Speaker 1: 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 bass 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 firecrackers,
a string of them that ran down the gateway one
by one, deafening booms that shock 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 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 pastels, 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 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, millions 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 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 two
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 fine and 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 at some point I
must have grown tired and looked up from my own pile,
because I noticed Doctor Ashley 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 began 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 and 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 the longest 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 f 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, you imagine, so,
he replied, while looking around 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 on 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, Venician, 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 gesturing to a book in his hand, All of them,
he laughed. Not just the things I did petty transgressions
or 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,
sins 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 snaked 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,
Bia 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 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. Mike glided 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 back back 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. Up 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 sot of vouce, little whispers. They muttered in a
discord of wet lips, no breath, no lungs, only the
action of robbery jaws to sound out syllables and consonance.
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 overrowed 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 its 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? Bee whispered, What is this?
Michael asked, as he scanned the upper shelves 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 to the others for suggestions.
When Bee piped up in Stea said 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.
He asked her, 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 the
heads stopped them muttering and began to emit the strangest noise,
their faces twisting upwards and warping in to 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, B 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 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, HG 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 a 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, 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. Then 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? Ah,
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 as calm a voice as I could manage. The
wall moved again, and this time it did not stop.
The young soldier with a hand set 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 half way 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 he was quick enough,
and there were no other roots except forward, 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 a 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 wall 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's what the cables or something,
I don't know, but we were lowered down there like
a rat's 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
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, but 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 Seafiel 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 Davis back in the
corridor had bothered him. Hell, 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 leapt
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 feel 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 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, its 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, plaint 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
p 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, hundreds of them, squirming like
mandibles of a hungry spider. Michael open fire, but he
might as well have been shooting hay for all the
effect it had. The bullet struck with 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 he 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. Her 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 fun reveling in his torment.
I reached out and picked the gun up from the
floor as Michael let her 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 on the 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 he 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 entered 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 the 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 defunct. Mortal
souls are meant to demonstrate repentance by wondering the near
eternal halls in search of their book. Only when they
found it were 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, or 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 anglerfish and
tracked 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 crushed a 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, I 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 bare hands.
I never found out what happened to him after several
men managed to pry 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've
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 touch 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 are 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 I 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 note, 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. A couple
of years ago, I was dating a woman named Lynn.
She was deeply enthusiastic about alternative medicine. It was such
a strange obsession. In every other aspect, she was insightful
and critical. Hell, she was a paralegal. She just had
this one blind spot that I could never figure out,
and it was a big part of a life. We
were together for two years. During that time, she had
me try all kinds of strange treatments and experiences, things
like acupuncture, spirit healing, crystals, reiki, rolphing, and even a seance.
I may or may not I have been asked to
do aiahuasca. I went along with it because I cared
deeply for her, but the cracks in our relationship had
started to show. Turned out we wouldn't last in the
long run. But I don't want to talk about that relationship.
I want to talk about this one treatment she took
me to and how it has shaped the life I
am living today. It's a bit complicated. I'm going to
talk about step minding. It was an early Minnesota morning
and the last session that Lynn and I would attend
as a couple. We pulled into a nondescript parking lot
and Lynn led me by the hand. We had an
insane fight that morning about something I can barely remember.
I think it was the order you put in your
yogurt when eating museli. Of course you put musi in first, right,
It's like cereal. We entered a stale waiting room. The
ac must have been off for days. I could taste
the air. The only other person there was a short,
balding man who spoke to us in a vaguely European accent,
barely looking up from his iPad Stevenson's. He asked over
exposure's room for no Ah, that's not us. I said,
we're right, right, sorry, he sighed wrong day. He tapped
the screen a couple of times and nodded, step minding
couple's treatment. Still room four, thank you. He wandered off,
and I noticed he didn't have any shoes on. I
pointed it out Olynne, who elbowed me. She thought I
was being judgmental. I just thought it was strange. I
didn't want to start anything. She vehemently disagreed with my assessment.
As always, we walked up to room four. The door
was already open. It was a plain, windowless room with
a small coffee table surrounded by four basic office chairs.
There was a vase with a single blue flower. There
was a naked light bulb overhead with nothing covering it.
Before was covered in a plain gray carpet. There was
a little note on the door that urged us to
take off our shoes. Then just smiled at me as
if this explained everything. I rolled my eyes. We sat
down across from one another and waited. It didn't take
that long before a woman wandered in. She was in
the forties, wearing a sort of knitted white wall caftain.
She had a combed back, flat elvia looking hairdoo and
covered herself in rings, chains and bangles. She took her
hands smiling widely. I'm doctor Bogan, she assured us, but
please call me Jane. I wasn't feeling all too confident
about what we were about to do. Jane described the
procedure step minding was a way to connect to one
another in a new way, giving a better understanding of
what it was like to walk a mile in their shoes.
There are a couple of rules to remember before we started.
For example, once the treatment started, we couldn't get up
from our chairs. If we did, we'd get horribly nauseous. Also,
we had a sort of safety noise. If someone were
to snap their fingers three times in a sequence, that
a trigger a failsafe that brought us right back. All
in all, it seemed dard, but not like nefarious. Then
we began. Jane rhythmically snapped her fingers like someone tapping
their feet to a slow song. She spoke in a
monotone voice, asking us to look down, look at your feet,
She said, imagine the feeling of walking the way your
muscles contract and your knees bend. Think of how it
makes you feel, and imagine the sound you think your
body makes. I don't remember the exact wording of what
she told us next, but I remember how it made
me feel. Without moving, we were supposed to imagine standing up,
stepping across and through the coffee table, and sitting down
on the chair of the person on the other side,
spirit passing through them, occupying the same space. We were
to imagine looking at ourselves through the eyes of the other.
There was a breathing exercise following the rhythm of a
finger snapping. We joined our breaths, and Jane made us
focus on each part of our body, leading from our
toes up to the top of our heads. She called
it materializing. We kept our eyes on our feet, except
slowly they weren't my feet anymore. Now, look, Jane said,
look at yourself. I was looking down at Linde's feet,
but not through my eyes. I have a hard time
describing the first sensation of step minding. Jane's finger snapping stopped,
and all of a sudden, I was looking up at
well myself. I was sitting in Linde's chair. I was,
for all intents and purposes, experiencing the world as Lyn.
I was Lyn. My hands were smaller, more delicate. I
was colder, and my clothes are uncomfortable. Smell and taste
felt different, and I had this gnawing hunger in the
back of my stomach. My back ched, and I could
feel my long hair reaching halfway down my back. I
was Lyn. I can barely remember what I did. We
talked and touched each other's hands, reassuring one another that
we were actually experiencing this. Lynn was repeating the same
thing over and over. That's me, she said, I'm looking
at me, I'm you. We had a long discussion. I
could feel air reverberating through my throat in a strange way.
I spoke in Lynde's voice, and it made my next strain.
I had to settle myself in her body, and there
were so many details that just didn't click. It was
so hard to focus on what was being said when
all I could think about was the way my earrings
swung back and forth when I moved my head. But
after about an hour, Jane snapped her fingers three times
and I was back in my chair in the blink
of an eye. This is how I realized I was shortsighted.
Lynde's vision had been perfect. I also felt bigger, heavier.
Her world felt so different from mine, and while it
didn't explain our disagreements, it gave me some insights into
just how different we really were, and I made a
note to get new glasses. Still reading from the experience,
Lynn and I thanked doctor Bogan and stepped out. He
had a strange desording to talk in the parking lot
and broke up. It was oddly amicable, as if we
both understood that we were fundamentally incompatible. That was it,
no drama, just that's it. I thought about that day
for weeks. He was so surreal. I mean, how do
you go from a literal out of body experience and
back to work on Monday morning. You can't pretend nothing happened.
I wanted to understand it, like, really understand it. I'd
been to countless night unsensical treatments with Lynn, but this
one had been the real deal. There was no denying it,
even though I desperately tried to. A couple of weeks later,
I returned to doctor Bogan on my own I wanted
to talk to her about it, the science behind it,
how it functioned, how it was performed anything, and of
course how I had never heard of step minding before
I met her. On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, she sat
me down and had her assistant offered me a cup
of coffee. She explained it as calmly as she could.
It was complicated, but essentially she explained it as something
based on Raskin identity theory, the transfer of thought pattern
through vocal meditation, exchanging vibrations and adapting electrical patterns in
the brain. Every word sounded like nonsensical pseudoscience, but it
didn't change the fact of what I'd experienced, and at
the end of the day, that was the only thing
that really mattered. I have to see it again, I said,
I need to understand this funny you should say that.
She smiled. I think we can work something out. Jane
offered me a quid pro quo. She had a couple
of patients who could benefit from a step mining session,
but she needed a neutral third party to act as
the recipient. I seemed to be a good fit, and
I was skeptical, but she had a little bonus to
sweeten the deal. She'd pay me a handsome sum of
cash for each session. There's a kind of consultation fee.
I was a bit hesitant, but I agreed. One week later,
I was sat on a session with Jane and one
of the patients. The patient had a dissociative issue and
needed a step minding session to alleviate a strange obsession
she seemed to have with what sounded like a house planned.
I didn't pay too much attention. I was nervous. I
couldn't figure out why. Maybe it was the thought that
what I had experienced was real and how that would
force me to change the way I viewed the world.
If a thing like step minding exists, who's to say
there aren't ghosts or wizards? So I sat down with
a stranger and Jane started snapping her fingers. Now look,
she began, look at yourself. Jane used the same words,
the same sequence, the same rhythm, stepping out of my
body and into another. The difference was palpable. This time.
Lynn had been calm and collected, but this woman was
the opposite. Sitting in a body, my pulse was higher,
my legs were shaking, and my breathing was shallow. I
was physically exhausted but mentally wired. Thoughts rushing a hundred
different ways at once, and I didn't even know why
a single second in that body looking across my table
back at myself, and I could tell they were a
troubled person. I was to sit there for a while
as Jane had a discussion with the other patient. Instinctively,
I stood up to leave the room to give them privacy,
but I had to sit back down. My head started
spinning as all these unfamiliar muscles reacted to my input,
and I couldn't get very far. Perhaps the sitting down
rule was there for a reason. I sat there, trying
to calm down while the two of them had a discussion.
I was asked to put on headphones for a bit,
and I didn't mind. It was hard hearing anything through
my panting pulse anyway. As the session came to an end,
Jane snapped her fingers and I was back in my chair.
My heart rate was slower, I wasn't shaking. I was nervous,
but compared to the other patients, I was an obelisk
of relaxation. For a moment, looking across the table, I
could see her taking a deep breath. She was still shaking,
but not as much as when we started. Perhaps that
session gave her a new perspective on things. As the
patient left, I got a moment to talk to Jane alone.
I explained to her that if we had wheelchairs instead
the other patient could be rolled out during the session,
that I'd be more effective than using headphones. She really
liked that idea and suggested we try it at the
next session, which inadvertently answered my next question. There was
going to be more sessions. I worked on and off
with doctor Bogan for a couple of months. I usually
did about three to five sessions per month, netting me
a bonus income of about four hundred dollars per session.
Jane ended up getting two wheelchairs and having her assistant
Jonathan wheel me out while she had a conversation with
the other patient. I grew accustomed to it and started
to enjoy the sensation. It's sort of a pleasant ego death.
You feel more connected to the world. It was becoming
a steady source of secondary and come taking an afternoon
off to get paid for something that I ultimately enjoyed. Yeah,
not a bad deal. Over the upcoming weeks, I got
a couple more opportunities. I joined Jane and a couple
of out of town sessions, meeting some clients she was
following up on, mostly folks who needed privacy for one
reason or another, Folks with all kinds of strange afflictions.
I could probably write a book about those people alone.
Coming back home, Jane contacted me about doing a couple
of sessions where she wasn't personally involved. I was also
asked to be the guide a couple of times, seeing
as how I stepped minded so many times and could
recite the guiding words by heart. The pay was more
than double, so I agreed. I had three guiding sessions
on my own, one with a hippie couple who wanted
to experience a sort of intimacy let's just leave it
at that. Another session with two brothers performing a trust exercise.
The third one was a group of college kids who
wanted to debunk the whole thing, and they left sort
of befuddled. All in all, things were going well. Then
I got a call about being a neutral third party.
I was going to perform a switch with a patient,
but this time Jane wasn't involved at all. The customer
went straight to me. It was a group of people
who contacted me. They described it as their dad having
a disorder and they wanted to try step minding to
sort of reset him. That arranged their own guide, so
they just needed me as a neutral third party, someone
who wouldn't freak out about the process, as it might
take a couple of hours to get through to him.
It would be my longest session yet, but the pay
was good. Then I'd tried a lot of things up
until that point. I was ready. I met a client, Harold,
at his home in southern Saint Cloud. Big place, three floors,
gated property with both a pool and a tennis court,
modern architecture and heated floor tiles. The guide for the
evening was a cheery woman in her forties. She gave
off a bit of a college professor kind of vibe.
Apart from the client himself, there was a group of
four other people who seemed to be close relatives, and
of course there was Harold himself. The man I was
supposed to work with. Harold was surprisingly upbeat. I couldn't
see anything obviously wrong with him, which surprised me. From
what I understood he was in dire need of this treatment.
He was a man in his early sixties, but could
easily pass for fifty. Hell, the man had better teeth
than me. I could tell he must have been a
salesman at some point. You can tell by the smile.
I was introduced to the others, who introduced themselves as
friends and family. We hurried to the living room, where
a space had been prepared. We were all seated as
a group. The guide had prepared everything and offered me
a reassuring smile. She took her hands, something that Jane
usually didn't do. I just want to make sure we're
all feeling good about this, she said, we good, were good?
I nodded, We're good. Harold agreed, and with that the
session was on. The guide snapped her fingers, lowered a voice,
and took us down the mental road and across the table.
By then I knew the process, the right words, with
the right cadence at the right time. I sunk back
in my chair, looking at my feet and felt the
world shift. After a while, my shoes looked different, they
were nicer, and my pants fit me better. Slowly I
started to feel the reality of my borrowed body. The
various aches and pains, the thinning hair, the wrinkles on
my cheek when I blinked, I'd aged about thirty years
in a couple of minutes, and it would take some
time adjusting. Looking up and seeing myself in the opposite chair,
I got this anxious sting in my chest. The thought
crossed my mind, what if I never returned? The guide
excused herself and left. She'd done her job. The rest
was up to Harold and his associates. But as soon
as I heard the front door close, the air in
the room shifted. Harold was sitting there, looking like me,
stretching his arms. The others joined us, making a circle.
One of Harold's associates, a young woman who'd introduced herself
as Hope, spoke to the both of us. She could
easily have been his daughter. How are you feeling, she asked?
Everyone Okay, yeer, I nodded. You do what you gotta
do so this works. Harold asked this, this is it,
It's done, It's done, Hope smiled. Harold pulled out a gun,
a well polished revolver. I was the only one who reacted,
flinching at the sight of it. The others didn't seem
to care. I didn't know what to do. Should I
be scared? If so, why was no one reacting? So
then we just cut the cord. Then he said, and
we're good to go. Wait, what are you? They were
tricking me. They put me in that old body and
had no intention of putting me back. I held up
my hand and snapped my finger two times, but before
the third snap, I had a gun pushed against the
back of my head. That won't help. Hope said, we'll
just kill you when you're you again. It's hard to
describe what I felt in that moment. The fear was real,
but there was also a longing to go back. Being
out of your own body is like sleeping outside. You
feel exposed and maladjusted. If you know it's for a while,
it's not that bad. But if there's a chance you
can't go back, it becomes terrifying, like getting lost in
the woods. That's not even counting for the primal terror
you feel from having a gun pointed at you. Harold
seemed a bit confused, which made me realize that no
one had explained the rules to him, that we couldn't
get up, and that three snaps of a finger would
cancel the effect. I got the impression that he thought
this was somehow permanent. Looking at him, I could see
a worry spread across his face. My face. You said
this was permanent, he said, looking at Hope, it is,
as long as you don't do three finger snaps. How's
that gonna work? When we cut him off? You're gonna
have to make sure you're never around someone who snaps
their fingers, Harold, She smiled, that's not too much, is it.
Do I have to remind you that I got the
tapes to put you away. Harold smiled back, and that
if anything were to happen to me, you're done. Nothing's
gonna happen, Harold. Hope chuggled. Look, you're right there, safe
and sound. She pointed at me. It was as if
a light turned on in Harold's eyes. He was being
double crossed, just like me. In a desperate moment, he
raised his handgun at me. I recalled so hard that
I fell out of my chair, feeling my heart skipper beat.
Cold sweat spread across my arms, clinging to the thin
inner fabric of Harold's expensive blazer. But there was no
gun shot, just a click his gun was empty. That
click was the loudest sound I'd ever heard. I came
crumbling down to the floor, feeling the effects of the
first rule, don't get up. I was immediately nauseous. I
felt like a bobblehead as my head went one way
and my body another. A collapsed in a pile, trying
to find the magic number of blinks to make the
world stop spinning. You'll never get past the safety checks,
Howard screamed. You'll never get the backups. You hit all fingerprinted,
hop side, fingerprinted, biocoded, voice checked. Sorry. A man raised
his arm. There was no second click. Instead, there was
a bang. I looked up with my ears ringing, watching
a reflection of my dead self on the other side
of the coffee table. Bullet to the brain, nothing but
blank eyes looking back at me. My face didn't look dead,
It just looks sort of tired, like I was sleepy.
I was expecting that face to blink, but that blink
never came. Blood pulled at the corner of the mouth,
running down from the open wound at the temple. They
pulled me up and dragged me over to Harold's workstation.
They used my hand to log in I had to
do a voice recognition check as Hope's associates went through
two laptops and a smartphone. While they did, Hope sat
down across from me. My head was still swimming. They're
gonna need you, she said, and as long as you
play along, you'll be fine. But if you mess with me,
she snapped her fingers twice ice filled my veins as
I gripped my seat. I can't imagine something good would
happen if we tried this, she said, blowing her voice.
So how about we just really really pay attention? Hmm,
She explained it to me, I was done for anyone
in her crew could snap their fingers three times and
I'd be done. This also meant I couldn't perform step
minding again, as you need a rhythmic finger snapping as
part of the process. She explained the plan. They needed
Harold alive to slowly transfer his company shares to someone
else without it looking all too suspicious. They needed access
to his files, both immediate and over a long term.
They explained that they needed me around to make it
appear that everything was fine. In return, I get to
live in this amazing place with whatever comforts I could
ask for for the rest of my days. But if
I slipped up, snap, snap, snap, done, fade to black.
It was so surreal watching them wrap up my own
body in black plastic, men in tailored blazers, scrubbing the
floors and walls, with Bleach Hope sitting across from me,
rubbing her fingers together. Where do you think you'll go?
She asked? If I snap my fingers, where do you
think you'll go? I? I don't know, I stuttered, I don't.
Maybe you'll be fine, she shrugged. Maybe there's something nice
and warm on the other side, or maybe the snapping
doesn't even work anymore. Want to try? No, no, she smiled, No,
you don't. You're smarter than that, and maybe you're not
the gambling type. She typed the barrel of the gun
on Howard's mahogany desk. You can have all the parties
you want. You got a big bank account, she sighed,
But maybe be careful about inviting musical people, those who
stamp their feet or snap their fingers. And that was that.
I was left there. I had keys to a place
I didn't know, a phone full of numbers I didn't recognize.
I just stood there in the chlorine smelling house of
a stranger. I didn't know what to feel. Ever since
I started step minding, I had never considered this. It
was unreal. I remember looking down at my own hand,
not being sure if I could snap myself out of it,
what would happen. Over time, I got used to the nausea.
Nowadays it's gone. I can walk around like anyone else,
but I have to avoid crowds. I can't risk hearing
those three snaps. I watch videos with the sound off
and subtitles on. I only watched movies after checking the soundtrack,
making sure there are no snapping in the songs. Radio
is out of the question. You never know what you
might hear, and even if you do, does it work
hearing it through a TV or in a song? Would
you risk it? I won't. I can't. I don't think
I can ever adjust. I've thought about contacting people from
my old life, but I wouldn't know where to begin.
How do you explain this? I have to be careful
not to draw any attention to myself or hope and
her cronies might return, And if they do, well, I
don't know how far I could push my luck. I
mean I'm comfortable. Harold made close the six figures a
month on passive income. I've learned most things about his life.
He never married, he has no children, and most of
his contacts are passing acquaintances at best. He was a
lonely man, and now that's me. I spend most of
my days considering my options. I've thought about destroying my
hearing as a safety measure. Yes, going down is awful,
but you have no idea what it's like living with
the thought that a sound that can be done at
any time, why anyone can kill you. It's exhausting, and
you end up isolating yourself. I'm Harold now, screaming into
the void that I used to be someone else. I'm
sipping on a drink from a glass with my initials
on it. And when I go to bed at night,
I will do the same thing I do every night.
I will take a long look at myself. I got
better vision now Harold isn't shortsighted, but I can't look
at myself. I'm not there anymore. It's just Harold. I
floated through the narrow corridor of the Iss, the hum
of machinery reminding me of the delicate job of keeping
us alive. I am the communications officer on this mission.
My job is the monitor and interpret the data flowing
in from a new array of radio telescopes. These telescopes,
bolted to the exterior of the station, are designed to
pick up the faint signals of the Cosmos, the distant
pultars that might reveal secrets of the universe. Life on
the ISS is a dance of precision and routine. Each night,
I'd strap myself into my sleeping bag, floating gently in
my small sleeping quarters. The weightlessness was a constant reminder
that Earth and its gravity were hundreds of kilometers below.
Breakfast was always a rehydrat meal, eaten quickly before the
day's tasks began. My crewmates and I moved through our
routines with efficiency, every action measured to conserve energy and resources.
Becoming part of the ISS crew was driven by a
need to feel something beyond in my life. The raw,
unfielded experiences of space offered an escape I craved. In
the vast silence of the cosmos. I found temporary solace,
a way to immerse myself in something greater than me.
Every day I would float to the cupola, the observation
module my favorite spot on the ISS. The panoramic view
of Earth below rotating slowly, made me reflect on the
life I had left behind. The new telescopes were my
primary focus, and I spent countless hours analyzing the data
they captured. The telescopes were sophisticated pieces of technology designed
to detect the rhythmic pulses of neutron stars pulsars. These
dying stars emitted beams of radiation that could be detected
across vast distances. My role was to interpret these signals,
to sift through the data and find meaning in the chaos.
The ISS's communication systems were our lifeline, relaying back data
to mission control and ensuring we remained connected to Earth.
Our communication relied heavily on the TDRS tracking in Data
Relay Satellites Network, a constellation of geostationary satellites that allowed
almost continuous communication with Earth. Any interruption in this network
could mean delayed transmissions, which is why we meticulously monitored
our systems. So far away from safety meant every task
was a balance of precision and improvisation. Maintenance tasks ranged
from routine system checks to unexpected repairs one day, I
assisted the engineer Mia in repairing a malfunctioning oxygen generator.
Floating beside her tools, Tethered to our belts, we worked
in silent coordination, Meir's calm, methodical approach as reassuring her
hands steady as she adjusted the delicate components. The oxygen generator,
part of the Environmental Control and Life Support System, or
ECLSS for short, was crucial for converting exhaled carbon dioxide
back into breathable oxygen using a process called electrolysis. A
malfunction here could mean a critical situation, but Meir's expertise
kept us safe. In addition to monitoring radio telescopes, I
also managed the station's coup Ban communication system. This system
provided high speed data links to Worth, essential for transmitting
the vast amounts of scientific data we collected daily. Any
anomalies in these systems required immediate attention to avoid data
loss and ensure continuous communication with mission control. In the evenings,
we gathered in the small communal area, a makeshift living
room where we shared meals and stories, where Captain Jess
would recount early days in the space program, her voice
filled with the passion that had driven a hear Daniel,
our scientist, often discussed his latest experiments, his enthusiasm for
microgravity research infectious. These moments of camaraderie were precious, remind
us that we were not just colleagues, but a team
bound by a mission in isolation. However, despite the camaraderie,
the solitude of space had a way of creeping in.
Late at night, I'd find myself alone in the observation module,
staring out at the infinite expanse. The silence was profound,
the stars unblinking in the darkness. It was during these
quiet moments that I felt the weight of my own isolation,
most acutely, a contrast to the bustling life I had
left behind on Earth. The work on the iss was demanding,
but it provided a structure that helped each task. Each
experiment was a step towards understanding the universe and my
place within it. The telescopes, with their promise of discovery,
were both a challenge and a refuge. They allowed me
to lose myself in the vastness of space, to focus
on something beyond the confines of my own mind. Each
day began with a gentle nudge from my watch signaling
the star to my shift. I floated through the narrow
corridor of the communications module, where the day's data from
a new array of radio telescopes awaighted. I started by
downloading the late dispatch of data. The telescopes, equipped with
ultrasensitive receivers, captured the rhythmic pulses of distant neutron stars.
The data streamed through the ISSS S band and coupand
communication links, ready for analysis. The software hummed as it
processed the information, filtering out cosmic noise and highlighting significant patterns.
With the data processing underway, moved on to the daily
system checks. The communication system always needed to be in
top condition to maintain our link with Earth. I ran
diagnostics on the antennas, ensuring they were precisely aligned with
the target pulsars. Each day followed a similar pattern. I'd
float into the communications module, download the data, and begin
the analysis. I liked the observations, noting any minor deviations.
In the afternoon, I joined MERE to check in the
environmental control and life support system. We worked in silent coordination.
The oxygen generator was operating flawlessly. Another day, another batch
of data. As I downloaded the latest transmissions. I noticed
the faint, almost imperceptible anomaly, easy to dismiss as background
noise spaces filled with various sources of electromagnetic interference. After all,
I logged it as such and continued with my routine.
The analytical software filtered through the data, isolating the pulsar signals.
During the midday system checks, I recalibrated the antennas. It
was meticulous work, but necessary to maintain the integrity of
our data. The faint anomaly lingered in my mind, but
I set it aside, focusing at the tasks at hand.
That evening, during our briefing, I considered mentioning the anomaly,
but decided against it. It was too vague a source,
and the crew had enough to worry about. It seemed
too insignificant to warrant their attention. It was just a
minor blip in the data, nothing to be concerned about.
The day after began, Like the others, I floated to
the communications module, downloaded the data, and began my checks. However,
the faint anomaly was still there, a persistent whisper among
the rhythmic pulses. I decided to amplify the gain and
the receiver. Curious to sive the pattern would become clearer,
The signal grew more distinct, its rhythmic quality more pronounced.
I ran it through the software again, hoping to identify
its source and set off the data package. However, the
next day, the anomaly was slightly more pronounced. It was
still faint, but its consistent presence made me uneasy. I
amplified it further and listened closely. What I heard sent
a chill down my spine. It was a subtle change,
but amidst the cosmic noise, the anomaly seemed almost deliberate.
I checked the equipment for faults, running diagnostics on the
receivers and data processes. Everything was functioning within normal parameters.
I recalibrated the antennas again, ensuring though precisely aligned, but
the anomaly persisted. The spectral analysis revealed slight modulations in
the signal that suggested it wasn't entirely random. There were
hints of structure, though the details were too vague to decipher.
I captured a segment of the data and ran it
through a pattern recognition algorithm, hoping to decode it, but
the results were inconclusive. Despite the anomaly's persistent presence. It
didn't seem important enough to report just yet, just enough
to document. The data was too ambiguous and I needed
more of a sample size to finalize a pattern. It
also could have easily been a false positive or a
technical issue, still ignored at the back of my mind,
a tiny splinter of her knees that I couldn't quite shake.
As the days passed, I found myself thinking about the
anomaly more and more. Late at night, I would do
my routine of floating alone in the observation module. The stars,
once a source of wonder, now seemed indifferent, their silence
amplifying thoughts of the anomaly that echoed in my mind.
No matter what I did, the anomaly persisted, its presence,
gnawing at the edges of my thoughts. It kept happening
each time I pulled readings, and mission control did not
contact us about it. Mean to understand it, I used
the ISS's analytical software to delve deeper. Now that I
had enough samples to try extract the pattern. The software
designed for filtering out cosmic noise and identifying significant patterns
now took on a new level of importance. I ran
the anomaly. Through more complex analysises, I began to notice
patterns that were disturbingly intricate. As I was analyzing the data,
I noticed the anomaly coincided with minor electrical disturbances on
the iss The lights flickered and the ventilation system momentarily spotted.
I initially thought these were a possible cause for the anomaly,
but when the pattern repeated, it was impossible to ignore.
I documented these incidents meticulously, noting the exact times and
conditions under which they occurred. During one analysis session, the
signal's modulation suggested intelligence, structured deliberate, almost like a coded message.
I captured the data and ran it through advanced decryption algorithms,
but the results were baffling. The patterns hinted at a
form of communication, a concept both thrilling and terrifying. I
hesitated before to share my findings with the crew, but
I felt I had enough to present with the group.
When I finally did, the reception was less than enthusiastic.
The Captain Jess listened patiently but remained skeptical. It's probably
interference from another satellite, she suggested. MIA. Ever, the pragmatist
ren diagnostics on the station systems, attributing the disturbances too
SI minor equipment malfunctions. Daniel was the most intrigued, but
still cautious. It could be a new type of cosmic phenomenon,
he theorized, though it wasn't convinced there was anything more
than an unknown natural occurrence. Days passed and the anomaly
continued to manifest. I monitored it closely, noting every fluctuation
and pattern. The cruse skepticism began to wear on me.
Each time I mentioned the anomaly, I saw the doubt
in their eyes, and it made me question my own
sanity about all of this. Then, while running a routine check,
the anomaly coincided with a more significant power surge. The
lights flickered violently and the ISS's communication systems briefly went offline.
When the systems came back up, I noticed something new,
a more pronounced modulation in the signal, almost like a
sound trying to break through. While I was analyzing the
batch of data, the power surge happened again. This time
the anomaly was unmistakably deliberate. I amplified the signal and
listened intently. The modulation was clearer, almost forming sounds, though
they were still too distorted to understand. As I was
documenting this, Mia called out from another module. Alex, are
you hearing this? She asked, her voice tinged with confusion.
I floated over to her work station, where she had
isolated a similar signal on her equipment. It was different
from what I had been monitoring, yet irrely similar in
its rhythmic structure. The crew gathered around as we play
the recordings side by side. The similarities were undeniable, but
the source remained a mystery. Jess frowned, her skepticism all
but gone, replaced with concern. That evening, during our briefing,
the mood was tense. We discussed the anomalies in detail,
debating their significance and possible causes. Daniel suggested we run
a coordinated analysis, combining data from all our systems to
see if we could triangulate the source. We tried it,
and the coordinated effort revealed even more disturbing patterns. The
anomalies were not just random interference. They were consistent and
seemed to be increasing in frequency and intensity. We decided
to send a detailed report to mission control, hoping for
some clarification or guidance at night. As I floated in
the observation module, the lights flickered again, more violently than ever.
The entire station shuddered, as if hit by an external force.
My heart raised as I made my way to the
communications module. The anomaly was now a deafening signal, almost
forming coherent words. Suddenly, MIA's voice crackled over the intercom.
Filled with panic, I I saw myself outside. She gasped,
but without a suit. Her words sent a chill. Panic
spread quickly among the crew. It wasn't just affecting the ship,
it was affecting us. If Mere's hallucination was linked to
the anomaly, this posed a serious threat to all of us.
The atmosphere aboard the ISS immediately shifted from skeptical curiosity
to palpable fear, and things only got worse. The signals
began to invade my dreams. At first, they were vague,
unsettling images of the stars, but soon they grew more
vivid and disturbing. I saw visions of my past, reliving
moments of loneliness and loss. The dreams then twisted into dark,
violent scenarios where the ISS was overrun by an unknown force,
shadowy figures floated through the station, whispering my name, their
faces indistinguishable, with their presence suffocating. I woke up in
cold sweats. Reality was blurring. I heard the whispers in
the quiet harm of the station, in the white noise
of the ventilation system. My grip on my sanity began
to slip. Simple tasks became monumental challenges as I struggled
to focus, my mind constantly drifting. The crew noticed my
deteriorating state. You need to rest, Jess urged, her concern evident,
yet she also showed signs of mental decay. You're pushing
yourself too hard. But rest was impossible. The whispers had
become a constant companion, invading the time I set aside
to try to recover, their presence growing stronger, more invasive.
One particular night, I dreamt that the iss was falling apart.
The walls cracked, and the station's structural integrity failed. As
I floated helplessly through the disintegrating module, the whispers grew deafening,
a cacophony of voices screaming my name. I woke up,
gasping for breath, the vividness of the dream lingering like
a shadow over my consciousness. The boundaries between my waking
life and my dreams continued to blur. Each day fell
like a descent further into madness. The anomaly at the
center of my unraveling psychee. No matter how much I
wanted to stay away, I had to keep logging data.
This needed to be studied. I was caught in a
web of fear and an insatiable need to understand the
signal that seemed to hold my very sanity in its grasp.
The anomaly grew ever present. The electrical disturbances and unsettling
dreams had become a constant gnawing at my sanity and
the ship. One night, while analyzing more data, trying to
figure everything out, I intercepted a clear and direct message
through the ISS's communication system. The words were distorted but unmistakable.
We were here before you. You don't belong. My heart
raised as I replayed the message, trying to make sense
of it. The modulation of the signal was complex, layered
with patterns that suggested intelligence far beyond our understanding. As
I focused on the message, vivid hallucinations began to flood
my mind. I saw a different world, one that existed
long before humors had ventured into space, and eyes many eyes.
In these visions, I witnessed colossal structures floating through the word,
inhabited by entities whose forms defied comprehension. Everything watching me,
sentient or not. Their technology looked ancient yet advanced, blending
seamlessly with the fabric of space itself. The entities communicated
to the same rhythmic pulses that had been haunting me.
The messages a chilling warning of a forgotten past and
an imminent threat. The ISS felt like a fragile bubble
in the vastness of space, surrounded by the remnants of
a civilization that once dominated the Solar System. The message
echoed in my mind, reinforcing the sense of impending doom.
You don't belong. The ISS systems began to fail catastrophically.
The lights flickered violently, casting irre by shadows that danced
along the walls. The life support systems, which are crucial
for maintaining breathable air and stable temperature, started to malfunction.
The oxygen levels fluctuated, and the co two scrubbers struggled
to keep up. As I floated to the station, all
hands on deck, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched,
eyes on me from behind, no matter how I turned.
The telescopes, once instruments of discovery, now see my beacons
drawing in an unseen force. The calm system crackled with static,
punctuated by whispers that grew louder and more insistent. I
saw shadowy figures in the corner of my vision, their
forms flickering like faulty holograms. They whispered to me, their
voices blending with the rhythmic pulses of the anomaly. The
boundary between reality and hallucination dissolber, leaving me in a
state of perpetual terror. I sped toward the life support module,
hoping to stabilize the systems. The console displayed erratic readings,
fluctuating oxygen levels, spikes and CO two, and temperatures swinging wildly.
I initiated emergency protocols, overriding the automatic controls to manually
regulate the life support systems. My fingers flew all over
the interface, adjusting parameters in a desperate attempt to restore stability.
Despite my efforts, the whispers persisted, growing more aggressive. I
felt the presence closing in, urging me to open the
airlock and let them in. The airlock controls, normally unresponsive
without a deliberate command, flickered ominously, ready to be used
without any of the routine procedures. I packed away the
urge to comply with the whispers, Warring with my instincts
for self preservation, I floated through the observation module to
see if anything was actually outside, if this was all
just in my head, or worse, in the ship. The
view of the earth below, usually a source of comfort,
now felt like a reminder of our isolation from safety.
No help would come, or could come if we asked.
The stars outside seemed to pulse with a malevolant light,
the silence mocking my isolation. As I stared out into
the void, the hallucinations intensified. I saw the ancient entities,
their forms looming over the is s, their technology intertwining
with ours. They reached THEU with tensils of energy, probing
the station's defenses. I could feel their intent, a dark
curiosity mixed with a sense of territoriality. The communication system
flared to life again, broadcasting the same chilling message we
were here before you, you don't belong. The words reverberated
through the station, each repetition driving me further into madness.
The shadows whispered suggestively, urging me to surrender, to open
the airlock and let them in. I knew I was
losing my grip on reality. The once familiar environment of
the iss had become a night marriage labyrinth, filled with
ghostly figures and sinister whispers. The station's systems continued to fail,
each malfunction reinforcing the sense of impending catastrophe. The shadows
closed in around me. The whispers grew louder, more insistent,
filling my mind with a relentless chant you don't belong,
You don't belong. My willpower waned, the urge to open
the airlock becoming almost irresistible. It all had reached a
deafening crescendo, pushing me to the edge. In a desperate
bit to when the torment, I floated to the communications module,
my mind racing with a single desperate plan disconnect the telescopes.
I hesitated for a moment, my fingers hovering over the console.
Disconnecting the telescopes would mean losing valuable data, potentially cutting
off a significant part of our mission, but the station
was falling apart and the cruise lives are at stake.
I had no other choice. Jess, I need a disc
connect the telescopes, I said, my voice trembling. She looked
at me, a mix of fear and confusion in her eyes.
Are you sure they will stop this? It's our only shot?
Jess paused and thought, But now it was our only
desperate attempt. She reluctantly nodded. I initiated the sequence that
power down the telescopes. The system protested with error messages
and warnings about the loss of critical data. I overrode
each of them, my handshaking as I worked through the steps.
As I reached the final command, the whispers grew frantic,
as if they were trying to stop me. Here goes nothing,
I whispered to myself and disconnected the final telescope. The
silence was immediate and profound. The whispers ceased instantly, and
the station systems, which had been on the brink of
total failure, began to stabilize. The lights stopped flickering, and
the life support systems returned to normal parameters, and the
communication systems hummed back to life with a steady, reassuring tone.
Our shoulders rolled like immense weight had been lifted. The crew,
though shaken, began to regain control, mere work to reset
the environmental controls while Jessent Daniel checked the communication links
to mission control. The pervasive sense of doom lifted, replaced
by a cautious optimism. We filed a detailed incident report
to mission control, outlining the strange anomalies and the subsequent
system failures. The response swift but cryptic. The incident was
to remain classified. No further details were to be shared,
even among ourselves. The message was clear, what happened on
the iss would remain a mystery, shrouded in secrecy. Back
to my normal routine, I found myself drawn to the
observation module, a habit that was ingrained in me. The
stars outside that relaxed me before now seemed to pulse
with a malevolent light, a stark reminder of the ordeal
we had just survived. As I floated there, staring out
into the infinite expanse of space, a deep, unsettling fear
settled into my bones. The silence was almost too perfect,
the calm after a storm filled with an eerie sense
of anticipation. The crew tried to return to their routines,
but the experience had left us all deeply affected. Jess
maintained a stoic front, but I could see the haunted
look in her eyes. Mia threw herself into her work,
her hands never quite as steady as before. Daniel's enthusiasm
had dimmed, replaced by a quiet, contemplative demeanor. As for me,
I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched.
The stars, once a source of wonder and inspiration, now
seemed like silent sentinels waiting. The message we had intercepted
we were here before you. You don't belong echoed in
my mind, a chilling reminder of our encounter. I was
filled with the weight of unanswered questions and unresolved fears.
I was constantly on edge, always feeling like the whispers
could return at any moment, perhaps with even greater force.
The uncertainty of what lay beyond the veil of space
left us with a gnawing sense of dread. I stared
out at the cosmos, my mind replaying the events over
and over, searching for clues or signs that we had
missed the is S, once a beacon of human achievement,
now felt like a fragile outpost, and the edge of
an abyss the first point of contact if anything were
to come. Ultimately, I couldn't escape the haunting feeling that
we had merely glimpsed the surface of a far greater mystery.
The stars, with a silent, pulsing light, seemed to mock
my attempts to understand. The whispers had ceased, but their
presence lingered a shadow over my thoughts. In the end,
I was left with the unsettling realization that our place
in the universe was far from secure. The entities we
had encountered, whether real or imagined, had made their point clear.
We were intruders in a realm beyond our understanding, and
I carried a fear that they might return with greater
force and clearer intent. The is S returned to normal operations,
but I knew that things would never be the same.
The experience had left an indelible mark on all of us,
and I couldn't help but wonder what else lay hidden
in the vast, fast, uncharted depths of space, waiting for
us to find it, offer it to find us. The
cafeteria was alive with the soundscape of youth, laughter, chatter,
and the clattering of trays. I sat alone, eyes fixed
on my phone, doom scrolling endless social media feeds. It
was a routine I had ingrained in me and escape
from high school life. I was a high school junior,
and I liked to think of myself as a bright,
quiet kid who chose not to socialize to keep a
mysterious facade. However, that wasn't the case in reality. My
introverted nature often care to me in the shadows, crippling
me in the few chances I had to prove my
status in the social hierarchy. My harbies and interests didn't help.
Rather than sports or pop culture, I was passionate about technology,
coding and niche simulation games. I felt like a ghost
slipping between the social cracks, and time was ticking on,
making lasting connections that would spend a lifetime. The cafeteria
being the microcosm of high school society, everyone was grouped
into their familiar clicks. The athletes in one section, loud
as always. The other side housed the theater kids animatedly
discussing their latest production. And there I was a lone
figure amidst the people having fun. My phone a comforting
barrier between me and the world. I wished I could
be like them, but self doubt clung to me like
a shadow and oozed out of me when I tried.
I couldn't help comparing myself to the others, measuring my
worth against them. It was a constant habit that reminded
myself of my status. As I scrolled through my feed,
half listening to the conversations around me, something caught my attention.
A group of students at the next table over were
animatedly discussing some new app. It shows you but from
the future. One of them said, her voice bubbling with excitement.
It's like looking into a crystal ball. Another chimed in,
I saw myself in Paris working at some big fashion company.
I mean, it's probably nonsense, but it's fun, right. Their
words piqued my interest an app that could show the future.
It sounded crazy, but also fun. The future was something
that I often fantasized about, knowing how much I hated
the present. A hope maybe of better times ahead. It
was what I needed to cope with how things were
a glimpse of a successful future, something to hold onto
amidst uncertainty. The thought lingered throughout the day, at tempting
whisper that refused to fade. As the final bell rang
and the corridors entered, I found myself excited to go
home and try it. Even if it turned out to
be some benign prediction, it could inspire some hope that
I desperately needed. And luckily for me, I caught the
name of it from when I heard those girls talking
about it, Mirror Me. Later that evening, as the sun dipped,
I sat at my bed staring at the app store
on my phone. There it was, Mirror Me. The icon
glowed a simple mirror with an infinity symbol etched in
the center. The reviews were glowing, filled with people claiming
it had changed their lives. It seemed like an exaggeration,
but the prospect was too tenting. A siren called to
a future I desperately wanted to believe. My thumb hovered
over the download button, excitement mingling with anticipation. Taking a
deep breath, I tapped the screen and watched as the
app downloaded. Downloading the app, my mind jumped into a
realm of possibilities, and yet I still carried a sense
of skipism. It promised to show an accurate prediction of
my future self that updated in real time, but the
realist in me was always grounded to my true expectations.
The description was futuristic, almost too good to be true,
and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. People claimed it had
given them a glimpse into the future, some miraculous peak
that had changed their lives. However, it's not hard to
question the intelligence of the general populace. I took a
deep breath, a bit more dramatic than I'd liked, and
opened the app. The screen flickered to life, the load
in Nikon's spinning for a moment before asking if i'd
allow the app to use my camera, which I of
course accepted. When it came on, It's not a picture
of me, then revealed an image of what looked like me,
but different. I blinked, and there I was. It looked
like I was a successful software developer, standing in a sleek,
modern office wearing a tailored suit that exuded confidence. My
future self looked assured and happy, a stark contrast to
how I had often felt. My heart raised with excitement
and disbelief. Is this really me? I whispered, reaching out
to touch the screen, half expecting the image to vanish
like a mirage, but it remained solid and enticing a
vision of a life I desperately wanted to believe was possible.
This vision filled me with a surge of motivation I
hadn't felt in a long time. The next day, I
walked into school with renewed energy, eager to take small
steps towards making that future her reality. I raised my
hand in class, giving answers, confidently feeling a thrill every
time I contributed. I eve enjoyed the school's coding club,
something I'd always wanted to do, but it had never
had the courage to try. My parents noticed the change
almost immediately. At dinner, my mum smiled at me, a
glint of pride in her eyes. You've been really engaged lately,
she remarked. It's great to see you out of your shell.
I couldn't help but being with pride, feeling for the
first time that my future might indeed be as bright
and promising as I'd imagined. The app had given me
a glimpse of a life I wanted, and I was
determined to work toward it, each day, bringing me a
step closer to that vision, as if the world had shifted,
opening up new possibilities I'd never dared to dream of.
I finally understood the hype of this app. The doubt
that it lingered before was fading, replaced by a newfound
belief in my potential. The initial excitement from using the
Mirror Me app started to become a routine. Every morning,
I would check it to see if my future self
had changed, hoping to catch some new info and the
life I was working toward. For the most part, the
image remained mostly the same me, successful and confident, socially
navigating a world I had only dreamed of. But soon
I began to notice small discrepancies in the reflections. It
started subtly, a small bruise and my future self's arm
that I didn't remember having. I shrugged it off, thinking
it was just adding details to create a narrative. In
the following days, however, the discrepancies became harder to ignore.
A faint scratch appeared in my future self's cheek, then
another bruise, this time more pronounced. I felt a knot
of anxiety seeing this unfold. I tried to shake off
the feeling, thinking it was just an error, but the
nagging sense that something was wrong wouldn't leave me. During
a coding club meeting, I was working on some hardware,
swapping around some parts. The edges of an io shield
are quite sharp, and while shifting something around, I caught
my hand on it. It was a minor injury, nothing
more than a sting and a bit of blood. This
comes with the territory, so I thought nothing of it. However,
later that night, I checked the app like I usually did,
and there it was the same cut, mirrored on my
future self's hand. Panic set in. I stared at the
cut of my hand, feeling a cold dread rising in me.
I was simply using the app for a boosting confidence,
but this bled the fantasy into the realm of reality.
The thought of this sent my mind spiraling. If the
app was accurately predicting these events, then what else could
it foresee? I musted as much doubt as I could,
but I still became anxious, unable to shake the feeling
that the future was closing in on me, as if
it was already written and waiting to unfold. I became
obsessed with finding answers and checked the app constantly, my
fingers itching to unlock the screen every spare moment. Every
so often a new scar or injury would appear on
my future visage, and each time this happened, my mind raised,
trying to figure out how to prevent these future misaps.
Sleepless nights became routine as I lay awake, staring at
the ceiling, replaying every decision I'd made. Each day, I
grew more paranoid about each decision I'd make. Though the
road is clear, should I cross? I need to reach
something off the top shelf? But is it safe? Is
what I'm eating? Within date, The app, once a lifeline,
was now a tormentor a mirror, reflecting my fears, a
ticking clock to a future I couldn't ignore. In quiet
moments alone with my thoughts, I began to realize the
cost of seeing the future. The blissful ignorance gone as
I spiraled and panic trying to avoid this future. I
was getting darker and darker by the day, but I
was still hooked, addicted to trying to right the wrongs
that came in droves. As the days turned into weeks,
my obsession with the Mirror Me app grew, and it
started to take a toll on my life. After every
decision I'd make during the day, I would check to
see if the future image got better or worse. Sometimes
I'd do something which improved it slightly, but it always
seemed to be on a slow decline. The confident, accomplished
man which inspired me was debilitating. I found myself with
growing from my friends and family, each interaction tinged with
a silent fear that something might happen to me because
of it. The idea of causing some unseen ripple effect
terrified me. Social gatherings became minefields of potential disasters. Would
starting a friendship with someone be the catalyst for disaster?
Would cut in ties with someone save me? These thoughts
plagued my mind. Each time I interacted with someone, I
started canceling plans, making excuses to avoid any outings. I
told myself it was for my future that I needed
to focus on my studies and success to try to
get the image back on track, but deep down I
knew it was because I feared what the app might reveal. Next,
sitting alone at lunch, I watched my friends or future
acquaintances from afar, Feeling a pang of life longing as
they laughed and joked together. I wanted to join them,
but untold fear held me back. I'm doing this for
my future, I reminded myself, like a mantra, though the
loneliness hung around my shoulders like a heavy cloak. I
buried myself in my schoolwork, hoping that academic success would
somehow counterbalance the growing isolation. But no matter how well
I performed in class, the app continued to show me
visions of a future that seemed increasingly bleak. What made
things worse was that sometimes I'd be delivered a glimmer
of hope, drip fed improvement in the picture. Yet it
was always hard to pinpoint what exactly made the change.
Was it something I ate, something I said, or was
it a thought that would inspire improvement in the far future.
It was impossible to tell. But these moments were far
and few between. Despite coping with a few times I
saw things improve, there was no doubt that it was
always in a steady decline. Slowly, my future self looked
increasingly isolated and unhappy. The cheerful surroundings around him, dwindling.
The once confident figure now appeared hollow eyes shaded with
the weight of solitude. My heart sank each time I
saw this, feeling the walls closing in around me. The
image of my future success fell like a cruel joke,
now a taunting specter of what I was sacrificing everything for.
I was becoming a prisoner of my own ambition, stuck
in a cycle that spiraled downward, getting worse no matter
what I did. Desperate to change this grim future, I
decided to take matters into my own hands. I began
spending hours trying to reverse engineer the app, hoping to
find a way to alter the predictions. I scoured online forums,
downloaded tools, and immersed myself in lines of code, convinced
that if I could understand how the app worked, I
could somehow change its course. But the deeper I delved,
the more elusive the solution became. Surrounded by error messages
and unyielding lines of code. I felt her creeping sense
of futility. This was beyond my capability. I was losing
myself in this, feeling more lost than ever each failed
attempt to crack the app's secrets. Only heightened my paranoia
and fed my obsession. The line between past, present and
future blurred, leaving me trapped in a cycle of endless uncertainty,
fueled by the image still degrading. Even when I changed
my tact, it was well and truly her curse, But
I couldn't bring myself to stop. The day came when
I could no longer ignore this cycle of doom I
was in. I spent too many sleepless nights trying to
untangle the mystery, too many days lost in anxiety, Yet
I still came crawling back in desperation. I opened the app,
always hoping it would be the last time, looking for
a glimmer of hope or some reassurance that the future
wasn't as bleaque as it predicted. As the app loaded,
I braced myself for what might appear. The screen flickered
and my heart sank. There I was a future version
of myself, sitting alone in a dimly lit room. The
walls were lined with old tech equipment screens, casting an
eerie glow over piles of empty take out containers. Year
seemed heavy, stagnant with the weight of solitude. My future
self looked utterly defeated, eyes hollow and filled with a
quiet despair. I could feel the loneliness emanating from the screen.
Tears welled open my eyes as I stared, Regret and
sorrow washed over me. The app showed me the consequences
of my obsession, a future stripped of joy. All my
attempts to control the future, to shape it into something
I thought I wanted, had only led me down a
path of isolation. I had sacrificed friendships, family, and happiness
in pursuit of a vision that had slowly become a nightmare.
Overwhelmed by the weight of this understanding, I knew what
I had to do. With a trembling hand, I hovered
over the app icon on my phone, hesitating for just
a moment. Checking the app was an addiction, one that
was hard to shake. I had tried to control my
time looking at it to no avail. So this was
the ultimate solution I could think of, erasing it permanently.
As the app vanished from my screen, I felt a
mixture of relief and fear. What now, I wondered. I
felt blind now, stepping into the unknown without the AP's guidance.
It was terrifying and deliberating all at once a strange
mix of emotions. The future now a blank slate, open
to possibilities I couldn't see. I was free from the
apse predictions, but faced with the daunting task of rebuilding
my life from the fragments I had left behind. Slowly,
I began to reconnect with the world I had pushed away.
I reached out to friends, rejoining their conversations and gatherings
with a tentative hope that things could be different. I
feared that my road to isolation was one eyed manifested
forever to follow me to war relationships. But to my surprise,
I was met with warmth and excepting, the bonds of
friendships slowly mending. I've missed this, I admitted during lunch
with friends, the words spilling out with unexpected ease. They nodded, smiling,
and I felt a spark of joy that I had
almost forgotten. I also re engaged with my hobbies, picking
up interests I had long neglected in my pursuit of
the future. I spent hours tinkering with code, not out
of desperation for success, but from a genuine love for
creating the passion that had once been clouded by anxiety,
now felt pure and unencumbered. Reconnecting with my family was harder,
but each conversation brought a sense of relief and healing.
The world seemed brighter now. It felt as if I
pulled my head out of a barrel of water. Suffocating
in a world I trapped myself in, but losing the
visions of the future, I realized I was able to
create new ones reflecting my journey. I felt a sense
of purpose. I realized I didn't need to see the
future to know what was important. I found myself staring
into a mirror, a real mirror, not muddled with technology.
I smiled at my reflection, seeing myself for who I was,
not for what I was forcing myself to be. Over time,
I even found an appreciation for the app. Though it
was a cause for so many issues, it instilled a
sense of appreciation for the now, living in the present,
not the past or future that I left a five
star glowing review on the app page. Most Tuba drivers
serve a wide variety of customers. Some probably have never
seen the same person more than once. But I've been
serving the same person for almost a year now. At first,
it was a coincidence. He lived relatively close to me,
so when I accepted the ride and picked him up, he,
for some reason, seemed relieved that someone had come. Then
I saw why. His route was a four hour ride
all the way to the nearby seaside town, a town
often visited in the summer months, but he was heading
there in later order him. I figured people canceled on
him once they saw the route, so my accepting it
gratified him. I needed the money, so I figured it
was worth the time. He was quiet the whole car
ride and never spoke as he left, not even a
thank you for making this absurd trip. And being new
to uber, I started to realize what I experienced riders
would decline such a route. I was stuck in the
town with barely anyone doing anything since it was outside
of peak activity. I made a few routes for some locals,
trying to scrape some extra cash before heading back, but
it was nowhere near the rates of the city where
I lived. Dejected, I was ready to head back when
I saw a ding near where I dropped the guy off.
I accepted, and to my surprise, it was him. The
route was to take him back home another four hour ride,
which would make the day's profits far higher than if
I'd done a whole day in the city. Ecstatic at
the thought, I drove him back again in complete silence
until I dropped him off and called it a day. Overall,
it was a strange sequence of events, and at the
time one I did not want to repeat until I
saw the tip. He had left a hefty thirty percent
tip on top of the already expensive ride both ways
For someone struggling for money, this was a godsend. When
I accepted a route the next day and went to
the location, I was surprised to see that it was
him again. The route was readying for a four hour
ride back to the seaside town. It was obviously strange
that he would go so far yet again two days
in a row, but knowing what he was paying, I
accepted again. This time. I didn't even bother doing any
of the local routes there. I just hung around and
grabbed a drink with the app open, the map hovering
where I dropped him off, and like clockwork, around two
hours later, a ding popped. I quickly finished the drink
and accepted the ride, and it was him ready to go. Home.
I relaxed when I finished my shift and lit up
when I saw that yet again, he dropped a thirty
percent bonus on top. The next day, when I started
my routine of checking the app, I was doubtful that
he would want to go there again. It was preposterous
that he even went twice like that, but a lingering
hope in the back of my head made me check
if there were any roots around where I picked him up,
and my jaw dropped when I saw one there exactly
where I usually picked him up. This set my routine
for the next few months. Every week day, I would
start up my app at around eight a m. Driving
to the town, waiting around two hours, and then drive
him back, each time getting a juicy thirty percent tip
on top. God knows if he did this on the
weekend with some one else, but I was not going
to do this seven days a week. I'm not a
very torgative person, but I sometimes tried to start a conversation,
but I'm just met with silence. I even tried to
offer my personal number in case he wanted to do
this outside of Uber, so they wouldn't scrape their fees
from the payment and make it cheaper for him, but no,
he would just look out the window and watch the roadside,
eyes glazed over, lost in thought. So when he finally spoke,
I nearly jumped. The town means a lot to me,
he said. His voice sounded like someone who had just
woken up, making me wonder if this was the first
time he'd spoken to anyone in a long time. I froze,
but didn't want to pass up the opportunity of knowing
more so I asked why. He opened up about his
connection to the place, and he used to go there often,
and now that he was no longer working, just wanted
to spend his days there. I asked him if he
was retired. He said that he wasn't, but that he
lived off of passive income that supported his lifestyle. It
was intriguing learning about his unique circumstances, and despite the
long ride, we soon neared the location and he quietened up.
On the way home, he talked about the things he
liked there, the local ice cream shop that made their
own flavors, the bi quintals that let you see the
scenes in good time. The corpse I shopped around was
suddenly animated of life with nostalgia even recommended places for
me to go. Somehow, knowing that I now waited for
his ride back. I dropped him off with a smile,
excited to learn more. For day after. When I got home,
my eyes widened. When I checked the uber app. He
slammed me with a fifty percent tip, far exceeding what
he had tipped before. I almost wanted to return it,
but I didn't want to look a gift horse in
the mouth and helped me so much with my financial issues,
and he seemed to have an endless sort of income
to have supported this strange lifestyle. The day after, I
tried asking him more questions. I was curious about more
of the local experiences and his connection to them. Despite
having been there so much, I knew next to nothing
about the place. But I was only met with stone
cold silence. It was like he had reverted back to
how he was just solemnly looking out the window of
the whole ride. The way back was all the same.
It seemed he had expended his burst of social energy
and fell back into his usual routine. I tried again
the day after and was met with more silence. The
tips reverted back to thirty percent. Nothing to scoff at,
but short of the big pay day I was. After
a while went by like this, A silent ride there,
a silent ride back Sandwich, between visiting the few spots
he recommended, which were just as good as he had
hyped them up to be. Yet despite visiting all the
places he mentioned, he would never be there. Maybe it
was a coincidence we would always miss each other, having
gone to different spots. The time only allowed me to
see one, maybe two, depending on where I went, But
after weeks of this, surely we would have lined up
at least Once I was jolted again in the middle
of a midweek drive, he broke the silence with another
nugget of information. I go there to see my wife,
he said bluntly. This answer raised so many questions. Long
distance is often almost entirely reserved for young people or
people who cannot afford to move in together, but he
was neither of those. Before I could ask him about it,
he went on. He spoke of how much he loved
seeing her, describing how she looked, middle aged, full blonde hair,
with a button nose, slender but not too slim. He
was infatuated, glowing as he spoke not only animated but happy,
a sharp contrast to how he usually seemed, so much
so that I didn't want to interrupt him with my
curious yet benign questions. Sadly, he only started talking near
the end of the trip, so by the time an
opportunity came up to ask him my questions, we were
pulling up to his stop. I waited around, too curious
to do much in the town, only grabbing some food
and waiting with excitement. After spending so much time with him,
I was invested in his story, only drip fed to
me in rare times. When I got the ping, I
hurriedly picked him up, my mouth bursting with the questions
I had bottled up. I tried to broach the topics calmly.
I asked him why they lived apart, why didn't just
live in the town, and why they only see each
other for such a small window each day. I did
so as politely as possible, who was only met with
a silence I was all too familiar with. When I
got home, I had two amounts for the trips, a
fifty percent tip on the way there and only thirty
percent for the way back. A curious hint about how
he wanted things. On the plus side, I was able
to start living how I wanted. The first thing I
reinvested in was a new car. I was spending so
much on fuel, so to get something more economical was
basically an investment, though the luxury extras were me treating myself.
Then I felt too scruffy to be seen in the thing,
so I even got some nice new clothes, stand out
brands that would make it look like I didn't just
steal the car from the lot. It took a good
few months before he spoke again. I was scared my
probing questions had offended him, But when he spoke, he
dropped some heavy information, answering my questions as if I'd
only just ask them. The reason we don't live together
it is because she died, he said dejectedly. My heart sank.
This answered a surprising amount of my questions. The whole
bizarre routine started to make more sense. It was a
saddening twist of the tail that was being drip fed
to me. He told me stories of their time together,
that she was with him from rags to riches, and
that despite making something out of himself. He said that
he cannot share the fruits of their labor together. This
explained way he frivously spent on ubers every weekday just
to keep up this ritual. This time, he talked almost
the entire four hour ride there. He shared personal details
about their relationship, the ups and downs, the things he
didn't realize he'd miss until she was gone. It was
touching and really progressed me emotionally for when I finally
meet some one worth sharing my life with. When he
exited the car, he shared one piece of final wisdom.
It's the routines that matter. Make sure you keep up
a good routine. This way you never forget what happened.
It was cryptic enough to apply to many things. I
chose to hold on to it and to hopefully fully
know the meaning of this proverb. The right back was silent,
but in a good way, resting in the good energy
of openness. I got home to a fifty percent tip
both ways, and I felt content that we finally had
a rapport. The day after, I asked him more questions
about his wife. He seemed more animated and alive when
talking about her, so I hoped that I could breathe
some new sense of purpose for him, even if it
meant I would lose out on this amazing uber gig,
I would feel content to seem really his life. However,
when I looked back in the rear view mirror, he
was looking out the window, silent, like before. I tried
to probe once more, but we were back to our
usual routine. The following weeks were the same. Each time
I thought I had made enough progress to get to
know him, he closed up. It was only when I
tried to start conversation, so I noted that it always
had to be him, no exception. So I waited, and
eventually the day came when the silence was once again broken.
One week from now it will be the anniversary, he muttered.
My heart sank, But this was just the beginning of
the heart wrenching details. He told me how things happened.
From his perspective, He said, they went to the seaside
town for a few days, booked a nice hotel, and
planned to spend a few days there just to relax.
It was the start of autumn, but it was also
their anniversary. They didn't care that it would be cold
and that it would basically be a ghost town. They
just wanted to share their special day together in the
place that meant the most to them. This touching scenario
was ripped from my gut as he explained what actually happened.
They were walking near the pier. It was early afternoon,
broad daylight when he lost sight of her while distracted
for only a moment. There weren't many people around and
not many places she could have gone, Yet despite this,
he couldn't find her. Afterwards, he looked nearby, and when
that didn't work, he checked places they usually went to.
He even went back to the hotel to see if
she had maybe forgotten something, and went back empty. He
couldn't believe she had just vanished, so he waited around
spots they frequented, occasionally switching locations to see if she'd
be there. When it started getting dark, he reluctantly called
the police to file a report. He was assured she
was probably lost, not being local and all, and that
this happened often, so they sent out a few search
parties to check around, but days went by and nothing
was found. It was only after a week that she
was found, and hearing it was like a punch in
the gut. She was found floating below the pier. Despite
the scenario that she had made Beforellen in evidence showed
she was abducted and brought back there vowl play was
immediately ruled in the sea washed away all forensics, so
it was already a cold case. I was devastated hearing this,
yet despite this, he held a hopeful smile, maybe clinging
on to the cherished memories rather than the grim. Ending
for this story was followed by a request. The next
Wednesday was going to be their anniversary date. He asked
that i'd be around to make sure I could take
him to the seaside town without hesitation. I wholeheartedly agreed.
I even offered my personal number in case something happened,
but he politely declined. The ride home was silent, but
with an air of solemn optimism, A hope lingered in
the air. No words were exchanged, nor did they need
to be. I now felt I was doing something bigger
than myself, a duty to the calmer of the universe.
When I got home, I checked the app and was
hit with an eighty percent tip both ways, a hint
that said to make sure I was ready on Wednesday,
and I was. When I picked him up, I was surprised.
From the cocoon of a dreary middle aged man emerged
the dapper gentleman. He wore an elegant, long black pea
coat over a suit that wasn't too formal but definitely
stood out. The day was chilly, so his hands sat
in nice, fur lined leather gloves. This was the sharpest
contrast from what I'd seen in the many months I'd
been with them. I felt like an underdressed chauffeur rather
than an uber driver. I smiled, without a chauffeur, had
to tip, and proceeded to the town. The silence was pleasant,
this time around, lingering with a sense of hope and wonder.
I fully believed that he was there to enjoy the
memories of his time with his departed wife, and I
smiled the whole ride, hoping he got what he wanted
from this endeavor. This time. He spoke on the way back,
I did it. He was exactly like before, he yelled animatedly.
He described doing everything like he remembered that it was
just like before, and that he felt a strong connection
to her. Even said he might be able to move on,
which stung a little. The thought that this routine could
come to an end, but he topped it off with
a feeling that this route made him too happy, and
that for the foreseeable future this will continue. When I
got home, I was met with his biggest tip yet,
one hundred percent. I was happy, he was happy. It
was the best day of my life, living it vicariously
through this interesting man I had became acquainted with. The
rest of the week was silent bliss. Each day he
tip one hundred percent both ways, his new standard for
my dedication to his routine. I relaxed on the weekend,
sitting back in a nice restaurant and multiple course meal
lined up, a far cry from the ramen I had
become accustomed to many months ago. I had started living
my life not just because of the generous source of income,
but to strive to be more like my inspirational passenger.
Until my phone dinged with a notification. It was the weekend,
so it couldn't be uber, and when I checked, I
saw it was a news notification. I'd spent so much
time in the seaside town that I sometimes got news
notifications from the area my phone's location, thinking I reside there.
It was an emergency notification about a missing person. The
picture looked familiar, yet it was someone I'd never seen before.
Middle aged, full blonde hair and a button nose, slender
but not too slim. It wasn't someone I'd seen before,
but it was someone I remember having imagined almost exactly
how the man described his late wife. The details chilled me.
She went missing in the early afternoon near the pier.
No other details were known, just that they were still
currently looking for a whereabouts. My heart sank. He didn't
just say the day went well. He said it went
exactly like before. It didn't take a genius to piece
together what might have happened. He was a man of routine,
and I guess this constituted as his new ritual. But
as I looked at the food in front of me,
the new car outside, and the nice clothes I could
finally afford, I couldn't bring myself to turn him in.
Come on, I muttered, tapping the steering wheel nervously. I
couldn't miss this. This deal was too important. My boss
had claimed this was a make or break for my employment.
If I was late to this meeting, I was doomed.
I pulled out the pocket watch that had been gifted
to me just this morning, three fifteen p m. The
meeting was supposed to start in fifteen minutes, and I
was an entire thirty minutes away. Traffic had been at
a standstill for what felt like an eternity. The cars
in front of me hadn't so much as budged in
the last ten minutes. I gripped the pocket watch tightly,
subconsciously praying that I'd make it to this meeting. I
put the watch back in my pocket and pulled out
my phone, checking the GPS for an alternate route just
in case. The screen flickered oddly, then refreshed with a
new found root, a series of some back streets that
looked like they cut through the city and would get
me there just on time. It looked tight, but it
was my only chance by a long shot. However, based
on the city's layout, it still seemed impossible to make
on time. I eyed the gridlock ahead of me, my
stomach clenched with frustration. I had to take the risk.
I turned off the highway, and as soon as I did,
the drivers behind me started honking their horns angrily. Honestly,
I felt a little stupid, hoping that making it on
time was possible. I drove down the suggested exit and
saw that I was the only one doing so. The
exit led me towards a section of the city I
had never been to. I went through a narrow street
lined with old brick buildings, looking much older than the
modern infrastructure that made up mostly city. The road was
oddly quiet. It was the middle of the day, and
as far as I was aware, this part of town
wasn't known for being busy. I was making good time,
but I couldn't get the nagging question of why no
other drivers were taking this route. The streets around me
were entirely desolate. The road ahead of me looked endless,
an empty street littered with trash and moss. It looked
entirely abandoned. It felt like I was all alone. The
five minutes I drove felt excruciating, every second passing making
me more and more nervous. My phone buzzed something about
losing the GPS signal. I looked down, frowning. The blue
dot was frozen on the map. I smacked my phone
in a cartoonish attempt to make it work again, and
glanced at the buildings at either side of me. Had
the road been getting narrower. These back streets were like
a maze, one narrow alley stretching for miles and branching
paths that looked almost too tight for even a person
to squeeze through, let alone a car. I drove a
little farther until I realized that my suspicion was correct.
The road was getting narrower, so narrow that it was
getting almost too tight for my car. I cursed under
my breath. The alley continued stretching into the distance between towering,
dirty brown and gray buildings. I still couldn't see where
they ended. The pure vastness of this abandoned section of
the town made me wonder how I'd never heard of
it before. At this point I had already given up
and making it to the meeting in time. The alley
was getting so narrow that I could hear a slight
scraping noise as my wing mirror clashed with the rough
surface of the buildings to my sides. I reversed ever
so slightly, just enough to be able to get out
of the car and planned on surveying the road ahead
of me. I turned the engine off, let out a
heavy sigh, and stepped out of my car. The moment
my shoes hid the ground below me. I regretted it.
The entire alley felt wrong. The air was heavy and moist.
It smelled like rust, mildew, and something I couldn't recognize.
The light above me seemed to dim ever so slightly.
There were no clouds in the sky, just the suffocating
weight of the buildings crowding in on me on either side.
The road ahead did indeed get significantly narrower, so I
trudged forward. My car clearly could not pass any further,
so I planned on fire the nearest business or anything helpful.
I pulled my phone out to try to check the signal. Nothing.
My phone was useless and the GBS app was still
in the exact location where it had lost service. I
stuffed it back in my pocket and decided to keep walking.
I could now see more details of the roads themselves.
The walls of the buildings were stained with aged graffiti
and trash piled up in every corner. The strange thing
was that all the packaging was faded, as if it
had been there for quite some time. All the windows
were either boarded up or cracked. Rats scurried between the
heaps of trash, and the air took in an oppressive
smell of decay, increasing in intensity the further I walked.
Each footstep I made created a sickening echo through the streets.
The weight of my situation was finally sinking in. I
was going to lose my job, which made every single
step I took heavier than the last. I would be
lying if I said I wasn't already getting concerned. The
frustration of the roadblock was fading away, and he was
getting replaced with my fear for my future. This was
my best paying job ever, and I was unsure where
to go. I pulled the old pocket watch out again,
the one my wife Alexis had given me for good luck.
She told me with a smile. It had been her grandfather's,
She claimed, her family heirloom of swords. Her grandfather told
us stories of it, granting wishes and attributing it to
his success in life, passed down through generations for god
knows how long, and she had insisted that I'd take
it with me to this meeting. She said her father
gave it to her after he heard his leg in
an accident, saying he can't run like he used to before,
which she always thought was an odd reason, maybe an
inside joke. I laughed it off initially, and pocket did
it mostly out of respect. I didn't have much belief
in things like wishes. I mean, just a few moments
prior I had wished to arrive at the meeting, and
now here I was. But now I felt the weight
of the watch in my hand, a little heavier than
I remember it being. I flipped the watch open. Its
face cracked and the hands were frozen. Three twenty six
p m. It had been working earlier, I was sure
of it. With a heavy sigh, I slipped the watch
back into my pocket and continued walking. I glanced back
and noticed that my car was now entirely out of sight.
Given the roads straight nature, that was impossible. I could
only imagine that the road had a slight curve to it,
so slight that it was barely noticeable on foot. I
turned around and started walking back the way I came,
determined to check if my suspicions were correct. What I
did not expect was that I would end up walking
for what felt like another while with no car in sight.
Then I came to a fork in the road. The
alley twisted into two paths. I was sure I hadn't
seen a split in the road on my journey. I
might have been too lost in my own thoughts about
how screwed I was. Now that I wasn't making it
to the meeting, so I assumed I just walked forward
without looking at my surroundings. I went left, choosing what
I felt was right and hoped I was correct. As
I continued walking, my sense of time was getting distorted,
so it wasn't sure how long I walked. The alley
wasn't as straight as I thought it was looking in
the distance. It winded and curved without any real sense
of direction. The buildings looked decrepid, dirty walls, cracked pavement.
All the buildings blended together so much that I started
to feel like I was walking in circles. Yeah, I
kept going, telling myself the road would lead somewhere. Eventually
I glanced over at the countless buildings that surrounded me.
I hadn't seen any sign or markings of a business,
not even a restaurant or a bar. The buildings looked
entirely deserted, and if they did, for some reason, house someone.
I did not want to take my chances and the
kind of company they'd hold. I continued on, but the
road just stretched, the shadows grew darker, and the alley
ever narrower. A while longer, I stopped to catch my breath.
I wasn't the most athletic person, but surely I covered
quite some distance during this time. This wasn't right at all.
Nothing was by now. I should have made it to
my car, or at this point, to the other side
of the damned city. At least the sun should have
been high up in the sky, but instead it was
getting darker, as if twilight came early. The buildings overhead
pressed ever so slightly closer. It felt like I was
in a dream, another world, one that was shrinking and
closing in around me. I rechecked my phone out of desperation,
dead I couldn't even make a call. I took a
deep breath in an attempt to keep calm. I had
gotten near of my own accord, so there had to
be a way out. I'd crossed so much distance that
this couldn't just be an abandoned street or block. It
felt like I was in an abandoned city that geologically
shouldn't exist. I knew roughly where I was turning off
when I took that exit. This place shouldn't be here.
I decided to make the arduous trip to retrace my steps.
I planned to go back to the first fork in
the road and turn right this time, and hope it
led me to my car. I begrudgingly headed back the
way I came, and again the path was not the same.
I was sure there had been no other forks or
turns on the main road I was on, But instead
of the curving alley I'd walked so long gone, there
were now three different directions ahead of me, none of
which looked even from remotely familiar. My heart started raising.
I turned in a slow circle as panic set in.
I picked a direction at random and started walking faster,
almost running. My shoes hid the concrete with a sound
that reverberated all around me, but the alley stretched on
longer than before. Each step I made seemed to make
my surroundings more clasophobic, and everything twisted and turned in
ways that made no sense. I had no idea how
long I moved like this, minutes, maybe hours. My legs
ached and my throat was dry. I stopped checking my
watch on my phone. The time was always frozen. At
three twenty six, anyway, my head was pounding and a
sense of dread gnawed at me from the inside. The
dark alley around me felt alive. That is the only
way I can possibly describe it. The walls seemed to
shift on I wasn't looking. The turns multiplied and appeared
more frequently. The road was now diverging in paths. Unlike before,
I no longer had a straight and narrow road ahead
of me, but a path that criss crossed and intersected
within itself, leading me deeper and deeper into whatever I
had been led toward. I could feel it in the air,
a primal instinct. This wasn't just some maze of back streets.
I started jogging, then running. I figured I couldn't go
on forever and wanted to be out as soon as possible.
But the quicker I moved, the more disoriented I became.
The alley bent in such strange ways that it sent
me spiraling. I tumbled to the ground as everything became
perfectly quiet, devoid of my echoing footsteps. I kept telling
myself I should have been out by now, but every
turn led me to a dead end or another unfamiliar
stretch of streets. My breath became ragged, quick gasps, and
I had to stop for a moment. I stood up
and pressed my hands to my knees in an attempt
to recompose. That's when I heard it, the faintest of
sounds somewhere behind me, a soft shuffle amidst the silence.
I stood up straight, and my heart thrumbed in my chest.
I looked behind me. There was nothing but an empty path.
My mind raised, but then it came again, from somewhere closer.
This time I worked out that the sound had to
be coming from the turn ahead of me. Deep down,
I hoped some other person had gotten lost there too,
possibly led astray by their GPS, and was now in
the same city situation I was in. I know it
sounds malicious to wish someone into my dire circumstance, but
at least it meant I wouldn't be alone in this.
I slowly made my way forward, hoping not to scare
whoever was approaching. God knows I would hate it if
someone sped towards me, or riddled with anxiety from this place.
The shuffling persisted, undeterred by my approach, it sounded like
whoever was around the corner was so exhausted that they
were dragging their feet on the ground. I called out
to them, telling them that I was friendly and asking
if they were also lost like me, and that we
should look for a way out together. I received no response.
In fact, as soon as I spoke, the sound of
shufflings ceased entirely. They must have been hesitant, understandably so,
so I hope that approaching in a calm manner would
settle them. So I gently neared the turn. Just as
I was about to reach the corner, they seemed to
have beaten me to it, for what came round spiked
my adrenaline so hard that I span in the spot
and sprinted away so fast I thought I was leaving
burn marks on the floor. All I saw was its hand,
a gaunt elongated for simile of a human hand, the
proportions exaggerated in away that told me that whatever was
about to turn the corner was dangerous. Just seeing the
hand was enough for a primal part of my brain
to tell me a predator was about to turn the corner,
and I was its natural prey. The echoing of my
footsteps was no longer the only noise in this decrepit place.
The air was thick and heavy, as if I were
running through war. I could hear the shuffling behind me,
faster and irrationally persistent. I didn't dare look back. I
just ran. My lungs burned and my legs screamed in protest.
Each turn I made. The shuffling behind me stayed ever close.
The echoing surroundings made it hard to determine how close
it was, which pushed me to keep up a pace
that was too much for me. I knew I would
slow soon, but I forced myself to delay that as
much as my body would allow. I took turns at random,
having no time to deduce her choice and knowing that
the alleys layout had no logic. But somehow I still
managed to make the wrong choice. I took a blind
turn and hit a dead end. The light from the
gaps between the buildings highlighted my doom. I heard the
shuffling behind me near the turn. It was too close
to back track. In a matter of seconds it would
be upon me, and even thinking about what that meant
was painful enough. I ran to one of the gaps
between the buildings. I had stuck to the streets, and
they loved craftying logic, so God knows what squeezing between
the buildings would lead to. And squeeze it was. I
doubted I could even fit in, but I pushed myself
in and forced my way through the shuffling went straight
for the gap, but luckily it had the same issue
as me, and it slid into the gap to shuffle
towards me. The gap narrowed the further I got in.
I moved my head, but soon had to commit to
a direction. A wash of morbid curiosity came over me,
and I took a quick glimpse back That was enough
for me to keep my head looking forward for the
remainder of the way. It had all the limbs of
a human, but the proportions were all wrong. Its arms
were almost the entire length of its height, which must
have been nearly seven foot tall. Despite being further back,
Its closest arm reached out towards me, not helping it move,
just hovering in my direction, its fingers twitching like it
was ready to grab me the moment I was within range.
Its other hand dragged on the floor behind it. Creating
a familiar shuffling sound. Its skin looked like it had
a rough texture and was pale in color. It sounded
abrasive on the walls, pressing in on us, resistant to
any of the pointy defects of the cheap bricks that
made up these buildings. A luxury, I did not have
even the smallest bumps in the walls dug into me,
cutting into my suit and sometimes my skin, But I
could not dwell on the minor panes. When a major
threat was slowly closing in on me. The pursuit continued.
As I finally wiggled my way to the other side.
I had to get back to safety, but I was
completely and utterly lost. Using the gaps of the buildings
was a new idea, so I tried to keep up
that creative pattern. I had not tried entering any of
the buildings yet. I booked it for the building nearest
to me and attempted to force the door open. I
could hear the rabid thing behind me squeezing itself between
the same path I had just come from. Putting solid
concrete between us sounded like a bastion of safety, but
the door refused. The budge the humanoid figure finally exited
the tight space with a sickening pop. Adrenaline kicked back
in and I was already in a full sprint. Above
my thumping footsteps and the shuffling in pursuit, I realized
there was another sound, a ticking sound. It was faint,
barely audible, but it was there, arrhythmic, soft ticking. I
yanked the watch once more and stared at the cracked face.
The clock hands were moving in a strange way. It
read two eleven, all hands pointing in the same direction.
I turned the watch, thinking it might have been broken
in the tight squeeze, and the hands all turned in unison.
It wasn't telling me the time. It was telling me
a direction akin to that of a compass. I continued running,
and the watch adjusted as I made my movements. It
was guiding me, trying to tell me something. As I
ran in a single direction, the ticking of the watch
started getting more frantic, and the sound of the shuffling
returned to reach a crescendo. I hurried my pace with
a last of my strength, but was no longer running blindly.
I let the soft, steady rhythm guide me through the
maze of the alleyways, a sick game of hot and cold.
The creature was still behind me. Its shuffling echoed in
the darkness, but I didn't stop. I couldn't. Eventually I
saw it, a faint red car in the distance, my car.
It was still parked in the same spot where I
had left it, as if nothing had happened. The moment
I saw it, the pocket Watch's rhythmic ticks turned wild,
and the creature's pace quickened all over. The senses seemed
to flee my mind, and my sole focus was on
running as fast as I could. I reached the car,
fumbling with the keys with shaking hands. The thing was
so close now that I could almost feel its damp
breath on the back of my neck. I shoved the
key to the lock, through the door open and chummed inside.
I slammed the door shut as the creature reached me.
The vehicle shook as the beast collided with it, and
I closed my eyes in an attempt to at least
grant myself the privilege of not looking at that thing again.
For a moment, everything went perfectly silent. I sat there
in disbelief, my breathing still rapid from the long sprint
I had to maintain. The heavy breathing must have been
too much for me, or the panic finally set in
because I passed out. When I woke up, I was
parked at my spot at the office building's parking space.
I checked my phone out of habit and saw the
time three twenty eight p m. Two minutes before my meeting.
Seeing I was on time for the meeting overtook the
shock of remembering my phone had died. I gregted my
posture as I raised myself up. I didn't waste any time.
I pushed the car door open and headed towards the
meeting room. I still don't quite know what happened or
how I got out, but I knew the watch was
connected to it. I distinctly remember holding it while stuck
in traffic and wishing I could make it to the
meeting in time. And lo and behold I did. I've
been back on the same freeway I was stuck on
before the meeting, and there isn't an exit where I
remembered turning off the road I pulled over in a
lay by, and no matter how many times I checked,
there was no alternative roots from that spot it seemed
my wish had come true, as my grandfather in law
had told my wife, but it came at the cost
of this chaise. And now it finally made sense why
it was passed unto her when her father hurt his
leg