucks or so more? I replied,
if he's right about the library containing future sins as
well as past pretty slim heards. Then she added, what
are you thinking if he did find it here? I
don't think it was a coincidence, she said. But ahead,
one of the soldiers came to a sudden stop, fist
raised as he muttered something to the others, who knelt
and lifted their rifles aiming at the dark What is it,
I asked, You don't hear it, Michael called back. All
of us stopped and listened, carefully, straining to pick out
some meaningful sound from the white noise of blood rushing
through our ears and the thumping of our own hearts.
Sure enough, it was there, a gentle rustling. Without speaking,
all of us moved as quietly as we could along
the corridor until we came to the source of the
strange noise. A door, one that hadn't been there on
our way in left ever so slightly, ajar rifle raised,
one of the soldiers used the barrel to nudge it
open a little further. Oh damn, he said, his voice
loud enough to send echoes down the hall. The sound
came as a shock, and Michael pulled him back, ready
to admonish. When we all saw what had been waiting
on the other side another corridor, only this one had
shelves lined not with bugs, but severed heads, desiccated, pale
and gaunt, row after row, all sitting neatly next to
one another, evenly spaced, their skin paper white in the
harsh glare of our lights, and all of them with
cloudy eyes. And they were speaking soto voce, little whispers.
They muttered in a discord of wet lips, no breath,
no lungs, only the action of robbie jaws to sound
out syllables and consonants. They were lost in the rustling cacophony.
The sound was horrific, wet and dry and deeply unsettling
as it worked its way under my skin, until I
felt the strangest urge to lash out at the heads.
But curiosity overrode disgust, and I approached one, wincing briefly
when it fixed me with its cloudy eyes, but I
didn't stop. I got close enough to see every detail
of its flaking skin, its roomy eyes, glaring at me
with such strange emotion from my own sanity, I reached
out and picked it up, noting with disgust how the
stump of his neck left mottle brow fluid on the
shelf behind. I guess I just wanted to know if
it was fake. But its skin was cold, and its
brow furrowed with anger at my touch, And as soon
as it was in the air, every other head stopped
their muttering and fixed me with such foul expressions. I
quickly put it back down again, relieved when the murmuring resumed. Still,
its eyes did not leave me. What the hell be whispered?
What is this? Michael asked, as he scanned the upper
shells with his torch on and on they went as
far as we could see. What the actual hell is this? Slowly,
a strange thought began to form in my head. Blink
if you can understand me, I said, were kneeling down
to look at the head I'd picked up. Everyone else
in the group suddenly stopped what they were doing and
turned to see the result of my little experiment. Blink Okay, okay, okay,
I repeated, while trying to calm myself down. Right once
for no, twice for yes, do you understand? Blink? Blink
right okay ah. I looked at the others for suggestions,
when Bee piped up instead, Are these books a list
of all our sins. Blink blink, one book for one person,
blink blink. So what are you, she asked, and this
elicited a scathing look from the severed head. Yes or
no questions, I told her. One of the soldiers, the
youngest one, the one who helped translate the German, stepped
up and spoke, Is this hell? He asked? Blink blink?
Is this your punishment? He added, blink. If this isn't
the punishment, he said, what is? All Their heads stopped
them muttering and began to emit the strangest noise, their
faces twisting upwards and warping into grotesque parodies of joy,
while their mouths moved up and down in a particular
sort of rhythm. When I realized what they were doing,
I felt a terrible sensation of cold dread creeping down
my entire body. They were laughing at us. There was
no door. The wire slipped through a tiny hole at
the base of a wall that blocked off the corridor.
All of us were stunned into silence for minutes, until
at last Lieutenant Michael shook himself free from the shock
and issued an order Davis get HQ on the line.
One of the soldiers knelt down and began to remove
the communication set from his backpack. Within a few seconds,
it was set up and he was speaking into the headset. HQ,
can you read me over? Ah, I can read you well.
I guess the wire still leads to HQ, I said.
Try checking the wall for seams. Michael told me see
if it moves, hidden hinges us something I don't know. Then,
turning back to the soldier with a headset, tell them
we've encountered an obstacle, and we want them to send
another team in to get us. Oh, and tell them
to bring explosives if this thing opens, I said, while
running my hand along the edges, I can't see how.
It's pretty solid. Unlike every other wall we'd seen so far,
this one was made of red bricks, but that didn't
mean it was somehow mobile either. It seemed as sturdy
as any brick wall i'd come across. Well, it came
from somewhere, BE cried, while trying to peer through the
hole the wire disappeared through. Damn it, I can't see
anything HQ. The soldier said, we're going to need some assistance.
There's an obstacle over Roger there. What's the obstacle? H
A wall, he replied, Tell the next team to bring
explosives over a wall. Just send the team asap. The
soldier cried, our way out is blocked over. Well, I
can confirm we are unroute to your position. Just one question,
HQ replied, what's that over? The young man replied, why
do you keep saying over? Suddenly the voice changed and
began to titter and giggle, at first quietly, then louder
and louder, like a mean kid laughing at prank. The
cruelty and his high pitched voice made my skin crawl,
and I was about to snatch the handset myself and
begin demanding answers when there was a stranger sound, a
heavy grinding, like stone turning against stone. Before I could
even ask what it was, he fell backwards from where
she crouched and quickly leaped up into a standing position
and ran off into the dark like a maniac. The
effect on the group was chilling, and I stared back
at the wall, desperately trying to understand what I'd seen.
Williams go get her, he barked at one of the
soldiers before turning at me and crying, what the hell
is her problem? I I I don't know, I stammered
christ Michael hissed, before snatching the handset of the confused
young soldier. Listen, he crowled into it. I don't know
who you really are, but you need to get someone
in charge. Right and sound again, loud and heavy, the
grinding of heavy rocks being moved, and tiny stones came
raining down in a cloud of dust. Something up there
had disturbed them, and we all stood in silence as
they plinked off our helmets. Is it just me, Michael said,
while looking towards the wall, or is it somehow closer?
Hard to say, I replied, I don't. The wall moved
a sudden and terrifying lurch forwards, one that startled us
all and made me trip over my own feet. Terrified,
I scrambled backwards from it as fast as I could,
while the handset continued to radiate that malicious laughter. I
think we need to go, I said, in a calm
a voice, as I could manage. The wall moved again,
and this time it did not stop. The young soldier
with a handset did not react fast enough. It came
forward so quickly that it had him within seconds and
knocked him to the floor with a heavy thumb, and
then it rolled over him as it was Well, if
you're anything like me as a child, you might have
wondered what happened to someone who got caught in an
escalator at the very top. I'm sure you know what
I mean. Light was so poor, so I still don't
really understand what happened, only that there was a lot
of blood, and while it was quick, it was not
quick enough because when the wall was about halfway up
his spine, I could still see the pain registering in
his eyes. And that was the last impression I had
before Michael grabbed me by the collar and practically threw
me back the way we came, and we ran running,
plodding one foot after another. I don't know how long
it went on for, but it was as if time
seemed to stretch on in the way that only pain
and tedium could induce. There were moments where as I
struggled to force one foot in front of the other,
I wondered if I'd actually been running for days, not hours.
There was no real way to mark the passage of time.
Only monotony. Books went by in a blur the floor
was featureless stone, The rhythmic sound of my feet lost
all meaning, and behind me the wall ever advancing with
a horrible sound of grinding rocks, promising pain, and nothing else.
The only thing I could actually focus on was the exhaustion,
and that was self defeating. More than a few times
I wondered if I should just give up, and to
this day I still have nightmares where I'm being chased
down that corridor. It wasn't a quick pace, but it
was quick enough, and there were no other roots except ford,
and therein lay the torture of it. Behind me was
death moving at a brisk job, and ahead of me
was nothing, just darkness broken by erratic motion of a torch.
And the entire time, which I would later realize was
a good two hours, the only thing I could think
was when am I going to lose this fight? When
am I going to collapse or give up? Imagine my
relief when up ahead I heard a familiar voice cry out,
what is your problem? Lady? And when I saw them,
the young man held Bee by his shoulders while she
tried to drag him through an open door. That was
when I remembered the little corridor with the severed heads
not exactly the kind of salvation I was hoping for,
but it'd have to do together. Michael and I grabbed
both of them and threw us all through the opening.
Seconds later, far too close for comfort, the entire corridor
we'd been running through went pitch black. The war overtook
our positions, and we were left panting and exhausted on
the floor, where thousands of severed heads looked at us
in annoyance. When we looked back the way we came,
we saw that nothing but pulsating flesh, a wall of it,
hot and sticky and threaded with sickly blue veins. I
don't know what the wall was, but something about the
meat behind the stone made me think of hungry coral.
It was a trap, Michael hissed as he inspected the
horrible mass. I don't know how, but we were led
down the wrong path. It it's what the cables are,
something I don't know, but we were lowered down there
like rats. Where's Davis? The other soldier asked, he's gone?
Michael said what. The older man gestured to the wall
of meat behind us. Whatever the hell that thing is
it got him. It looked like a wall, but it
it could move, and it just steamrolled him. Thanks for
the warning, by the way. He growled at Bee, but
she showed no sign of understanding him. Instead, she was
sat on the floor and shaking, clearly in a state
of shock. Where now, sir, The remaining soldier asked, and
Michael grimaced, where do you think he spat? Before gesturing
at the root? Forward, the only direction that's available. The
heads made for strange companions. They followed us with their
eyes but did not stop them muttering. It was grating
to say the least, a noise you could ignore for
maybe an hour or so, were pretty soon the papery
rustle of their ancient lips was the only thing you
could focus on, no matter how hard you tried to
push it out of your head. At least, navigation was simple. Forward,
the only way to go. We walked for about six
hours before we took our first break. The corridor was wide,
but we stayed away from their heads and slept in
a row head to feet While two of us stayed
on watch six hours each. I decided to stay up
along with Michael and B, and the other soldier tried
to rest. B had barely come out of shock during
the journey. Speaking a little towards the very end, she
told us in a broken way what she'd seen while
kneeling by the wall. Teeth she said, and a face.
Although she wouldn't or couldn't elaborate on those two statements,
I was left with the sense that she had seen
something that had come down close to leaving her completely insane.
Even as it was, I doubted she had a full
recovery in her. She almost looked like a different woman,
baggy eyed, thinning hair. Or maybe he was just the
conditions down here. Michael didn't look too great either. I
had to assume I looked pretty rough too, especially after
that run. It had exhausted me, broken me, not just
the physical exertion, but the nightmare of it. The reason
I'd elected to stay and watch first was because I
didn't want to sleep. A part of me was worried.
I just dream about being back in that hallway, running
from the moving wall, and I didn't want to revisit
that place ever again, not even as a dream. There
were moments where I came so close to just giving up.
I don't think i'd ever really experienced despair like that before,
not the kind where you feel your knees buckling and
your neck turned a rubber as your head bows. It
must be what people stranded at seafeel when they lose
their strength to keep treading water. So instead I stayed
up and tried to ignore the muttering of the heads,
even tried talking to Michael, but he didn't have much
to say. I could tell losing Davy's back in the
corridor had bothered him. Well, it bothered me, and I
hadn't even known the guy, but I swear to this
day I can still see the look on his face
as rock met flesh and his legs and hips just disappeared.
In the end, I had only these kinds of thoughts
for company, and lots and lots of time, so it
probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that
I eventually fell asleep. It wasn't for long, ten minutes
at most, but it was enough time for me to
wake up and see something dragged the sleeping soldier's body
into the darkness of the nearby shelf, his head lolling
unnaturally to one side. The movement was gentle, quiet, but
clumsy too, like a child pulling a rag doll. Stealthily
out of a box. I looked over to Michael and
saw he'd fallen asleep as well, so I nudged him
with my foot and he woke up with a sort
of lazy start. Only when he looked at me, confused
for a few short seconds before slowly registering the look
of terror on my face, that he seemed to realize
what was happening. I'm not sure what I expected him
to do, really, but he was the leader and well armed,
and I didn't want to be the one who had
to figure out what to do next, possibly because there
was a part of me tempted to just sneak off,
to leave the young man to his fate, maybe even
be if it just meant I could survive a little
bit longer. In truth, I was relieved when Michael leaped
into action immediately. I didn't want to be a coward.
He jumped up and grabbed the young man's foot, and
I ran over and grabbed the other leg, and together
we tried to pull him back. I didn't mention it
to Michael, but the way the soldier's body felt when
I grabbed it, the muscles were too relaxed, too heavy.
I don't know how to explain it. But if he
ever end up in the unfortunate situation of moving a corpse,
you might know what I mean. A living body supports
itself a dead one. It's just meat and water, and
somehow feels so much heavier for it. He was dead, still,
we fought on. At some point Bee must have woken up,
realizing what was happening, and joined in. I remember her
trying to reach into the sh shelf to grab hold
of the dead man's arm, when she suddenly flew backwards,
landing with a hefty thud against the shelf behind her
and knocking a few of the severed heads on their
little stumps. Whatever was in the dark was clearly frustrated.
It wanted its next meal, and it wasn't going to
let us stop it. Slowly, a long inhuman arm reached
out and took a hold of the body's groin. It's
strange handed fingers that split at the knuckle, one, two,
three times, a terrifying effect, especially given how much each
one moved on its own. A dinner plate monster of
a hand attached to a lithe and muscular forearm, devoid
of hair. The second I saw it reach out in
my general direction. I let go of the leg and
fell backwards. Michael continued struggling for a while, even taking
out his pistol and firing a few shots into the dark,
but in doing so he left only a hand to
cling onto his comrade's corpse and lost his grip with
almost no effort. The body disappeared into the shadow, and
we were suddenly down to three. What the hell, What
the hell? What the hell? He screamed. I wanted to
say something, maybe even something to comfort him, or maybe
an apology for falling asleep, but then again, he'd fallen
asleep too. I didn't know what I was meant to do.
I was in shock, and it was settling deep into
me when b said something from where she remained on
the floor, her voice quiet but oddly insistent. It isn't over.
That hand re emerged carefully, deliberately. It placed itself on
the floor, revealing more of the pale flesh that powered it.
And then came another, and another, and then its head
emerged slowly from the dark and fixed me with eyes
both black, bulbous, and far too numerous for anything that
can be called human, and its mouth a beard made
of dirty fingers gray and bluish, long rancid nails, hundred
of them, squirming like mandibles of a hungry spider. Michael
opened fire, but he might as well have been shooting
hay for all the effect had had. The bullet struck
of the wet wap, but no actual damage. The creature
knocked him aside with pure contempt and pulled the rest
of itself out into the corridor, where I saw it
had no legs, but instead relied on several long arms
that suspend itself between the walls of the corridor, like
a kind of spider. One of these arms reached out
and grabbed a bee, and by the time she started screaming,
it was already too late. Blood trickled from her ears,
and there was a sound like a branch snapping. Her
entire body went limp, and the monster dropped her where
she fell to the ground, her grotesque, misshapen face glaring
at me with accusatory eyes. The lieutenant screamed as he
fired yet again, but then that thing seized him like
it was nothing but a doll and lifted him, squeezing
so tightly he dropped everything he held, his gun and torch,
hitting the ground with a loud rattle. Help me, he screamed,
while reaching out for me to grab him. Jeez, shoot
the thing. I ran forward, crouching down in the hope
of avoiding its many arms. Already Michael was being squeezed
so tight that blood splurted from his mouth, and I
could tell that the monster was having having fun reveling
in his torment. I reached out and picked the gun
up from the floor as Michael lett another desperate, wet
cry for help, but for some reason, my hands stopped
mere inches away. I hesitated. Michael's blood was dripping down
I could hear the crunching of his ribs. In my
most shameful moment, I grabbed the torch and ran, and
Michael's cries followed me, screaming, screeching, whimpering, sounds of breaking
bones and tearing paper, sounds of torture and torment that
somehow seemed to last forever. I emerged from the corridor alone.
It took me a few seconds of stumbling and my
failing legs to realize that the monster had given up
in a pursuit, and then a few seconds more for
me to recognize I was back on the mezzanine, terrified
and exhausted and contemplating if it was worth trying to escape,
if it meant having to spend another second alive in
that place. I fell to the floor and began to sob.
Maybe I thought it was time to take a dive
off that ledge, just like Grantad. What on earth are
you doing here? I whipped around to see an old
man in robes staring at me like an impolite intruder.
Without meaning to, I began to laugh. My sanity, it
was fair to say, was on its final legs. Hmm,
he said, while leaning aside to get a look down
the long corridor behind. Now, why did you go down there?
I wanted to answer, but couldn't quite bring myself to
do anything except a laugh and gasp for air. I
think you really ought to go home, he said, like
a teacher admonishing a child. This place is Hell. I
cried more, rocking back and forth my knees. Yes, he nodded, yes,
good for you. This is a small part to Hell,
one that has a slight overlap with Earth. If I remember,
I'm assuming that's how you got down here. The door.
What happens to your friends anyway, he added. I looked
back the way I came and pointed. Oh, he sighed.
You know I left your books out specifically so you'd
find them and figure it out. And I know that
bold fellow worked it out. So once you knew this
place was hell, why did you waste another second sticking around?
I shrugged. I'm not quite sure what I was meant
to say to that kind of thing. We got waylaid,
I gasped. Misled fair enough, he replied, probably should have
done more to make sure you got home safely. That's
partly my fault, although I won't apologize. You went to
this place, didn't you see the door? What part of
that was inviting? You have to take some of the blame.
I wanted to mount a defense, but I didn't really
have one when it became clear the only thing I
could do was sob and mutter. The old man's body
language softened and he reached a hand out. Come on,
I'll take you back. What about the demons, I asked.
The old man frowned. Those worn't demons, he snapped. This
place is to mortal souls, are meant to demonstrate repentance
by wondering the near eternal halls in search of their book.
Only when they found it, where they were allowed to
move on. The whole thing didn't quite work out. Eighty
six squadrillion books takes a tad too long for the
average person to find theirs. So this entire wing was abandoned,
and now there are only sinners left behind. That thing
was never human, I cried, while pointing at the corridor
I'd emerged from. Nobody's soul looks human, he said, like
it was the most obvious thing in the world, least
of all the sort of person who gets sent to hell.
This isn't the place for people who eat meat on
Friday or cover their neighbour's ox. It's for the cruel
and the malicious, cowards and opportunists. A lot of people
in this place have souls that have more in common
with angler fish and trap door spiders than their fellow men.
And it's not a condition that gets better after several
thousand years either. The soul changes twists, and so do
their physical forms. And what about you, I said, as
I reached up and took his hand. Why do you
look so normal, oh, he said, as he helped me up.
That's because I built this place, and the last thing
I can remember as he gripped me by the shoulder
was the sudden and painful sensation of heat. We woke
up in our respective quarters, we all six of us.
I still don't fully understand the mechanics. I tried asking
the others how they made it back, but they weren't
in a state to answer questions. B was catatonic, screaming
and clutching her head in the hospital like she still
remembered the way that thing crossed the skull like a grapefruit.
The soldier who fell to the wall was left paraplegic,
even though medical tests couldn't identify a single reason why. Psychological,
they said. The other soldier, the one who had been
dragged into the shelves, was comatose. I don't know if
he recovered, but he was alive. And Grant was left
in a permanent psychotic state, compelled to write on any
surface he could, over and over again, sin after sin,
desperately trying to rewrite the very book that had driven
him to madness in the first place. Michael tried very
hard to kill me. He had clear memories of being
left to die in the dark. I'm glad they caught
him before he managed to wring the life out of
me with his I never found out what happened to
him after several men managed to prize his hands from
around my throat. Despite everything, I hope he managed some
kind of recovery. The door disappeared, thankfully, with no one
on the other side. I know they were planning future expeditions.
It is for the best that kind of thing can't
happen again. They have no idea what's waiting for them.
In a way I probably could have convinced myself the
expedition never happened. Some days even now, that's what I
sincerely hope can happen. There was no physical evidence nothing.
We appeared in our beds, completely nude, save for a
note stuck to my chest. And it's this final little
to much that stood out to me, a stern confirmation
of everything I'd experienced. Returned to Sender six mortals. Five
were damaged in transit. Bodies were repaired to the best
of my ability, but I was never good at that
kind of thing minds or another matter, entirely could not
help myself. In one case, left fellow mortal to die
in the dark didn't seem very sporting. Don't let anyone
say lack a sense of humor otherwise, no harm, no foul,
best wishes me. My heart sank when I heard them
read it to me. It confirmed my deepest worries. No
one had been very honest with me since I'd arrived
at the hospital. They'd kept me bandaged up, so it
wasn't easy to tell. But after I heard that, I
finally found the courage to reach up and remove the
thick wads of fabric. Then, with shaking fingers, I finally
touched my eyes, or rather the empty sockets where they
used to be. If you've enjoyed this story and others
from this great author, Christian Wallace, who's produced some of
the best stories for this channel, please consider checking out
his book. In the description and pin comment below, I
wish I could say that my parents death had meaning,
that they died for a good reason, But they didn't.
I was only eleven years old at the time. A
drunk man racing home to catch his wife cheating blindsided
them on a turn. My parents didn't die heroes. They
didn't die for a grand purpose. They died because someone
took them from me too. Early This was the first
time I felt real, raw grief. The memory of when
I was told the moment it happened, it snap shot
in my mind like a burn that never heals. The
way my gut sank like the dip of a monstrous
roller coaster. The pit left as my child's self realized
the permanent nature of it. I can even still feel
the tingles in my fingers as the shock set in.
The words played in real time, but my body felt slowed.
Breathing became manual as my vision tilted over and over.
I was not emotionally ready for this. I was barely
emotionally handling school, so then being taken so callous left
me empty for longer than I'd like to admit. After
their passing, my grandparents moved into my parents home with me.
They packed up their lives and tried to pick up
where my parents left off. Four years. They tried to
connect with me, but I was emotionally unstable. I resented
them for trying to take their place. Their love hurt
me in ways they couldn't win. They tried to coddle
me during and after the funeral. For four years. They
tried to break down my walls, but the walls I
built held strong. I sank myself into the last connection
I felt I had with them games. My father was
a software engineer, so we spent a lot of time
on the computer, and to my mother's dismay, he dragged
me into the digital world. Early on. I couldn't get
the hang of using a mouse and keyboard. I think
my hands were too small at the time, so we
bought me a console. We would huddle around the TV
and play all the best cop games he could find,
or snooping for presents. One Christmas, I even found a
stack of games magazines red marker circles around games that
specifically mentioned local co op. This is how he always
managed to find a perfect game for us. Every time
I skimmed over this in the moment, having not found
the presence they hid so well. But look him back,
my heart breaks knowing how much care he put into
this harby of ours. However, there were times I'd catch
him playing games on his own. He was a PC
gamer born and bred, so that was where I'd find
him playing solo. But he never seemed to put the
same energy into finding new games to play. Rather, I'd
always seen playing games of pixels and numbers, simulation games
from his era of gaming. I'd asked to play too,
but he'd always tell me I was too young for
these kinds of games, and that when I was older,
he'd show me how to play them. This always welled
mixed feelings of annoyance in the moment and anticipation for
that time to come. But eventually games lost their luster
no matter how much I played, trying to honor them.
In my mind. I was now playing solo. Not seeing
the screen split with another player alongside me was a
constant reminder of the pain I was almost exclusively broad
up on split screen cop experiences. I was never into
playing without my dad. But that's when it hit me.
My father would play solo, but he'd play those weird
pixelated simulation games. So I had it in my head
that to enjoy those types of games would make me
the adult I idolized him as, but I didn't know
where to start. He never talked about them, saving that
for a time that would never come. His computer was
locked behind a password that was forever lost, So I
had to find these games myself. I took to the
best resource I knew of to solve the greatest mysteries
on Earth. Google, I put in buzzwords of what I
could remember simulation games in the single player old and
press search. These words were not very specific, so he
yielded a wide variety of stuff, and after hours of
scarring each page, I found a forum post about a
game someone had made, even though it was made in
recent times. The screenshots they used to advertise it had
that retro style I was looking for, But it wasn't
just how it looked. Something else drew me to this
game above all the others that had a similar vibe.
Its name Family Simulator. It boasted an extensive game system
that you had to manage to keep up an ideal family,
something I wouldn't have gone for, opting to lean towards shooters,
But it was this dichotomy that made me take the plunge.
The instructions were fairly simple for my first time, not
just popping in a disc. It ran through an ex
file that did all the decisions for me. As the
green bar filled, a Cuddain wave of emotions overcame me.
My father had always kept me from these kinds of games,
always thinking I'd prefer the modern titles he kept up with,
so this really felt like a chance to connect with
them post mortem, no matter how little it was. I
launched the game. Initially I was met with a black screen,
and then a studio logo screen. An image of a
heart came up alongside the words Famco, most likely the
game creator, trying to get their name out there. Nothing
flash your significant, but charming for something probably made by
one person. The title screen faded, followed by a basic textbox,
a little line flickering, beckoning me to start writing. The
question was simple, tell me about your life, I thought
for a moment. I had been asked this a lot
by counselors, my grandparents and kids that never cared about
me before they heard the news, a gesture I dismissed
at face value with a blunt I'm fine. They should
have known the answer, so I felt insulted each time
I was asked. After a while, my grandparents were withdrawn
about asking this, seemingly respecting my decision of maintaining distance,
and yet for some reason that frustrated me too. But
looking back, I'd never truly thought about the answer above.
A simple no, much less answered it. Honestly, I kept
all of this inside, and it finally bubbled up to
a point, the straw that broke the camel's back. I
started typing. All the frustration, sadness, envy, jealousy, all of
it was being shoved into this game. Time blurred while
I hashed out my rant. I was putting my soul
into this answer for the first time ever. It felt silly,
even in the moment, knowing I was going at it
into some indie game of pixels and text. I didn't
know why I was given this game so much information
about myself, but it felt good to get these feelings
out somewhere where I knew I couldn't be judged. I
could just say my piece and not hear hollow rhetoric
about hope and healing. And it felt good. The black
box a silent listener that I needed, something that wouldn't
pity me, but would just listen. I hadn't even gotten
into the game, and I was exhausted. I had tied
out everything I missed about my parents, How ideally missed
the meals my mother would make, my father taking me
out to a field just to throw a ball around,
How he'd show me neat tricks that would have me
barely laughing, The way he would get up five hours
before any of us to tell us that he woke
up early, only to go back to bed a few
minutes after informing us. I missed staring at the watch.
I gifted my mother, with my dad's help, of course,
that my mother adored when we went out for special occasions,
The way they treated me, how much I loved them,
how much I missed loving them. Every single minute detail
was handed over. The game accepted the information with a
satisfying ding sound, and I was sent to another menu,
this time character creation. Now I've never been the creative sort,
so I blatantly just made myself. I named myself Alex
set brown hair and brown eyes, a simple white T
shirt and jeans. I was also prompted with adding personal
details like my birthday, number of friends, and my likes
and dislikes. What I didn't expect was the choice of
a family. It was in as in depth as the
character creation itself, only a couple of presets. Preset one
was a woman with red hair, a simple crop top
and some shorts. The men not too dissimilar from my
own outfit. Preset two was they looked like my parents
It sounds crazy, but it just felt like them. The
models were just a mash above simple pixels, but they
carried so many of their characteristics. I grew to recognize
in them. The jovial look my mother wore on a
near constant basis, my father's stoic stature that exuded the
confidence that he was always trying to pass on to me.
It was uncanny. I was at a bit of a loss.
I know I missed them, but I didn't realize how
much I still missed them, even after four years. I mean,
for a second, I'd been convinced that these were my
parents in some way. The game was something I was
looking to sing some time into as a distraction, but
now it fully captured my attention. I accepted all the
settings and the game loaded up. It played a scenic
shot of the house before fading to me in a
room with the family. But as soon as I spawned in,
I was shocked with a loud bang. I jumped a
little in my seat and my heart raised at the fright. Alex,
go to bed, you have school tomorrow. Those games are
going to make you sick. It was my grandmother on
the other side of my door. I always had my
door locked, so this was how she would communicate with me.
I checked the time and it was already two am.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right.
But sleep didn't come easy with my curiosity swelling around
my head about this new game. Perhaps I was mistaken,
but the thing I had seen as the game had
just loaded in was too much to be a coincidence.
Surely it couldn't have been a mistake. The setting was
a near perfect rendition of the house I grew up in,
the house I was in right now. The more I
thought about it, the more excuses I made to cope
how the game replicated these things so perfectly. But it
was the room that was what I couldn't explain. I
saw a dining room, but the details were too familiar.
The shade of wood on the square dining table, the
layout of the cabinets, the door that led to the kitchen.
It was almost entirely the same. It could have been coincidence.
My house was a common suburban build with similar layouts
in the rows of houses near me. But it was
the layers of coincidences that had me stumped on an explanation.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that
I was the one that handed details over. Perhaps I
really had given the game too much information. This thought
didn't entirely settle me, but it eased my mind enough
to get some sleep. I rose out of bed with
a heavy groan. I looked over my clock and aed awake.
Seeing that I missed my first alarm, I quickly got
up and rushed my morning routine. As I boarded the bus,
I prepared mentally for another crueling day of education. School
was meant to be an escape, at least that's what
I was told, and place where you kick back with
your friends and get into little adventures, all while building
your future. For me, though, that couldn't be further from
the truth, I was an outcast, no small fault of
my own, and I refused to socialize. I couldn't when
I started high school. It was not long after the incident.
My only thought was if only I could speak to
them one last time. This floated in my head as
my peers attempted to make conversation with me. By the
time I realized I'd made myself alone, the cliques were
formed and I was labeled as a quiet, weird kid,
a prime target from harassment. Arriving at class, I was
reminded of the grim reality I was facing the thing
I dreaded for a week, group assignments. I attempted to
weasel myself into a group, but of course Jonathan and
his bodies ensured that I would achieve no such thing.
The truth was that Jonathan was just as insecure as
I was, but the difference was that he projected his
much louder than anyone else, and I was the conduit
for his emotional baggage. The teacher saw me alone and
exclaimed that whoever had no group would take a test instead.
He spoke like he was talking to the class, but
he was obviously just about me. I sat in the
corner of the classroom, away from everyone else, but instead
of getting on with the test, I started to dwell
on the game again. I could easily chalk everything down
to coincidence, but what if it wasn't Could I speak
with them again? The notion was absurd. Thinking my parents
was somehow in that game was an impossibility, But with
so much unresolved, there was an irrational part of me
that wanted to believe it was true. I bombed the
test with how distracted I was, and school couldn't end
any sooner. But I knew it wasn't over yet. Jonathan
had a knack for finding blind spots from authority. Somehow
he'd always catch me alone, despite my best attempts at
staying with eyeshot of people. Though this sometimes didn't even
help when other kids would just turn a blind eye
to his outburst. The only constant was me. A slap here,
a slap there. I'd learned to ignore them, but in
my already emotional state, I ran crying. When I got home,
my eyes had already run dry. As I entered through
the front door, my grandmother greeted me, how a school today, Honey,
she soothed. Despite her soft tone, the sadness quickly turned
to frustration. I shrugged her off with a blunt It's fine,
and I ran past her. Rushing past the kitchen, A
glint caught my eye a watch. I didn't have time
to check. I needed to get back on the game.
I slammed my door shot and latched the bolt. I
booted up the game and was loaded in. It was
me in my own house with my parents, and it
was everything I had always wanted. My pixelated character walked
over to my mother, and as I got close to her,
a black square appeared. Press enter to interact how a
school today? Honey popped up, followed by a box I
could type in this question again. I'd grown to hate
this question. The people I had asked this never seemed
to actually care about my well being, more so just
going through the motions of conversation. But I felt safe
opening up in this game. The disconnect helped me disassociate
from judgment before, so I wanted to try it again,
even if to just vent privately. This is where the
game became my escape, another reality where everything was as
it was always meant to be. Jonathan keeps bulaying me,
the kit in class despise me, and I can't even
muster ub the effort to stand up for myself because
in all honesty, it's the path I chose. I miss you, Mom.
I wish you were here to guide me, to comfort me.
As soon as I sent the message, she instantly responded,
I see, sweetie, Mom is here for you. Your father
and I missed you so dearly. The NBC responded, I
felt warm. Those were the words that I had been
craving and craving that my grandparents, no matter their efforts,
could never satisfy. The dialogue option disappeared, and with it,
so did my bili to interact with her. The sadness
lingered over the fact that the interaction was so short,
but I wanted to see more. I decided I'd take
some time and explore the house and maybe see if
I could interact with the father too. I walked down
the corridor of my childhood home towards my father's office.
I prompt appeared, asking me if I wanted a knock
on the office door, and I accepted. He called to
come in, and the screen faded out and back in
to us in the office. In reality, it was now
a room full of boxes, still unpacked from my grandparents
moving in, But here the room was back to life.
My father sat at his desk, which spent the majority
of the small offices with This time, the conversation began,
without a need for me to initiate any prompts. The
words of my NBC father flashed across the screen. Hey, Champ,
everything all right. No textbox came up for me to
type in, he said. This time I was met with
two choices, yes and no. After the talk with the mother,
I was feeling a lot better, so I chose the
first option. That's great to hear Champ, he responded. This
made me smile. Though he would cycle through nicknames and
titles to call me, Champ was sometimes one of them.
It might have been added as a cliche, but even
as a coincidence, it still made me happy. Then the
NBC asked me if I wanted to play ball with him.
Even though I knew it was all virtual, there was
still a small excitement to the idea of playing ball
with my dad again. Screen faded to black and we
were in the yard. We passed the ball around for
a few minutes, the game looking like nothing more than
a PowerPoint presentation animation, but in its own way, it
was endearing. Sleep came easier this time, for the first
time in recent years. I was fulfilled, as if I
had felt parental connections again, even if only virtually. Still,
some moneyes set in as I contemplated the legitimacy of
the interactions I just had, if there were simply the
execution of basic code or something more. In the moment,
I was absorbed with trying to connect to my parents,
but lying in bed, I was debating whether feeling satisfied
emotionally from a bunch of pixels was healthy. The next morning,
as I rushed the house to catch the boss, I
noticed my father's office door was slightly a jar. I'm
not a superstitious person, but that room was not in
use by my grandparents or myself. It was, for all
intents and purposes, a storage room. I gently pushed the
door open, and the first thing I noticed was that
the boxes had been rearranged, as if whoever had moved
them needed space for something. Then I saw it a
ball laying in the middle of the room. The move
boxes could be explained away, but the ball being there
made my head spin with questions. It looked uncanny to
the one I'd just seen in the game, not identical,
but too close to be written off. The call from
downstairs had me pull away from the scene. I was
already running late. The bus wouldn't wait forever. I gave
the room one more look before leaving, the snapshot replaying
in my head. The whole day at school, Another arduous
day of school, more isolation, more pointless assignments, more Jonathan
getting home couldn't come any faster. When I got home,
I tried going straight to my room, but was stopped.
My grandmother deliberately placed herself in the way of the stairs,
making sure I couldn't get past without hearing what you
wanted to say. First, Alex, were worried about you. We
thought giving you space the heel would help. But every
day you've just shut yourself in your room. I know
you missed them. We missed them too. My grandfather stepped
around the corner and joined her side. He wasn't on
his feet much in his age, having waited for my
grandmother to start as he joined. How can you know
how I feel. You're not my parents, I yelled back,
my emotional bottle bubbling. To my surprise, this didn't elicit
anger from my grandparents. Rather, their faces turned soft. Look
at us, we're old. You don't think our parents are
gone too, But you're forgetting something. They were your parents, sure, However,
they were our kids, our daughter and son in law.
We loved them, and every day we hurt without them too.
My grandmother soothed, we raised them good, and we can
raise you good. You just have to let us in.
My grandfather added, I soaked in what they said, but
I closed it off. It wasn't the same, it would
never be the same. So with my eyes I just
ran to my room and locked myself in. After sulking
on my bed, I was left with silence. I hated
being with my thoughts, so I turned to the noise
I used to drown them out the game. He loaded
it in, and I was back with my family. My
mother greeted me, and I welcomed this much better than
how I felt cornered earlier. However, instead of a conversation,
she simply told me to wait where I was, so
my character sat at the table. My father came in
and said some comments about work, something he'd always do,
regardless of if I understood what he was talking about
or not, but I didn't mind. It was always nice
to hear him talk. Soon my mother came back in.
Her outfit had changed and more fancy a peril instead
of normal house clothes. She wore a red dress and
her hair was made up into a bun. Her arms
were bare, which is how I spotted something that stood
out in the game. It looked like a few red
pixels with a yellow dot in the middle. Unmistakably a watch,
and my heart was in my throat. It was uncanny
to the watch my father and I had gotten her
for a birthday, red band with a gold face. It
really was them. My eyes bald hard trying to take
this in. We have a surprise for you, she said,
and I knew what it was before I saw it,
because I smelled it. The smell of cake waffed it
in and I instantly recognized it a black forest gatto,
the cake she always made me for my birthday in
the game. She pulled it out and set it on
the table, candles already set on top. I checked the
date on the bottom right and completely forgot what day
it was. I hadn't celebrated my birthday since they passed.
My grandparents tried to, but I always dismissed it. It
was hard to think of my birthday as a celebration
without my parents. A jingle played to the tune of
the Birthday song, and confetti flew around the room. My
parents looked elated as my character blew out the candle,
something I wouldn't have been able to do in my
current heaving state. But the smell lingered longer than I thought.
At first, I thought it was my emotions getting the
better of me, but there was the unmistakable smell of
cake in my room. Happy birthday, son, they both exclaimed,
we want to take you out for your birthday, our treat.
My mother said, pick any place you want. Where do
you want to go? My dad asked. A text box appeared,
prompting me to type in an answer. I contemplated the answer.
My first thought was k f C. I know his
cheap junk food. But for some reason, it was a
bit of a family tradition, though it might have been
an indicator of our financial status. But I thought about
it more deeper than what the game was. Asking me,
where did I truly want to go? Well, the answer
would be to be with my parents, So I typed
in the place. Then every one had told me where
they went. Heaven. That's a wonderful choice, son, they exclaimed.
Grab your thing, son, Let's go there, my dad said.
Then the screen faded to black, then crashed. My heart raised.
No no, no, no, no, I muttered to myself, had nauseum.
I slapped the side of my monitor, knowing, damn well,
it wouldn't do a thing. I was so close my
heart was setting the idea that i'd somehow see them again.
But in the silence, I started to think about it.
What if this was something they were telling me, the
last thing they were telling me better like the game.
To get to where I needed to go, something had
to end life. Life is what needs to end to
get to heaven, the place I wanted to be to
be with them. I looked around my room, then remembered something.
When they passed, I snuck into my dad's office and
took his old letter opener, a drinkt he'd show off
to me to open mail. He'd sometimes let me use
it myself, which my mother didn't approve of. It was
too sharp for a child to be playing with. But
as I slid it out of my drawer, hidden away
from my grandparents, I looked at it. Would it get
the job done? I put it down. This was ridiculous.
I tried to talk myself out of it, but each
rationality was answered with retorts. I was unhappy, I had
no friends, I had no family, I was alone, so
why not join them? Even if it didn't work, it
would put me out of my misery. I stared at
the blade, deep in thought and was ripped out of
it with a loud bang, Alex, can you get out
here please? Here was my grandmother on the other side
of the locked door. The shuffling footsteps I could hear
catching up must have been my grandfather. They had no
idea what I was up to. There was no way
for them to know, so they must have been just
bothering me. My eyes returned to the knife once more,
the thoughts coming back, yet I was ripped from it
yet again with bangs, more of them this time. If
you don't want to come out, can you at least
let us in? This was new They never tried twice.
The door acted like a voicemail. They'd say their message,
then leave me to respond to it or not let
us in. Those were lingered in my head. I always
went to them, but I never let them in. This
was my space I'd carved out for myself, and I
used it to keep everyone out. This was the choice
I had go through with a plan to see my
parents or see what they wanted, and it was the
hardest choice of my life. The silence of the room
weighed down on me, and my breath shallowed. Could I
make it quick? How painful? Would it be, would I
actually see them? But the lingering thought was if I
could do it with my grandparents on the other side
of the door. So I went with the second option
to see what they wanted. I hid the knife and
slowly unlocked the door. Stood outside where my grand parents
big grins on their faces. Happy birthday, Alex, they said, enthused.
I didn't know how to respond, and they continued, I
know you don't like to celebrate, but we have something
special for you. Come with us, my grandmother said, so
I did, my mind too foggy to do otherwise. They
led me to the kitchen and in the middle sat
a cake, an exact replica of my mother's black Forest gatto.
This opened me up. What how, how did you why?
I was too stunned to form a question, too many
of them flying through my mind. Remember, Alex, she had
to learn it from somewhere. Making this cake for your
mother was a tradition that started with me, she said, proudly.
I got something for you, too, Alex. My grandfather wheezed
the walk from the stairs, taking the wind out of him.
He hobbled over with a box wrapped in a red ribbon.
I looked at it, not having any idea what they
could have gotten me. They didn't know me, not in
a personal way, to not get me something generic. But
I couldn't not open it with them watching me, so
I slipped the ribbon off and looked, and what was
inside it was something that made my head light from shock,
needing to have to sit down after seeing it. It
was a watch with a red strap and a gold face.
My mother's watch. It's this, I started, not having the
end to finish asking yes. After the investigation, the police
held on to it for evidence. It took a while
to get it back, but when I did, I had
it restored to give you on a special occasion. My
grandfather answered, I have something else too. My grandfather added,
he built his arm from behind his back and pulled
out the ball I'd seen in the office, like the
one my dad used to have when he played with me.
I've been practicing some tricks in the old office. Bet
you didn't notice. I'm not as good as your old man,
But he showed me some of the basics, he smugly announced.
He twirled it around and tried to catch it as
it span, but it caught his knuckle at a funny angle.
And bounced wildly away, almost hitting the cake. My grandmother's
friendly demeanor dropped as she shot him the dirtiest look
at almost ruining the cake, which made ME do something
I thought I'd lost the ability to do. I laughed.
It poured out of me years of pain leaking as
joy took its place. Here they were. They were not
my parents, nor could they be. However, they knew that
and loved me all the same. They were never trying
to replace them. They were just picking up where they
left off, and I realized that I didn't have to
be alone, and from then on I always let them in.
The snow under our boots crunched sharply as we trudged
towards Station Polaris, the isolated arcticgree So, our post where
we were sent to investigate the wind hold, relentlessly biting
through our thermal suits and filling the air with a low,
mournful wail that matched the stark emptiness of the frozen landscape.
This wasn't the place for mistakes, but the station's sudden
silence had dragged us here, hundreds of miles from anything
resembling civilization. The research station set up to collect data
in the Arctic went quiet, so we were sent to investigate.
It could have been the result of the power going out,
a problem with the communications array, or an encounter with wildlife,
so we had to prepare for anything. We set off
equipped for a long mission with supplies to last us days.
The station loomed ahead, its angular structure almost blending into
the stark white surroundings. Saw The panels glinted dully under
the weak Arctic sun, and the wind turbine blades creaked
as they turned sluggishly. The COM's array stood tall, perfectly intact.
From the outside, everything seemed functional, yet we all knew
that no one had heard a word from the researchers
in weeks. Inside the facility was eerily pristine. The lights
hummed softly, and the heaters were working perfectly. Supplies were
neatly stacked in the pantry, and the living quarters were immaculate.
It felt like the crew could walk in at any moment,
but the air carried a stale weight, as though the
building itself had been holding its breath. Then we found them.
Their bodies were huddled in the secure lab, the thick
steel door latched from the inside. It took us a
full hour to breach it, cutting through the locks with
a plasma torch. When the door finally swung open, the
scene was haunting. Four researchers were slumped against the walls,
their gaunt faces frozen in twisted expressions of fear. Their
lab coats were rumpled and stained, and deep scratches marred
the walls and door. A few words were sprawled on
the inside of the door in what looked like dried blood.
Don't open their hands raw and bloody suggested desperate attempts
to claw their way out, or maybe to keep something
from getting in. The food stores were untouched, and the
air recyclists were working perfectly, Yet the cause of death
was clear dehydration and starvation. They'd locked themselves inside and
never left cap'in fever. Eliza, our biologist, whispered, her voice
trembling slightly despite her usual calm. Maybe they thought something
was out there, I replied, glancing nervously toward the hallway.
We found out, each of us taking a section of
the station to begin our work. I focused on the comsarey,
which appeared functional but was inexplicably off line. The software
logs showed no errors as if someone had deliberately disabled it.
The station's pristine condition clashed violently with the madness of
the locked lab. Every door swung, the oiled hinges, every
panel gleaned under the fluorescent lights, and even the smallest
tool was in its proper place. The perfection of the
setting only made it feel more unsettling, the dichotomy of
the situation painting a grim misatt to be solved. Then
there was the feeling. It wasn't something we could measure
or explain, but we all felt it, a subtle, pervasive wrongness.
The air seemed heavier inside, charged with an energy that
made the hair on the back of my neck stand
on end. Even the wind outside seemed muted, as though
the station absorbed every sound. It didn't help that the
Arctic stretched endlessly beyond the walls, a blank canvas of
snow and ice that could swallow us whole if we
made the wrong step. But it wasn't the landscape that
had me glancing over my shoulder. It was the silence inside.
Something about it felt alive. I tried to focus on
my tasks, but my mind kept circling back to the
locked room, to those faces frozen in terror. What had
they seen that drove them to such desperation, and what
if it were still here? The question hung in the
air like frost, unanswered and growing colder with each passing moment.
The first few hours had stationed Polaris were chaotic, a
frantic attempt to make sense of the fragmented research left behind.
Environmental readings from the station's senses were erratic, subtle rhythmic
vibrations in the air, logged at precise intervals. These weren't
seismic in nature. The station's ground penetrating radar showed no
signs of tectonic activity. Instead, it was as if the
air itself pulsed with energy, but only fleetingly. Every time
we tried to pinpoint the anomaly, the readings vanished as
quickly as they had appeared. This doesn't makes sense, Eliza said,
Poring over the data console. She tapped at the screen,
frustration mounting. It's like the equipment's playing tricks on us.
Could be interference from the storm outside, Mark offered, the
team's communication officer, though his tone lacked conviction. He'd already
noticed the radios crackling with faint static. Still, he wasn't
ready to alarm us with the implications of it. The
strangeness escalated within ours. While conducting inventory in the common area,
Eliza froze midstep. Did you hear that? Hear what? Mark asked,
glancing up from the checklist. There was knocking from the
other side of the main door, Eliza said, her voice wavering.
Mark walked to the door, turning his flashlight into the
white expense beyond the narrow window. Nothing but the swirling
void of the arctic night greeted him. It's the wind,
he said, though he didn't sound fully convinced. While exploring.
I returned from inspecting the living quarters, pale as eyes.
I swear I heard my name, I muttered, But it
wasn't you two, was it? No, Eliza replied quickly, her
eyes darting to the shadows flickering under the fluorescent lights.
And I heard something else. Each of us reported hearing
different sounds, muffled sobbing, distant tapping voices, murmuring indistinct words.
None could verify what the others heard, and no auditory
signals appeared on their monitoring equipment. The incongruity heightened the unease,
as if the state itself were conspiring to disorient us.
While searching the primary lab, I found a compartment hidden
behind one of the equipment racks. Its lid was engraved
with strange, almost geometric patterns, unfamiliar to any of us.
Inside lay a crystalline object, about the size of a grapefruit.
I reflected light in unsettling ways, casting disoriented, shifting shadows
on the walls. What is this, I murmured, reaching to
touch it. Careful, Eliza warned, But curiosity got the better
of me. As my fingertips grazed the object, A sharp
jolt rippled through my hand. I pulled back, cursing. The
room seemed to hum for a moment before falling silent.
Did you feel that, Mark asked, rubbing his temples. He
described a faint whisper, barely audible, that lingered in the
back of his mind, like a half forgotten memory trying
to surface. The object's presence deepened our sense of foreboding.
Attempts to analyze it proved fruitless. No material analysis equipment
on site could identify its composition, and it emitted no
radiation or heat signature. It was completely in that yet
profoundly wrong. Eliza suggested the previous team might have unearthed
it nearby. Still there was no mention of the object
in the research logs. Whatever this is, she said, it
isn't supposed to be here. Later that evening, we gathered
in the comm's room to send an update to the
logistics crew. Mark activated the satellite relay, waiting for the
encryption sequence to pro process. The screen displayed a reassuring
green connection icon, which flickered and then went black. Not now,
he muttered, rebooting the system. Static hissed from the speakers,
followed by the faint hum of a transmission. For a
brief moment, the green icon reappeared, only to be replaced
by garbled static and a faint rhythmic pulse. Mark tried
to readjust the signal gain, but it was futile. Is
it the storm, Eliza asked, but Mark shook his head.
We've transmitted through worse weather. This feels deliberate. The equipment
continued to falter throughout the night. By morning, the calm
system had failed entirely. I worked furiously and attempted a
hard reset, but achieved nothing where on our own, I
finally admitted. As night descended, the whispers became louder and
more insistent. Eliza tried to sleep, but was jolted awake.
She said it was a voice, a clear, commanding whisper
that seemed to come from inside her room. Don't open
the door, it said, But when she bolted upright, her
door was shut and the room empty. In the mess
hall Mark sat alone, staring at his radio. He swore
the static was speaking to him, patterns emerging in the crackles.
Don't you hear it? He asked? When I entered, hear what?
I asked, But before Mark could respond, the main hallway
lights flickered, casting jagged shadows across the walls. For a
split second, we all felt it, a crushing presence, like
something immense and unseen was bearing down on us. The
sense of being watched grow unbearable. By now, none of
us doubted the previous researcher's writings on the door. The
whispers gnawed at the edges of our sanity. Looking at
the others, I was the steadiest among them, and I
finally addressed the elephant in the room. Whatever's happening here?
We can't stay. If we're not careful, we'll end up
just like them. The air inside the station felt heavier
with each passing hour. I couldn't shake the feeling that
the walls were watching us. Eliza paced back and forth
near the common area, her footsteps echoing unnaturally loud. This
place is all wrong, she muttered, glancing at the reinforced windows.
Mark stared out at the snow through one of the
thick panes. Nothing but white, he said, softly, almost to himself.
No movement, no sign of life. It's just nothing. I
sat at the console, scrawling through the fragmented logs. There's
nothing here that explains the lasting's behavior, I said. No
seismic anomalies, no animal sightings, no storms, just normal readings.
I felt the words catching my throat because nothing felt
normal here. Eliza stopped pacing to turn to me. Then
what drove them mad? They scratched the doors to pieces,
barricaded themselves inside, and starved to death. That doesn't just happen.
I had no an, sir. That night, the station woke
us with sounds. It started faint scratching on the far wall,
just loud enough to break through the silence. I sat
upright in my bunk, heart pounding. At first, I thought
it was the wind, Then came. The banging, sharp and deliberate,
like something heavy, striking metal. Eliza, did you hear that,
I whispered, grabbing my flashlight. Yeah, she said, her voice trembling.
It might just be I don't know, ice shifting. Mark
had already slid out of his bunk and was standing
in the doorway, staring down the hallway toward the source
of the sound. That's not ice, he said flatly. The
banging came again, this time louder, closer. I jumped my
flashlight beam chittering against the wall. We gathered in the
common area, clutching whatever we could find. Eliza grabbed a
fire extinguisher. I held a wrench. Mark had his flashlight
gripped like a weapon. The noise moved circling the station.
It came from the walls, then the roof, then the floor.
Each sound was precise and deliberate, like it was searching
for a weak spot. It's testing us, Eliza said, her
voice barely above a whisper. It's trying to find a
way in. When dawn came, if you could call it
that in the Arctic, the banging stopped. The station fell silent,
but the tension in the air didn't fade. Mark suggested
we check the perimeter and see if something left, but
I immediately vetoed the idea. We don't know what's out there,
I said. It could be anything like what a polar bear.
Mark snapped. Polar bears don't knock in patterns, Eliza shot back,
whatever it is, it's not an animal. We barricaded the
doors and windows. Every logical part of me knew we
were trapping ourselves inside, but I couldn't bring myself to
suggest otherwise. The noises, whenever was out there, had made
that choice for us. The second night was worse. The
scratching became relentless, scraping, like claws dragging against the walls.
The banging came back, harder and more chaotic, shaking the
station to its core. It's going to break through, Eliza whispered,
clutching the fire extinguisher a lifeline. Mark sat at the console,
staring at the monitors. There's nothing, he said, his voice shaking.
The camera showed nothing. It's just us out here. Then,
what the hell is making that noise? I demanded, trying
to keep my voice steady. I don't know, Mark snat,
slamming his fist on the console. The banging immediately responded,
echoing louder, sharper, almost angry. We all froze. It heard that,
Eliza said, softly, It heard him. By the third day,
we were all exhausted. Every step fell like trudging through
wet cement. Eliza slumped in a chair, her face pale.
I can't think straight, she said, her voice barely audible. Yeah,
Mark agreed, his head in his hands. I need more sleep.
It's like my energe is just gone. I rubbed my temples,
trying to fight off the pounding headache that had been
building all morning. The artifact. I didn't want to admit it,
but I knew it was somehow involved. It could be
the artifact, I said, finally putting the idea out there.
We should throw it outside. Mark muttered and risk leaving
the station. I asked, do you hear that? The banging
had started again, now accompanied by a low, almost mechanical groan.
The third night, everything reached the fever pitch. The station
shook with the force of the banging, and the scraping
became a deafening screech. Eliza dropped to her knees, covering
her ears. HiT's in my head, She screamed, HiT's in
my goddamn head. Mark grabbed his flashlight and bolted toward
the far hallway. We can't just sit her and wait
to die. I'm gonna kill it, he shouted, his flashlight
being cut through the darkness, landing on the door at
the far end of the station. The banging stopped. Mark, don't,
I started, but he was already at the door, his
hand trembling as he reached for the handle. The silence
was deafening. It's quiet, he whispered, his voice cracking. Eliza
and I rushed forward, getting ready to grab him. Don't
open it, I yelled, HiT's a trap. Mark hesitated, his
hand still inches from the handle. Then the banging resumed,
louder than ever, as if mocking us. We stumbled back
to the common area, the sounds chasing us, filling the
station with chaos. The station wasn't just falling apart, we were.
By the fourth day, the noises had escalated to a
maddening cacophony, banging, scratching, and now an eerie rhythmic thumping
that echoed deep within the walls. The air inside felt
like it was pressing against my skull. And every glance
exchanged among us seemed to carry unspoken accusations. Mark and
Eliza sat opposite ends of the common area, glaring at
each other. I stopped between them, exhausted from trying to
keep the peace. We can't keep doing this, I said,
my voice hoarse from days of shouting over the sounds.
We need to work together, but we're not going to
make it. You want to talk about working together, Eliza snapped,
her eyes blazing. Mark's the one who almost opened the
goddamn door. I was trying to figure out what we're
dealing with. Mark shot back, slamming his fist on the table.
Sitting here hiding isn't solving anything enough, I barked, slamming
the wrench I've been clutching onto the table. The sound
reverberated through the station, momentarily drowning out the noises. For
a brief moment, everything was silent. Then, as if in retaliation,
the banging resumed harder, angrier. Mark stood up. You said
it was the artifact. If it's causing this, why haven't
we gotten rid of it? Because it's the only thing
keeping us alive, she yelled back. You think these noises
are bad. Imagine what happens if we just throw it
out there with with whatever's out there, it must want it,
I turned to Eliza, raising my hands. We don't know
that for sure, but right now we can't risk the
crash of shattering glass cut me off. My heart stopped
as I turned and saw Mark standing over the console,
a chair raised in his hands. He'd smashed the screen,
shards of glass glittering on the floor. Smoke rose from
the panel as sparks danced across its surface. What the
hell are you doing? I shouted, Lunging for him, I
grabbed his arm and yanked him back as the equipment
groaned and fizzled. He wasn't doing anything, he screamed, his
voice cracking. It wasn't calling anyone, It wasn't helping. It's
just another useless piece of junk, like all of you.
Smoke poured out from the console as the last of
its lights flickered out. The satellite uplink was fried, and
the backup coms were destroyed. We were completely isolated now,
with no way to call for help or even confirm
if rescue was coming. You've doomed us, Eliza streaked, her
voice shaken with rage and panic. She shoved Mark, sending
him tumbling backward. Do you even understand what you've done?
I did what I had to. Mark spat, clutching the
chair like a shield. None of this was working. Run
our own, whether you like it or not. Now we
can finally focus on the here and now. I stood
between them, my body tense, my mind raising. We needed
that console. Now we have nothing left. Mark turned to me,
his face pale and eyes blood shot. Nothing. We've had
nothing since we've got air read. The noises aren't stopping,
the artifact isn't doing anything, and now we're just sitting ducks.
You want to die locked in here like those researchers.
The words hung in the air like frost, chilling us.
All I sair, Eliza's face crumble As the gravity of
our situation sank in. Mark lowered his chair, his rage
deflating to quiet despair. But it was too late. The
noises stopped for a moment, the station fell into an
oppressive silence, the kind that made my ears ring. Then
came a sound worse than any banging or scratching, a low,
catural moan vibrating through the walls and deep into my bones.
It's trying to get in, she whispered. It's going to
break through, oh, I said firmly, though my own fear
was clawing at my throat. It's not going to get in.
It hasn't gotten in yet, and he won't now. We
just have to hold out. Why do you keep saying that,
Mark demanded, stepping closer. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot.
You don't know that. For all we know, it's already inside.
It's not inside, I insisted, my voice rising, But it
will be if we start losing it like the last
team did. Mark froze at that, his face darkening. You
think we're like them, he hissed. You think we're just
going to sit here and starve ourselves to death like
they did. Mark calm down, I said, stepping back. No,
he shouted, you're just as bad as they were, refusing
to face the truth. There's something out there, and if
we don't deal with it, The lights flickered again, and
the temperature plummeted. Frost began forming on the windows, creeping inward.
The artifact's glow pulls the erratically, casting wild shadows on
the walls. The banging reached the fever, pitch, drowning out
Mark's words. Mark lunged for the artifact. If we're going
to die here, I'm not going to sit her and
Eliza tackled him before he could reach it, both of
them collapsing to the floor in a heap. The wrench
fell from my hand as I rushed to pull them apart.
For the moment my fingers touched Mark's arm, I felt
it the same draining sensation I'd felt near the artifact,
only stronger. Stop it, I yelled, yanking him back. He
shoved me off, breathing heavily, but didn't move toward the
artifact again. The groaning noise didn't stop. It pulls through
the station. Mark and Eliza clung to each other, as
if their sheer presence could hold the station together. I
stayed where I was ripping my wrench, my mind raising
to make sense of it all. But then I noticed
something odd. My coffee mug. It sat on the table,
untouched since the morning, but the liquid inside was perfectly still,
no ripples, no trembling surface. Eliza, I croaked, pointing to
the mug. Look at this. She didn't move, her hands
pressed to her ears. Mark shook his head, his back
pressed to the wall. Not now read. We need to
figure out how to survive whatever the hell that is, Eliza, Mark,
I said louder, standing up and pointing more firmly at
the mug. The sound it's not real. They both froze,
looking at me like I'd lost my mind. What are
you talking about, Eliza said, her voice tight. You can
feel it. I grabbed the mug and held it up.
This should be shaking, everything should be vibrating. But nothing
in this room is reacting to the sound except us.
Mark's eyes darted to the mug, and for a moment
doubt flickered across his face, but it was quickly replaced
by defiance. That doesn't mean anything. Maybe the noise is
coming from inside, Maybe the whole structure is shifting. Then,
why haven't we felt a single tremor? Why the vents
still circulating air without a hitch. My voice was growing
louder desperation. The noises are in our heads. Whatever is
causing this, it's keeping us trapped here, keeping us afraid.
Eliza shook her head violently, her fingers tightening around her temples.
That doesn't make sense. What about the art of fact?
The noise is started after we found it. How can
you say this isn't real? It is real, I said,
but only in here, I tapped the side of my head.
It's making us paranoid. It made the researchers paranoid enough
to lock themselves in that lab and starve to death,
and it's doing the same thing to us. Mark stared
at me, his face pale but resolute. So what you
think We should just open the door and stroll outside.
Let whatever's out there finish us off. Yes, I said,
surprising even myself with the strength of my con That's
exactly what we need to do. If we stay here,
it will wear us down until we're like them. Those
bodies aren't warnings, their proof of what happens if we
don't get out. Eliza backed away, her eyes wide. You're insane.
You want to open the door to whatever's been banging
and growling. You want to kill us all. No, I
want to survive, I shouted. If we stay here, we
end up like them. Don't you see the sounds, the artifact,
It's all a trap. It's making us seal ourselves inside,
just like they did. Mark stepped forward, his fists clenched
and what if you're wrong, What if we open that door,
and what if it's out there tears us apart? How
are you so sure this isn't just cabin fever or
some kind of environmental thing. I took a deep breath,
trying to steady myself because I feel it. The moment
I realized the sound wasn't real, it stopped for me.
The whispers, the banging, I don't hear them anymore, But
you do, don't you. It's still in your head, pushing
you to stay. Eliza was trembling, her back pressed against
the wall. Even if you're right, read, we can't take
that chance. We're not opening that door. Mark stepped between
me and the entrance. His stands rigid. You're not gonna
let that thing in. You want to go out there, fine,
but you're not dragging us with you. The tension in
the room was unbearable, the air thick with fear and mistrust.
I gritted my teeth, my gaze shifting between them and
the sealed door. The banging started again, or at least
I assume so from how they reacted as if it
knew what I was about to do, making them more
defensive and ready to hold the line at the door.
Get out of my way, I said quietly. Mark shook
his head over my dead body. Eliza's hand gripped my
arm like a vice. He's right, you don't know what's
out there. I shook her off, my mind raising. What
I do know is whatever's out there hasn't broken in,
not yet. And if I'm right, then we've been locking
ourselves in here for no reason, just like the last team.
You're gambling all our lives on some theory. What if
you're wrong. Mark's stepped closer, locking my path to the door.
His body was trembling. Might be, I admitted, my voice cracking,
But look at us. We're not going to survive him
much longer anyway. The powers unstable, we've lost colms, the
cords creeping in. If we stay, we die. Mark's jaw tightened.
Better than opening the door and letting whatever's out there
tear us apart. Eliza stood behind him, wide eyed, shaking
her head. Please read, don't do this. Their fear was palpable,
their desperation infectious, and yet so was mine. The scratches,
the banging, none of it left any evidence. Every sound
vanished into the void. Leaving nothing but frayed nerves in
its wake. I glanced at the faint bloodstains near the
door where the previous team had met their end. They
hadn't opened the door, they'd listened to the whispers, and
they died because of it. I stepped closer to the door,
heart hammering in my chest. The control panel blinked steadily,
a quiet rhythmic reminder that I held the power to
end this madness, or to doom us all. You're insane, marquissed.
I heard him lurch forward and felt the impact as
he grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from the panel.
I twisted out of his grip, shoving him hard enough
to make him stumble. The sound of his boots scraping
against the floor echoed loudly in the still air. He
caught himself and turned back to me, rage flashing in
his eyes. Don't make me stop you, he said, his
voice trembling. I stared him down my hand, creeping back
toward the panel. I don't think you can. Mark launched
at me again, this time with more force. I managed
to sidestep him, slamming my back against the wall near
the panel. Eliza cried out behind him, her voice cracking
as she begged both of us to stop. But the
doors blinking red light held my focus. I swung my
arm out, swiping the control panel with the heel of
my hand. The red light blinked once twice and then
turned green. No Mark roared, diving at me, but it
was too late. The sound of the lock disengaging was
deafening in the eerie silence. The door shuddered, its heel
was releasing with a hiss of escaping air. Eliza screamed,
scrambling to grab Mark, who was clawing his way toward me,
as if to one do what I'd just done. I
braced myself, every muscle locked in anticipation. The noise inside
the station didn't stop. It collapsed. The incessant banging, scratching
in whispers vanished instantly, replaced by the howling wind and
the arctics suffocating stillness. The transition was so abrupt it
felt like stepping from a nightmare into nothingness. No shadowy figures,
no claw marks, no monstrous forms, just the stark, blinding
white of the snow and the faint howl of the wind.
I exhaled my breath fogging the air in front of me.
It's empty, I whispered. Mark froze midstep, his face a
mask of disbelief. Eliza slumped to her knees, her hands
covering her face. For a moment, we all stood there,
staring into the unbroken expanse of snow. The silence was crushing,
not a single sound echoing back from the icy void.
There's nothing, I whispered, my words stolen by the wind.
Mark looked at me, his face pale and drawn. You
don't know that, he muttered weakly, his voice hollow. I
stepped toward the open door, the cold biting into my skin.
Then why did it stop? He had no answer. Neither
did I. Eliza stepped forward, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
Her face was pale, eyes wide as she scanned the
empty expanse. So what we imagined it? All of it? No,
I said, my voice trembling but resolute. Not imagined. It
was real, just not the way we thought. Mark snapped.
You don't know that he could be hiding. You could
have killed us, His voice cracked, raw with anger and fear.
We don't know what's out there, we don't, he faltered,
his gaze drawn to the stark, unbroken snow. The reality
began to sink in the artifact, dull and inert in
the corner caught my eye. His presence felt heavier, now,
an ominous void, sucking in light and reason. I gestured
toward it. It was never out there, I said, it
was always here. That thing, whatever it is, wanted us
locked in panikin, tearing each other apart, and we almost
gave it what it wanted. Mark's face twisted in denial,
but Eliza's expression softened. She looked back at the artifact,
her brow furrowing. The other team, she murmured, her voice
almost lost in the wind. That's why we found them
like that, with no sign of escape. I nodded grimly.
I stepped fully outside, letting the arctic cold claw up
my face, grounding me in its unrelenting reality. Behind me,
Mark slumped into a chair, shaking his head in disbelief.
Eliza stood at the threshold, her expression a mixture of
relief and devastation. Mark remained inside as we began to
salvage what we could, avoiding our gaze. His distrust was palpable.
There was nothing I could say to ease it. We
were alive, but we'd barely escaped, with our sanity intact.
The whispers didn't return, but the artifact remained in the
corner of the lab. Every time I looked at it,
I felt a faint unease, like it was still watching, waiting.
Even though the Arctic wind roared around us, the silence
inside the station had never felt louder. Evacuation finally arrived
two days later. A helicopter's distant hum sliced through the
icy silence, the sound alien after the oppressive stillness we
had endured. By then. We'd clear the station of what
we could notes data, anything that didn't feel tainted by
the artifact. Mark stayed withdrawn, barely speaking a word since
the door had opened. He avoid looking at Eliza on me,
his eyes lingering on the artifact as though it was
still whispering to him. I caught him pacing in front
of it late at night, his face blank but his
movements frantic, like he was arguing with himself. As a group,
we decided to hide the artifact away from the facility
in an unmarked location so that even we couldn't find it.
We had witnessed what he could do in the most
remote location from Civilization. We didn't dare imagine what he
could do in a populated area. When the research team arrived,
they asked about the station's state. I told them we
had lost their equipment and that the previous crew who
had succumbed to madness. I didn't mention the artifact, and
neither did Mark or Eliza. Back at the main base,
I tried to write my report, facts, observations, timelines. I
stuck to the tangible, but the words felt hollow. How
could I describe something so intangible, so invasive, without sounding insane.
Eliza sat across from me, staring at her own blank page. Finally,
she sighed and leaned back, her eyes hollow. Are we
supposed to pretend it didn't happen? She asked. I didn't answer.
I didn't know how. Mark refused to leave his quarters.
He hadn't spoken since we boarded the helicopter. His door
remained lock, the faint hum of his portable radio the
only sign he was in. I wondered if he still
heard the whispers back in Civilization. I tried to move on.
Eliza transferred to a quieter project in a warmer climate,
far from the Arctic mark disappeared entirely. Rumors floated among
colleagues he'd left the field, joined some obscure sect, or
simply vanished. None of them felt right, None of them
felt wrong, and me I stayed. I couldn't let go
of what we'd found, or what had found us. I
researched phenomena like it, buried and obscure archives, piecing together
scraps of folklore and fringe science. Each time I read
about strange sounds, mass paranoia, or unexplainable events, my thoughts
returned to the art effect, to the whispers, to the
door m